Fast and the Furious-Tokyo Drift (2006)

"...director Justin Lin captures Tokyo's energy and glitter far better than Sofia Coppola.  Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
"Strap yourself in for a blistering, super-charged ride.  Pete Hammond, Maxim
"Pumping high-performance gas back into the series...  Todd McCarthy, Variety

Editor's Note The third in the wildly popular FAST IN THE FURIOUS series--a hybrid of fast cars, hot teens, and fetishized technology--gets a new jolt of energy and style courtesy of young hotshot director Justin Lin, who won raves at Sundance in 2002 for his look at Asian-American teens in BETTER LUCK TOMORROW. Leading man in training Lucas Black stars as sensitive rebel Sean Boswell, who, despite hailing from the poor section of town, vamps up his used car to drag race against the best of them. After numerous racing challenges won--including one against his high school's popular, wealthy quarterback--Boswell gets in trouble with the law one too many times. To escape confinement to a juvenile detention center, Boswell's military father ships him all the way across the world, to that most futuristic, tech-savvy of cities, Tokyo. There, he meets his match in the powerful, cruel D.K. (Brian Tee), who is not only the car racing star of the Japanese underground, but also related to several dangerous Yakuzas (gangsters). Complicating matters is Sean's undeniable (and mutual) attraction to D.K.'s gorgeous girlfriend Neela (Nathalie Kelly). The racing style, he soon learns, is very different in this strange land--a practice known as "drifting" that is more elegant and virtuostic than American-style demolition. Yet if anyone can take on D.K. and his band of Yakuza yeomen, it's this racecar rebel. All the pieces of the action movie puzzle, including sexy stars, nonstop action, and heart-stopping thrills, combine with a stylish aesthetic and energetic soundtrack to make another fine addition to a fantastic franchise. And director Lin is adept at rendering Tokyo a full-dimensional, culturally rich location, rather than a video game backdrop.

	Bow Wow
	Lucas Black
	Nathalie Kelley
	Sung Kang
	Brian Tyler - Original Music By
	Chris Morgan - Writer
	Justin Lin - Director
	Kelly Matsumoto, et. al. - Editor
	Ryan Kavanaugh, et. al. - Producer
	Stephen F. Windon - Cinematographer

FilmCritic.com 7 of 10
"The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift" plays like the archetypal Western. A newcomer arrives in town, upsets the locals, plays with hearts, and rides around a lot before a final "this town ain't big enough for the both of us" showdown sends him, or someone else, on their way. Of course, the movie is actually an Eastern: The frontier is Japan, the town is big enough for about 20 million, and there is plenty of horsepower, but not a mare or stallion in sight. - Joel Meares

Chicago Sun-Times 8 of 10
In "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift", he takes an established franchise and makes it surprisingly fresh and intriguing. The movie is not exactly "Shogun" when it comes to the subject of an American in Japan (nor, on the other hand, is it "Lost in Translation"). But it's more observant than we expect, and uses its Japanese locations to make the story about something more than fast cars. - Roger Ebert