Tau man ji D (2005)

After winning his first competition, Takumi focuses his attention on drift racing, a sport he has unknowingly perfected while delivering tofu in his father's Toyota AE86.

Directors:

Andrew Lau, Alan Mak

Writers:

Shuichi Shigeno (comic books), Felix Chong (screenplay)

Stars:

Jay Chou, Anthony Chau-Sang Wong, Edison Chen

12 wins & 16 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Jay Chou	...	Takumi Fujiwara
Anthony Chau-Sang Wong	...	Bunta 'Tofuman' Fujiwara (as Anthony Wong)
Edison Chen	...	Ryousuke Takahashi
Shawn Yue	...	Takeshi Nakazato
Anne Suzuki	...	Natsuki Mogi
Chapman To	...	Itsuki Tachibana
Kenny Bee	...	Yuuichi 'Gasman' Tachibana
Jordan Chan	...	Kyouichi Sudou
Will Liu	...	Seiji Iwaki
Tsuyoshi Abe	...	Kenji
Kiyohiko Ueki	...	Iketani
Kazuo Yashiro	...	SpeedStars Member
Miki Kuroiwa	...	Natsuki Mogi's Classmate
Megumi Seitone	...	Natsuki Mogi's Classmate
Sayaka Takizawa	...	Natsuki Mogi's Classmate

Storyline

Two mountain road racers, Nakazato and Takahashi, challenged each other to find the best racers, and defeat them in "battles". Nakazato was surprisingly defeated by an old Toyota Trueno AE86 (Corolla in the US) one night, and he searched for the person who defeated him, which lead him to the Speedstars, a local team. But the car who beat him was actually driven by a local Tofu shop owner's son, Takumi Fujiwara, who had unknowingly perfected the art of mountain racing through daily deliveries of tofu. Takumi was able to defeat Nakazato again, showing that he is no fluke. However, winning hasn't helped him home life, as his father, Bunta Fujiwara, was a drunkard (and a racing genius). His girlfriend Natsuki Mogi wants his attention even though she's got a dark and shameful secret, and his best friend Itsuki (who has no talent in driving) wants Takumi to teach him road racing... after buying the WRONG car. In a mountain road encounter, they ran into Team Emperor's Mitsubishi Evo, and ...

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Plot Keywords:

live action remake of anime | racing | drama competition | tofu | drunkard | 

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Taglines:

The ULTIMATE race car movie!

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Genres:

Action | Comedy | Drama | Romance

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Details

Official Sites:

Media Asia [Hong Kong]

Country:

China Hong Kong

Language:

Cantonese English

Release Date:

23 June 2005 (China)

Also Known As:

Initial D

Filming Locations:

Mt. Akina, Gunma, Japan

Box Office

Budget:

$12,000,000 (estimated)

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$10,793,051

Company Credits

Production Co:

Media Asia Films, Sil-Metropole Organisation, Basic Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

107 min 104 min (DVD)

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

For a long period of time, Edison Chen was slated to play Takumi Fujiwara, and Andy Lau was even rumored to be up for the role of Bunta.

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Goofs

When Bunta is driving, there is a close-up of the tachometer where we can also see that the speedometer is not functioning at all. Later in the movie, a close-up of the speedometer shows it working again.

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Quotes

Itsuki Tachibana: [to himself about his dad, who left the gas station behind to look after Bunta's car] That sucks. He's not young anymore. He's so irresponsible, leaving his business like this. What's gonna happen to me if it goes bankrupt? It's good that I've been living on my own, or else, I wouldn't be this chubby.

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Connections

Remake of Initial D: First Stage (1998)

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Soundtracks

Intro
Performed by Ghost Style

User Reviews

Reminiscent of the original, but what happened to the music?

Overall, I'll have to say right off the bat that as a fan of the original anime I found it somewhat amusing.

There are a few things that the movie does right. The camera angles and the overall feel of the movie was spot-on to the original source material. A particular highlight was the "zoom-in-on-the-eyes" of the loser in one particular race. This was exactly like the anime, and was a great touch.

People might slam Jay Chou, but I thought he did a good job in this. It's rather hard to screw up a character who is generally bored and half-asleep (as he is portrayed in the anime).

There are a lot of small changes here and there, such as Bunta being a drunkard for comedy relief, and the complete lack of Keisuke (his character was combined with Nakazato). Or the fact that the anime Nakazato drove the 4WD GT-R model of Skyline, and did not drift. I won't touch on these in detail, as they didn't really bother me that much.

However, the biggest element lacking in this is the music! Inital D fans know that Initial D is known for it's high energy dance-style J-pop music. Considering there are at least 10 Initial D soundtrack CD's out in Japan, I can't believe they didn't realize how popular the music is.

The music in the film is best described as "Chinese rap/R&B" I guess, which really hurt the feel of the movie in my opinion.

As synonymous the anime is with the music, I can't help but think what it would be without it. We'd be left with scenes of car racing with cheesy dialog, intertwined with brief romance scenes. Which now that I think of it, pretty much sums up this film.

If they were to make an Initial D anime series with music similar to this movie's soundtrack, I wonder if I would like it as much.

I just might feel the same way about it as I do this movie, in that it's a nice reminiscent film somewhat faithful to the original, but nothing to get really excited about.

If you're not a fan of Inital D or of import racing, there's not much for you here.