The latest installment of the Universal Pictures franchise, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, transports the high intensity world of street racing to the packed streets of Tokyo, Japan. With an all new cast, the film focuses on the sexy, forbidden and hyperkinetic underground drift racing scene. This distinctly Japanese style of driving showcases a new type of driver whose technique must blend effortlessly with daring speed.
“What people can expect from this film is, obviously, the action, but I feel like they’re going to be pleasantly surprised because it’s something totally different from the first two,”the half-Japanese, half-Korean Brian Tee tells MediaBlvd. Magazine in an exclusive interview. “It’s about drift racing, which is more about balance and control, instead of raw power and speed, like drag racing is. Drifting originated in Japan, where these kids would go up and down these mountains. In order for them to go up and down quickly, they would have to skid within the turns, which became this art form of drift racing. The art form became this underground scene, which is now a professional circuit in Tokyo, and around the world.”
Directed by Justin Lin (Annapolis, Better Luck Tomorrow), The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift follows outsider Sean Boswell (Lucas Black), who attempts to define himself as a street racer. Unpopular with the local authorities, Sean is sent to live with his gruff, estranged father, a career military-man stationed in Tokyo, in order to avoid jail time. But, it doesn’t take long for him to find some action when a fellow American buddy, Twinkie (Bow Wow), introduces him to the underground world of drift racing. On his first time out drifting, Sean unknowingly takes on D.K. (Brian Tee), the “Drift King” -- a local champ with ties to the Japanese crime machine Yakuza. When Sean also falls for D.K.’s girlfriend, Neela (Nathalie Kelley), an explosive series of events is set into motion.
{quote_top}“I feel like Justin did such a great job with this movie. I think people will be pleasantly surprised, not only for the action, and the look and feel of the movie, but also the story. It’s about family and friendship. As ‘the villain,’ Justin and I really didn’t want to make this character one of the stereotypical bad guys that you see in countless movies where, for some reason, the antagonist is angry all the time, for no apparent reason. D.K. is very cultured and very rooted in two aspects of his life, and that’s his downfall. He’s struggling in this tug-of-war between two sides of his own life, which makes him a very tragic figure. One side is where his honor and loyalty lies -- being a part of the Yakuza mafia, and what that represents -- and the other side is where his spirit, his love and his drive are -- with the drift racing world and his love for Neela. He’s stuck between these two worlds, throughout the film, and he has to make these choices, which really makes this character so deep, with a huge range and arc. That’s what I loved about him.”
Born in Okinawa, Japan, Tee didn’t consider acting as a career until he reached college. With his older brother having gone to medical school, their parents expected the younger Tee to become a lawyer, but he admits that he wasn’t so sure.
“I didn’t know what I wanted to do, so I just took basic general ed, and I had one unit left. I looked through the catalog and came across this class that said, ‘Acting for non-majors,’ so I took it, for the hell of it. On the first day of class, I went in, not expecting anything, but got everything. It completely changed my life. I dropped out of Cal State Fullerton and went into Fullerton Junior College for a year because it had a great theater program. Then, I transferred to the UC Berkeley theater program, which was cool with my parents. For them, the name of the school meant a lot. It’s an Asian culture thing.”
“I spent a 1 ½ to 2 years there, majoring in drama, and then moved back to L.A. to pursue acting on a professional level, especially in television and film. I had no contacts in L.A., so I started from the ground up, doing non-union extra work for music videos, where the craft service consisted of candy and water. I did anything and everything that I could to learn more about the craft and pursue it to the best of my abilities, and really just tried to work my way up, taking odd jobs bartending. During the day, I did student films and independent, low-budget films, just to learn the process and get a reel. And then, fortunately, I was able to get an agent, book a commercial, join SAG, and get my first job in 2000 on The Pretender, as a guest star, which was amazing.”
{quote_middle}After memorable roles in such films as Fun with Dick & Jane, We Were Soldiers and Austin Powers: Goldmember, along with guest appearances on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Monk, Without a Trace, Wanted and The Unit, Tee scored his role in The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. As a fan of street racing, prior to doing the film, the actor knew that he wouldn’t be going anywhere near the stunts, instead leaving that to the professionals.
“I drive straight. I had a huge accident, coming home from one of the drift racing events, but I wasn’t speeding, or anything like that. Basically, I was going through an intersection and this girl was turning out, and we had an accident. For some odd reason, the stars were not aligned because, as I was trying to avoid this accident, I swerved and hit the curb and rolled my car. It was quite an experience to walk out of that without a scratch on me, even though the car was completely totaled. That gave me a reality check.”
Proficient, though not fluent, in both Japanese and Korean, Tee had an advantage that most of his other young cast mates did not have, during the month they spent filming in Tokyo. “Tokyo is exactly what people say it is -- like New York on crack. It’s just amazing. It’s a lot like L.A., in the sense that L.A. is this big mecca of smaller cities, such as Hollywood, Santa Monica, Culver City, West Hollywood, and all these other sub-cities. Tokyo is the same way. Every little city within Tokyo is its own little world, which makes it a blast.”
Although his ultimate goal is to eventually play the leading man, Tee says that, for now, it’s good to be bad. “The bad guys are more fun. They can be very one-dimensional, which can make them horrible to play, but D.K. had so many levels and tones. To see an Asian American in a lead role as the hero would be a huge step for me, professionally, but also for mainstream Hollywood as well because there has not been one. Granted, there is Jackie Chan, Jet Li and Chow Yun Fat, but they’re all foreign born. They do cross over, and they’re great at what they do, but it’s still that genre and stereotype of kung fu, and they’re looked at as foreigners because they have accents. There has not yet been one that has really crossed over into the American aspect of society, where we are just as American as everyone else, and not looked upon as a foreigner.”
Admitting that they are extremely proud of him now, all of Tee’s success as an actor has changed his parents mind about their desired career path for him. “Before all this happened, they would give subtle hints of, ‘Maybe you should get into real estate, or get an insurance license.’ But, slowly but surely those little hints have faded because they see that acting truly makes me happy, and they know that I’m probably going to do this for the rest of my life. Once they got that into their heads, they were all for it. They still worry, but I feel that they’re much more supportive now.”
{quote_bottom}Having recently done an episode of the hit HBO comedy series Entourage, Tee is trying to be selective and wait for the right projects, in an effort to keep from being typecast. With a five-year goal to break the mold of Asian actors in Hollywood, and get into mainstream America, Tee also hopes he will some day get the opportunity to tell the story of the 442nd battalion during WWII.
“The 442nd was a completely Japanese regimen. These guys were in internment camps and they volunteered to join the army and fight for America against the Japanese. They were looked down upon and ridiculed throughout the whole process, but they are more decorated, honored and awarded than any other battalion in U.S. American history, and no one really knows about it. I feel like that story, because it’s an American story, should be told.”
