Tokyo Drift

june 19, 2006

Was it because I had low expectations of the film? Or was the film a good popcorn summer flick? It is a bit of both, but a lot of the latter. Eileen and I went to see The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift, which I had earlier asked, "Uh, do you really, really, need to be making another sequel in this franchise?" The film was so very summer-entertainingly good that I have to answer with a whole-hearted: Yes! Tokyo Drift is a helluva lot better than the second film and nearly rivals the first film. I would gladly forget that 2 Fast, 2 Furious ever existed and accept Justin Lin's Tokyo Drift as the true sequel to the original. This film had enough story to keep me interested. The characters were just interesting enough to make me care for them when they raced. And who can dislike a film that has cheesy lines from dumb-blondes like, "Lets race for me"? What made this film so entertaining for me, and follows along with the first film, are the races. When a filmmaker shoots stunts real-on-reel, you can tell the difference than when the "stunts" are computer generated. Don't get me wrong, there are some computer generated stuff in Tokyo Drift, but it looks like most of the driving stunts were done for real. And when you see this kind of realism it boosts the excitement of the action. The second film in the franchise suffered because a lot (actually most) of the car racing and stunts looked fake -- they were done on computers. And because the second film employed computer generated cars, it felt like a boring video game. Not here with Tokyo Drift, there are some genuine thrills in this film! Don't go to see Tokyo Drift expecting Shakesperian dialogue or Academy Award winning acting. This is a pure summer movie. Tokyo Drift entertains while keeping you out of the hot weather for two hours. The movie is exciting, cheesy, and occassionally laugh-out-loud funny. And lastly, the film is well-worth seeing on the big screen. I take back my comments about it earlier and now give it a big recommendation. As the viewer behind me exclaimed during a break-neck chase scene: That's sick! ("Sick" in a good way, of course.)


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