My thoughts: "Great eye candy, very entertaining, and finally a storyline that holds better than the last two - enjoy it for what it is and don't attack it for what its not... :-)"

i went to see it with the g/f tonight... i have to say, it was great entertainment ! the story line was much much improved over the previous two... storyline ? yes it had one, loyalties were made and broken, tears were shed, cars got smashed... no pretending they can drift from birth without destroying their cars ... in fact, i cringed many times as cars got demolished during a attempted drift and as cars crashed many times during chases...

it seemed much more realistic and yet maybe not so to us here in America... after all, we know racing as out pulling someone in terms of horsepower...

and yes, the ricers are going nuts ! ever seen front wheel drive hondas trying to drift ? i did today... needless to say i drove my crossfire normally after the movie, drifting seems very expensive after seeing it done... if you don't crash you'll at least need a new set of tires every other day...

oh and who was making fun of bow wow ? he did a helluva job in his role... acted like the clown he was in it not trying to be all thuggin... his ride is pimp too... :P haha

btw, when vin came on... everyone cheered.

all in good fun... cinema as it should be... but i will miss the fact that i did not pickup any memorable lines from this one like i did from the first one...

"its not how you stand by your car..." "pop the hood... pop the hood ?" "now i'm in your face !" "you owe me a ten second car..." - those where classic, ah well, no real funnies in this one...

so remember, Gaijing (literally, foreign devil) ! go see it, and enjoy it for what it is, good eye candy and entertainment... the scenery alone was worth it (great job mixing it all considering all the action was filmed in the hills of LA!) and it felt as if the movie really took place in Tokyo...

 

The opening race had some quick shots of a silver SRT-6 convertible. Too bad it wasn't involved in any of the races.

 

^ betcha they tried it and it owned the other cars in the straight (the rx7's where all running in limp mode haha) and then they tried to drift it and the ASM was like "nah ah no you don't" and the traction control was like "what you think you doin ?" ... so they used it as a extra. :P ok not really.

 

Overall it was alot better than the first two. Except that they WRECKED A VIPER. If you are going to wreck a car why not just go out and get a C6 corvette and give the viper to me; I would treat it right.

 

Ha, I was actually thinking the same thing when I saw there was one used. They should have used the Crossfire Drifter. I bet that would have actually boosted some Crossfire sales, opened it up to a different crowd.

Crossfire Drifter:

 

Yep, that's all we need is a bunch of riced out Crossfires running around town. The car has already hit rock bottom selling 10k below invoice, making it an affordable car to almost anyone that wants one. Might as well rice them out and bring down the experience of owning a limited production vehicle that turns heads everywhere it goes a few more notches.

It amazes me how this car went from a hot show car with a MSRP of $35,000 when it was introduced, to one that... never mind.

 

you seem very bitter about anyone that would modify one of these cars... its not god's gift to automotive engineering so why not improve upon it ? the look is great so it needs little help ... but seeing the huge selection of chrome accessories for it, i can't wait to see some new stuff done to it cause i hate chrome...

its not like someone is going to treat it like a civic and buy a $50 dollar spoiler...

 

Don't worry about the Viper being wrecked, it was an insurance total that was patched up enough to be driven to be wrecked again.

John

 

Not bitter, just don't want to see a classic designed ruined. No ricer spoiler? Take a look at the picture again.

 

i would rather see CARS again. than waste my money seeing any of the FnF trio.

they're absolutely ridiculous. i was going to give the first one a chance; ten minutes into the movie some guys on bikes pulled over some other guy in a car at gunpoint. that was it; movie went off. that's all the civic crowd needs is more ideas...

[rant over]

 

Good Rant!!!

 

that's the problem with the first and second one... it really had the traditional bad guys that are total badas*es and show no feelings... very much unlike what real people are...

this one the new director made sure that the bad guys where very human like, no one goes on a shooting spree thinking they are invulnerable... in fact the few times you see a gun it is a very intense moment for the bad guys and the good guys alike... what you do see is a much needed reality check to the movie series by director Justin Lin, some top notch driving that was directed by a great man in the scene, Toshi Hayama, who has been judging competitions all over the US and cameo appearances by Keiichi Tsuchiya, the real life drift king.

the worst part about this movie is that the reputation of the previous two has forever tarnished the name of the series making people not give this one a chance. the previous two movies where all hollywood and no real technical directors worth a second look. from the scene where splinter "topped out" in his eclipse where he upshifted 7 times before doing so (7 speed manual ? i want one), to the times where the techie dude was looking in the rear of the engine compartment commenting on the size of the turbo (4g63 has the turbo mounted on the front of the engine), to the comment by ja rule "he has enough NOS in there to blow himself up" or the nitrous exploding scene (nitrous oxide is a non flammable gas, the only way it would blow up is if the bottle was super compressed or super heated, such as by a semi smashing into the bottle and pinning it against a wall or by letting it burn in fuel for a very long time till the internal PSI was higher than the bottles holding ability)... they where riddled with technical mistakes, hollywood flash, and countless of other things done wrong... but it was a entertaining movie...

now we have tokyo drift come out and everyone expects the same and is brutally prejudice against it before seeing it... or worse yet, see it with their eyes shut and keep judging... which really doesn't sit well with me because this director did a great job hiring the right technical director and getting new actors that did not think they where too big to live the lifestyle for many months and learn it (many of the actors where sent to their "drift school" to learn to drift actually even though they did not actually do any of the driving just to give it a authentic feel... they watched drift videos with the technical director when they hung out after working hours... and overall immersed themselves in the world) along with the biggest names in the drift racing world to drive the cars ... yet, his work will not be given the chance...

man, and i don't even like drift racing... but i DO appreciate a smart director who sees a movie series that should be better and makes it better...

 

Intense - I saw the first one, and I got exactly what I expected out that experience, a money making film for the tuner market that doesn't promote irresponsible driving (yeah right) that would make a ton of dough. I never bothered with the second one. My problem with this series is it basically supports and promotes insanely dangerous driving without much consideration of consequences or responsibility. I've just had my fill of death and injury of friends and people I've known by either their own misdeeds or by those of others in cars. You and I both know that while the movie never "promotes" this type of activity...it really does and that's totally irresponsible.

As for the latest installment. I don't really see the attraction of drifting. It's like the synchronized swimming of the auto world. Great skill in doing it, but who cares, (obviously there's a lot of folks that do) it just doesn't do anything for me.

 

haha yea you hit it right on the money with the synchronized swimming deal... i guess the appeal to me is that its nice to look at on the big screen but when i go driving i'll stick with grip in the corners cause as you said, sliding 30k through a blind turn is not really exciting, just nerve wrecking.

i wish what you said about it promoting that kind of driving was not true, as it is only a movie meant to entertain, but we all know there are those small brained rodents (i believe the ricer variety of the rodent family in the science books) that have small brains and do imitate big screen entertainment...