Drifting into a fantasy world
The third installment of The Fast and the Furious franchise is more of a spin-off than a sequel: the original cast is gone and the story now centres on new characters. Juvenile delinquent and speed demon Sean Boswell (Lucas Black) runs to his Army dad in Tokyo to avoid inevitable jail time. Despite the language barrier, Boswell is very soon in the company of bad people, in the form of Yakuza offspring D.K. (Brian Tee) and his minions of street racers. Boswell irks D.K. in more ways than one, not only as a gaijin or “outsider” but also for constantly eyeballing his girlfriend Neela (Nathalie Kelley). D.K.’s business partner Han (Sung Kang) sees potential in Boswell and takes him under his wing, teaching him the ways of street racing in Japan. But trouble looms when D.K.’s mob boss uncle Kamata (Sonny Chiba) learns that Han has been siphoning the Yakuza’s money. As matters become increasingly dire, will Boswell run again, or finally face up to his own problems?
Wow, a Hollywood production with Asian actors having more than several lines of dialogue, and none of them are sagely advices for the Caucasian hero. Okay, maybe there were some inevitable wise words about “drifting” from mentor Han, but not in the stereotypical, accent-heavy, Splinter-from-TMNT way. He even said “wax on, wax off” at one point, but sarcastically. Anyway, it’s great to see two Asian actors taking prominent roles in a big-budget production. Like The Last Samurai, the hero’s still a white guy, but thankfully he doesn’t go about trying to imbue Western sensibilities into the Japanese.
Let’s get back to the movie. This is the third automobile-themed movie I saw that hypes about the greatness of the art of drifting, which is to skid your car around corners to minimise the loss of speed. The last two were the live-action Initial D and Pixar’s Cars. Furious 3 is easily the best, due to its better sense of action and cool factor. The movie gleefully imagines a boy’s fantasy world of fast cars, fast money and fast girls, and is not very concern about realism and plausibility, especially if you factor in the numerous coincidences and lucky breaks that Boswell experienced. But the spirited performance of the leads, especially the ever-grinning Black and the scenery-chewing Tee, coupled by some excitingly directed vehicular action kept the fun quotient high. One of the better disposable entertainment around that won’t change your life. - BMF
Directed by Justin Lin (Annapolis, Spotlighting) and written by Chris Morgan (Cellular). Stars Lucas Black, Sung Kang, Brian Tee, Bow Wow, Nathalie Kelley and Sonny Chiba. |
