'Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift'

Lucas Black
Nathalie Kelley
Bow Wow
Sung Kang
Brian Tee
Leonardo Nam
Sonny Chiba

PG13           104min           2006

‘The Fast and the Furious 3: Tokyo Drift’ has Lucas Black, a street racer sent to Tokyo by his mother to get away from the trouble he has in America. Living with his father he discovers the underground racing world of Drifting.

It’s on par with the rest of the films. The first that doesn’t star someone from the original and takes the series back to its roots. Black, with his Alabama accent seems like a fish out of water in Tokyo. This time around the story goes back to what started this series.

Tokyo Drift’s story was more about the racing than the story itself. The movie’s story moved to showcase the cars and feature some of the best driving of the series. Drifting is a lot more complicated than you get from ‘Need for Speed’ and the stunt drivers made it look easy from the commentary.

Lucas Black (Sling Blade and Friday Night Lights) plays Sean to a tee. But how much acting really could go into playing a ‘Southern Boy in Tokyo’ went you’re a ‘Southern boy in Tokyo’. ‘Tokyo Drift’ also feature Nathalie Kelley in her feature film debut. She is stunning and not that bad as Neely. Bow Wow is Sean guide into the underworld of drifting and performance adding to his resume.

The story this time around takes a more interesting turn. Black enters the world of drifting and loses a car. Then taken in and mentor, then loses his mentor. Now he must use racing as a way to get out of the trouble his gotten into. This is more race driven, the characters develop around the racing instead of the racing developing round the characters.

I give it 3/5 Gs.