Review of The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006) by Daniel C — 06 Dec 2013

Sean works his way up in the Tokyo drift racing scene.

A recent re-watch of the film to tie up the complete Fast & Furious series told me that this movie was nowhere near as bad as I originally thought it was. I had it down there with 2 Fast, 2 Furious but this actually has decent production values behind it and a story that's not too overdone compared to its predecessor and even its successors in some respects.

The only thing that probably let Tokyo Drift down at the time of its release in 2006 was the lack of almost any of the original characters. While 2F2F managed to keep Paul Walker as the main character, Tokyo Drift introduced us to an entirely new crew which was hard to take and we were almost certain there'd be no more in the series - up until the very last scene anyway.

Tokyo Drift sees Sean, a kid with a troubled upbringing come to Japan to live with his estranged father. While told to stay away from cars, he ultimately ends up in the racing scene thanks to some newfound friends and catches the eye of DK for all the wrong reasons, and Han, who wants to see what he's got. Under Han's eye (and after destroying Han's car), Sean comes up through the ranks to finally challenge DK.

Tokyo Drift isn't as painful as 2F2F regarding the story and the acting and there aren't any ridiculous scenes that we've become used to from the 4th, 5th and 6th movies in the series either. My main gripe was with the car chase and seeing them drifting everywhere they went - why? Because it was called Tokyo Drift? You could argue they were avoiding traffic, but somehow I think a straight line getaway is still more efficient - and that scene at the Shibuya pedestrian crossing? Don't get me started! :P.

With the 6th movie finally rectifying the F&F timeline with regard to Han's character (and where Tokyo Drift belongs), the only letdown from watching Tokyo Drift in the 'chronological' order is the dated look of all the smartphones and possibly the cars used in what should be 2013 rather than 2006 - but it's still a decent movie - one of the stronger instalments in the series.