The yet-to-be-explained resurrection of Sung Kang’s fan-favorite character Han in Fast and Furious 9 has retroactively made The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift one of the most important entries in the long-running franchise about street racing and family (and now Vin Diesel's Dom Toretto possibly going into space). While the fan base waits to see if the upcoming film will give satisfying #JusticeForHan, a return to the series’ drift-centric third installment is more apt now than ever before.

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift is, at the end of the day, a supremely silly movie. It follows the adventures of Sean Boswell, a painfully forgettable carboy from Alabama who is sent to live with his estranged father in Tokyo, and becomes embroiled in an underground racing circuit tied to the Yakuza. Han serves as a drift-mentor to Sean, in a storyline that can best be described as “The Karate Kid with street racing.” It’s possibly the dumbest entry in the franchise (not least because Tokyo Drift legitimately broke the law), and one of the worst movies in the series for female representation, yet somehow it still manages to be a fun and uniquely entertaining ride, almost entirely off the effortless cool of Sung Kang’s Han.

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Due to Han’s popularity, and Justin Lin’s takeover of the Fast & Furious franchise in the wake of Tokyo Drift, it made sense to pull some narrative sleight-of-hand to keep him in the story a little longer. Subsequently, the next three films were all set prior to the events of Tokyo Drift, and all three featured Han in progressively larger roles. Even Han's death was retconned and pinned on Jason Statham’s Deckard Shaw – a move that spawned the online #JusticeForHan movement after Shaw become an apparent member of la familia in The Fate of the Furious.

The survival of Han casts all eyes back to his apparently-not-death in Tokyo Drift, but there are other reasons why the film is now one of the most important in the franchise. Despite being one of the more polarizing Fast & Furious entries, Tokyo Drift is as relevant now as it’s ever been. So without further ado, here are a few reasons why there’s never been a better time to rewatch Tokyo Drift, and why it’s now become one of the series’ most important films.

Justin Lin’s Return To Fast & Furious Recenters Han and Tokyo Drift

Han Fast and furious Tokyo Drift

It’s fair to say that Justin Lin’s directorial return to Fast & Furious might have something to do with Han’s resurrection. Lin and Kang first created Han for Better Luck Tomorrow, a 2002 drama about a group of Asian American high school students connected by a violent crime. While not canonically connected to Fast & Furious, the Han in Better Luck Tomorrow is undoubtedly the same guy, right down to the Mustang he drives and the cigarettes he smokes (both are alluded to as elements of his past in Fast & Furious). It’s a fun watch for any die-hard Han fans and a significantly underrated film in its own right.

The fact is, when Lin took over the franchise, he led with Han. The four straight films he directed – a run that made the Fast & Furious series an international sensation – all featured Han in increasingly prominent roles. Lin was then absent from the next few films, which saw Han’s death questionably retconned, and the eventual rise of his murderer Shaw to hero-status in the critically panned Hobbs & Shaw spinoff.

Related: Fast & Furious: Why Paul Walker Didn't Return In Tokyo Drift

While he’s not credited as a writer on the series, Lin’s return to the director’s chair for F9 is seen by many as a return-to-form for the franchise and giving Han the justice he deserves is at the center of that. That means that however Han’s return is ultimately explained, it’s going to go back to Tokyo Drift. We’re going to have to see that crash, again, and exactly what happened in its wake. It also means that Han’s return must be more than just a plot device, which is how he’s been treated for the past few films. Sung Kang’s performance created one of the most unique and compelling characters in the greater Fast & Furious world, and with Lin at the helm, there’s hope that the best of his story is still to come.

Han’s Return In F9 Solidifies His Status As A Major Character

Han Fast And The Furious 9

While Han is ostensibly a secondary character in Tokyo Drift, there’s no question that he’s the primary force driving the movie (It’s certainly not the Drift Kid from Alabama, who was initially meant to be Vin Diesel's Toretto). Despite filling a supporting role in later films alongside the likes of Ludacris, Gal Godot, and Tyrese Gibson, Sung Kang is the only recurring cast member to headline a whole film in the series without another member of the crew by his side. And yet, he’s generally still considered a minor character. That is, until now.

According to details released on F9, it looks like it will primarily focus on Dom Toretto’s rivalry and relationship with his long-lost brother, played by John Cena, but that doesn’t mean it can’t also make Han’s part of the story more important than it’s been in the past. That means potential for a number of interesting Han-centric storylines going forward, any one of which would be more compelling than The Fate of the Furious’s meager attempts at emotional stakes.

With Han possibly playing a more significant role in the series going forward (at least for F9 and the one after), it’s the perfect time to return to the movie that was all about him. From his tricked-out garage to his shady Yakuza connections, there’s a lot of threads that could be returned to now that Han’s back from the dead. Plus, Tokyo Drift makes a compelling argument that Han was the best driver in the Fast & Furious crew all along.

Related: Is Fast & Furious' Drift King Real? Tokyo Drift Cameo Explained

Tokyo Drift Embodies What Fast & Furious Is All About

Han drifts through Tokyo in an orange and black Mazda RX7 in Tokyo Drift

At its core, Fast & Furious is still a series about… cars, and driving them quickly, and dangerously, and sometimes into or out of airplanes, and occasionally into one another on purpose. There are those who will take it a level deeper, and say that Fast & Furious, really, is about family. It’s a series about chosen family, and the power of different kinds of people to come together and form a whole greater than their individual parts. Then there are the people who majored in English solely so they could make this take: Fast & Furious is a series about atonement. Atoning for the past; atoning for the sins of the father (or brother); atoning for the ways your life affects the lives of others, for better or worse.

All right, yes, it’s a stretch – about as far as the jump between two of Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Towers - but the fact remains, there’s something more to this absurd franchise – something beyond the ballistic action – that keeps fans coming back for more of their favorite characters. It’s the reason people were more excited to see Han come back than they were about any of the action in the F9 trailer. All stories, even very silly stories, are driven by characters.

Tokyo Drift is an embodiment of that multi-layered nature that has brought the franchise so much love and success. It’s got the shiny cars, the club tunes, and all the fun racing action you want. But it’s still driven by a simple, compelling character-centric narrative. It’s not Shakespeare by any means and Tokyo Drift also reflects a lot of the less admirable aspects of the franchise, like the corny storylines and intermittent sexism. Tokyo Drift is not necessarily pretty, but it still holds at its center the x-factor that has consistently set Fast & Furious apart from other equivalent blockbusters – at least as far apart as two of Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Towers.

Tokyo Drift Offers A Potential Blueprint For The Franchise’s Future

Vin Diesel and Fast and the Furious Tokyo Drift cast

It’s official that a tenth Fast & Furious movie is coming after F9, at the very least. But where does the series go after that? Where does a series go after it goes into space? Tokyo Drift could offer one possible answer. Despite being disconnected from the greater Fast & Furious story, Tokyo Drift still feels distinctly true to the spirit of the franchise. Of course, it wasn’t quite the moneymaker that the following films were, and there was never an official sequel, but it remains a beloved part of the series.

Related: Han's Car In Fast & Furious 9 Is A Huge Tokyo Drift Easter Egg

Obviously, a franchise that is as monolithic and profitable as Fast & Furious isn’t going to just end – not even after ten core movies and a spinoff. That leaves a lot of options on the table. Hobbs & Shaw has already shown that spinoffs have the potential to win big at the box office, but the criticisms surrounding it also make it clear that when these movies lose their heart and soul, people notice.

To that end, Tokyo Drift might offer a better model for future Fast & Furious spinoffs and side projects. After all, the movie was basically a spinoff itself to begin with. If future projects embrace more of an anthology structure – with different stories being told around the world – but still focus on the core characters and themes that have made the movies resonate with fans, there’s real potential. Any number of characters from the core series could drop in or out, and the globetrotting adventure style that has become so central to Fast & Furious could remain intact. Whatever happens to the series going forward, there’s never been a better time to go back and give Tokyo Drift another watch.

Next: Fast & Furious: Every Car Han Drives In The Movies

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