The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift

Brad 'the Tool Boy' Taylor - last seen in 1999.

Shit yes. Close the blinds, turn on your TV, crank your stereo to 11 and set your clocks for Tokyo time, because drift racing is upon us. That’s right, you bunch of round-eyed gaijin, I’m back and I've got my watch set to Japanese Standard Time so I know when to drift race. This movie rocks so hard my dick went stiff and refused to go down for 3 days after watching it. Seriously.

This is one of those great movies that you know from the outset that it’s going to be so improbably ridiculous that you don’t even care about a premise. Who needs a story arc when you have Japanese school girls and some yuk-talking hill-billy.

Tokyo Drift is a movie that manages to stand up on its own legs - albeit very unsteadily, much like a newly foaled colt – despite having no known actors in the entire cast. I use the term ‘known’ here loosely to mean ‘good’ or even ‘not washed up and doing reality TV with Corey Feldman’. Our main star is Lucas Black, who I’ve previously only ever seen in American Gothic like 12 years ago. There is also Lil’ Bow Wow, or whatever the fuck he goes by these days, and a small but riveting performance by Zachery Ty Bryan – whom you might know better as that annoying eldest Taylor family child in Home Improvement. I see he’s gone on to do great things. This guy hasn’t had much work since the 90’s.

The story is that Sean (Lucas Black) is sent to live with his father in Japan for being a massive stooge and getting caught racing against that kid from Home Improvement. In Japan he meets Twinkie (Bow Wow) - a black kid with ‘street cred’ and a stupid name – and Han, who takes him under his wing and teaches him how to drift race so that he can win Han the money he owes him. The rest of the movie pretty much goes on about iPods, Corolla AE86s, drift racing and all other things that are listed as being super-mega kawaii.

There is, however, a few cameos that really make you get hugely pumped. The first being Keiichi Tsuchiya, the real Drift King and professional racing driver who pioneered drift racing and touge. The second cameo is none other than Vin fucking Diesel. Vin waits, watching, until the end of the movie when everyone watching it is like “Phew, it’s over. I don’t know how much more awesome I could handle.” And then, BAM! Vin pounces like a wildcat with biceps and just blows your fucking mind with, like, 3 sentences. He mocks the Japanese ‘rice burners’ with his 28 Litre W 16 engine that runs on leaded puppies and the tears of innocent children. So manly. His car probably has a moustache somewhere hidden under the bonnet.

This is a great movie for watching when in the mood, and I do stress that it’s a ‘when in the mood’ kind of film. It’s clearly not to be taken seriously and was more of a fun little filler in the Fast & Furious series while we waited for more Vin Diesel. On the plus side this film has a distinct lack of Paul Walker acting like Keanu Reeves in Point Break (minus the yelling and shooting at the sky bits). If you’re in the mood to see some nice cars, a few crashes and a lot of Japanese people then I’d strongly recommend this film. It’s not going to win an Oscar, ever, but it’s enjoyable and you can tell your girlfriend that if she sits through it with you you’ll cook her a nice dinner (which you won’t anyway).

Very much one for the boys. And the Japanese.