INITIAL D THE MOVIE

(*Warning: Spoilers!*)

Did they do justice to Shuichi Shigeno's famous automobile anime? I really have no idea! For someone who only watches two episodes of the anime from the Fourth Stage, I think my review is of no value and not worthy of those true blue Initial D fans who followed all the stages. My girlfriend is sooooo damn jealous about me watching before her because Kota Kinabalu screening is on 11:45pm last night and she is still under her attachment period! She needs to wake up early to go for work! Haha! *evil smile* I'm sure she gonna catch it today!

All I want to say is that this is less technical than the anime itself. It does not go into full explanations of the strategies adopted for the race. It also does not go full detail into the hardwares, just some brief explanations. The show however touches more on the aesthetics and speed of the racing and of course drifting (which is the signature of Initial D). The camera angles and shots are doing their best to bring out all these aspects of the race. Race scenes do not take long so those non-automobile Jay Chou fans will not be bored to death.

At first, I was wondering how the conversations are going to take place. Jay Chou is Taiwanese, the rest of the cast are Hong Kie and of course the cute Anne Suzuki is Japanese. Singapore will not have Cantonese for the screening so they all speak Mandarin! Pretty funny when you can easily tell from their mouth movements that they are not speaking Mandarin. I bet Malaysia will have Cantonese screening and Jay Chou will sound weird in Cantonese. Anne Suzuki has sexy lips and nice legs! Hot! In some scenes, her face looks pretty round and chubby to me, probably because she still have some baby fat as she is only 18! She did not get a lot of scenes. While the character she plays is a very sad one and I don't like the role she plays. *Disappointed!*

The romance of the story is very secondary and just touching on the surface level. To me, the cars are the lead actors who did all the talking. The cast just supports them. The comedy is the one that keeps the show going. Just as I had predicted, Anthony Wong, Kenny Bee and Chapman To helped keep the show going. They are to me the spine that holds the whole movie together. There are many 'KUAZAN' scenes like having bloody head after a fall, alot of puking from car rides and nosebleeding from being with sexy Japanese babes. They try to depict the anime essence too! Hehe! It is ok, but the puking is too much for me and overdone. I started to get sick of it. They also like to do those peeping at girls' ultra short miniskirts.

Jay Chou acting is alright, he just acted with his coolness and let everyone else around him creates the funny scenes while he is involved in them and just play along. Not too bad for his first attempt given all the circumstances of this being a movie with cars as the real lead actors/actresses. He was very worried when his dad was with Anne Suzuki at his home. He looked to be in the state of panic considering his hentai dad! Haha! Always wanting to peep under her ultra short miniskirt. Edison Chen and Shawn Yue did not play important roles in the show so I am quite neutral of their acting in this movie. Jordan Chan only comes to the scene right in the end and did not talk much either.

There are about 5 races in the show. It started with Fujiwara (Jay Chou) racing against the Nissan Skyline GT-R of Nakazato (Shawn Yue) unofficially. It ended with a three way race between Takahashi (Edison Chen) with his Mazda RX7 and Sudou (Jordan Chan) with his Mitsubishi Lancer Evo. III. Other races are less official because the challengers just meet him halfway on the road and challenge him. There are not much overtaking tactics and strategies used in the movie so I think this must have disappoint the Initial D fans. I guess you cannot go to such high levels on the first movie. It is like a beginning so most skills are at its beginner stage. If they are going to make a sequal, then perhaps they will go more high level from here.

Overall, it is worth the movie ticket to watch. You can get a lot of good laughs from all those funny jokes. A must go for Initial D fans but don't expect too much from the technical side of the story. I could only think of Pasir Panjang of Singapore to be the most suitable place to drift, closest to Mount Akina! Hehe! It is called the 1001 turns and although does not have the terrains and topography of a hill or mountain, it has the enough turns to be just as good. You cannot expect Singapore to have any incredible topography because she is generally 'FLAT'! Haha! The place where Jay Chou went with Anne Suzuki is like the smaller version of MacRitchie Reservoir of Singapore! Mount Akina has the jungle thickness like Mulu where I flew to explore the caves last year! The bird eye view of the nature surrounding the race track gives such impressions.

Now, I will just wait for a true blue Initial D fan to watch the movie today and give me her opinions!