Racha: Velocidade Sem Limite

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.

This movie is a live-action adaptation of a manga/anime series of the same name. The story is abridged synthesis of the first two seasons of the anime, with details from the fourth(third?) mixed in. Compared to the original work, much of the characters' personalities, relationships and motives have been altered, some in the ways that are hard to agree with, too. Many of the characters have been dropped or diminished. Judging the movie as independent entity, it's not a great deal, but some of the modifications make the story a bit confusing. Casting itself is rather good. Characters have strong resemblance to their drawn counterparts, apart from the main character and her girlfriend. To even things a bit, their characters are best preserved in the screenplay.

What I like in the movie best is it's honesty. The movie does not try to justify the illegal street racing theme with some far-fetched undercover cop/family honor/extortion -subplot, it's only about young men driving fast on downhill. Though the most spectacular stunts are CGI, the races are pleasant to watch, by no means small reason being the relatively calm pace of editing. Drivers' actions while cornering, the toe-heel braking, down shifting and steering, are usually shown in single shot, instead of several split-second extreme closeups. What I also liked was the fact the races are about who was the best driver, not about who has the most outrageous sticker or flashiest accessories on the car.

The movie has been criticized for lack of plot. I don't think it is so. The plot is subdued, not overly dramatized story of a regular kid who learns about downhill racing scene in his home town. The biggest problem with the script is the inclusion of 2nd and 3rd Stage. The plot makes all too abrupt change of direction halfway through the movie because of this. The movie finale is a synthesis of 1st season and rewritten 2nd season finales, it's awkward and not very successful. I can't help thinking the movie could have been better if the writers had made the scope a little less wide and only included the 1st season.

Even so, the movie is rather enjoyable. You don't need to vegetate through the movie to enjoy it, or have a die-hard passion for the subject.

I haven't read any Initial D manga, and frankly, hadn't heard of it until a friend asked to watch this movie, thus cannot comment on the accuracy of the story.

But after watching the movie for the 10th time, I can freely say the movie is a must-see for car lovers, and goes beyond Hollywood fake races, which makes speed and fancy cars seem more important than the driver's ability. The actors did a great job, too, specially Bunta Fujiwara (Takumi's father), who plays hilarious scenes.

Not to mention the Soundtrack, which is great add to the competition scenes.

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.

Based on a long running comic series by Shuuichi Shigeno, this all star cast Hong Kong movie puts on screen what's on the comic's volume 1-15 ( Part until Takumi joins Project D ).

Takumi Fujiwara (Jay Chou) is a high school student who lives with his single father running a tofu shop. Inbetween his tofu deliveries, he frequents Mt. Akina that has winding roads to improve his driving skills. He gets involved with the street racers that frequents the area, and a battle ensues to prove who's the fastest one on the road. Takumi with his outstanding driving skills, bests other racers with better performing cars. Amongst the people who shows up was Ryosuke Takahashi (Edison Chen). Ryosuke takes notice of Takumi's talent, and takes interest in him. Takumi's girlfriend Natsuki (Ann Suzuki) is chummy with Takumi, but she also has other things going on with older men. Takumi goes head to head with Keiichi Sudo (Jordan Chan) to prove who's the fastest man on the road.

The same staff from Medea Asia that's created the "Infernal Affair" series made this movie. The movie was shot on location in Japan around Yahikoiwamuro highway in Niigata Prefecture, and Shibukawa city in Gunma prefecture. The production quality is high despite the difficulty of bringing the location to Japan. Mt. Akina is a fictitious mountain that's modeled after Mt. Haruna in Gunma prefecture.

One of the center piece of the action is the Sprinter Trueno AE86 that Takumi drives. Despite its diminutive size, it succeeds in out performing cars that are designed for racing performances. Trueno is is a sister model of Corolla Levin, and shares the same frame, and the engine. It's a performance version of the standard Sprinter model with a twin cam 4A-GEU engine. In the '80s Japan, 4A-GEU souped up to 450 horse power was sold by custom shops. Used on AE86 that weighs less than a ton, the combination made the car into a deadly rocket that can go head to head with lesser powered cars like the GT-R. So a car to car battle like the one seen in this movie was entirely "Possible". The original comic states that the story is occurring sometime in the '90s time frame, and the cars appearing in this movie also reflects this fact.

I wonder if China these days are following the Hollywood style casting that casts compatible astrological sun sign actors in the leading role. This method seems to ensure good chemistry between male and the female lead. In this movie, three earth sign actors plays the lead (Ann Suzuki - Taurus, Anthony Wong - Virgo, and Jay Chou - Capricorn).

The movie has a world of its own that's completely different from the TV anime series, and in some ways more exciting due to the interaction between the stars, and the actual driving that takes place on the road. It's an excellently made movie that combines best of what Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan has to offer. I only wish that Edison Chen would return to Hong Kong cinema. He was very good in this movie.

A very enjoyable movie that takes you into the world of street racing culture of Japan.