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Initial D (2005) - Directed by Andrew Lau Wai-keung and Alan Mak
"It all depends... on the last consecutive hairpins."
My love of racing doesn't go back to Hot Wheels like most kids. It goes back to two things: R.C. Pro-Am on NES, and an anime called F-Zero: GP Legend, which was inspired by another Nintendo game. Overtime I would stumble upon Initial D during an anime binge, but before I checked it out, I tried the movie. I got bored with it and quit about 40 minutes in. I liked the anime, but years later I finally finished the movie.
A pair of new street racers in town want to set unbeatable records all across Japan, and they've got the skills to do it. But when the younger one is beaten by a cheap tofu-selling AE86 out of nowhere on Mt. Akina, he wants a rematch. Turns out, that car's been delivering tofu there for five years. The defending team asks the owner of the car, the owner of the local tofu shop and ex-street racing legend, to defend their turf. But instead, it's his son, Takumi, who reveals he's actually been delivering tofu for five years despite just getting his license a couple weeks ago. And so the street racing legend begins.
I like the show enough. It captures real character development and the street racing attitude. But this movie? Not so much. I love Chinese cinema and I have faith in them to do good adaptations, but this was not one of them.
The whole movie showed the camera pausing shots while the audio went on for no reason other than "cool cinematography," and it was so utterly random that it got older than a Shyamalan movie. The only thing the cinematographer did right was capture the spirit of the street race during the racing scenes. But everything else was directed like a 100-minute 2000's music video. It was way too much.
Technically, the movie is incredibly faithful to the show, but the story of the manga is so rushed (no racing pun intended) that the character development falls incredibly flat. Where's Kiesuke's brash attitude? How come Iketani barely gets any screen time, even though he's the leader of the Akina Speedstars who are defending their turf? As a result, all we get is a bunch of racing and typical teen drama between Takumi, his dumbass best friend who's overplayed, and Natsuki who just feels like a random flat girl character.
The movie's watchable and decently acted, but directed like a twelve-year-old's fever dream and flat on character. I don't think you need to watch the Initial D movie unless you're a huge fan of the anime or the manga.
"It all depends... on the last consecutive hairpins."
My love of racing doesn't go back to Hot Wheels like most kids. It goes back to two things: R.C. Pro-Am on NES, and an anime called F-Zero: GP Legend, which was inspired by another Nintendo game. Overtime I would stumble upon Initial D during an anime binge, but before I checked it out, I tried the movie. I got bored with it and quit about 40 minutes in. I liked the anime, but years later I finally finished the movie.
A pair of new street racers in town want to set unbeatable records all across Japan, and they've got the skills to do it. But when the younger one is beaten by a cheap tofu-selling AE86 out of nowhere on Mt. Akina, he wants a rematch. Turns out, that car's been delivering tofu there for five years. The defending team asks the owner of the car, the owner of the local tofu shop and ex-street racing legend, to defend their turf. But instead, it's his son, Takumi, who reveals he's actually been delivering tofu for five years despite just getting his license a couple weeks ago. And so the street racing legend begins.
I like the show enough. It captures real character development and the street racing attitude. But this movie? Not so much. I love Chinese cinema and I have faith in them to do good adaptations, but this was not one of them.
The whole movie showed the camera pausing shots while the audio went on for no reason other than "cool cinematography," and it was so utterly random that it got older than a Shyamalan movie. The only thing the cinematographer did right was capture the spirit of the street race during the racing scenes. But everything else was directed like a 100-minute 2000's music video. It was way too much.
Technically, the movie is incredibly faithful to the show, but the story of the manga is so rushed (no racing pun intended) that the character development falls incredibly flat. Where's Kiesuke's brash attitude? How come Iketani barely gets any screen time, even though he's the leader of the Akina Speedstars who are defending their turf? As a result, all we get is a bunch of racing and typical teen drama between Takumi, his dumbass best friend who's overplayed, and Natsuki who just feels like a random flat girl character.
The movie's watchable and decently acted, but directed like a twelve-year-old's fever dream and flat on character. I don't think you need to watch the Initial D movie unless you're a huge fan of the anime or the manga.