The Fast and the Furious franchise goes Karate Kid-hokey with Tokyo Drift, a perfunctory and unintentionally goofy attempt to keep the series running without its stars Vin Diesel and Paul Walker. In Justin Lin’s cross-cultural racing drama, hot-rodding delinquent Sean (Lucas Black) avoids jail time by traveling to Tokyo to live with his father (Brian Goodman), whose authority is immediately negated by the film’s decision to introduce him as he bids farewell to that evening’s hooker. The land of the rising sun can’t quell Sean’s desire to race, and soon he’s teaming up with token black sidekick Twinkie (Bow Wow), being taken under the wing of hotshot hustler Han (Sung Kang), and competing for both top dog status and blank sexpot Neela (Nathalie Kelley) with D.K. (Brian Tee), the nephew of a local yakuza boss. Sean’s triumph is predestined but that doesn’t excuse the sheer torpor of his road to glory, which involves the Dukes of Hazzard-style driver learning how to “drift” (a maneuver in which you skid while under control) and engaging in a few races that Lin shoots with hyper-speed CG freneticism. By the third act, Tokyo Drift proves so intent on delivering trailer-approved imagery and sound bites that its script devolves into incoherence, though its laughableness does ultimately come full circle with the climactic, desperate-career-move return of Diesel to the Fast and Furious fold.
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