The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift poster

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift

The misfit third 'Furious' film was better than we thought at the time

First let's get this out of the way - fans of the Fast and Furious franchise hate The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. Probably because it least resembles all the other Furious films, and pretty boy star Paul Walker is nowhere to be found. In a way, it's kind of detached from the others, but is that really a bad thing? In some ways the film's greatest strength is the freshness it brings by serving up a slice of a different kind of street racing culture than the others - in this case the Japanese "drifting" style of racing on winding tracks.

The story is about a high school kid who has to move in with a single parent and attend a new school thousands of miles from home. On his first night there he runs afoul of the locals by hitting on the girlfriend of their leader who publicly humiliates him. A local Japanese guy takes him under his wing and teaches him the skills he needs. He then goes to the bad guys lair and confronts them, but gets them to agree to settle it in a competition.

If that sounds like the plot to The Karate Kid, that's because it is. If there's one thing The Fast and the Furious franchise does well, it's rip-off other, better movies. Remember this is the franchise that began with a remake of Point Break that just substituted street racing for surfing. So when you really get down to it, the F&F franchise is all about the window dressing: car show models in booty shorts, party music, and of course fast cars. And on those three essentials, it delivers.

Basically aside from star power, nearly every criticism you can level at The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift could equally be said about any other film in the series. Vacuous - yup. Bad acting - check. Annoying wisecracking hip hop sidekick - yo. Celebration of materialism and conspicuous consumption - indeed. Actors that look way too old to be doing this shit - yeah, that too. But on those three basic ingredients: cars, girls, and music, Tokyo Drift has nothing to be ashamed of. The cars of course are generally of the candy colored Japanese subcompact variety, but a few old fashioned American muscle cars do make appearances. On the attractive female front, the film co-stars Peruvian born Nathalie Kelley, arguably the hottest "hot chick" of all the Furious films. And with a soundtrack that features DJ Shadow,  Kid Rock, The 5, 6, 7, 8s, Shonen Knife, The Crystal Method, Atari Teenage Riot, Prodigy and others, it boasts the best soundtrack of the eight(!) Fast and Furious movies to date.

If sitting through what feels like to two hours of import auto trade show promo videos sounds like torture, you're going to hate The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, it wasn't made for you. But those who like that kind of thing may find the much-maligned Tokyo Drift was actually the unsung apotheosis of the F&F franchise.

**1/2 out of *****