Language: Chinese with English & Chinese Subtitles
Running Time: 1 hr 52 mins
Distributor: Scorpio East Entertainment

Genre: Action/Comics
Starring:Jay Chou, Edison Chen, Anthony Wong, Shawn Yue, Kenny Bee,
Chapman To, Anne Suzuki
Director: Andrew Lau & Alan Mak
Rating: PG

SYNOPSIS:

For five years, 18-year old Takumi has been delivering tofu in his father’s obsolescent Toyota AE86 every morning. Not only has he become an outstanding racer, but he has also unwittingly perfected the art of drifting. He was never partial to hill racing until he is nudged by his father to drive his AE86 in a David and Goliath race against RX-7 FD. A glorious but unexpected victory awakens the competitive genes in his body, while his overnight fame inevitably leads to hell-raising races one after another, each one more perilous and exciting than the previous one.

DISC REVIEW :

Come commune with the world of street racing high up in the spiral mountain road. Location: Japan. Time to send your adrenaline rushing.

Jay Chou, plays a modest 17 year-old racing whiz (Takumi Fujiwara) who has unintentionally risen from absolute obscurity to become a sought-after competitor in his hometown. His level of skills has even surpassed that of a professional racer. Jay’s amateur performance as a lead actor, has proven to be unexpectedly wonderful. Seemingly, Jay is not acting but merely being himself. A naturalistic style.

Sharing the same is the equally cool, eye-catching pair, Edison Chen (Ryousuke Takanhashi) and Shawn Yue (Takeshi Nakazato). And to pipe it up, with Jordan Chan (Kyouichi Sudou), the show climaxed off with a ferocious trio street-race, taking part in the narrow, winding mountain road.

Nearly stole the limelight is Anthony Wong’s invariably strong screen presence in his undeniably outstanding performance as Jay’s dad, Takumi-Senior. His versatility always allows him to transform him into every role he played. He has convinced the audience by being an ordinary bean curd maker in the day and a drunkard at night. However, behind these facades, he is a skilful racing master who has his heyday before. And has been training his son, Takumi, to be a formidable racer in his daily pre-dawn mundane beancurd delivery.

Though race-driving might be the main theme of this movie, the road of self-discovery and mutual understanding of father-and-son relationships are evident between Takumi and Takumi-Senior. To double the dosage, we have the weird but interesting pair played by Chapman To and Kenny Bee.

Against the set of this male-dominated cast, beautiful Japanese actress, Anne Suzuki, sugared it with her on-screen romance with the lead-man, Takumi. Would this seemingly sweet relationship blossom further?

Director Andrew Lau has used a combination of techniques like selected flashbacks, split screens that effortlessly created the feeling of watching the one-dimensional manga, Initial D, coming alive on the screen. Overall effects, apart from its English soundtracks, are satisfactory. Some interesting jargons and techniques of car racing are used and discussed in the movie.

**The original VCD features quite a few trailers & comes with a set of the individual cast adorned magnet**

MOVIE RATING:

(A sure-time audience pleaser with an all-star cast)


Review by Alicia Tee