The Fast and the Furious (2001).

This series confuses me, the fact that some are related but others aren’t, and it’s in a weird order. The first one I saw was 2 Fast 2 Furious. Then The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift; the second and third in the series respectively. The Fast and the Furious is the first one, where Brian O’Connor (Paul Walker) is an undercover cop in the Hollywood racing scene, aiming to find out who is behind truck hijackings. He works his way up and finally earns the respect of elite street racer Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel). Falls for Toretto’s sister Mia (Jordana Brewster); mistakenly busts some Asian gang for the truck hijackings – only to learn that Toretto is very likely to be the one behind them. On a hijack, one of Toretto’s team gets caught on the truck, with the trucker armed with a shotgun. The other team members fail at helping him get off the truck, Brian comes along, gets him off and calls for an air ambulance – revealing his identity as a cop in the process. Back in the city, Toretto and Brian chase after Johnny Tran and Lance Tran after they do a drive-by shooting. One is forced off the road whereas the other is shot. After a mini street race between Toretto and Brian, Toretto crashes, and sirens are on their way. Knowing that Toretto will be put in jail again, Brian allows him to escape.

Bam bam bam. It’s a street racing film so my expectations are low besides some good stunts and car chases. This is entertaining enough, though Jordana Brewster has really annoyingly DENSE eyebrows and needs to be a gazillion times hotter to play the love interest. The stuff they do with the camera is enough to make the races exciting, though having seen one of the series, you know what to expect really. After reading about it many times, I am now clear on the order of the films in this series. I think my favourite so far is Tokyo Drift, despite the main character’s horribly thick southern American accent which makes him sound like a stupid, fumbling buffoon. Oh, and the actors that play Johnny Tran and Lance Tran were from Die Another Day and Prison Break respectively, I like recognising faces. :)