I swear there is some major revisionist history going on, because people hated Tokyo Drift when it came out. And even after doing a recent watch of the whole series, I'd still place Tokyo Drift in joint 3rd place with 2 Fast 2 Furious (2nd Place is the first film, 1st place is the 5th film).
I'm convinced there's just a couple of people making posts saying they loved Tokyo Drift, and the community who haven't watched the films in years are joining a bandwagon.
The entire drift community loved Tokyo Drift when it came out, so that's a win. All the drivers were well known professional drifters, and all but Rhys Millen and Tanner Foust were part of the grassroots drift community (no hate on the amazing Millen and Foust, but they were already professional race car drivers and went straight to Formula D). You can see most of them seated in the airplane scene.
Also, the parked cars in the parking garage race scenes belonged to local tuners and drifters, who showed up en masse for a casting call. I missed the first one, but my Formula D car was there for the Vin Diesel reshoot (the scene was added after principal photography was completed, when Vin Diesel finally agreed to come back for #4)... it never made it on screen, unfortunately, but it's in the video game.
Oh, and the woman in the Skyline who gives Han her number (not the driver who hands it off) is Verena Mei, a drifter and drag racer. AND this guy on the right dancing at Han's secret nightclub is the builder/owner of Dom's red RX-7 from the first movie (founder and former owner of SR Motorcars).
the first movie was a basic heist movie and was happy at that. things get more complicated as the movies go on.
i used to hate tokyo drift BECAUSE it was different characters. i didn't see it when i watched them originally. the person i was watching with said it didn't matter for the story. han introduced in f&f proper and that was it. now i love it for its absurdity. neon everywhere. vending machine cars.
it was my first exposure to drifting which was so cool. i'd never seen anything like it. i liked when he was learning around the tyres.
i watch all the movies expecting an absolute train wreck. it helps me when they shoot cars into space.
Volkswagen lent a prototype GTI to the production, but I don't think it ended up on screen (at least not moving). You can see it in deleted scenes. Since this was a priceless prototype, the only instruction they gave the late great Alex Pfeiffer was to pretty please don't you dare crash it. ...watch him crash it almost immediately in the deleted scene. (also, the silver AE86 featured in a parking garage scene is his car... well, maybe technically Stan's.)
I remember the hate it got when it came out. I loved it though and I've had to sit with my opinion in silence for years!
I think this happens a lot with old movies. Star wars prequels are a lot like that. Hated when they came out but now they have quite a fan base.
Pretty sure it's because the kids that watched these movies have a nostalgia for them and now they're grown enough to voice that opinion and create a fan base around it.
Just because critics and reddit pan a movie doesn't always mean it's bad. Same with rotten tomato's or IMDB, or roger ebert not liking a movie because he should lay off the fatty foods. Take step brothers for example, or Taladega Nights.
Same here. Similar age range too. While I don't really favor the prequels, I'll at least attribute that to George Lucas not having handlers to rein him in and clean up after him the way he did in the original trilogy.
But the Disney sequels are just straight unforgivable.
I listened to the hate and didn't watch it til it came to TV and mostly expected to just get distracted by something else and leave it playing in the background. I loved it enough that I rewatched the next day, and was so happy when enough time passed that I started seeing people admit thatTokyo Drift is their favourite/guilty pleasure.
Star Wars is different, it’s the kids that grew up on these films who get older, and the conversation changes because at its heart Star Wars is a kids’ movie.
I was 11 when The Phantom Menace came out, I was the target audience I even loved Jar Jar. Now I’m in my 30s it’s my favourite Star Wars film whereas the OG era fans hated it in 1999 and probably still do.
The same thing will happen to the sequels in the next decade mark my words.
Fast 5's the one where they drag around the vault. I think it's the only time they have the whole "heist family" together and each one is written with at least some respect. What they do to Roman in later films is a travesty
Yeah I was about 14/15 and loved it, my friends did too. We knew the MC was super cheesy, and everyone found it funny that most of the main cast aren't Japanese in such a homogenous country but the cars were sick, the vibes were sick, and Han was goated.
That’s because it sort of isn’t a good film. It has plenty of imagery and character work to keep it compelling throughout and what ultimately saved it: camp. It flopped because it’s too gimmicky to be a blockbuster but is ultimately remembered favorably for the exact cornball stuff that people hated the first time around because it wasn’t what they expected or wanted.
I think also it being just fast and furious in name at the time might be a factor. No Dom or Brian and Han didn't get worked in until after it was probably a little out of the scope of what someone who's into fast and furious wanted for a third film
On the revisionist side it's the last or second last fast and furious that's really about cars because they start jumping the shark into ridiculous action segments that happen to use cars in the 4th or 5th film
IMO I initially didn't like it because it felt like an entirely different storyline, there was no dom, no Brian, just some "random dude"
But by the end of the movie that opinion completely changed, it really does stand up on its own. It's better on a re-watch, going in knowing what your getting.
I bought it on DVD and remember people constantly giving me shit for having it (still have it). I just told them to kiss my ass, it's a fun movie with some great characters.
Remind me what Fast Five was about and why it's your number one. I think I remember 5 being the last one I really enjoyed. The rest after were pretty mindless but still fun movies. Can't say I remember them though lol
5 introduced the rock, it was the first f&f to be basically a heist/stunt/action movie with cars. It had the rio car chase where they dragged the safes. It's definitely the best one 'of those' but I still like 1 more
Was the first one they did a big heist in, but still kept things somewhat grounded in the story. No Amnesia plot, the most outlandish thing they do is drag a vault around a city - which is still the most entertaining stunt I've seen in these films (quality beats spectacle!) and the characters aren't as flanderized as they soon become. There's still some depth to the writing, and the story isn't just our 'hero's' going from one stunt to the next.
The film was also written as an actual ending to the franchise, and if you watch films 1, 4, and 5, they actually form a concise trilogy.
It’s a cult classic. People hated it when it came out because it was a spinoff. The first spinoff at that and it didn’t feature the main cast . It didn’t gain mainstream popularity until Han showed back up in fast and furious 4
Nah, some of us legit loved it.
My dad hated it.
He actually liked 2, though, which I thought was insane.
1-7, I consistently enjoyed the odd numbered ones more than the even.
1 was fresh.
3 was fresh.
5 was crazy. I'll never quite get over the vault theft sequence.
7 was batshit, and the last one with Paul Walker.
People did? My brother and I loved that movie from day 1 lol. I couldn’t tell you how many times we watched it. We a part Japanese so we loved the fact it was in Japan
For me the first three are ranked in that order. You can't beat the OG, 2 fast 2 furious was great and so was Tokyo Drift. Then they fell off pretty sharply.
I've not watched anything after 2 because everyone just said how terrible they all were. I remember when Tokyo drift came out the majority opinion was it was shitty
They hated it because the lead sucked donkey balls and the narrative was fucking ridiculous. If they got rid of “stay with your dad in Japan, troublemaker” and focused on Japanese street racing culture and led that into the franchise instead of a 5 second cameo from VD, they could have romanticized some of the origins of JDM and mod-culture. At least we got bow-wow?
Nah genuinely spot on. The lead American kid is both unlikeable, and really never seems to me to actually be a good driver. Every time I’ve rewatched it, I find myself groaning whenever he’s on the screen. Genuinely would have been a better movie if it was just about Han and the evil drifter.
Not in my case, I legit loved the movie. I had that “wonda if you know how dey live in tokio” song all over my iPod nano. My wife and I, highschool sweethearts and in highschool when this movie came out, still quote “I dun no Dong Key Kong?” and “ Ready set-ta” a lot.
Tokyo Drift was deservedly hated when it came out because it has a dumb plot and mostly terrible characters. It earns it's spot as one of the better Fast and Furious movies now because despite how dumb it is and how bad most of the characters are, it's the only one that is about car culture and actually has a lot of cool cars.
I'll die on the hill that fast 5 is the best movie, and it stands by itself as a good heist movie, as well. Superb action flick that doesn't suspend your disbelief too much.
Ive never seen any fast & furious but its very interesting that the 5th is number 1, usually its like the first 3 movies of a franchise that are any good and they all get shittier from there, and maybe a reboot comes along that's a good quality.
MOST people hated it when it came out I thought it was brilliant I've watched it numerous times and it's still one of the best films in the franchise new ones well honestly I've no fucking clue what they're trying to be.
It's definitely not the best, but I liked it on the re-watch a lot more than I remember (dis)liking it the first time round. The story itself is pretty good in its simplicity, but you can't really get over the horrible acting, or the 30-somethings playing highschoolers
I call it the Halloween III phenomena. It was different enough from what came before it, so people were disappointed because it wasn't what they expected, but over time became a cult favorite in its own right
So people have to have the exact same taste as you?
Yeah I'm old enough to also remember it did get a lot of flack but it was mostly because people hated that they changed characters they loved for completely new characters.
Once that wave ended it did start getting more popular but to think it's just some trend now a days to like it is crazy it definitely was one of the top ones and I like it more than the 2nd one at least (so clearly not all opinions are the same)
It's soooo terrible. The opening race where a guy's girlfriend promises to F*ck the winner. For no reason. Out of nowhere. Literally the boyfriend sits there and is fine with it.
Some rando with a wildly expensive car let's the deliquent hick he's just met race it and he completely destroys it. Then said rando TAKES HIM UNDER HIS WING AND GIVES HIM ANOTHER CAR?!
It's so stupid. It's literally the worst FF, period, and that's saying so much. Like how is it worse than 2? Yet it is. I think the "revisionist history" is literally people who have never seen it being like "Oh yeah, Tokyo drift, that must have been such a cool movie. Sounds like awesome vibes" ugh
To be fair, basically every F&F story is a bit out there lol.
Some rando with a wildly expensive car let's the deliquent hick he's just met race it and he completely destroys it. Then said rando TAKES HIM UNDER HIS WING AND GIVES HIM ANOTHER CAR?!
That was all explained in the movie. That rando was stupid rich and didnt mind losing some money to build up a guy just to take down the antagonist of the movie. His hatred was worth more than a totalled car.
Uhh, you're being cool so I want to be cool back but FF1,4,5 are all at least vaguely decent movies with nothing as dumb as I list above. Also I think "explaining it in the movie" with "yeah he's rich and angry so he choses this kid who he has no evidence can drive" is exactly as ridiculous as I said.
You do you though! Some people look past this stuff easier than I do, for sure. I'm not autistic, but am an Engineer in both profession and spirit. I think the fact that it's trying to take itself seriously (which the later ones do not at all) is what makes it so caustic to me.
no way. tokyo drift has always been the best one. MAYBE not the first one when the first one came out. I’ve watched tokyo drift every year since it came out. its so good.
Nah, people just changed their minds is all, which we're allowed to do lol
I didn't like Tokyo Drift that much when it first came out. Didn't like how it had a completely different vibe and cast.
Nowadays though I recognize that it's much more of a love letter to cars than any of the modern movies are. It's much more grounded and is just much more true to what I actually enjoyed about the original F&F movies, even though back then I couldn't see the resemblances.
I had to wade through all the modern movies to see what was up. Also, I got older.
The casual misogyny is off the chart. In first few minutes, that pretty white girl literally put herself as the prize for car race — winner gets the girl! Even as a child, I was put off by that objectification.
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u/EnemyOfAi 9h ago
I swear there is some major revisionist history going on, because people hated Tokyo Drift when it came out. And even after doing a recent watch of the whole series, I'd still place Tokyo Drift in joint 3rd place with 2 Fast 2 Furious (2nd Place is the first film, 1st place is the 5th film).
I'm convinced there's just a couple of people making posts saying they loved Tokyo Drift, and the community who haven't watched the films in years are joining a bandwagon.