'The Fast & The Furious 3: Tokyo Drift'
(Lucas Black, Bow Wow, Brian Tee, Sung Kang, Jason Tobin, et al / NR / 82 mins / Universal)
Overview: Street racer Sean Boswell (Black) is sent to live with his estranged father, a military officer stationed in Tokyo. Sean doesn't exactly fit in, until an American buddy, Twinkie (Bow Wow), introduces him to the underground world of drift racing. In his first race, Sean unknowingly takes on the Drift King, a local champ with ties to the Yakuza, Japan's organized crime ring.
Verdict: OK, and from the off you should know that Paul Walker isn't in it! However, his replacement Lucas Black ('Jarhead'), has more charisma in his left thumb than Walker has in his entire glowering body! The coolest thing about this movie (aside from the fact that it looks like one of Gwen Stefani's erotic dreams) is that it's predicated on the knowledge that everybody is so uncomfortably cramped and on top of each other in Japan that you can't even have a normal drag race anywhere. They have to do them in underground parking garages and then drive sideways (the "drift" of the title) to make the very sharp turns. Then, like everything else in youth pop culture there, it becomes a gang with its own micro-culture. So yes it's a heck of a ride, unintentionally amusing along with massive bouts of intense vehicular mayhem and high-octane homoeroticism, but at the end of the day it's also unadulterated auto-porn ... so beware!
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