Thursday April 2, 2009
Start your engines, again
Compiled by MUMTAJ BEGUM
There’s new drive for The Fast and the Furious franchise as it welcomes the return of its original stars in its latest run.
IT is always fun to imagine how our favourite characters in a film would continue with their lives after the movie has ended ... well, until the sequel is released anyway. Though sometimes, the story may continue, it goes on without all the original characters or cast.
Fast & Furious comes hot on the heels of The Fast and the Furious (2001), 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003) and The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006). Fast & Furious also reunites the four main characters of the first film, which are played by Paul Walker, Vin Diesel, Jordana Brewster and Michelle Rodriguez.
The Fast and the Furious revolved around the illegal underground street racing in Los Angeles in which Dominic Toretto (Diesel) participated. These races were infiltrated by a straight-arrow cop, Brian O’Conner (Walker). However, Toretto and O’Conner reached some sort of understanding, building a formidable team, which included Mia (Jordana Brewster) and Letty (Michelle Rodriguez). In the last scene of the 2001 film, O’Conner decided not to arrest Toretto, allowing him to escape to Mexico.
Since then, O’Conner has become an FBI agent with a rebellious streak. In Fast & Furious, O’Conner and Toretto come face to face yet again in Los Angeles when someone close to them dies. They are forced to join forces once more in bringing down a common enemy, a drug lord who is flooding the country with the lethal product.
Paul Walker (left) and Vin Diesel reprise their roles in Fast & Furious. Of course, in such a project like this, one of the toughest jobs is getting all the actors to return.
Diesel was concerned if he would be sacrificing his integrity by returning, while Walker was doubtful there would be an audience for the franchise. But both set their concerns aside. For Walker, it was a chance to hang out with the friends he had made eight years back, and Diesel got to pay homage to a character fans love. However, the ultimate reason why everyone wanted to return — according to Diesel — was because of the storyline, and that it required all of them to get back together, despite the fact that each of the actors had done vastly different projects in those eight years.
In an interview provided by the movie distributor UIP, Diesel said of his fellow actors: “These are guys that have grown up, gone on with their lives and, most important of all, endured this industry for eight years. And that’s a pretty powerful thing. I remember sitting with Paul years ago at an airport in Mexico when nobody knew us yet, and talking with him about how that reality would change. It’s interesting to see how we have all coped with that change of reality and how that affects our opportunity to return to a franchise we have all waited to come back to.”
Needless to say, the characters have gone through some changes too. They’ve gotten older and are no longer the young rebels they used to be. Erm, so how do you make a film about young rebels when they are neither young nor rebels any more? According to Diesel, the trick is getting this new movie right.
That must mean getting the action down pat, and having loads of it.
Walker said, “(There is an) insane amounts of action! And the majority of it was shot without CGI. It was all real driving!”
Once again, the cars chosen for the film match the personalities of the drivers, which means Diesel’s character is behind the wheel of muscle cars. Both Diesel and Walker admit that they love driving fast cars, something they don’t get to do too often as it’s dangerous. But when they do, they confess to getting real kicks. Diesel said: “I get such a charge doing it, while surrounded by the best stunt guys, that they are more often than not actually trying to hold me back. I like it too much to be self-conscious about that fear.”
Walker added: “The day I got to do some stuff with the car, I was like a kid in a candy store. That was my favourite day of work.”
The only guy who didn’t return for this film was the original director. Taking over directorial duties from Rob Cohen is Justin Lin, who directed Tokyo Drift. While both Walker and Diesel have a lot of respect for Cohen, they are impressed with Lin too. Diesel explained: “Justin did his training for this film on Tokyo Drift, where he got to experiment with every aspect about shooting fast cars in action sequences. So, he was primed and ready to take on the challenge of applying all that knowledge to the story that started in the original movie. I love Cohen, and I’m going to work with him again, but I think Lin really held his own ground on this picture.”
Fast cars, furious action, tough guys and smart girls – looks like this is a formula that never gets old.
Fast & Furious opens today in cinemas nationwide. For a behind the scenes look at the movie, catch Behind the Scenes: BTS Fast and Furious on April 12 at 7.45am on E! Entertainment Television (Astro channel 712).
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