The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift

Usually when a film has a Part III, it leaves you with, "Why did they make a third film?" Case in point, "Smokey & The Bandit". Now I am dating myself if that's the only film I can come up with when it comes to trilogies. But car movies are seldomly done in trilogies. Star Wars, The Godfather, Lord of the Rings and Back to the Future are the only exceptions that have worked in the past because there's an on-going story line.

Tokyo Drift was a good film. Good plot line (if you disagree, then you're a "Too much to think" film-goer, stay with chick-flicks then). Good action. And of course, cool cars. The fact that it strayed away from Part I & II was a good idea. And film director, Justin Lin did an great job getting his vision to film. The mounted camera on a super-fast go-cart gave some spectacular shots.

It's a good escape film with the "new kid in town, gets beat up or loses in some sort of competition, learns from a local to be better then wins in the end." But for a trilogy film it's excellent compared to other Part III films that have been released.

The first film was BREAK POINT with cars. The second one was Miami VICE with cars. This is REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE... with more cars. To be honest, I kinda liked this one better than the last two, despite Lucas Black somehow beating Paul Walker as the least charismatic actor in a starring role. What I mainly like is the direction by Justin Lin. The focus on police undercover stories is dropped in favor of the street racing culture and its connections to the mob. Was actually delighted to see Sonny Chiba appear, I must have missed his name during the opening credits. Purely as a movie about car action, I think it succeeds better than the first two. There's a goofy quality to it that kinda helps one go along with things. Best to sum that up is Lucas Black smiling like a dork with blood on his teeth, living for the thrill. That's probably what this film series needed, and less soap opera/undercover drama. Consider me surprised.

Branching away from any original cast members of the first two films, thankfully, Tokyo Drift provides a refreshingly new look to the franchise.

Tokyo Drift is possibly my favourite of the series, or at least its up there with the first film; it only has a few problems that can be swept under the "It's Fast and the Furious, what do you expect" carpet. The story follows American "teenager" Sean Boswell (Lucas Black) whose reckless driving lands him prison time, but to avoid this he moves in with his father in Tokyo. He attempts to move on a dangerous rival's girl, and must become a competitor in the street racing's drifting scene.

I say "teenager" as that's what IMDb says, and he does go to school in the movie… but honestly, he's the oldest teen I've ever seen. Along with every other "teen" in this movie! While I talk negatives, the majority of the film is set in Tokyo yet 95% of the dialogue is English and Sean has a knack of meeting every foreigner in the city. I don't mind this so much, but I fully expect all of the Japanese characters to speak Japanese, especially when Sean isn't present!

But, unlike 2 Fast 2 Furious (choke) this film actually cares for its characters and their personalities (as Sean says early on: "It's not about the ride, it's about the rider") from Sean's fish-out-of- water acceptance, to his mentor Han's closet of skeletons. The villain isn't ridiculous either, his uncle is part of the Yakuza and he has a serious "king of a little hill" problem. Again unlike 2 Fast 2 Furious (gag) the cars have never looked better, sleek and refined and the drifting action is spectacular, especially when synchronized. Plus, no CGI, just skilled professional drivers, making the film worth seeing solely for the racing.

There's no stupid Tyrese Gibson mugging at the camera, no rats in buckets, no CGI, just an entertaining (albeit poorly localized) flick featuring excellent car racing and professional stunts.

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift is the least popular of the Fast and Furious franchise but it's also the most underrated. While I thought the country accent was a little overblown and some of the cgi looked a little too obvious, the movie was really good. The plot is fresh and exciting, the acting is spot on, and the cars are great. That's honestly one of my only gripes with 2 Fast 2 Furious is that, while really entertaining, it got away from the car element quite a bit. This movie brought back the cool car factor that made the first film so special. Overall, while it wasn't as good as the first two, it was still a great movie in its own right and one that can stand alone without the others.

"The Fast And The Furious" series opened the cinema for a whole new way to make car movies. This 3rd movie from this series added the cherry on the top of a sweet cake. Lots of action during the whole movie and, I must say, a very good argument. Way better than the 2nd movie with some characters very well created and also their evolution through out the movie.

Although, sometimes, it seams that the story walks a bit too fast and things happen too early, this 3rd movie has one of the best arguments of the 3. And I'm still undecided if it is better or not than the 1st movie.

Some really good change in this 3rd movie was the feature of drifts instead of pure racing (shown so far in the previous series). THAT is the main innovation in this series as long as in cars movies. The creators of "The Fast and The Furious" were PROBABLY pioneers in making underground car movies and they were surely the first doing a movie about drifting.

I must say that Tokyo was indeed a very good place to film this kind of driving.

Just to finish, I just wanna say there's a great surprise at the end of the movie!!! ;)