Fast & Furious 9 director Justin Lin says his primary motivation for returning is to finally make good of its Justice for Han promise. Boarding the franchise in 2006 with The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Lin went on to direct the next three movies in the film series: Fast & Furious, Fast Five, and Fast & Furious 6. Now, he's back for his fifth entry in the widely popular franchise.
The ninth main entry in the auto-centric film series will bring Dominic Toretto's (Vin Diesel) gang back together. This time, they go up against his secret brother, Jakob (John Cena), who's working with Cipher - Charlize Theron's criminal mastermind/cyberterrorist who first appeared in F. Gary Gray's Fate of the Furious. Aside from Dom's usual cohorts, the first trailer for Fast & Furious 9 also confirmed the return of three Tokyo Drift characters including Sung Kang's Han. This obviously puzzled a lot of fans since he's deemed dead since the spinoff movie.
As revealed, Han was supposedly killed by Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) at the end of Tokyo Drift (which takes place between Fast & Furious 6 and Furious 7) as an act of revenge for Dom's wrongdoings against Owen Shaw (Luke Evans). So there's an understandable chaos when he was taken as "family" by the end of Fate of the Furious. Like a lot of fans, Lin was also confused and he was determined to straighten things up which is why he signed up for Fast & Furious 9 as he explained to Total Film (via ComicBook):
"Han means so much to me because he was a character before Fast & Furious. Somebody asked me about Han and [Deckard] Shaw. I was like: 'Wait, what? Shaw is at the barbecue in 8?' [laughs] Really, I was so confused. One of the big reasons to come back was I felt like we needed to correct something."
The Fast & Furious spinoff Hobbs & Shaw furthered Deckard's redemption by teaming him up with Luke as the pair save the world from an extremely lethal virus by defeating super soldier Brixton Lore (Idris Elba). There's no word yet when fans will see the villain-turned-ally next, but it's clear that he has a future in the franchise, especially with the off-shoot movies. Whether or not he'll factor in the primary saga once again is a big question, however. Given that, it's curious how this Justice For Han movement will finally pan out. Based on Lin's comments, he's adamant to see through it, but without Deckard, it's curious how proper justice will be served.
Of course, aside from the speculations about how Justice For Han will be accomplished, there's the looming question about how Han is alive in the first place. For years, the Fast & Furious film series treated him as dead, and for some reason he's not. Looking at the Fast & Furious 9 trailer, it seems like Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) and Mia (Jordana Brewster) recruit him to join in Dom's new mission.
Source: Total Film (via ComicBook)
