The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Of course I had to watch this movie since I was a big Initial D fan. I had high hopes when watching the opening scene where Jay Chou's character is effortlessly gliding down the mountain pass in his Trueno. That was the best part of the movie unfortunately.Let's talk about the good first. The car scenes are pretty fun to watch sometimes. In many of the scenes they'll hug a turn on the inside and let the rear slide out and overtake the opponent. It's pretty fun to watch and you just have to wonder who the stunt men are or if they brought in Japanese drift legend, Tsuchiya on to the set for some of these shots.Unfortunately that's the only thing that is good about this movie. Let's talk about the bad now. The characters are two dimensional. If you are a fan of the anime you will not find your beloved characters here. Jay Chou does a pretty bad job as the protagonist. I feel like he's always mumbling out his lines or is just wondering why he isn't doing the music video yet. Also, let's talk about his friends. They're morons. His best friend Itsuki is more of a raving idiot than his anime counterpart would ever hope to be. In the anime, this character talks about trying to get better and having Takumi as his inspiration. In the movie, this character talks about how he's a racing god and when he loses and wrecks he asks his poor father to buy him an even faster car (GTR) so that he can rematch and wreck that one too. Takumi's father is also a drunk and a bum. Also he is abusive. He beats his son and Jay Chou has scars on his back from all the beatings. I don't know what they were thinking by making him an abusive drunkard since obviously from the original material he was never one. Obviously, you can tell from what I'm writing here that the director probably never watched an episode of Initial D in his life.I find the camera work to be also crappy and low budget. There are lots of scenes where they freeze the frame and you are left thinking "did something happen to my DVD player?" Nope. That's their creative take on racing. To freeze the scene even when it's a person's face talking. Then there's the music. Nothing in the movie was good except for Jay Chou's song. The racing scenes have music that sounds like a background track for a rap battle without the rapping. If you're a fan of the anime don't expect to hear your favorite eurobeat tracks or Move songs.Overall I was bored, only paid attention during the races and got utterly perplexed by the ridiculous ending sequence where the people are celebrating. The other team and even his abusive father who has his arms around two young girls start cheering. Also I'd like to point out that not only is a 3 car race unfair, I've never seen a race with 3 cars in Initial D or any mountain race scene in any movie!Next time try not to squeeze so much crap in.

It would've been so easy.Just do the stupid, obvious thing.You're Hong Kong cinema. You're attempting to cram 17 manga volumes worth of material into about two hours, and with a limited cast and budget. You have no idea what made the source material great or how the fans of the manga are going to take it.MAKE IT ALL ABOUT RACING. *Not* a pathetic drunken loser of a father, *not* an extremely minor subplot involving an extremely minor girlfriend that somehow keeps getting hashed to death, *not* a mischaracterization of Itsuki ten times worse than the most inept anime bungling. Racing and people who race.The regrettably sparse driving scenes are by far the most entertaining part of the movie. Even Takumi's solo runs were fun to watch, and the incredible three-way battle at the end has to be seen to be believed. In between these, we get a depressing amount of tedious drama involving characters far too cardboard to give a damn about.So, so easy. Pretend you've never heard of Natsuki or circling the water and give us two hours of spectacular, unbelievable racing action. Why couldn't it have been that?

This movie is the best. I watched lots of time and never get bored of it because my older brother is a street race and not many people knows that and thats why i like to watch it. The other thing I watch is because it was based on the Anime "Initial D" and I really like that show too. I recommend the people who haven't watch this movie should, because it will make you change your mind about Initial D because of the race they are so real. One tip when Racing, Never get too angry , just stay calm, and that will make you win. Also i like the end when Takumi (Jay Chou) waits for his girlfriend and sees her coming out of the car with another guy and he now believes his friend hat told him about that. but that was a sad a truly best moment ever. Well one thing, INITIAL D ROCKS!!!!!

I realize adapting and compressing a long-running comic and anime series into about 2 hours requires some cuts and changes, but this result of a film is vomit-inducing.My biggest issue in this movie comes with the writing--characters have been completely changed in terms of abilities, personality, and relationships (This is where the possible spoilers come in, I NEED to list some of these things to warn you). The filmmakers expect fans to believe the following changes:1. Keisuke apparently doesn't exist, Takeshi Nakazato takes his place in collaborating with Ryosuke on street races. 2. Itsuki is the leader of the speed stars team, and he drives a Silvia S13 (Iketani's car!). At least Itsuki still can't drive worth anything. 3. In the film version, Itsuki is Yuichi's son, acting like a whiny rich kid. 4. Bunta abuses and threatens his son on multiple occasions when Takumi bangs up the car. 5. Bunta also explains to Yuichi that the reason Takumi began doing deliveries is because his hemorrhoids were killing him. Flat-out dumb.6. Takumi blows the engine on the AE86 while racing team emperor's leader ON AN AKINA DOWNHILL RUN. In the comic and anime, he never lost on Akina! And he grenades the engine before he learns of Natsuki's profession, so he's not even angry when it happens.The direction and editing of this movie is all over the place, as well. When the cars are racing, there are some sweet camera choices and your pulse gets moving a bit. But when the drivers are shown, there's too much use of splitting the screen to show two or three close-ups at once. The movie also apparently didn't have the budget to actually show any of the cars crashing--each time, the car slides through a flimsy barrier or sign and the view cuts to black. When the action stops, it gets worse. Slow motion at all the wrong times, sloppy cuts, and a slow pace all slap the audience in the face. The only high point is the drifting work was pretty good at times for running through hairpins on the mountain passes. Aside from that, I wish I never knew this movie existed. I love the series even more because it doesn't make these horrible story choices.