Initial D

Takumi and Matsuki take a selfie at the beach with a disposable camera. This predates the selfie that Paris Hilton claims she invented along with Britney Spears in 2006 by 1 year.

Takumi is a high schooler who often delivers his fathers tofu late at night. His late night trips have made him adept at the winding down hill run of Mt. Akina, which is a course used by the street racers of the area as the ultimate test of skill. When an unintentional race brings him to the notice of the racers, his life changes as he has to field numerous offers to actually see who is the best driver.

Based on a Japanese comic and cartoon, Initial D is a live action Chinese film thats broken box office records across Asia. Despite being a huge animation fan I've never seen the animation nor have a I read the comic. I'm not sure if thats a good thing or a bad thing, but seeing how many fans of the source material are unhappy with the film I would say its a good thing.

Flat out I liked this movie. It did take a while to warm up to, but once I began to take it for what it is I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Is it a great film? In someways yes and in others no. As I said this takes a bit to get going. The lead is a bit too closed mouth for my taste, barely uttering a word for the entire two hours. Its a bit too teen angsty. Still you have great characters and great performances by pretty much everyone in the cast (even if everyone was speaking three or four different languages when this was filmed.

The racing is excellent. Its mostly seems to have been done with out CGI enhancement. I like that there are no horrific crashes, police chases or other clichéd events that are so rampant in American movies. And while I was initially apprehensive by the fact the racing is always on the same stretch of road, I warmed to the idea since by doing that we really got to see who was best. (If you want American style racing in many different environments stay away)

Definitely worth a look see, especially if you want to see a race film that is not like all of the rest. 7.5 out of 10 rounded up to 8 out of 10 for IMDb purposes.

You know I'm a man and I like cars. There's nothing to be ashamed of there. I also liked The Fast and the Furious, it had some fun in there but it also had big, fast, shiny cars, and one like mine too. So when I heard that there was this movie (Initial D) about drift racing popular with Japanese teenagers and it had been adapted from the Manga story, I was interested, and courtesy of Moviesville, I got to see it.

Movie The movie itself is good, it's quite comic in places which could be traced back to its Manga origins, and unfortunately this takes away from the story because it does present itself as having a serious underside.

Something that surprised me about this movie is there isn't that much racing. For a film that is supposed to be about drift racing, there's not that much that goes on. However, the four or so races that do occur are superbly filmed and driven. Mixing unusual camera angles, some CGI, and smooth stunt driving, you end up with every race scene being exciting and visually rich.

The pace of the movie is quite back and forth. It's this feeling that there should be more racing, and yet we're taken through scenes that range from comic to romance. It's understandable considering the group that the movie is aiming towards, but you can't help but feel a little bit of growing up could have been applied to the story.

The romance thread is interesting, and brings a dimension to the character of Takumi. Not only does he awaken his racing spirit, but also other feelings as a teenager. However some of the scenes are a little long and can feel like they jar you out of the story. It's a shame because again, this movie is about racing. Ultimately though it's a good plot device and comes to a satisfying ending, comparable with his Fathers life and choices.

Some characters are not full explained, and although that can sometimes be a good thing, here it makes them feel as though they are only brought in as a distraction. The character of Takumi's friend is straight out of a comic, and nothing much appears to have been done to bring him into the world of the movie. Perhaps this was a deliberate move in order to retain the connection with the story's roots, but he just seems to get in the way of events.

Jay Chou playing the lead of Takumi, don't have that much to say, and although this reflects a troubled teenager, it does quickly get grating and you can understand why his Father wants to kick him into action!

Picture Presented: 2.35:1 The picture is very sharp and clear, this is particularly noticeable during the racing scenes which mainly occur at night. The CGI is seamed in very well and the picture remains strong even when the camera is locked to a crane sticking out from a speeding car! It looks like a lot of work has gone into making this DVD look good.

Audio Presented: DD5.1:EX \ DTS:ES During the racing the sounds are really good, you can hear the engines changing gears and over revving, and when the camera is near the car the LFE kicks in well. Good use is made of the DTS track during these races, and you feel immersed in the action.

Outside of the racing little is made of the DTS, but then the story doesn't really dictate it at these points. Use of the DTS would have felt forced and unnatural.

Extras Presented: Behind the Scenes, Character Bios, Making of Featurette, Deleted Scenes, Outtakes, TV Spot, Promotion in Shanghai, Promotion in Japan, Photo Gallery, Cast and Credits Unfortunately there were no English subtitle options with any of these extras, but I still watched them all! Mainly to see some behind the scenes of the racing moments, and to see more of the cars in action. They are there, you just have to watch rather than listen...unless of course you can speak Chinese.

Overall It's an okay movie, but where it excels are in the racing scenes, superb drift racing which has been filmed really well using some interesting techniques, camera angles and a little CGI. This makes for very impressive viewing and when combined with the powerful audio track it pulls you right into the race seat. Yet the rest of the story seems a little bit weak and could have done with more character development and less reference to its Manga roots. If you like cars and you like street racing, you'll enjoy this movie.

Of course I had to watch this movie since I was a big Initial D fan. I had high hopes when watching the opening scene where Jay Chou's character is effortlessly gliding down the mountain pass in his Trueno. That was the best part of the movie unfortunately.

Let's talk about the good first. The car scenes are pretty fun to watch sometimes. In many of the scenes they'll hug a turn on the inside and let the rear slide out and overtake the opponent. It's pretty fun to watch and you just have to wonder who the stunt men are or if they brought in Japanese drift legend, Tsuchiya on to the set for some of these shots.

Unfortunately that's the only thing that is good about this movie. Let's talk about the bad now. The characters are two dimensional. If you are a fan of the anime you will not find your beloved characters here. Jay Chou does a pretty bad job as the protagonist. I feel like he's always mumbling out his lines or is just wondering why he isn't doing the music video yet. Also, let's talk about his friends. They're morons. His best friend Itsuki is more of a raving idiot than his anime counterpart would ever hope to be. In the anime, this character talks about trying to get better and having Takumi as his inspiration. In the movie, this character talks about how he's a racing god and when he loses and wrecks he asks his poor father to buy him an even faster car (GTR) so that he can rematch and wreck that one too. Takumi's father is also a drunk and a bum. Also he is abusive. He beats his son and Jay Chou has scars on his back from all the beatings. I don't know what they were thinking by making him an abusive drunkard since obviously from the original material he was never one. Obviously, you can tell from what I'm writing here that the director probably never watched an episode of Initial D in his life.

I find the camera work to be also crappy and low budget. There are lots of scenes where they freeze the frame and you are left thinking "did something happen to my DVD player?" Nope. That's their creative take on racing. To freeze the scene even when it's a person's face talking. Then there's the music. Nothing in the movie was good except for Jay Chou's song. The racing scenes have music that sounds like a background track for a rap battle without the rapping. If you're a fan of the anime don't expect to hear your favorite eurobeat tracks or Move songs.

Overall I was bored, only paid attention during the races and got utterly perplexed by the ridiculous ending sequence where the people are celebrating. The other team and even his abusive father who has his arms around two young girls start cheering. Also I'd like to point out that not only is a 3 car race unfair, I've never seen a race with 3 cars in Initial D or any mountain race scene in any movie!

Next time try not to squeeze so much crap in.

Overall, I'll have to say right off the bat that as a fan of the original anime I found it somewhat amusing.

There are a few things that the movie does right. The camera angles and the overall feel of the movie was spot-on to the original source material. A particular highlight was the "zoom-in-on-the-eyes" of the loser in one particular race. This was exactly like the anime, and was a great touch.

People might slam Jay Chou, but I thought he did a good job in this. It's rather hard to screw up a character who is generally bored and half-asleep (as he is portrayed in the anime).

There are a lot of small changes here and there, such as Bunta being a drunkard for comedy relief, and the complete lack of Keisuke (his character was combined with Nakazato). Or the fact that the anime Nakazato drove the 4WD GT-R model of Skyline, and did not drift. I won't touch on these in detail, as they didn't really bother me that much.

However, the biggest element lacking in this is the music! Inital D fans know that Initial D is known for it's high energy dance-style J-pop music. Considering there are at least 10 Initial D soundtrack CD's out in Japan, I can't believe they didn't realize how popular the music is.

The music in the film is best described as "Chinese rap/R&B" I guess, which really hurt the feel of the movie in my opinion.

As synonymous the anime is with the music, I can't help but think what it would be without it. We'd be left with scenes of car racing with cheesy dialog, intertwined with brief romance scenes. Which now that I think of it, pretty much sums up this film.

If they were to make an Initial D anime series with music similar to this movie's soundtrack, I wonder if I would like it as much.

I just might feel the same way about it as I do this movie, in that it's a nice reminiscent film somewhat faithful to the original, but nothing to get really excited about.

If you're not a fan of Inital D or of import racing, there's not much for you here.