What's more important to the Fast and the Furious franchise: the stars or the cars?  The people behind The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift pray it's the latter, as every recognizable star from the first two films decided to skip out on this sequel.  The likes of Paul Walker, Vin Diesel and Tyrese Gibson are gone, replaced instead by a bunch of gorgeous nobodies who have less charisma than their predecessors.  Director Justin Lin attempts to inject some nitro into the thing by moving the setting to Tokyo and introducing the concept of drifting, but this follow-up still fails to shift into high gear.

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift kicks off when bad boy American teenager Sean (Lucas Black) is sent to live with his father in Tokyo.  It's not long before he runs into a man known as DK (short for Drift King, not Donkey Kong), and challenges him to a street race.  After totaling the car of DK's business associate, Sean is forced to work for the shady character, who also happens to be a wannabe Yakuza.  Of course, it's then up to Sean to street race his way out of trouble with the Japanese mob.

Director Justin Lin is someone who got his start with a small independent film, and his inexperience as a big budget filmmaker shows.  The racing scenes and action sequences are all competently done, but none of them come close to equaling the delightful craziness found in 2 Fast 2 Furious.  Watching the cars drift around turns is visually interesting, but it's hardly exciting enough to build an entire movie around.

With the racing scenes unable to provide a much-needed jolt, that leaves the actors to pick up the slack. Unfortunately, they're not up to the task.  Though Lucas Black has proved himself to be skilled in films like Friday Night Lights and Cold Mountain, he seems completely lost in this neon-colored world.  It goes without saying that rapper-turned-actor Bow Wow underwhelms, though Brian Tee is somewhat effective as the villainous DK.  With no recognizable faces to latch on to, the cast projects a strong "straight-to-DVD" quality that doesn't do the film any favors.

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift isn't a terrible movie.  It's well shot, features some authentic Tokyo locations, and provides the occasionally thrilling action sequence.  However, it definitely doesn't live up to its predecessors, and it's also bound to pale in comparison to the fourth installment, which reunites the original cast.  The only thing Tokyo Drift truly succeeds in is making your attention drift elsewhere.


- Don Williams, BuddyTV Staff Writer
(Image courtesy of Universal)