Tokyo Burnout

This movie failed to capture the excitement of the car race scenes which should have been the focus of this movie.

Based on a long running comic series by Michiharu Kusunoki, "Wangan Midnight" is about a high school student Akio Asakura who one day finds a decrepit 240Z at a junk yard (The Z at this point has already been modified to a twin turbo machine with 280Z's engine in it). He finds strange attraction to this Z and decides to buy it. Coincidentally, the previous owner's name was also Akio Asakura. Feeling the hand of fate, he puts his entire energy into restoring this Z back to its pristine condition. The Z was infamously known as the "Devil's Z", and was rumored to be "cursed" and would kill its driver eventually. After full restoration, Akio goes out to Tokyo's expressway that runs along the perimeter of Tokyo bay, known to the locals as "Wangan". He meets many people through interaction with his car, and theirs. One of them was Tatsuya Shima who drives a black Porsche Turbo nick named the "Black Bird". His girlfriend happens to be the sister of the original owner of the "Devil's Z". The movie revolves primarily around these three individuals with supporting casts that makes up Akio's high school life, and the people who works on his Z.

The actions in this movie were very average. The only thing the "Devil's Z" did throughout this movie was to be involved in one sort of accident after another, never showing its true performance. It would have been more appropriate to have the "Black Bird" Porsche as the main character rather than the Z. There're bunch of talks about the curse of the Z, how exotic its performance, what a wonderful talent Akio is and all that, but none of those materialized in this movie.

Sadly, they've left all these good parts out of the movie.

There's an anime version of this story with stunningly beautiful artwork, and a story that's exciting. That series is recommended over this movie for dramatic car action.

On the brighter side, the cinematography was superb on this movie. The color coordination of the characters showing up is carefully coordinated with the scenery to highlight the beauty.

This movie is not recommended for its lack of car action. If you're looking for a lively car action, and true to the original story, the animated version is recommended over this one.

Wangan Midnight: The Movie has some of the best car scenes I have seen, surprisingly good script, the actors does a really good job of portraying their characters and it has some really hot chicks(who doesn't like that?). It has a lot of emotional moments that makes your mood swing from the happiest person on earth to the saddest. The cars are very beautiful and the characters interacts with each other on a very good way for a low budget film. Sure their is some bad things with the movie but considering the budget used for this movie they have done a really good job. If you like this movie you should really consider watching the anime which is even better then this movie. And if you can read Japanese the excellent Manga could be a excellent option to read.

I voted with five. I should vote with less but the end was good. As most of the Asian movies this was long too, not because of it's time but because of the empty scenes. It could be more dynamic and cut some of the repeating scenes. One of the things I disliked was the lack of emotions with actors. They driven cars with 180km/h but acted like they are sitting at home and drinking tea. I could not feel the tension of the moment. What about cars, for me Porche wasn't the best choice for racing car, but anyway it worked for this movie. In most American productions with Asian actors there are Asian music, in this movie all the music was American, it sounds malapropos to me, just a personal opinion. It was not bad but it could not make me wait for the end, being excited. I felt it more like personal drama of the characters than a racing movie. They probably could create more moments in the garage and more information about fixing the "Z" instead of a few multiplied scenes with the actress who never dared to race in real combat with her GT-R. Movie could be better, it was enjoyable but not something memorable.