The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (PG-13, 2006)

Young Sean (Lucas Black) is in fast trouble, racing a bully in order to "win" a girl, which leads immediately to Sean's punishment: he's sent to live with his grumpy father (Brian Goodman, who played the grumpy father in director Justin Lin's last movie, Annapolis). When dad, a Navy lifer, lays down strict rules, Sean disobeys immediately: he finds the jaunty car scene and a new form of driving called drift (a photogenic form of racing where the car slides along the pavement sideways, the driver shifting, braking, and steering like a madman, typically undertaken on parking garage ramps). He also makes two new friends, an "Army brat" and charming super-salesman named Twinkie (Bow Wow), and a philosophical crook and playboy, Han (Sung Kang, who also appeared in Lin's Better Luck Tomorrow as a guy named Han). Encouraged to think through his choices (why does he race? Why does he rebel?), Sean becomes a better racer and smarter rebel. He also falls in love with a girl, Neela (Nathalie Kelley), who happens to be attached to the villain, D.K. (Brian Tee).

Slick and shiny, THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS: TOKYO DRIFT is part coming-of-age tale, part auto show, and part parade of girls in high school uniforms. The eye candy is generic, but the race scenes are terrific, inventive and witty (even as they occasionally end in crashes).

Because D.K. is the nephew of a Yakuza (Sonny Chiba, looking dapper in white suit and fedora), he has money and a sense of privilege, which means he's determined to take down Sean. They race repeatedly, make mean faces at each other, and compete for Neela's loyalty. While the movie pays some attention to Sean's "outsider" status as a Gajin in Japan, for the most part, he's another triumphant American in a strange land. Upfront about its generic stereotypes (villain is grim, hero earnest, girl pretty), the film glories in its gorgeous action sequences: plot becomes irrelevant.