The Fast and The Furious gets the Hong Kong treatment, but will this appeal to anyone other than boy racers?…
So many attempts to make live action versions of Japanese manga seem to stall in first gear, it’s difficult to understand why by Hong Kong filmmakers find them such an attractive starting point. Let’s look at the track record: The Wicked City, City Hunter, The Dragon From Russia (aka Crying Freeman) and The Peacock King (soon to be released on DVD in the UK). On the whole the films are a mixed bunch, and only partially successful at best.
And yet movies made from Hong Kong’s own source material have found far greater success, whether that be the martial arts novels of 30s and 40s of writers like Lee Sau-Man, as with Zu: The Warriors of Magic Mountain, or the more recent manwa (Chinese manga) of Ma Wing Shing, like on The Storm Riders and A Man Called Hero.
Which brings us neatly to director Andrew Lau – together with Infernal Affairs collaborator Alan Mak – and the latest manga adaption, Initial D. But does it make it all the way to the finish line?
Taiwanese teen pop idol Jay Chou stars as Takumi, a shy student in the daytime, he delivers tofu for his father (Anthony Wong) at night, having adopted the ‘driftracing’ technique – where the car is put into a controlled slide around corners without losing speed – simply to get home from Mount Akina more quickly.
His prowess brings him to the attention of Takeshi Nakazato (Shawn Yue), leader of the Nightkids racing gang, who has challenged Ryousuke Takahashi (Edison Chen) to become the best street racer of them all. Takumi, however, is more interested in pursuing long-time crush on fellow student Natsuki (Anne Suzuki).
Soon Takumi finds himself inescapably drawn to his destiny on the dangerous curves of Mount Akina in a turbo charged finale…
There’s no doubting the thrilling, full throttle technique directors Andrew Lau and Alan Mak bring to shooting the racing along the perilous mountain curves. Though it’s effectively the same stretch of road throughout the movie, they manage to bring a different angle to it each time. The only trouble is they don’t take their foot off the pedal even off the road. The result is a non-stop montage of jump cuts, slow-mo, effects, and freeze frames to the point that you almost feel woozy. Style over substance? Definitely. But isn’t that the point of this exercise?
Unlike some of Lau’s earlier effort’s, such as his thinly veiled live action version of the Tekken game The Avenging Fist, Mak’s influence keeps the script from becoming too messy, even if their approach veers to close to slapstick, particularly in the character of Itsuki, played by Chapman To.
Often, you wonder if the comedy goes too far. Does it start to make a little too much fun out of Japanese tradition? The characters almost become parodies you might have expected out of films from the seventies and eighties. Considering the relationship between Hong Kong, China and Japan, which has always been awkward at best (as shown most recently when Memoirs Of A Geisha was banned in China), was the choice of source material such a good idea?
Drawing largely on their successful Infernal Affairs series for the cast, once again it’s Anthony Wong that makes the biggest impression. His character is largely detestable, a bully and a drunk who takes out his anger at having his wife left him on his son, yet by the final reel Wong instils enough sensitivity into the character to make him sympathetic. Were the creators are just trying to come up with a new vehicle (pun intended) for him, or does he just make it his own?
For the UK release, the film has been stripped of it’s Jay Chou led power ballads for a completely new soundtrack by Fuel. It has to be said, though I wouldn’t normally condone such actions – after all, it can so easily lead to the Disney/Miramax situation where a film is cut to shreds and dubbed – the new tracks are bangin’, as they might say on the street. (If they happen to be in their mid-thirties, maybe!) It genuinely adds a great amount of appeal to the work.
Initial D is an enjoyable take on The Fast and The Furious genre. Really it’s a lot better than it should be, though I can’t see it bringing a new audience to the Infernal Affairs series (or vice versa). It was such a great success a the Hong Kong box office, out grossing War Of The Worlds and Batman Begins, that the Fast and Furious series has jumped on the drift racer bandwagon for the third film in the series, Toyko Drift, which opens in the UK in July. Of course, we know exactly what to expect there, so do you yourself a favour and stick with this!
DVD details
Distributor: Optimum Home Entertainment (UK)
Just in time to steal the thunder from UK theatrical release of The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift (if there was any?) the UK DVD edition of Initial D sees an abundance of features aimed directly at the 'boy racer' market. Richie Warren of Fuel, who produced the new UK soundtrack, and Dan Joyce of Dirty Sanchez provide a real racing aficionados audio commentary. Elsewhere we follow auto-enthusiasts Fuel as they drive round racetracks, etc.
Honestly, it's hard to see the appeal of such features for those of us not keen on stick our heads under car bonnets for long periods of time, sticking colossal speakers in our boots or attaching ultraviolet lights underneath our cars? Let's not forget this is a highly enjoyable film whether you are a boy racer or not, so thrillingly filmed that it's work a thousand Hollywood Fast And Furious clones.
The package seems a little light on the wealth of extras you'd have though were available to Premier Asia. True, there are interviews with the directors and leading cast members, docs and footage from the Asian launch press conference (always a sign of desperation!) - but where are the outtakes and deleted scenes included on the original HK (and subsequent US) releases?
The DVD itself is a great transfer with superb sound quality. And thankfully, Premier Asia have taken advantage of the medium by also including the original music soundtrack - though for once you might want to stick Fuel's 'banging' new effort!
