Last night I watched this film not out of a particular desire, just simply because it was set in Tokyo and there was nothing else on. I was hoping for a few view shots of the city and centre and that was it, surprisingly it didn't suck as much as I thought it would do.
I'm not really into action flicks but I thought I'd give it a chance. The story is nearly A typical of action flicks. Troubled teen is sent to a new school where he immediately meets a new enemy and starts to like his girlfriend. He finds some kind of sport to challenge and the enemy and also gains a group of supporters on the way (usually containing some kind of teacher on the way (it also helps if the teacher has some kind of tragic past of his own usually failed achievements so he usually channels his lost dreams through his student)). The girlfriend ummms and arrrss over this troubled soul and usually secretly befriends him and then falls in love with him over his roguish ways. The enemy finds out there are several battle scenes where the each side seems to have the upper hand and eventually the troubled teen wins overcoming some great emotional obstacle.
Yer basically when you've see one you've mostly seen them all. There were some refreshing new things that I did like.
- One it was set in Japan so I got to see some panning shots of the city centre.
- Two it was amusing to see the main character make some social faux pas in Japanese society the shoe incident when he went to school did make me smile.
- Three I liked two of the supporting cast I think they were called Reiko and Earl, it would have been nice to see a bit of character development as they seem prime examples of car nerds.
- Fourth (yes there is a fourth reason , even I was surprised) it actually got me interested in cars. I know I was shocked to! I started to think actually drifting looks kinda cool and the cars look awesome.
However there were things that did annoy me the damsel in distress, Neela could apparently drift but you barely saw any of this. It would have been a nice twist if she could have raced the bad guy at the end and won instead but that would have damaged men's egos to much probably. What also annoyed me was she barely spoke any Japanese I know she was supposed to be half Australian but still... She was also too waif like she didnt stand up for herself just let the two males fight over her. It would have been different if she had just parted from both of them and gone on to be a better drifter then both of them, but then that would have not been the stereotypical character for these kind of films would it.
The main character Sean annoyed me so much I was gritting my teeth. For starters Japanese school uniform did not suit him at all, and secondly his accent drove me up the wall. It sounded like some lame impression of a Texas drawl it was awful. If that's what he sounds like in real life, my apologizes but I don't think I could listen to him for a long time in real life.
Another thing the character he is supposed to be playing is a 17 year old. With my experience 17 years olds are thin, lanky and are JUST emerging from awkward phases. This actor is no where near that, hes tall muscular confident and looks about 35. I don't why American TV does this, they place people who are in the 30's and 20's into teen roles. It took me ages to figure out why teenagers in America looked so mature and spotless compared to British teenagers.
So overall I give it 2*'s out of 5*. It was a nice change to see a completely different cultural shift but as expected with all the macho mechanics thrown in. Won't be watching again, just not for me.
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