THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
When a movie franchise does well exploring its main arc, studios take consideration on going into a different direction, which can end up being for better or worse. There was no better example when the Fast Saga went off course yet found a way to entertain viewers.
PLOT
The 2006 spin-off dubbed Tokyo Drift follows teenager Sean Boswell, who is skilled with auto mechanics but chooses to act reckless with his racing. When he and another classmate get injured when racing under construction, he is sent to live with his father 'Major' (Brian Goodman) in Tokyo, Japan, to avoid serving time in juvenile/prison. When arriving, his only rules are to stay in school and not race or he'll be arrested. He goes to a private school and befriends his classmate named 'Twinkie', who hustles pre owned goods. They go out to a race party at a car park. There he learns of drifting for the first time, a driving technique intentionally oversteers, with loss of traction, while maintaining control and driving through the entirety of a corner. When meeting a girl named Neela, he puts himself in heat when meeting her boyfriend Takashi aka DK (Drift King). He embarrasses himself when losing to him in a race. Since he borrowed a 2001 Nissan Silvia S15 Spec-S from a man named Han Seoul-Oh, he is taken under the man's wing by teaching him how to drift. Since he continued to disobey his father, he chose to live with his new friend. Sean continued seeing Neela, who connected on the fact on how they are depicted as outsiders in the country. She shares how she dated Takashi because his family took her in when her mother died. Takashi eventually assaults him when discovering their relationship. When she finds out what happened to him, she finally decides to dump him. When Takashi gets a visit from his Yakuza uncle Kamata (Sonny Chiba), he is told that his account books have a discrepancy, meaning that someone is stealing money from him. When Takashi finds out that it was Han, he quickly confronts him, resulting in him and his friends running away to avoid any more danger. Sean, Neela and Twinkie only escape are after Han gets hit by another car unrelated to Takashi. When the antagonist finds him outside his father's home, he attempts to shoot him but Major points a gun at him first, defending his son. Neela pauses the conflict by choosing to leave with Takashi. Sean convinces his father to let him stay so he can free Neela. When regrouping with Twinkie, he decides that he must confront Kamata. Despite afraid of his well being, he gives the remaining money Han had stashed for him. He does see the Yakuza and makes a deal after giving him the money: He challenges Takashi to a race where loser leaves Tokyo. Surprisingly, he agrees to it. He also gets spare time rebuild a Ford Shelby to prepare for the race, with aid of Major and his friends. In another night, the race goes down. As it progressed, Takashi does cheat by constantly bumping him. Sean outsmarts him by braking when he tries one more time, resulting in his rival to fall off a mountain. By the time he makes it to the finish line, he avoids the collision by drifting. As a result of winning, Takashi will leave once he recovers from the crash and Neela is free from the Yakuza. Another night, Sean is now crowned as the new DK. The film ends in a shocking cliffhanger with him meeting Dominic Toretto who claimed to be friends with Han, moments before they race each other.
THOUGHTS
I got to see this film in 2010 as I was getting into this franchise. While I'll later admit that there's some problems that make it hard to love like the rest of the films in between, I can't deny that this one remains somewhat fun in between. Director Justin Lin was able to give us a whole new perspective in the world of racing and is somehow still intriguing. Because of that, you still enjoy the dose of races and chases that occur throughout and you appreciate how he would raise the bar within each film he would direct in the series after this. I was as clueless as other casual viewers in the term of drifting. So getting to see it onscreen was honestly thrilling to behold. I don’t think anyone can learn overtime the way our lead character does, but it does come to show that practice makes perfect. While the dialogue does come off cheesy in this flick, I still think the actors are overall solid with their respected performances. It is hard to like Sean because of how his reclusiveness creates his recklessness attitude. Once Lucas Black shows how remorseful he is and how he starts taking responsibility with his actions, when push comes to shove, you respect his attempt to be mature. The true reason he chooses to change is because he finally got some kind of guidance through Han. Sung Kang makes us love him because he is much nomadic in comparison to the other characters here. He would fit in with Dom's crew because he was another who lived his life to the fullest. He mentored Sean because he saw that in him. Hearing him 'You make choices and you don't look back' is kind of inspiring because it's another way of saying to not regret anything. But at the same time, this creates a bad turn for him. He chose to steal from Takashi because he knew would've done the same in his position. Hence, being so calm about it when confronted. Sadly, this led to us not seeing him again (or so we think). It never crossed my mind seeing Shad Moss aka Bow Wow as an actor because I forgot about Like Mike. Nevertheless, he makes Twinkie likable because of how he comes off steadfast and chooses to make the best of his time in Tokyo. Plus, as a fan of the Incredible Hulk, his Volkswagen minivan based off of the character is pretty cool to see. Thank god it's not a race car, because it would be a shame to damage it. Nathalie Kelley is good as Neela because she portrays her as one who may be grateful for being taken in when no one else would, but never liked the world that surrounded her. She was an outsider because the lifestyle Takashi had wasn't something she wanted to be part of forever, not because of her race. She fell for Sean because he was living in her shoes and when she realize that, she wasn't so alone anymore. To me, I believe the journey Sean had with these characters taught me people can find their calling in unexpected places. You can call Takashi a forgetful villain all you want, but I gotta admit that in his given time, Brian Tee was on point making him bad to the bone. It is a shame that he hasn't returned because since he's banned from Tokyo now, he could go anywhere he'd want and still cause ruckus. Since other characters from this film would appear in F9, it would've been interesting to see where he'd fit in. This film is okay because there were many other problems story wise that hold it back from being better. First off, there is so much edited out that makes the pacing upsetting: We don’t see a montage of Sean learning Japanese, nor do we get proper depth for his other friend Earl Hu (James Tobin). I know the guy comes back in F9, but we don’t deserve to wait that long. It is an intense race when Sean does so in the opening at an unfinished structure, but why is no one in construction that day? I know workers deserve time off but this is a weekday and clearly not a holiday, so it’s kinda weird how they’re not there. I know we need an excuse for Sean to get to Tokyo, but this is the first of many lazy writing moments. I appreciate his dad gave him a note to get to a train by 0700, but how come he doesn’t give him anymore details? Tokyo is big and it’s kind of irritating that he didn’t tell him which train or which station to get to, nor did he even tell him which stop he should take or acknowledge if a transfer is necessary. Sure he could have been in a rush, but that note looked like he wasn’t even trying to be informative. I also can’t be the only one who thought it was weird that Sean didn’t know what drifting is. I get that the audience needs to know but since he is so into racing, it’d make more sense if he did. It is cool that he trains at a dock, but why not at an empty parking lot? You show off so many empty highways, it’s hard to believe there ain’t one empty parking lot he can practice drifting. They did a good job acknowledging Sean’s injuries he gets when he crashes a car, but they messed keeping that intact when getting chased by DK. He gets hit by another car and neither he nor Neela have a scratch. Talk about messing up your continuity in such lazy fashion. I know it was pretty shocking when Han died but where were the authorities? Comparing that scene with the secondary perspective in the sixth film, and not one was on sight. I know there cars aren’t faster than race cars but they don’t even show up by the time of the explosion. Just when I thought the first film had lazy cops, this one was icing the cake for this franchise. And lastly, I am not lying when I say I was blown away with Vin Diesel’s cameo as Dom in the ending, but there is a big retroactive problem here: He tells Sean he’s got nothing but time, yet he’s technically in a time crunch because he’s looking for Deckard, who’s responsible for killing Han. I know it sounded cool at first glance but writer Chris Morgan should’ve wrote something cooler that would’ve not affected the future plot. However, I still enjoy what’s given when ignoring this. To wrap up, Tokyo Drift is a guilty pleasure spin-off in the best way possible. If you’re into the franchise after the first two, I think you’ll like this as well.
コメント