Han was family. (Spoilers)

We are in film numero three in the Fast and the Furious series of Furiously Fast movies with cars and chicks and not so many muscles this time, but chicks and cars definitely. And Yakuza. And more people dying. Bigger stakes tied to racing, and are we sure Fast & Furious isn’t a live action anime series? Everyone lives their lives around the very specific thing the movie is themed on and they all inexplicably have a lot of expendable cash to spend on it.

Maybe I’m overthinking.

Tokyo Drift was directed by Justin Lin and written by Chris Morgan. It marks the first time the film will have a consistent director (Justin Lin directed four films) and screenwriter (Chris Morgan wrote the next five movies as well) with Justin Lin coming back for F9 and also returning to write F9 and Fast X. You may recognize Chris Morgan as the writer behind 47 Ronin and I’m sure he’d rather not be remembered as the producer of The Mummy (2017), because there’s no shitty idea Alex Kurtzman won’t enthusiastically take part in. Justin Lin meanwhile directed Star Trek Beyond, widely considered to be the most Star Trek of the new film reboots.

The third film is an even bigger spinoff than 2 Fast 2 Furious, starring absolutely nobody from the prior films and especially not starring Paul Walker. In his place is Lucas Black as Sean Boswell, cover model for Man Meat Quarterly and a guy who gets into trouble a lot due to his pension for being a racist and crashing his vehicles. Sean is sent way up river from Arizona to Japan to stay with his dad Brian Goodman. There he meets the movie’s obligatory funny black guy Twinkie played by Bow Wow and the eventual love interest Neela played by Nathalie Kelley.

Neela catches Sean’s eye because she’s like a strong-jawed onion ring that sometimes ends up in your order of Burger King fries. Sean meanwhile catches Neela’s attention because she hasn’t had authentic western cuisine in a while. This analogy probably means something if you twist it hard enough. Unfortunately trouble comes as this is a movie about tough dudes doing tough things, so naturally Neela has a boyfriend already and not just any boyfriend but Takashi (Brian Tee) who is not just the Drift King, but is the nephew to the Yakuza. Won won wonnnnnn.

Oh yeah Sung Kang is here as Han Lue, the guy who becomes Sean’s mentor. Sean gets absolutely roasted in his first race because he’s in a new land where they use the ancient Japanese technique known as drifting cars while Sean uses the ancient American technique of breaking shit at just about every corner and that doesn’t hold up well in the drift circuit.

The big question is; can Han teach Sean (Oh I get it now, it rhymes) how to drift? Can Sean get the girl? Will Takashi just roll up and kill them because he’s a gangster and that’s probably how this beef would actually play out in real life Japan? Of course he can, this is a feel good action movie with cars and chicks. I thought it was kinda awkward that most of the women in this movie are supposed to be Japanese high school girls, but maybe it’s because it’s another case of the actors being in their 20s and definitely not looking like high schoolers.

I liked Tokyo Drift better than 2 Fast 2 Furious because and I think it’s because it has more to do with the cars than the prior movie. 2 Fast 2 Furious was a standard unwilling protagonist story where the actors occasionally talked about cars and reminded us that they know a lot about cars. Tokyo Drift focuses on the car culture and is a film about dudes who love cars and doing bro shit. They occasionally think about kissing girls but we won’t hold that character flaw against them. 2 Fast is only a Fast & Furious movie because it’s got nice cars and Paul Walker is in it as the same character.

It’s too bad this film didn’t win any awards. The overall plot is whatever. Guy moves to new place and gets the girl because they bond over both being outsiders. Yaddah yaddah, cars are sexy and these teenagers have way too much disposable income. Everyone did a great job with their role in this film. There is a cameo at the very end by Vin Diesel where he talks about family. Apparently Sean Boswell appears in future movies.

Next up is 2009’s Fast & Furious. This won’t get confusing at all.