Tonight, I decided to watch that copy of
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift I borrowed from a friend; see what all the fuss is about and to check on the film crew's depicting of Tokyo. I can't say I know what the streets of New York really look like, I've never been to Prague, Chicago is a big mystery to me and Moscow does not lie in my field of expertise either.
Tokyo, on the other hand, I'm quite familiar with. ;)
Street racer Sean Boswell gets involved in a street race with heavy damages and faces a jail sentence, but is sent to Tokyo, Japan instead to live with his father, who is stationed there as a military.
While Sean adjusts to life in Japan ("Wabaki..."), and being forbidden to come even near a car, let alone drive one, he meets Twinkie at school, who introduces him to the rather alternative racing world that Japan has. When he's being lent a car to race D.K. (Donkey Kong? no; Drift King), he totals it and thus enters the underground world of drift racing to repay his debt.
This movie is quite different than the others; where the
first two movies are fairly standard in ways of plot and character, Tokyo Drift goes a little bit deeper and has most cultural references and scenes in Tokyo in check, although it's quite obvious that they didn't film the race in Shibuya itself; not enough cars. Regular cars, that is. :)
To allow the stunt sequence through Shibuya to happen, traffic must be directed in a special way, which you only manage by physically close the road and have your way with it. That's never going to happen in Shibuya, so they shot it in Los Angeles and CGI'd the shots they made of Shibuya into the movie. The race in the parking garage is also something you can't do in Tokyo, so that one was shot in LA as well.
Sean's first day in Japan, trying to navigate through the Tokyo Railway was fun to watch, in a "
Lost in Translation"-esque way, but on the other hand...
I don't really understand why someone would get lost in Tokyo's Sub- and Railways; everything is marked in English these days and the ticket machines have an "English"- button on them, which switches the entire machine to English, including its voice. But as this is unknown to the average viewer, it's a scene that contributes to the movie. :)
The final race on the mountain was quite cool and had an ingenious way of "monitoring" the race; with their mobile phones! I even spotted my model G3 phone (Sharp V903) in one scene. :D
All in all, Tokyo Drift is entertaining and doesn't leave you with the feeling of cliché as much as the first two do. The Tokyo-shots are believeable enough towards most Japanophiles and it was fun to see so many places in a movie, places I've been myself. The only thing I really dislike is Sean's southern accent, but at least it's not as thick as Nicholas Cage's.
Cheers, K.