the fast and the furious: tokyo drift: crazed

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the fast and the furious: tokyo drift

Aug 25, 2021 13:10

Oy. This third installment in the Fast & Furious franchise, more than the first two, makes me embarrassed ever to have been a teenage boy.

I never have been interested in cars; in fact there are few things I am less interested in than cars. It is true my first car was, shall we say, uniquely modified, but not in any of the ways that would have mattered to a traditional gearhead. (It was a slow, dumpy little crate, but it had racks of fake missiles bolted to the hood.)

Even so, I gulped down my apportioned slice of corporate embarrassment when I watched this movie, knowing full well that I was solidly part of the target audience when it debuted. It brought to mind the fellow teenage and college-age males I associated with, many of whom were obsessed with loud, fast, stupid-looking cars. Whether I shared their appreciation for horsepower or no, I was a member of their demographic.

So anyway, this movie is really dumb! Problem the first: none of the main characters from the first two movies are in it. The fact this was billed as Tokyo Drift rather than Fast & Furious 3 suggests the franchise was meant to become an anthology of standalone racing flicks, rather than a continuing saga. Perhaps each forthcoming "Fast & Furious" movie would've had a wholly different cast and setting, the only common thread being the fast cars. Fortunately, that did not turn out to be the case, as the series would return to its roots in the next movie. In the meantime, here we are.

Tokyo Drift follows the antics of Sean, a real hayseed of a high school student. One day after class, Brad from Home Improvement challenges him to a race. And race they do, through a housing development under construction, smashing through the frames of McMansions before finally wrecking both their cars.

Side note: whenever an actor I recognize from one TV show or movie appears in another, I wish the movie would provide an in-universe explanation for it. I mean to say that the character I recognized as Brad from Home Improvement really should have been Brad from Home Improvement, even though that show was canceled before this movie ever came out. Tim and Al should have been shooting an on-location episode of "Tool Time" in that housing development and been hilariously injured when Brad's and Sean's cars came barreling through the rough framing.

Later, in court, the judge tells Sean he's pulled one too many stunts and must go to juvie. Sean counters by offering to move to Tokyo, and the judge, recognizing a perfectly logical and reasonable compromise, agrees.

In Tokyo, Sean immediately sniffs out the local car scene and challenges an aggressive-looking youth to a little race. This is a mistake, because he has challenged none other than DK, the Drift King, who is really good at racing thru parking garages at high speed without crashing into anything. "FINE," DK says, "BUT YOU AIN'T GOT NO CAR."

No problem. A chill guy named Han lends Sean his $80,000 car and doesn't seem to mind when he destroys it. Why does Sean wreck the car? Because he doesn't know how to drift around the tight turns. Rather than get upset, Han tells Sean he can work off the debt he owes him by...driving aimlessly around the city? I don't understand the arrangement. Han just gives Sean another expensive car and teaches him the fine art of drifting. Once or twice, they go around collecting money from customers of Han's unspecified criminal enterprise, but this saves neither time nor effort on Han's part, so I don't see what he gets out of the deal.

Honestly, none of this movie makes any sense. Sean and DK butt heads a bunch more, and no one seems concerned about the increasing violence of their encounters. When DK shows up at Sean's house waving a gun around, Sean's dad comes out and acts like he's witnessing a schoolyard scuffle. "Just let me handle this, Dad," says Sean.

"All right," his dad agrees.

The boys' feud escalates to where they finally ask the Yakuza to arbitrate. An agreement is reached: Sean and DK shall have one ultimate race, and the winner must leave Tokyo, and never return.

Well, you guessed it: Sean wins, and now HE gets the title of DK and presides over the Tokyo street-racing scene! He still doesn't seem to have a job or, you know, a high school diploma, but I presume his many racing victories supply him with ample cash for his fancy cars.

Meanwhile:

The movie's wrap-up just reinforces my sense of embarrassment-by-association: the embarrassment at having been a teenage boy and therefore an idiot in at least some capacity, even if cars were not my thing. The happy end of this movie is the ultimate wish fulfillment. Sean does not give up his reckless ways, does not consider his own menace to public safety or his disregard for the law. After all, he's a GOOD DRIVER, so he can be trusted to drive REALLY FAST. Without growing personally or learning anything besides how to do an e-brake turn, he is rewarded with expensive cars, constant male up-nods of respect, and babes galore. Like a foolish youth, he probably assumes this will last forever and that he needn't go to college or have any plan whatever for adulthood.

Vin Diesel does make a cameo just before the credits roll, I forget exactly why. Something about paying his respects to his old buddy Han, who dies like a chump in the middle of the movie. (This apparently gets retconned not once but twice in subsequent movies: first in the manner of his death, and then in the actual fact of his death. It appears he is alive and well again in the new F9 movie.)

Bottom line: Mortally embarrassing, direct-to-DVD-worthy spinoff that nearly derailed a boss franchise.

Watch again? Nah.

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