2K Replay: THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS: TOKYO DRIFT

 by Adam Riske

Nominated for “Choice Summer Movie: Drama/Action-Adventure” at the Teen Choice Awards. It lost to Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.

• Best Scene/Moment (tie): The chase through Tokyo that ends with Han (Sung Kang) crashing and Dominic Torreto's (Vin Diesel) cameo at the end.

• Best Song (tie): “Conteo” by Don Omar and “She Wants to Move” by N.E.R.D.

• Best Merch: An “Affliction Fast and Furious Bodysuit Leotard Tokyo Drift Black White XS” for $20.00. With any luck, this will be your partner’s wardrobe of choice on your wedding night. Bonus points for the eBay seller being named rowdydowdycoyootie.

• Director Grade: The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift was directed by Justin Lin.
Great Movies: Fast Five
Good Movies: Better Luck Tomorrow, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Fast & Furious, Fast and Furious 6, Star Trek Beyond
OK Movies: Annapolis, F9
Bad Movies: N/A
Unseen By Me: Shopping for Fangs, Finishing the Game, Last Days
Overall Grade: B

• Double It with This 2006 Movie: Cars

• Year 2006 Movies to Trailer Before Them: Annapolis, Find Me Guilty, Running Scared

• Ella McCay or The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift? The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift

• Mall Movie? 100 percent. This movie has an arcade game. You could go straight from the cinema to the arcade afterwards.

• Only in 2006: A movie about drifting.

• Scene Stealer: Sung Kang, who's still cool in this movie despite how uncool the most recent Fast movies made him. Honorable Mention: Bow Wow who brings a certain gravitas to his role as…Twink.

• I Miss: Casual, breezy, not overly stuffed Fast and the Furious movies.

• I Don’t Miss: Movies trying to pump you up with Kid Rock's “Bawitdaba.”

• 2006 Crush (tie): Nikki Griffin and Keiko Kitagawa.

• 2026 Crush (tie): Lynda Boyd and Keiko Kitagawa.

• What I Thought in 2006: I sort of checked out on the franchise after the original and didn’t catch up with Tokyo Drift until it hit DVD. I remember thinking it was better than I expected and would have classified it as a guilty pleasure back then.

• What I Think in 2026: I go back and forth between liking and really liking Tokyo Drift. The first hour is super fun and energetic but the second hour when the plot (namely the Yakuza stuff) kicks in is a little sluggish. Overall, I like that the movie embraces being about a very specific subculture of car racing and Tokyo is so photogenic that I enjoy going back to this one just for the travelogue aspect of it all.