The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006)

  I am not generally a masochist but I did force myself to watch this third installment of the Fast and Furious franchise.  It is commonly considered to be the worst of the bunch but Jason Lin has done something remarkable with this series and this was the first one he actually directed.  He has stated that this is the sixth chronologically in the series, with the events here occurring after the events in Fast 6.  It will be interesting to see how those elements are used in the later films.  It also means they will be bringing back the only good character to life, which I am very excited about.

Navy brat Sean (Lucas Black) has always felt like an outsider.  He has bounced around from state to state, never there long enough to make real friends.  His only solace is racing cars, an activity that has contributed to him being forced to move out of town more than once.  His mom (Lynda Boyd) is tired of his crap, especially after he is looking at jail time resulting from a race against the local rich asshole (Zachary Ty Bryan).  Sean's only option is to leave the U.S. and go live with his father (Brian Goodman) in Tokyo.  The Japanese capital offers many new distractions, however, such as Neela (Nathalie Kelley), a fellow student and car enthusiast,  and Twinkie (Bow Wow), the local facilitator. Whatever you need, Twinkie either has or knows where to get it.  He introduces Sean to the underground race scene and incidentally to Neela's boyfriend, DK (Brian Tee).  DK is the undisputed champ around these parts and also tied in with the Yakuza.  Sean challenges him, like an idiot, and is sponsored by DK's second, Han (Sung Kang).  After he proceeds to trash Han's car, Sean finds himself in the man's debt, forced to do all manner of things to pay what he owes.  In return, Han teaches Sean how to drift.

Lucas Black is pretty, right up until he opens his mouth.  His accent has got to be the thickest I have ever heard and I am also from Alabama.  Every scene with him in it (i.e. most of them) was like nails on a chalkboard.  Conversely, Han was an unexpected gem.  Sung Kang is great at what he does and I have enjoyed him in every role of his I have seen.  I would have been totally okay if this had been a Han-centric movie, but it was not.  Instead, I got Mush-Mouth trying to woo a cardboard cutout of a female character while also parading around a cornucopia of suped up compacts.  Still, it also had martial arts legend Sonny Chiba and you can't really go wrong there.