“Life’s simple. You make choices and you don’t look back.”

Han Lue | The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006)

After series of successful movie installments through out the years from 2001 till this date, The Fast & Furious is back! Last 20th of May 2021, Universal Studios has released it’s 9th installment for Fast & Furious. And another plot has emerged.

Synopsis

Dominic Toretto and his crew are facing a new battle against a skilled assassin which happens to be Dom’s brother, Jakob, who most of his friends never knew about until this day. The revolves on sibling rivalry and lots of back stories about the Toretto family and mostly, how the siblings grew apart, forgetting that each other even existed.

Okay, let me pause this for a while in here coz if you haven’t watched neither of the old movies nor this latest one, then you might want to step back and think about it before you click ‘more” coz when you click that button, you’re gonna open a grand spoiler alert.

so here it is… click more, if you’re ready to be blown away!

Plot and Characters

We all know the main lead of the movie series, right? Well, on the first movie, the late Paul Walker who played Brian O’Conner and Dominic Toretto played by Vin Diesel are the main lead and with Dom’s sister, Mia played by Jordana Brewster, and then Letty which is played by Michelle Rodriguez. Those are the main cast on the F1 and then each sequels have additional characters who ends up joining Dom’s crew until we are left with the cast of F9 which includes, Roman Pearce played by Tyrese Gibson, Tej Parker played by Ludcaris, Ramsey played by Nathalie Emmanuel and then comes the two special come back among the series! Yeah, I’m gonna mention them later…this is a delayed gratification!

So the plot is pretty much the same but this time there’s no going aorund the bush but instead the whole entire film was filled with action which I find interesting coz sometimes I hate dead air (scenes that don’t have much relevance) and I would like to commend how they managed to connect all the series of movies that F&F had and just basically put them in one who flashback of a film, like you’re just gonna tell to yourself while watching “Oh yeah, so that’s what it is all about!” Like yeah there are so many revelations! And I’m gonna begin with the flashbacks. Apparently, not all of them know that Dominic and Mia have another sibling which is coincidentally the most skilled assassin that they’re fighting against. Cool, right? Like in the first movie, it’s only Mia and Dom… but they were able to mask all the scenes into one epic flashback. Yeah, so Jakob Toretto is played by John Cena, yes, I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s like…make sense.

Jakob was apparently emancipated (if that’s what you call it) after their father died in a race crash which Dominic believed that was caused by Jakob so through out the years the hatred and grudge that they feel against each other is quite valid. Dominic lived his life without telling a soul about his brother and Jakob lived a life trying to become better than his older brother…nice combo for a plot! But obviously, F&F movies are focused on family so I wasn’t surprised that at the end Jakob became part of their family again but it is also greatly portrayed how non-family members can break your trust. That’s for you to watch coz yeah it’s Cipher played by Charlize Theron is still there and boy…I really hate that she’s THAT smart!

So now I’m gonna overload you with so much spoiler!!!

First, let me try to give you the correct order timeline on how to watch all the Fast and Furious movies before watching F9;

1. Fast and Furious (2001)
2. The Turbo-Charged Prelude for 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)
3. 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)
4. Los Bandoleros (2009)
5. Fast and Furious 4 (2009)
6. Fast Five (2011)
7. Fast & Furious 6 (2013)
8. The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006)
9. Furious 7 (2015)
10. The Fate of the Furious 8 (2017)
11. Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs and Shaw (2019)

My most favorite movie of them all is the Tokyo Drift and that is why I’m so excited about the characters that are in the latest F&F movie. If you watched F6 you’ll noticed that Han is alive, so you’re gonna be confused coz basically we all know that Han Lue played by Sung Kang died in a car explosion but that was in Tokyo Drift that’s why in the list of order I mentioned, Tokyo Drift should be watched after F6 not before. And we also meet Sean Boswell played by Lucas Black in the same movie, Tokyo Drift as the main character; these two great characters are apparently still existing in F9!!! Like W-T-F!!! ( Yeah of course I know he’s alive especially they revealed that on the trailer!!!)

It was then and there when Letty said, “Remember what Han always say about Japan?” uh-huh!

“Han : Well, you know those old Westerns where the cowboys make a run for the border? This is my Mexico”

Yeah! It was epic because he’s my favorite character of all especially Tokyo Drift that’s why I’m getting a little bit geeky about it here on my moview. Well, not to mention that Sean is back and their reunion was like “waterworks!”

Well, next is, the young Dominic Toretto played by Vinnie Bennett and Jakob Toretto played by Finn Cole; they look so much like Dom and Jakob like yaaas! The whole casting was just epic, yeah? I mean I love all of them. It was just sad Paul isn’t there anymore, F9 couldn’t been more fun if he’s around.

Now let’s go on the main reason why we are here…

The Verdict

Character build up, I love it! Flashbacks, I certainly dig it! But there’s something that got me hitting off the no-no-button! It’s how Fast and Furious became a little unrealistic every year. You know why? In the first movie they were using NOS – Nitrous oxide can be heated and used as an oxidizer propellant, making it useful for rockets and mechanical engines which made it more into ‘yeah it’s different kind of movie thing’ so it’s normal, can be produced and all until they reach Tokyo Drift, well I guess until Fast 6 it was okay but later on maybe because of the technology, stunts became a little more aggressive and of course that’s what the movie is all about but Roman Pearce was right, he even said in F9 that through out the years of doing what they do, it’s like they became invincible like they never die. He was one of the characters who in the entire duration of F&F had vigorous and death defying stunts.

Just like in F8, he was saved by Tej in the snow when he was driving this orange Lambo, right? And then in F9, he miraculously, was able to dodge lots of bullets and even a tank falling in his head…it bwas literally the funniest thing in the movie and of course at the end of the day, it’s like magic how Tej and Roman were able to be in space with no scratch at all. Like I said, it became a little unrealistic than I expected it to be. I even have one friend from snapchat who said that F9 felt like movies from other countries already because the unrealistic events that happened which I kind of agree because I’ve watched some of those movies he mentioned and yes, it came to the point it really felt like really impossible. Oh well, it’s a movie so it can be as unrealistic as it can get but all I wanted to say that they should’ve stick into this theme of cars, racing, FBI thing and action not invincible characters roaming around that can’t be killed at all. Right?

And I should mention the most epic scene in the whole F&F timeline is the race of Dom and Brian against the train!!! That’s what hooked me up with the movie! I was in Grade school when my parents rented a VHS Tape of Fast and Furious and boy, that was the first time I watched it and that was the scene I will never forget and that’s what I call realistic! Tell me it’s not your fave scene too?!

But all in all, the movie is epic as usual, I love it, I like how they managed to fix the timeline and bring back some good old characters.

I believe, if I’m not mistaken there will be Fast and Furious 10 (well we all see that there’s more to come on the post credit scenes) but F10 will be a two part long finale which was confirmed by the director Justin Lin. So I guess they’re gonna be putting up more stunts and hopefully will see more reunions and yeah, can you bring Suki back? Coz I like her! She’s the cutest of all the lady drivers we had in F&F!

Well, folks! Imma give this a 90% wonderroanne rating!

For those who haven’t watched it, here’s the trailer!