The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (90 minutes)

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I’ve been writing about lesser known movies lately and so I knew this week’s movie had to have blockbuster energy. What’s more blockbuster than the Fast and Furious franchise? You’re right! Nothing. So this week I’m talking about The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006, 90 minutes). 

In 2011 I had only been in New York City for a year and had very little to my name. My friends and I were hustling to “make it” which meant drinking $3 wine from Trader Joe’s (aka Three Buck Chuck), eating Lean Cuisines for dinner, and going to 10am matinees of new releases because they were half price. We were regularly hungover at these viewings. (I keenly remember seeing The Impossible at 10am eating Five Guys fries and trying to cry but couldn’t because I was so dehydrated.) My friend Justin and I were really committed to this practice and decided that Fast Five would be the perfect early morning movie to see before heading to Coney Island for the day. (Imagine still having this kind of energy by the way…) 

We were stunned. Enamored. Completely blown away by the dedication to their craft: hot people, hot cars, hot explosions. We laughed and screamed and knew that this was going to be the next foundational moment for our friendship. We had both seen the earlier films, but this was different. This was the dawning of a new age of car movies. And we were ready.

Get us our popcorn!

Since that fateful day in 2011, Justin and I have seen every Fast and Furious franchise release in theaters together. That is SIX movies, my friends. And I’ve seen many of them multiple times. However, Justin always speaks highly of Tokyo Drift and I admittedly had only seen it one time, years ago, before my love truly had blossomed. So this week I’m going back to where a lot of the franchise’s lore begins… back to Tokyo. The plot of Tokyo Drift has the most simplicity out of all eleven movies (counting Hobbs and Shaw), and for that, it is entirely refreshing. 

After getting caught drag racing his classmates, Sean Boswell (Lucas Black) is sent to Tokyo to live with his estranged father, Major Boswell (Brian Goodman). But Sean can’t stay out of trouble and quickly finds his way to the world of drift racing and the dangerous crowds involved with it. He becomes more embroiled when he befriends/owes money to Han (Sung Kang), and pisses of DK (Brian Tee) by talking to his girlfriend Neela (Nathalie Kelley). In the end, it all comes down to a single drifting race that Sean must win. 

DK aka "Drift King” is named after a real dude who has a cameo as a fisherman in Tokyo Drift

Tokyo Drift marks the beginning of director Justin Lin’s long term relationship with the franchise. He would go on to direct four more of the movies, each one bigger and more unbelievable than the last. I mean… by F9 we have cars in space. By comparison, Drift is grounded and gritty even with the beautiful cars and their beautiful movement. I wish I was better versed in the language of automobiles to be able to explain drifting (what is oversteering anyway?) but if you’ve never seen it I am linking a handy dandy drifting article here for you. To me, the cars appear to be floating, untethered from the ground and yet still neatly moving between corners. 

The majority of the movie is spent as an outsider (“Gaijin” as the Japanese call him) Sean learns to drift with the help of Han, a criminal with a heart of gold. This trope is arguably the most important factor of a Fast and Furious movie outside of the one word theme of “family”. These movies consistently blur the lines between good and bad, hero and villain. Oftentimes villains wind up joining our ragtag team of racers as reluctant heroes with a common goal. These movies are basically just Katamari for high-paid actors. Han is part of this trope but is a well-written, captivating character made even more interesting by Sung Kang’s portrayal of him. In short, he stands out. His easy going nature does not mask his deeper wounds or his lawless infractions, but rather highlights how this life can become anyone’s life and that is really beautiful. 

Sean’s hair distracted me the entire time.

Not surprisingly, Justin Lin had to fight to keep Han as an Asian character. Yes it seems even in a movie set in Japan, Hollywood producers didn’t want one of their leads to be Asian. But Justin fought, and Justin won, giving us one of the franchises most beloved characters. So beloved in fact, that he is technically killed off twice and brought back to life twice. Of course technically Tokyo Drift falls chronologically between Fast & Furious 6 and Furious 7, but we still have to live through that tragic, violent death twice and that’s not very nice! Han’s death and subsequent rising from the dead becomes the catalyst for two, if not three, major plot points of the franchise. 

But let’s not overcomplicate things because Drift is all about the cars. Something the later movies in the franchise could be accused of forgetting. Unlike other movies in the series, even The Fast and the Furious itself which relies on the cop/friend legal/illegal narrative between Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker) and Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel), Drift’s linchpin is in the racing. Sean winds up in Japan because he races. He meets his new friend Twinkie (Bow Wow) because of racing. He gets in trouble with Han because of racing. He solves the entire movie’s problem (!!!) with racing. There is no real good vs. evil. Because even D.K. aka Drift King (Brian Tee) acts upon what he thinks is right. I mean, if you look at it from his perspective it’s pretty fucked up. This new guy shows up in town and tries to steal his girlfriend. Then he finds out that his partner, Han, is stealing money from him and his dangerous Yakuza uncle. I’d also be a bit pissed off.

We like Han and Sean simply because the script asks us too. They’re destructive and self centered but we root for them anyway because we have the opportunity to get to know them and why they do what they do. It’s not a lot, but it’s something. There’s also something enjoyable about the fact that Sean is still in high school. He’s the youngest of our race-first-ask-questions-later heroes in the entire franchise and I imagine this was the studio trying to attract a certain demo. Outside of Sean and Han we don’t get a lot from our supporting characters. Something the franchise has always been good at is giving us a clever, cheeky supporting cast. Neela, Twinkie, and the others just hold up against Fast greats like Tej (Chris “Ludacris” Bridges), Roman (Tyrese Gibson), Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel) and Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham). I really shouldn’t get into the lore of Deckard Shaw, this entry is already far too long, but it’s later revealed that he is in fact the one who kills Han in the car crash in Drift and then later aligns with the group. 

How many times must I watch Han die?

I really could talk about this all day. But I won’t.

Drift was not an economic success. If it wasn’t for the successful “reboot” of sorts for the brand, it is likely it would have fallen off the map altogether. And this is just something I love about this franchise. They’ve built a mega successful machine but multiple lines of storytelling all thread back to their smallest movie, thus encouraging rewatches and engagements and cameos for Sean. Because if we’ve learned one thing from Dominic Toretto and his gang, is that it’s all about FAMILY and no one gets left behind.