The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (Full Screen)

In order to avoid a jail sentence sean boswell heads to tokyo to live with his military father. In a low-rent section of the city sean gets caught up iin the underground world of drift racing. Studio: Uni Dist Corp. (mca) Release Date: 05/06/2008 Starring: Lucas Black Nikki Griffin Run time: 105 minutes Rating: Pg13

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift has all the elements that spelled success for its predecessors: Speed, sex, and minimal dialogue. The plot doesn't need explication; it's a nonsensical series of confrontations and standoffs that serve to get us from one race to another. Tokyo Drift can most accurately be described as a visual poem about screeching tires, crunching fiberglass, and sleek female skin, set to a killer soundtrack of Japanese pop and hip-hop. The actors are only needed for tight close-ups of narrowed eyes or sweaty hands tightly gripping gearshifts, though Sung Kang, Better Luck Tomorrow, stands out as a vaguely philosophical hoodlum with deadpan charisma. The curved bodies of the cars and the luscious flesh of the women are both shot with a fetishistic hunger. The "drift" style of racing--in which the cars are allowed to slide in order to take sharp turns at high speeds--grabs your eyes; there's a strange, spectral beauty to rows of cars sliding sideways down a mountain road at night. Also starring Lucas Black (Friday Night Lights) as our wheel-happy hero; Bow Wow (Roll Bounce) as the scam-artist comic relief; and martial arts legend Sonny Chiba (Kill Bill) as a yakuza big shot. --Bret Fetzer