! Spoilers for all ''Franchise/TheFastAndTheFurious'' movies preceding this one, as well as {{Late Arrival Spoiler}}s for ''Film/FastAndFurious6'' will be left unmarked. Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned!
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[[caption-width-right:300:''"I wonder if you know\\
How they live in Tokyo..."'']]
->''"There's no wax on, wax off in drifting. The first drifters invented drifting out here in the mountains by feeling it. So feel it!"''
-->-- '''Han Seoul-Oh'''

''The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift'' is the third installment in ''Franchise/TheFastAndTheFurious'' franchise. Starring Creator/LucasBlack, was directed by Creator/JustinLin and released in 2006.

Black plays teenager Sean Boswell, who accumulates some serious motor vehicle violations that could earn him jail time. To keep him out of trouble, he is sent to live with his U.S. naval officer father in Japan and finish school there. The culture clash is brutal, especially when he gets friendly with the girlfriend of a guy with {{Yakuza}} connections and a love of the drift races.

While it was theatrically released after ''Film/TwoFastTwoFurious'' and followed by ''Film/FastAndFurious'' in release order, chronologically, it's set after ''Film/FastAndFurious6''. Has nothing to do with ''Film/TokyoDrifter''.

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!!Tropes:
* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: Retroactively. While the film itself says nothing about the year it takes place, later ''Fast & Furious'' films would firmly place it sometime between 2013 and 2015.
* ActionFilmQuietDramaScene:
** The first is Han explaining that money isn't important to him - he needs strength of character. The significance only becomes clear in later films, however.
** The second sees Sean and Neela finally tell each other how they came to be in Japan.
* ArcVillain: Takashi, whose jealousy and {{Yakuza}} connections escalate the conflicts.
* ArtisticLicenseMilitary: Sean is sent to a local Japanese school. As a USFJ dependent of a USN officer, he would be send to a DOD-run school on a USFJ base.
* BadassDriver:
** Almost inverted as Sean crashes cars in the early part of the film and can't drift to save his life until later. But he learns quick.
** Han is the best driver in the film.
** Takashi isn't called "the Drift King" for nothing.
* BloodySmile: Sean's race with Clay ends with two fairly serious crashes. At the police station afterwards, Sean grins at Clay's girlfriend and his teeth are covered in blood.
* BookEnds: A twisted example – the first Tokyo race is started off by "Exceedingly Handsome Guy", presumably the credits attempting to translate the word ''ikemen''. By the end of the movie, the neon and gloss of the movie environment is stripped clean to reveal the dark and gritty reality, and the final race is started off by an aging ''Yakuza'' [[{{Yubitsume}} who's missing four fingers from both hands.]]
* CallForward: An easily missed one at the end.
-->'''Twink''': He [[spoiler:(Dom)]] said he knew Han. Said Han was [[ArcWords family.]]
* TheCameo:
** [[spoiler:Creator/VinDiesel]] at the end.
** [[Manga/{{InitialD}} Shuichi Shigeno]] and [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keiichi_Tsuchiya Keiichi Tsuchiya]] in the wharf scenes.
** Keiko Kitagawa as Earl's friend Reiko.
* CharacterDevelopment: At the start of the film, Sean is a KnowNothingKnowItAll who attempts to charm his way out of trouble that he constantly makes, with a very arrogant streak against adults and friends alike. By the time of [[spoiler: Han's death]], he has humbled enough to be able to respect people, even refusing to [[spoiler: go back to the United States and instead solve the problem his own way by having an audience with a yakuza and politely asking for a race to settle the dispute.]]
* TheCharmer: Sean seems to have a way with the ladies. Sort of. He successfully catches the attention of the girlfriends of two different guys, one a JerkJock and the other a {{Yakuza}} wannabe. This is also subverted when he tries his wink-and-smile combo on Cindy after the drag race and his mouth is [[{{Squick}} full of blood]][[invoked]]; she is appropriately turned off.
* CigaretteOfAnxiety: When Sean's mother arrives at the police station, she asks if she's allowed to smoke.
* CliffhangerWall: Spent nine years as the last movie in the series' chronology, as the next three films took place between it and ''Film/TwoFastTwoFurious''.
* CockFight: The opening involves Sean starting a fight at his high school with [[JerkJock Clay]] over his girlfriend [[AlphaBitch Cindy]]. She then suggests they resolve their dispute with a street race, which ends with both their cars being totaled, and all three of them [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome bruised, battered, and arrested]].
* ComicallyMissingThePoint: Concerning the evidence tape following the reckless driving incident at the start of the film: "Can I get a copy of that?"
* ConvenientlyEmptyRoads: ZigZagged.
** {{Justified|Trope}} in the first race, since it takes place in a neighborhood where no one lives because all of the houses are under construction.
** Averted during the chase [[spoiler: in which Han is killed]], as there is a decent amount of traffic on the roads.
* [[SonOfAWhore Daughter of a Whore]]: Neelas' mother worked as a prostitute in Japan, though Neela herself was conceived before the latter moved from Australia.
* EveryoneHasStandards: Cindy is dating a JerkJock, briefly mocks Sean's socioeconomic status, flippantly offers herself up as the prize for a race between Sean and her boyfriend through an occupied construction site, and mocks Clay's performance. Still, she gets upset and tries to stop Clay when he starts angrily ramming Sean's car.
* ExactWords: In the words of Sean's mother: "''We'' are not moving anywhere." Cut to him on a plane to Japan... alone.
* ExtremeSportsPlot: A street racing teenager sent to his US Navy dad stationed in Japan wrecks one of Han's cars in a race and he must work as his errand boy until he pays off his debt.
* {{Fanservice}}: Two girls making out, which blows Sean's mind.
* FishOutOfWater: In addition to being a white American suddenly shipped off to Japan, it also applies to Sean as a racer as he is a decent driver, but is completely out of his depth when thrown into drifting. It gives him a unique arc in the franchise as he's the only protagonist who has to actually spend the movie improving as a racer as he adapts to Japanese drifting.
* FunnyBackgroundEvent: An audio example. Early on, when Sean says "My ride", an extra can clearly be heard in the background mocking him.
* GaidenGame: Or in this case, Gaiden Movie. The film has no connection to the events of the first two films. ''Film/FuriousSeven'' finally introduces ''Tokyo Drift'' into the full continuity by being set after the events of ''Drift'' and reintroducing Sean Boswell, though at most it's just a passing mention. Sean, as well as fellow Han crewmates Twinkie and Earl, would then later make a contributory role in the main storyline in ''Film/{{F9}}''.
* GreaterScopeVillain: Uncle Kamata to DK. Kamata is the leader of the Yakuza and DK answers to him, but Sean defeating DK is what causes Kamata to agree to Sean that the Yakuza finally leaves Tokyo.
* HerosClassicCar: The car Sean chooses for his final race with Takashi is the 1967 Ford Mustang his dad had been restoring, fitted with a newer Nissan engine.
* InNameOnly: Downplayed, especially after Sean Boswell was reintroduced in ''Film/FuriousSeven''. The only thing that initially tied ''Tokyo Drift'' to the main series was [[spoiler: Dom's cameo appearance in the end]].
* IronicNickname: "Twinkie" is usually reserved for Asians, whereas this guy's an African-American expatriate.
* {{Jerkass}}: Though compared to the rest of the {{big bad}}s of the series, Takashi's the least worst of them - [[spoiler:compounded by the fact that he doesn't take Han's death well despite the fact Han was skimming money from him]].
* LoserLeavesTown: The stakes of the final race between Sean and DK, with the loser (and by extension their crew) having to leave Tokyo. Additionally, while not intended as such, the fallout from Sean's first race in the film result in him being shipped off to Japan.
* LostHimInACardGame:
** The first race in the film sees a high school jock's girlfriend offer herself as the prize to the winner. [[spoiler:The jock wrecks both cars on purpose - with his girlfriend in the passenger seat - rather than lose.]]
** The stakes of the climactic race involve this by implication - Neela will stay behind with the winner while the loser leaves Tokyo for good.
* MentorOccupationalHazard: [[spoiler:Han]] falls victim to this.
* MilitaryBrat: Sean. And also Twinkie.
* MightyWhiteyAndMellowYellow: Averted as Sean's only romantic interest is in Neela, a non-Asian girl from Australia and a fellow foreigner to Japan. Given that she's also DK's girlfriend, who hates Sean and has connections to the Yakuza, [[DeadpanSnarker Han asks why he couldn't just fall]] [[InvokedTrope for a Japanese girl like all the other white guys.]]
* OddballInTheSeries: The only movie in the series that isn't focused on Dom or Brian, and (arguably) the only movie that's ''fully'' focused on street racing.
* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Twinkie.
* OohMeAccentsSlipping: Invoked; Neela was originally from Australia and her accent goes in and out depending on her current mood. This is often TruthInTelevision, when things like shouting or being upset will bring out your native accent even if you've lost it over time.
* PapaWolf: Mr. Boswell is a big case of AdultsAreUseless from his very first scene, up until DK's crew try to kill Sean right in front of his house and he stops them by stepping out with his Navy-issue Beretta 92F.
* PoliceAreUseless: Apart from the mentions of the Yakuza, there's more mundane reasons.
-->'''Han''': Police cars here are only factory tuned. If you can do better than 180K, they can't catch you. So they don't even try.\\
'''Sean''': You know what? I'm beginning to like this country already.
* ProductPlacement:
** Mitsubishi provided Evos to the production crew, as they had for the previous movie.
** [[http://www.askmen.com/entertainment/galleries/fast-and-furious-cars-25.html Why]] drift-lover Twinkie inexplicably drives a show-over-go VW from a completely [[http://www.speedhunters.com/tag/vanning/ different subculture]].
** When Sean crashes at the beginning of the movie, on the interior shot as the car rolls in slow motion, the camera focuses on a bottle of Tabasco sauce flying through the air.
* SequelGoesForeign: The film is almost wholly set in Japan except for the beginning part.
* SequelHook: [[spoiler: Dom shows up in Tokyo]].
* SittingOnTheRoof: A Yakuza starts a fight on the roof of the school with Twinkie and the guy who sold him a defective iPod.
* StealingFromTheTill: It's revealed that Han has been doing this from DK, and thus indirectly from Kamata, DK's Yakuza uncle. Naturally, neither Kamata nor DK take this very well.
* SurroundedByIdiots: Takashi doesn't seem too bothered by Morimoto's crash during the ChaseScene, with a look on his face that seems to say "You idiot."
* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: What kickstarts this film's plot: Sean gets into a fight with some rich kid who challenges him to a race at a construction site for a new neighborhood. The race gets so intense, that several houses get mouseholed by Sean driving through them and him and the rich kid end up crashing. They get arrested for illegal street racing, trespassing, and destruction of property, but only Sean gets in any trouble thanks to the rich kid's parents bailing him out. Then, to avoid getting him jailed, Sean's mother sends him--by himself--to live with his father. [[SequelGoesForeign In Japan]].
* TiredOfRunning: [[spoiler: Sean states this almost word-for-word when his father attempts to transfer him back to the States to save him from the yakuza. He's tired of running away from his problems and wants to solve them here and there.]]
* TookALevelInJerkass: In her argument with DK, Neela implies that he used to be a NiceGuy before his Yakuza connection went to his head.
* WatchThePaintJob: The funniest example in the entire series would be Sean wrecking Han's S15 Silvia with a Skyline engine because he just can't drift.
* WhatAPieceOfJunk: Sean's Monte Carlo, which looks plain but manages to outrun a Viper.
* WrongGenreSavvy: Sean, he thinks like the "American" style of street racing applies in Tokyo, only to find out they go for the more finessed drifting scene, where simply having a faster car doesn't work out as well.
* {{Yakuza}}: Pretty much every single Japanese character. And their uncle, quite literally!
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