In 2005, the nascent Fast & Furious series seemed to have run out of gas. Universal Pictures is clearly unhappy with the first sequel, Fast & Furious 2, which grossed just nearly twice as much at the box office as the original film, and Vin Diesel, one of the two male protagonists of the first Fast & Furious, has left the series with no plans to return. Universal executives now plan to label Fast and Furious as a cheaper, direct-to-video movie, but screenwriter Chris Morgan has come up with a story idea for them to reconsider — porting the characters to Tokyo, where they'll take part in fresh and exciting drift racing scenes.
The studio asked the new film, Fast & Furious: Tokyo Drift, to feature all the new characters and be at least partly set in a high school. Thus, a new protagonist, juvenile offender Sean Boswell, was born. Sean, played by Lucas Black, carried the torch of Speed Legends for only one film that was criticised and disappointed at the box office. (He played some minor roles in Fast & Furious 7 and the upcoming F9.) But while Sean may not have left a huge mark on the series, his own story in Tokyo Drift is actually quite rich, as he basically lives in an adult movie, a gangster movie, and a sports movie at the same time.
Sean Boswell has exhausted every place he's ever stayed
Growing up, Sean Boswell never stayed in one place for long. His parents divorced when he was three years old, and his father (Brian Goodman) — a U.S. Naval officer — eventually left Japan for a post in Tokyo, Japan. Upon returning to the United States, Sean and his mother (Linda Boyd) move frequently, usually due to the recklessness or criminal behavior of young Sean. Their roots are in Alabama, but when viewers first met Sean at the start of Tokyo Drift, he was attending a high school in Arizona, his third town in just two years.
Sean, 17, is a lonely man who is only interested in one thing – driving. We don't know where this love of cars started – his dad was also a gearbox, but he left before Sean taught a lot of stuff – but we do know he'll soon start driving and street racing. Sean received a speeding ticket on his first day as a licensed driver and easily won his first race the next day.
Sean found a sense of calm and control in his driving behavior, but it only made his life more chaotic. His new passion led him to be arrested twice before the Tokyo Drift began, but as he and his mother left town after each of his messes, Sean constantly evaded the long-term consequences of his actions and developed utter indifference to the destruction behind him.
He destroyed a house in a spectacular street race
One afternoon after school, Sean finds himself talking to his classmate Cindy (Nikki Griffin) in the parking lot. Cindy's boyfriend, soccer star Zachery Ty Bryan, doesn't care about that, and after a teasing by Sean, he throws a baseball into the window of Sean's precious and custom 1971 Chevrolet Monte Carlo. Cindy is apparently motivated by playing with her boyfriend's insecurities, and she suggests that Clay and Sean resolve their dispute at a street game, using themselves as prizes.
Two riders — Sean driving his Monte Carlo, Clay driving a newer, more expensive Dodge Viper, and Cindy riding a shotgun — walked through a construction site in front of a group of excited high school students to compete for an upscale suburban housing development. Trailing in the game, Sean tried to overcome the distractions of Clay's football teammates and his own difficult turns by taking shortcuts through one of the half-finished houses. This put him on a par with Clay and Cindy and helped him reach the finish line first, but Clay's aggressive driving eventually left both cars out of control and all three participants injured.
A car accident, a tattered face, and his third arrest in two years couldn't erase the smug smile on Sean's face. Only after learning that the police had crushed his Monte Carlo did he pick up.
Sean was sent to Tokyo to avoid jail time
After the construction site collapsed, police threatened Sean with serious allegations that appeared to end up putting the brakes on his street racing career. However, Sean's mother managed to arrange a final reprieve, sending him to Tokyo to live with his father. (The credits list Sean's father as "Major Boswell," so we call him that, even though there's no such thing as a major in the U.S. Navy.) We also suspect that anyone would be allowed this impromptu overseas probation, but given that this is a Fast and Furious movie, we wouldn't have thought about it so hard.
Major Boswell set some strict but simple rules for Sean to live — go to school, go home, and don't drive. Sean resented his father as much as he hated the general rules, so he was involved in the racing tracks on the streets of Tokyo on his first day in town. When Major Boswell learned that Sean had disobeyed him, he initially threatened to send him back to the United States, where the Junior Hall was waiting for him. Instead, the Major decided to give Sean one last chance, and while the young racer subsequently expanded his nightlife considerably, the topic of Sean breaking their arrangement was never brought up again. Sean soon had new concerns, even more directly than the Junior Pavilion.
Sean's first drift race was a disaster
Sean worked very hard to find the location of the action. The first person to try to be friends with him at school was Twinkie (Shad "Bow Wow" Moss), a U.S. Army soldier who knew a major game had happened that night. Twinkie takes Sean to a multi-storey parking structure where young riders rush to the top and perform precise drifts to turn. There, he meets another classmate, Neela (Nathalie Kelley), who immediately falls in love with her. But then again, he confronted his jealous boyfriend. Neela is implicated in Takashi (Brian Tee), who earned him the nickname "D.K." (Abbreviation for "Drift King") is the best racer on the track.
Echoing the last time he competed with another driver for a woman's attention, the stupid and wayward Sean challenged Gao Zhiyuan to compete. Eager for the opportunity to embarrass the boy, Takashi accepted. But there are two problems. Sean had neither a car to race in nor the first idea of how drift would work. Takashi's friend, the incredible Han (Sung Kang), solved the first problem by offering his own highly modified Nissan Silvia S15 on Lark. The second, however, proved insurmountable, as Twinkie's rough explanation of drift wasn't enough to stop Sean from humiliating himself and causing thousands of dollars worth of damage to Han's Nissan.
Han, incredibly cool, with only three parting words to Sean: Don't leave town.
Han placed Sean under his wing
Sean is now very grateful to Han, the mild-mannered, snack-loving gangster who was later known as Han Seoul-Oh in the fast and furious films. Han runs a garage with vague links to organized crime, though Sean (and the audience) is insulated from the details of his business. Shaun only needs to care about pickups and deliveries and answer the phone when Han calls. These were the rules That Sean followed effortlessly, and he began to share Han's charming lifestyle, even moving out of his father's apartment to a bunk in Han's garage. Han genuinely likes Sean and has no feelings for the rundown Nissan. In fact, Han sees losing a car as a bargain in exchange for getting to know someone's personality. The two developed a close mentor/trainee relationship as Han told Sean that life is more than just racing.
It's not that the car is still unimportant. Admittedly, Sean had never had a driving difficulty before, as more linear American street racing was very natural to him. But Han agrees to teach Sean how to drift so he has a chance to replay D.K. Gogh. Having to start from scratch, actually doing some kind of work seemed to teach Sean some much-needed discipline. The training paid off, with Sean winning a return match against D.K.'s deputy, Morimoto (Leonardo Minami).
Unable to escape, Sean finally made some friends
It's easy to get the impression that Sean has been in any one place long enough to make friends, and that he's long since given up on the idea of socializing with people. Upon arriving in Tokyo, Sean wasn't interested in talking to anyone because he thought he would soon be sent back to the U.S.
But as he stayed longer in Tokyo than he had imagined, Sean began to make real connections with some of his peers, like Twinkie. Back in Arizona, Sean used to turn a blind eye to another bullied child, but here, when he was attacked by Morimoto at school, he went out of his way to stand up for Twinkie. Yes, Twinkie reprimanded Sean for interfering, but just a few months ago, Sean wasn't even likely to care that someone was in trouble. Sean also took the time to share Twinkie's interests with him on a sales trip through the streets of Tokyo.
Later, when Sean's feud with D.K. became a life-and-death struggle, Twinkie volunteered to devote most of his income to helping Sean settle his debts and settle them peacefully. If it weren't for this act of friendship, Sean wouldn't have survived to the end of the Tokyo drift.
He learned to take it slowly with Neela
Sean also matured through his interactions with Neela, a classmate of his, with D.K. Takashi has a complex relationship. Sean's early flirtations with Nila were arrogant and were rightfully rejected, but soon, he began to struggle to truly understand her in his own way. They became true friends, and Sean never misrepresented his romantic interests.
Sean and Nila are linked by their shared love of cars and drift racing and their shared status as outsiders in Japanese society. Despite being born in Japan, Neela carries the stigma of being a child of Australian immigrants, with Takashi suggesting she is a sex worker. After her mother's death, Neela was taken in by the Gang-affiliated Kamata family and raised with Takashi, but she was never treated as someone who truly belonged to her. Even Takashi treats Neela as a possession, or at best a person who owes a lot to his family. Neela's story helps Sean realize that he deliberately separated himself from others, a habit he left behind over the course of the film.
Sean's relationship with Neela is not ignored by Takashi, who gives Sean a beating and a final warning to keep him away from his girlfriend. This was the last straw that crushed Neela, and she plucked up the courage to leave Gao Zhi and hide in Han's garage.
Sean is caught up in gang wars
By his own admission, one of the reasons he likes to keep Sean around is to annoy his business partner, Gao Zhi. Although Takashi is the closer of the two and is the nephew of the gang boss Kamata (Chiba Sonny), he is older and more shrewd. It turns out that Han may even have used Sean to distract Gao Zhi from the more serious betrayal — Han had been hiding some of his deals from Takashi, actually stealing commissions owed to Kamata and humiliating Takashi in the eyes of his uncle.
Takashi arrives at Han's garage seeking revenge and is even angrier to see that both Neela and Sean live there. The three of them fled the scene, With Han in one car and Sean and Nira in another, they were chased alone by Takashi and his friend Morimoto through the streets of Shibuya. A deadly chase ensues, and as Gao Zhi joins Shawn and Nera and tries to push them off the road, Han retreats and puts his car between them. This helped Get Sean and Neela out of danger, but it put him on the oncoming path of traffic as he was struck by another vehicle that was not involved and apparently killed in the ensuing explosion.
(Fast & Furious 6 reverts the crash from an accident to an attempted murder, identifying the driver as Deckard Shaw in retaliation for Han's role in defeating his brother Owen.)
He staked his future on a dangerous downhill drift race.
After Han's death, Sean no longer had Gao Zhi's protection, and Gao Zhi still wanted him to die. Sean's father offers to send him back to the United States to escape Takashi's revenge, but Sean refuses. He felt responsible for the chaotic situation he was in, and his days of running away from problems were over. Instead, he threw himself at the mercy of Takashi's uncle Kamata, personally apologizing for Han's deception and providing a nonviolent solution to his conflict with Takashi — a game of "losers leaving town." This ridiculous suggestion seemed to amuse Kamata, and the challenge was accepted.
With his car damaged in a Shibuya chase and the rest of Han's driveable cars seized by police, Sean once again finds himself not riding in a match against Drift King. All that remains of Han's garage is the wreckage of the Nissan that Shaun used in his ill-fated drift racing debut. Sean, Twinkie and Han's other maintenance crews teamed up with Sean's father to combine Han's Nissan's high-performance components with the chassis of the old Mustang, which has been working on mainly, to create a new dynamic that has both American and Japanese.
In a dangerously high-speed, drift-heavy race, Sean crosses the finish line first on an unstable winding hillside, winning him and Nira the title of King of Freedom and Drift.
Don Torreto promises Shaun justice for Han
At the end of Fast & Furious: Tokyo Drift, Sean is visited by Dominic Torreto (Vin Diesel), who challenges him to a race in honor of their mutual close friend Han. However, Furious 7 (which took place after Tokyo Drift but was filmed about a decade later) expanded on the encounter, revealing that it was more than just a friendly visit. It turns out that Dom is tracking down Han's killer, Deckard Shaw.
Now that the Fast & Furious timeline has caught up with Tokyo Drift, Lucas Black is expected to appear more frequently in the series. He was originally scheduled to appear in Fury Destiny, but he will return in F9 in 2021, where he, Twinkie and Han Garage alumnus Earl (Jason Tobin) will apparently join the Toretto gang for a barbecue and tie rockets to Pontiac Fiero.
While Sean Boswell is certainly not Dominic Torreto, and the constant changes in the episode timeline mean that Lucas Black is now more than ten years older than his character, the recent positive critical reappraisal of Tokyo Drift may suggest that Sean's return is not entirely unpopular. And, after all, if neither the murder of the beloved crew nor death itself is enough to exclude someone from the Furious family, then why be the protagonist of Tokyo Drift?