Initial D

The characters:

Jay Chou as Takumi Fujiwara
Anthony Wong as Bunta Fujiwara
Edison Chen as Ryousuke Takahashi
Shawn Yue as Takeshi Nakazato
Kenny Bee as Yuuichi Tachibana
Jordan Chan as Kyouichi Sudou
Chapman To as Itsuki Tachibana
Anne Suzuki as Natsuki Mogi

This film is set in Japan and the main character is Takumi. Takumi is 18 and has a good friend named Itsuki, who dreams of becoming the "God" of car racers in Mt Akina. Both their fathers also used to be street racers and Takumi's father was the "God" of car racers in his time so I guess both their sons have the spirit of car racing in their blood. In different ways, though. Itsuki only dreams of becoming the best racer but sadly, he has no such talent in him. On the other hand, ever since Bunta (Takumi's father) fell sick one night and got his son to deliver tofu for him (they sell tofu), Takumi has been driving their delivery car every night down the winding roads of Mt Akina and in the process, managed to train himself to be a car racer who is especially talented in the art of drifting (a racing technique which is the fastest way to drive through a bend).

Ryousuke, an engineer, and Takeshi, are both also street racers. Takeshi has been wanting to race Ryousuke but he constantly rejects him because he thinks Takeshi is still not good enough to as he has not perfected the art of drifting and always does not manage to pass through bends smoothly. One night, Takeshi tries to practise drifting and ends up racing with Takumi when he comes up from behind in his delivery car (Toyota AE86). Takumi wins Takeshi precisely because Takeshi is unable to drift his car correctly at bends. Impressed with the driver of the AE86 (he was not able to make out the identity of the driver because it was so dark), he tries to find out who he is and mistakenly thinks it is Bunta. However, Itsuki insists it was him and goes to race with Takeshi at Mt Akina...and loses. Takumi refuses to admit it was him because he is not the sort who likes to take risks or be in the limelight.

In the end, however, Takumi decides to admit it because he wants to borrow his father's car to take his girlfriend, Natsuki, out for a spin on Sunday, and Bunta would only let him have the car if he agrees to race with Takeshi and beat him. Takumi did win, to Itsuki's surprise and also managed to impress Ryousuke and Takeshi.

Natsuki and Takumi spend a lovely day at the beach. And this is the part I don't like - why is Takumi so passive? His girlfriend had to make the first move for almost everything. For example, she was the one who had asked him out and started their relationship. She also got up and bent over Takumi to kiss him in the car before they parted ways that day (which did seem rather scary...).

Ryousuke did try to persuade Takumi to race with him but to no avail. However, after winning a professional racer (Kyouichi), he starts to become more enthusiastic about racing. After learning that Bunta had adjusted his car to achieve a perfect condition for racing, he becomes even more so. The climax of the movie is when Takumi, Ryousuke and Kyouichi race at Mt Akina and Takumi manages to win Ryousuke (because Kyouichi got into an accident midway through the race) and emerges as the true "God" of car racing (don't know how come he got this title after winning only two people haha). He managed to win even though he was upset at the fact that Itsuki saw Natsuki coming out from a love hotel with an older man and called her a whore. (Not bad; he was not distracted)

After the race, he rushes immediately to Natsuki's house and sees her rejecting a goodbye kiss from that guy (because she had decided to break up with this guy). However, obviously he didn't know what exactly was going on, so he just took flight and ran home, leaving Natsuki in tears (what kind of guy is this right. He should have found out what was going on first.). Then, he rang up Itsuki to apologise for having been so mean to him because Itsuki was right about Natsuki. He also told Ryousuke that he wanted to join his street car racing gang.

That was the end of the movie.

What an abrupt ending. It didn't say what happened after Takumi joined Ryousuke's gang, it didn't explain Natsuki's behaviour towards that rich older man (because she was obviously in some sort of difficulty) and Takumi and Natsuki's wordless breakup gave me the feeling that the movie was not complete yet. In fact, I actually thought that it would be a really long movie just before it ended. Heh.

Another bad thing. It didn't show enough of Edison Chen. Haha.

Many thanks to this site. =)