The need-for-speed franchise's third stanza is bereft of the services of hunky Paul Walker, co-star of the first two vehicles, so to speak. Yet there's a few different plot detours to explore so that driver Walker isn't really necessary, either. The premise by scriptwriter Chris Morgan leaves skid marks across some very familiar turf, however. After getting arrested for a high-performance demolition derby involving pink slips, chip-on-his-shoulder motorhead teen Sean Boswell (Friday Night Lights' Lucas Black) has two choices: serve time in a slammer or relocate from the States to Tokyo, where his estranged daddy (Brian Goodman), a career Navy officer, now lives.
Pop tells his son to stay out of those fast-lane antics, but Sean's surly attitude means trouble, especially when he starts taking an interest in pretty high school student Neela (Nathalie Kelley). Uh-oh, Neela just happens to be the squeeze of D.K. (Brian Tee), the nasty nephew of Yakuza kingpin Kamata, who's played by none other than martial arts legend Sonny Chiba, with a career stretching from 1975's The Street Fighter to 2003's Kill Bill. Chiba's casting ensures that somewhere in the world Quentin Tarantino has a woody.
D.K., by the way, stands for "drift king," as he's part of Tokyo's cultish drifting scene, wherein a high-speed driver relies on downshifting and hand-brake abilities to be able to round curves with a degree of stylish finesse. (As opposed to drafting, a stateside Smokey and the Bandit-era phenomenon involving cars that followed close behind full-throttle tractor-trailers.) And a knucklehead gear-slammer such as Sean seems unlikely to ever master the drifting method.
Morgan's script also makes room for Sean's new best bud Twinkie, a hustler of sneakers and iPods; he's played by rapper Bow Wow, no longer Li'l, and around mostly for the urban-crossover crowd. Also along for the ride is Han (Sung Kang), D.K.'s smarter partner with an independent mind, which inevitably causes friction; Kang reunites with his Better Luck Tomorrow director Justin Lin for Tokyo Drift's automotive mayhem. In addition to zooming chassis, Lin and Morgan squeeze in some culture-clash tidbits, notably the mixed parentage of Neela that marks her as a gaijin, or outsider, just like Sean and his West-meets-East issues.
Black's Southern-accented mushmouth doesn't really work up much audience sympathy, lacking the emotional gravitas of--dare I say it?--a younger Charlie Sheen. Yet the script's bubble-gum formula still has some snap, with Lin and his second-unit crew orchestrating some hellacious stunts amid a colorful backdrop of teeming Tokyo streets and neon-lit pachinko parlors. Sean even gets to maneuver a revved-up Ford Mustang for the climax, a tribute to Steve McQueen's Bullitt, although such flamboyant fishtailing around a twisting road seems like a duplication of the finale of 1981's King of the Mountain.
This third lap has it all, including chicken runs, looks that can kill and heavy-metal crunchings. And that's what is so oddly fascinating about The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift: the utter portability of such standard, made-in-the-USA car-movie cliches to other milieus.
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