IslandGuru Who payed the critics

Matcollis This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Livestonth I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

Lidia Draper Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

ebiros2 Based on a long running comic series by Shuuichi Shigeno, this all star cast Hong Kong movie puts on screen what's on the comic's volume 1-15 ( Part until Takumi joins Project D ).Takumi Fujiwara (Jay Chou) is a high school student who lives with his single father running a tofu shop. Inbetween his tofu deliveries, he frequents Mt. Akina that has winding roads to improve his driving skills. He gets involved with the street racers that frequents the area, and a battle ensues to prove who's the fastest one on the road. Takumi with his outstanding driving skills, bests other racers with better performing cars. Amongst the people who shows up was Ryosuke Takahashi (Edison Chen). Ryosuke takes notice of Takumi's talent, and takes interest in him. Takumi's girlfriend Natsuki (Ann Suzuki) is chummy with Takumi, but she also has other things going on with older men. Takumi goes head to head with Keiichi Sudo (Jordan Chan) to prove who's the fastest man on the road.The same staff from Medea Asia that's created the "Infernal Affair" series made this movie. The movie was shot on location in Japan around Yahikoiwamuro highway in Niigata Prefecture, and Shibukawa city in Gunma prefecture. The production quality is high despite the difficulty of bringing the location to Japan. Mt. Akina is a fictitious mountain that's modeled after Mt. Haruna in Gunma prefecture.One of the center piece of the action is the Sprinter Trueno AE86 that Takumi drives. Despite its diminutive size, it succeeds in out performing cars that are designed for racing performances. Trueno is is a sister model of Corolla Levin, and shares the same frame, and the engine. It's a performance version of the standard Sprinter model with a twin cam 4A-GEU engine. In the '80s Japan, 4A-GEU souped up to 450 horse power was sold by custom shops. Used on AE86 that weighs less than a ton, the combination made the car into a deadly rocket that can go head to head with lesser powered cars like the GT-R. So a car to car battle like the one seen in this movie was entirely "Possible". The original comic states that the story is occurring sometime in the '90s time frame, and the cars appearing in this movie also reflects this fact.I wonder if China these days are following the Hollywood style casting that casts compatible astrological sun sign actors in the leading role. This method seems to ensure good chemistry between male and the female lead. In this movie, three earth sign actors plays the lead (Ann Suzuki - Taurus, Anthony Wong - Virgo, and Jay Chou - Capricorn). The movie has a world of its own that's completely different from the TV anime series, and in some ways more exciting due to the interaction between the stars, and the actual driving that takes place on the road. It's an excellently made movie that combines best of what Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan has to offer. I only wish that Edison Chen would return to Hong Kong cinema. He was very good in this movie. A very enjoyable movie that takes you into the world of street racing culture of Japan.

theredcomet2000 Overall, I'll have to say right off the bat that as a fan of the original anime I found it somewhat amusing.There are a few things that the movie does right. The camera angles and the overall feel of the movie was spot-on to the original source material. A particular highlight was the "zoom-in-on-the-eyes" of the loser in one particular race. This was exactly like the anime, and was a great touch.People might slam Jay Chou, but I thought he did a good job in this. It's rather hard to screw up a character who is generally bored and half-asleep (as he is portrayed in the anime).There are a lot of small changes here and there, such as Bunta being a drunkard for comedy relief, and the complete lack of Keisuke (his character was combined with Nakazato). Or the fact that the anime Nakazato drove the 4WD GT-R model of Skyline, and did not drift. I won't touch on these in detail, as they didn't really bother me that much.However, the biggest element lacking in this is the music! Inital D fans know that Initial D is known for it's high energy dance-style J-pop music. Considering there are at least 10 Initial D soundtrack CD's out in Japan, I can't believe they didn't realize how popular the music is.The music in the film is best described as "Chinese rap/R&B" I guess, which really hurt the feel of the movie in my opinion.As synonymous the anime is with the music, I can't help but think what it would be without it. We'd be left with scenes of car racing with cheesy dialog, intertwined with brief romance scenes. Which now that I think of it, pretty much sums up this film.If they were to make an Initial D anime series with music similar to this movie's soundtrack, I wonder if I would like it as much.I just might feel the same way about it as I do this movie, in that it's a nice reminiscent film somewhat faithful to the original, but nothing to get really excited about.If you're not a fan of Inital D or of import racing, there's not much for you here.

biggastank The bad: [1] There was no story line. (Or at least the story line went absolutely no where.) [2] The racing scenes were very repetitive, they kept showing the same moves over and over again. This is not very good by today's standard. I expected more, given that this was a relatively high-budget production with some of the biggest name HK actors. [3] Horrible acting from Jay and Edison. There was no chemistry whatsoever between them. I presume from the storyline they are suppose to become friends or develop some kind of camaraderie through racing. Nothing like that happened.The good: [1] Anne Suzuki in short shorts. She's younger than a lot of those cars, by the way. [2] I loved watching Jay getting the crap kicked out of him by Wang Chou Sang. That's gotta be the best part of the entire movie. [3] The racing scenes were not overly done with CGI. It's pretty believable, although not terribly creative. [4] This movie sure brings back fond memories of when those cars were considered cool, which was quite a while back.Overall, not too bad. Wasn't a complete waste of time. I got some entertaining values out of it. Just in case you were wondering, the AE86 is known in the US as -- the Corolla. :D

vivisi I haven't read any Initial D manga, and frankly, hadn't heard of it until a friend asked to watch this movie, thus cannot comment on the accuracy of the story. But after watching the movie for the 10th time, I can freely say the movie is a must-see for car lovers, and goes beyond Hollywood fake races, which makes speed and fancy cars seem more important than the driver's ability. The actors did a great job, too, specially Bunta Fujiwara (Takumi's father), who plays hilarious scenes. Not to mention the Soundtrack, which is great add to the competition scenes.