Okay, after like half a month of hiatus (from me) I’m back! Been caught up in schoolwork, family activities and that’s when laziness kicks in! Anyways back to the review…
I was talking to Tammy about Chinese movies a while back. She told me she had Initial D and considering the fact that it was quite popular I asked her to burn it for me. I know I know, this movie has been released two years ago so why am I doing the review now? Again, because I’ve been lazy and I’m bored and I’m a noob :)
Main cast: Jay Chou, Anthony Wong, Edison Chen, Anne Suzuki, Shawn Yue etc
Length: 110 minutes
Released: 23, June 2005
Language: Chinese
Jay Chou and his AE86
Synopsis
Taking place in the Gunma prefecture in Japan, the film concerns a young tofu-delivery driver named Takumi Fujiwara. He has incredible skill in taking on the hairpin curves of Mt. Akina (Mt. Haruna in real-life). The film chronicles his evolution from an uninterested delivery boy into a hardened touge racer.
Takumi drives his father’s (Bunta) Toyota Sprinter Trueno GT-APEX (AE86). It is seemingly unmodified but is perfectly suited for the downhill corners of Mt. Akina and gains the attention of local street racers all across the prefecture. Some ultimately challenge Takumi to battles on Akina’s downhill. Ryousuke Takahashi, a driver of the Mazda RX-7 (FC3S) helps out Takumi along the way by giving him advice. While following the path of a street racer, Takumi must deal with his alcoholic father and his girlfriend who secretly engages in compensated dating.
Okay now, why does Jay’s hair look red here?
My thoughts
I watched this movie days after I watched The fast and furious: Tokyo Drift. Even though I watched Tokyo Drift first, I like Initial D better (no, it’s not because Initial D is in Chinese, I’m not THAT biased)
The cast is okay I guess. Jay Chou’s Cantonese sucked. It was crappy, even I can do much better. Yes I know, he mostly speaks mandarin but who cares? Shouldn’t he get his pronunciation for his Cantonese correct before he takes on a male lead? Edison and Shawn characters really suits them. They both give off that ‘cool’ aura. I disliked Anne’s character, and the thing with her having sex with that old man was purely disgusting. Thank god it didn’t show them doing it, it just showed her after when she was wearing her bath robes. Ehh, still yuck ><
It was set in Japan so the scenery was beautiful. It looked really cool :D The drifting was done quite well in my opinion, I’ve never actually seen real drifting but that was what I expected drifting to look like. However, it was really obvious that the cast weren’t actually drifting the cars, the camera was mostly focused on the back/side of the cars drifting or on the driver’s face when he was ’supposedly drifting’
One of the funny scenes. Look at the car Chapman is racing in compared to the one next to it!
I haven’t read the manga before so I don’t know if the movie was EXACTLY like the manga. I doubt it though, it’s pretty hard to copy everything off a manga. This movie was more serious than funny. Chapman To played his part really well. He was probably the only comic relief and it did break up the tension in this movie. There was alot of music in this movie and most of them didn’t have lyrics. However it really suited the movie well. Okay, I don’t know what to write now. T__T
Overall
7.5/10. It did fulfill my 2 hours of boredom with some action and comedy but seeing as I’m not that fond of the cast, I didn’t think it was that good. I would recommend it to people who liked Tokyo Drift (because they were really similar) and people that’s interested in cars or maybe people who are Edison/Jay/Shawn etc fans. And mind you, I’m not one of them.
The two dads
I haven’t seen it but OH Suzuki Anne, the Stand Up!! chick!
“the thing with her having sex with that old man”
…
Okay
hahah she does, thats why they break up, she has sex with this man that give her and her mum money cause her dad dies and stuff. idunno really confusing
My favorite Chinese movie EVER, now I want to watch it again :)
I think it’s one of those movies that makes most sense if you’ve seen the original story beforehand (manga or anime) but still fun without the backstory. The movie is similar to the manga but seems to pick and choose scenes from roughly the first 10 volumes.
Tokyo Drift obviously was trying to ride on the success of Initial D in my opinion but I enjoyed both movies :S
This comment is really poorly thoughtout, sorry xD
LOL! hate the cast so much mans, i used to like edison but he really peeves me off now, not going to even bother to watch it.. on the other hand Lust Caution is muhc more interesting WANG LEE HOM! xD
Evee-LOL! edison has alot of fangirls. It’s alright i guess, i can let you borrow it? and guess what? For chinese school graduation thing we’re dancing and singing to some S.H.E and Wang Lee Hom songs. ZOMG.
Daelite- I don’t think Tokyo Drift was that good. It was quite violent and those Jap people in it spoke broken english T___T (and they weren’t even good looking, in fact they were ugly!)
lol… I had to write a paper of Tokyo Drift on whether or not it properly projected aspects of Japanese culture. Looking at it scholarly it actually hits on some pretty big things and does a decent job of it (Though you never would expect it!). My biggest disappointment with it is that they filmed most of it in Little Tokyo, California as opposed to Japan. :|
AHAH like i said selina. GOD HELP YOU. xD but i hate edison so much now, he’s so immature and i just wanna hit him i swear, he’s abusive and violent and arghh grow up . sorry to any edison fan girls out there. =.=
wow … i appreciate that u write an old released movie with the same enthusiastic like that :D this movie had been released 2 years ago, yet i haven’t watch since i thought it was an action movie (hummm … i don’t like that kind). well, since it’s a comedy, i’ll seek for it :D
the main reason is … i love jay. well, reading ur expression, it suggests that however the brainy musician like him has also a minus side … his cantonese accent xD … alright-alright … thanks for sharing
did jay sing for this movie?
Daelite: LOL! didn’t they film it in Tokyo? That’s a shame then, it should be called California Drift or something =P
Evee: hahah, edison isn’t that famous anymore..is he?
Inda:thank you! I quite enjoyed this move that’s why i reviewed it. There’s MANY old movies that i love but can’t find places to download it =(
Haha your a Jay fan? Then i suggest you watch this, it’s pretty good and no Jay didn’t sing for this movie. Most of the songs were in some fast english rap or something or had no lyrics. It’s not ALL comedy but there’s a few parts which cracks me up but it’s leaning more to serious attitude.