My Review of "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift"

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift is the third movie of The Fast and the Furious franchise. It came out back in 2006 and it is still my favorite installation from the series. Some would also say it's because I have a certain amount of nostalgia when watching this movie. I can't totally argue with that either.

The movie starts off in very 2000s-esque fashion with the very experimental electronical rock music exploring high school life. Indeed at the time life for students had forever changed with growing gun violence in schools. At the time it was unheard of to have metal detectors and security at schools. This was a new generation but still had many of the 90's mentality still in play.

We have our lead character Sean just entering this new school. He's been moved from school to school because he's a trouble maker. Of course because this is part of the movie franchise he loves cars. There's a girl that he has his eye on and she plays around with him causing a bit of a jealous stir with her boyfriend. This causes a huge commotion that result in Sean and the jealous boyfriend to a car race.

This is a crazy destructive race that results in the trouble causing couple to get a slap on the wrist. Meanwhile, Sean is shipped off to Tokyo to live with his estranged father. Moving from school to school, Sean is used to being a fish out of the pond but this is another story. There is a total cultural shift that Sean will have to get used to. They don't really fully explore this aspect though.

The movie does do a good job in keeping it's focus on the friendship relationships and Sean learning how to drive. Though Sean and his father have a rocky relationship the two don't really have too much limelight in the movie.

Speaking of relationships, Sean fancies a young girl in his school named Neela. She's a mysterious figure that has a pretty dark past. Their budding romantic interest causes a huge stir in Tokyo. Again Sean will get himself into some crazy trouble and this time he decides he has to face his problems instead of running from them.

There's a ton of stuff happening in this movie and they have to cover a lot of it in montages. Some of the montages cover more than one event. He's developing his relationships with his friends as well as learning to drift cars. I felt that they were done pretty well and really aided in the development of the characters.

Some people today will find a lot of the characters quite problematic but I could say that those times were pretty problematic compared to today. It definitely does have a mid 2000s feel to this movie. It's a time capsule that will accurately bring you back with the music, technology and cultural mores. Oh how society has changed in the past 20 years.

Though watching it showed a lot of weird situations. At the time flip phones were just being introduced with cell phone cameras. I don't remember the resolution on those phones being as good as they were in this movie. Hell the technology today wouldn't be able to handle some of the things that they were doing in this movie.

Then there were things in the movie at the time we thought were futuristic. I recently went to visit Tokyo and I noticed that some of these things haven't changed in 20 years. It's kind of mind boggling to me how at that some of these things are still there like Suica cards, and pay phones... That's another story though.

One of the major things you have to appreciate in this movie is the fact that they used practical effects throughout the movie. You have to remember CGI was still pretty rudimentary at the time. Some of these stunts are mind blowing and at times look CGI'd in. I forget how talented some people are sometimes. This alone might very well be a reason for watching the movie.

Overall, this movie is quite entertaining. It's a movie that I can go back to all the time because I love the characters (despite Sean being unlikeable). There's so much to see and it's a trip down memory lane. Don't forget the incredible stuntwork with the cars! I have to give this movie a 7 out of 10. Still my favorite movie of the franchise.