The Real Tokyo Drift

According to the film’s director Justin Lin, “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift” portrays some of the real consequences of drifting on the street. What many people won’t realize is the safety and expertise behind the destruction.

In this scene a car is burning after having crashed and flipped

During the course of filming “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift” over 100 cars were destroyed/wrecked. The most important feature of these cars is their drivers. For the production of “Tokyo Drift” professional stunt drivers Rhys Millen, Samuel Hubinette and Tanner Foust were hired. Each of these drivers has over a decade of racing experience and each of them is among the top ranked drifters in the US.

Skilled stunt drivers in safely equipped cars hit each other

As in the previous “Fast and the Furious” films, the cars are the other stars of the film. What is so different about the The cars used in the stunt sequences of the film? For starters each car has had a steel roll cage fabricated and installed to protect the driver in case of a rollover. The cars also have racing buckets with the appropriate racing harnesses installed. This level of protection allows a driver to walk away from an accident of significant speeds, where a driver in a normal car would be injured or possibly killed. These safety features combined with a tuned suspension setup allowed the drivers in the film to drift safely.

Staged street drifting is commonplace in “Tokyo Drift”

The illegal street drifting scenes depicted in “Tokyo Drift” were of course, carefully choreographed shots that took place on closed roads. Even so, drivers spent many takes to perform the precision driving demanded by the film. The entire time these performers were drifting these “streets”, medical crews stood by to aid the drivers in case of an emergency.

For some it may be easy to conclude that drifting is simple or that it is somehow acceptable or safe to do so on public roads, but, the facts are simple; drifting requires the correct equipment, lots of skill and a safe place (closed course) to do drift.