The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift DVD Review (Lucas Black) Empire Movies

THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS: TOKYO DRIFT DVD REVIEW

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
(Universal Studios Home Entertainment)

The Movie

The Extras

Reviewed by

4/10

5/10

Liam

The Fast and the Furious 3 stars Lucas Black as Sean Boswell, a California teen who gets into a little car trouble. Not the kind where you run out of gas or get a flat tire in the middle of nowhere. Instead, it's the kind of trouble where he races cars for fun. You know -- the kind of races that result in innocent people getting killed. (Of course, that doesn't happen in the movies...) Anyways, after a little incident lands Sean in trouble with the police, he's threatened with a prison sentence. In order to avoid jail time, his mother sends him to live with his father in Tokyo. (If only the legal system were that simple!) Once in Tokyo, Sean makes fast friends with some people who -- you guessed it -- race cars for fun. (Will he ever learn?!) However, in Tokyo, things aren't as simple as how fast your car goes. In Tokyo, they "drift" -- which I'm guessing is why the movie is called "Tokyo Drift". Of course, Sean gets into a little trouble again, only this time not with the cops. Instead, Sean gets in trouble with the mob. So how do you solve your problems when you're in trouble with the Japanese mob? Well, you race cars, of course!! Again, if it were only that easy...

I'll come right out and say that I found "The Fast and the Furious 3" to be pretty ridiculous. Forget all the leaps in faith involving the cops and the mob and how our hero manages to avoid getting in trouble with both -- that's just movies for you. Instead, let's focus on why this movie got made in the first place -- or at least how it got to be part of the "Fast and the Furious" franchise. I hate these days how you have movies that don't have the same stars as the original but they loosely have the same premise, so they get stuck with the title of the first movie. Who's genius idea was it to take movies in this direction? Why not take every movie that's ever been made about Vietnam and put "First Blood" in front of the title followed by whatever number the movie is. (ie. "Born on the Fourth of July - First Blood Part 11"). Why wasn't this movie simply a stand-alone movie called "Tokyo Drift"? Either that or release it straight-to-DVD and save us the trouble. And the acting? I'm not gonna trash Lucas Black cause I think the guy is okay, but this wasn't his best choice. And how did Bow Wow graduate to a movie like this? (I will say, however, that I enjoyed the cameo at the end of the movie. Nice touch.)

Bonus features on this DVD include a feature commentary with director Justin Lin, 11 deleted scenes with optional director's commentary, a "Drifting School" featurette where we follow the stars to driving school and watch as they learn to "drift", a "Cast Cam" feature where we follow a cast camera around the set, a featurette titled "The Big Breakdown" which deconstructs the film's biggest action sequence, "Tricked Out to Drift" which looks at some of the cars that were used in the movie, "The Real Drift King" which looks at stunt driver Keiichi Tsushiya and "The Japanese Way" which looks at filming in Tokyo. There's also a Don Omar "Conteo" music video.

I wasn't a fan of this movie. Maybe it's because of the direction the "franchise" has taken since the release of the first movie. Or maybe it's that I don't really condone this type of movie because it encourages stupid little punks to recreate these stunts an accidentally kill people. Either way, I'm just hoping this is the end of it. Please.

Features
Deleted Scenes
Tricked Out To Drift - Find out how filmmakers customized over 230 cars for stunts, crashes and pure adrenaline!
The Japanese Way - Go on location with the cast and crew to high-intensity Tokyo.
Feature Commentary with Director Justin Lin
And More!

Video
Widescreen (2.35:1)

Audio
English Dolby Digital 5.1
Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1
French Dolby Digital 5.1

Subtitles
English SDH
Spanish
French

Release Date
September 26, 2006

Rating
PG-13

Length
105 mins.

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