I can’t say that I am a fan of “drifting” (or as I have called it for years: “powersliding”) so I reluctantly watched this fast pased drama about an American teenager shipped to Japan after destroying a housing project while racing the local jock. This is the anti-karate kid movie. The plot is this: aforementioned teenager must redeem himself with a Tokyo video-arcade-mafia-kingpin by drifting rice-rockets … Ulitmately teenager does redeem himself and becomes “DK” (Drift King) by racing a Mustang chassis with a heavily modified Nissan engine down a mountain to victory.

The movie was not the greatest. In HD, however, the imagery is very compelling. It is a beautifully shot movie … if you like Tokyo, Japanese school girls in next to nothing and brightly painted rice burners. I don’t like Japanese school girls or brightly colored rice burners but I liked watching the blurs of color fly through Tokyo. The point is it is a nice looking movie in HD DVD.

Unlike the script, the audio was very well put together. Probably one of the best uses of audio to create dimensions I have experienced. For instance, in a scene where our hero is walking through a club with typical house music pumping vibrantly through 5.1 channels, as he walks around the club the audio shifts from channel to channel with our hero as the central perspective. 

The extra features of Tokyo Drift take advantage of HD DVD formats and HDi. Considering this was one of the first HD DVD movies, its not surprising.

Ulitmately I cannot say that I will watch this movie again. I may keep the disc, however, just to demonstrate some of the features of HD DVD to my house guests. If you like this series, you will love this movie. If you are not into the genre or the racing, this movie will not do much for you in HD or SD. Like Grand Prix, its a niche racing movie.

ILHDDVD Rating 2/5 (Poor storyline, poor script)
Video/Image: 3/5 (brightly colored city scapes, cars, laaaaadieeeees)
Audio: 4/5 (great mix)
recommended only for picture and audio

Reader Ratings: (2 votes, average: 4 out of 5)

 Loading …

Sphere: Related Content