The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift

Justin Lin keeps his lead losing on purpose: Sean wrecks both the race and a borrowed car on his first try at drifting, and what follows is working off a debt, not winning. The middle lives in a garage and a parking deck, so anyone here for constant racing gets an apprenticeship. The finale is one downhill duel on a narrow road, not a tournament. Sean’s last car restates that in metal: a 1967 Mustang Fastback shell carrying the Nissan engine pulled from the car he wrecked at the start. Lin had it built to genuinely run for 250,000 dollars, the sum he once put on credit cards for Better Luck Tomorrow. Han was not in the script; Lin cast Sung Kang under the name from that earlier film, a little wink at what became of him. Shibuya crossing was shot without a permit, with twenty minutes before police arrived; a crew member who also plays the bathhouse attendant claimed to be the director and took the night in jail. Vin Diesel took Riddick rights, not money, for the closing scene. A good fit if you want a middle hour spent on repayment and an ending decided by one descent. Not a fit if you are waiting for Dom and Brian to matter; Diesel appears only in the last scene.