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Originally Posted by Dorb
Wow, had no idea there are 5 of these movies! I think after the 2nd one I lost interest. Did they get any better or just have a fan following - cash cow think going on?(like the Resident Evil movies)
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Yeah, the second one was by far the worst (though people who aren't really into cars or drifting culture will put it ahead of Tokyo Drift, likely because of it being about a more specific scene while also lacking the star power present in the other movies). But as chanomatik mentioned, Jeremy Lin (who has directed all of the movies from the third one onward) has really changed the franchise to the point where the movies make sense. Whether it's true to the culture or not, he's slowly started distancing the franchise from street racing, which helps broaden their fanbase while avoiding potential PR nightmares of allegations of promoting illegal street racing. But the success is there... the third movie didn't do so hot in theaters (but again it lacked the starpower, was about a sub-culture within the import scene that not too many people were into and also followed a really bad sequel that probably lost some fans), but it was good enough for Universal to re-hire Jeremy Lin for another film, which out-performed all of its predecessors at the box office, and the fifth film one-upped it again.
Oddly, despite the success of the later movies (with the fifth one typically considered as the "best" in the series), there's something about the first movie that was never captured again, as cheesy as it was. It just had a certain feel about it that makes me want to watch it over and over again. (The Fast and the Furious and The Dark Knight Rises are the only movies I have seen more than once at theaters.) Maybe it was the visuals, maybe it was the score by BT, I don't know. But also like chanomatik said, I tend to gravitate toward Tokyo Drift as well. It was the last movie that was actually about street racing, but it was done well while having good cars (most of which were decent and not goofy-looking, even in hindsight almost seven years later, which I can't necessarily say about the cars in the first two movies), good car scenes (as drifting is always cool to watch, and it was done with precision and not just fishtailing around like in most movies with car chases) and a bit more realism than in the other movies. Props to Jeremy Lin for his research in accurately portraying the drift scene (minus everyone using their E-brake to go sideways) and the Yakuza aspect.