An Oscar winning dame's high-octane dream. A
world-famous driver's subtle cameo. And what's Cardi B doing bailing
out Vin Diesel? Here's everything you missed in the "Fast & Furious" films.
The "Fast & Furious" franchise has come a long way since its debut in 2001. The story
in the first film, "The Fast and the Furious," comes from humble beginnings
as it follows the journey of undercover cop Brian O'Connor, played by the late,
great Paul Walker. The plot details how Brian infiltrates a group of competitive street
racers run by Vin Diesel's character, Dominic Toretto, better known as Dom. For the most part,
things seem to be going well for the young LAPD officer, aside from the fact
that Dom's right-hand man, Vince, mistrusts Brian. He clocks him as a cop right away.
Brian runs into further complications when he forms a true bond with Dom and begins
developing feelings for his new friend's younger sister, Mia. When Brian comes to
stop Dom and his crew from a car theft gone wrong, he helps rescue Vince who's trapped
on a truck. Unfortunately, Vince gets caught up in a wire that's cutting into his arm. Luckily,
Brian is able to save him, and when Vince returns to the franchise in "Fast Five"
the scars from that ordeal are present on his arm. This small detail goes a long way to help
encourage a sense of consistency in a franchise that doesn't always have the best continuity.
"Are you serious right now? Man, this is crazy!"
By the end of "The Fast and the Furious," Brian has put his career in jeopardy by
helping out Dom and his crew. He ultimately lets Dom go in order
to stop him from getting arrested. Audiences learn in the next film,
"2 Fast 2 Furious," that this decision leads to Brian losing his job as an LAPD officer.
"Fast & Furious 6" really amps up the change of direction in the franchise.
The familiar crew of street racers has now turned into the only hope to stop a criminal
organization run by Owen Shaw, played by Luke Evans. Dwayne Johnson's character,
Diplomatic Security Service agent Hobbs, who once hunted Dom and his crew, has now turned
to them for help in assisting with the other crew's arrest. According to Hobbs, the crew is
similar to Dom's and has even enlisted the help of Dom's old girlfriend Letty, who was presumed dead.
By the end of the film, all is well for the furious family. Hobbs has granted
the entire crew pardons from the U.S. government, allowing them to return to
the home where the franchise first began. Letty has joined their team once more,
and while she still suffers from memory loss, she and Dom are back together.
At the end of the film, Tyrese Gibson's character,
Pearce, has a brief exchange with Hobbs when he appears at their barbeque.
"Hey Mia, better hide your baby oil — I'm just playing."
"You'd better hide that big-ass forehead."
"I was just joking, whatever."
As it turns out, Hobbs' crack at Pearce was improved by Johnson.
The scene was kept in the final cut due to its hilarious timing.
It's no secret that Dwayne Johnson is one of the hardest-working entertainers in the business. In
fact, according to Forbes, he was one of the highest-paid actors in 2022 due to his roles
in the Furious franchise, "Black Adam," and "Red Notice" to name a few. However, before
he made a name for himself in Hollywood, Johnson made waves with his wrestling persona: The Rock.
It seems as though professional wrestling is a family business for Johnson, as his father,
Rocky, was a famous Canadian wrestler. Similarly,
his eldest daughter Simone has recently announced that she's following in her
family's famous footsteps. She has debuted her wrestling name to be Ava Raine, according to TMZ.
At the beginning of "Furious 7," audiences are introduced to the latest threat to the Furious
family, Owen Shaw's older brother, Deckard Shaw. Shaw is out for vengeance after Hobbs,
Dom, and his crew put a stop to his brother's activities, placing Owen in a coma in the process.
Shaw and Hobbs engage in an epic fight when Shaw breaks into the Diplomatic Security Service,
or DSS, office in Los Angeles. During the fight, Johnson shows that he has retained
many of his hand-to-hand combat skills from his previous career. Longtime fans of "The Rock"
might even recognize when he uses his classic finisher, "The Rock Bottom," against Shaw, a
detail surely included as a nod to those who have followed the entertainer since his early days.
The "Fast and Furious" spinoff film, "Hobbs & Shaw," digs deeper into the Shaw family's
story. The movie introduces the character Hattie Shaw, the younger sister of Deckard
and Owen. She is an MI6 field agent that is being relentlessly hunted by terrorist Brixton Lore.
However, before Hobbs learns any of this, he spends some time interrogating her,
as he believes that she's a criminal. At the end of his interrogation, he
quotes the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.
"There's more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophies."
"Oh let me guess: is that Bruce Lee?"
"Hahaha, no — Nietzche."
This is much to the surprise of Hattie, who had assumed that he was not enlightened enough to
discuss such a celebrated intellectual. However, the joke is clearly on her.
This might have seemed like it was a tool used in order to give Hattie and Hobbs some sexual
tension, but there's a smaller detail that foreshadows his interest in Nietzsche. The
beginning of the film outlines the morning routine that Hobbs goes through in contrast with Shaw. One
moment showcases the two making breakfast, which has a blink-and-you-miss-it moment.
Hobbs is making eggs in a bowl, where audiences can see a copy of the book
"The Portable Nietzsche" next to his stove. The film already told us that he's a Nietzsche fan,
but it was only visible to those who were paying attention to those seemingly-minute details.
"That's good. I'm impressed."
"F9" was released in 2021 and saw the return of director Justin Lin to the franchise. Currently,
Lin has directed a total of five "Furious" films: "The Fast and the Furious:
Tokyo Drift," "Fast & Furious," "Fast Five," "Fast & Furious 6," and "F9."
The story in "F9" doubles down on the core concept of family within the franchise as
it's revealed that Dom and Mia have a brother that has, up until this point,
never been mentioned. Their brother Jakob Toretto is played by John Cena.
He is estranged from his family after Dom discovers that he is partially responsible
for the death of their father. Years later, Jakob returns for revenge against Dom,
as he's become an renowned criminal working as a thief, assassin, and high-performance driver.
The start of the film uses an older logo for Universal studios. In the film's commentary,
Lin details that this was an intentional decision made on his part. He points out
that the film begins with a flashback to Dom's father's
death in 1989 to provide context for the Toretto boys' relationship.
In the original "The Fast and the Furious," Dom recounts how
he physically beat the man responsible for his father's death. In "F9," we also
see a flashback of the assault. In the commentary, Lin explained,
"The choice of going with an older logo was
because I wanted it to sync up with this 'flashback' to start."
"F9" brings Helen Mirren's return to the main Furious franchise after her starring role in
"Hobbs and Shaw." She portrays the Shaw siblings Deckard, Owen, and presumably Hattie's mother,
Queenie. When Queenie is first introduced, audiences see that being a criminal seems
to run in the Shaw family, as she's shown attempting to steal a necklace.
When Dom approaches her, she provides him with information on his brother, Jakob Toretto's,
location. During their conversation, Queenie is shown driving recklessly through the streets of
London. As street racing is the origin of the "Furious" franchise, this decision was likely
made to keep in the tradition of being too fast and too furious. However, it was also
a special request made by the actress herself. According to Yahoo! Entertainment, Mirren shared,
"My great ambition is to be in a Fast and Furious movie. I so want to be a
mad driver in a Fast and Furious movie. My claim to fame is I always do my own
driving — I was on Top Gear, and I did [my lap] in a very good time."
Rapper Cardi B appears in a small guest role in "F9" as Leysa, a woman who shares history with
Dom. Her character rescues him from being arrested by posing as a police officer,
and provides him with a key to his freedom once they're put in the
back of a police van. While her connection with Dom may have seemed random at first,
she does have a seemingly throw-away line that holds hidden weight to who her character is.
In the film, she says that if it wasn't for Dom, she would still be stealing gas. This
is a direct connection to Dom, Letty, and Han's time living in the Dominican
Republic. In the fourth film of the franchise, "Fast & Furious," those three characters live
in the Dominican stealing gas to make a living. Their time here takes place after
the events of the first film, when Brian lets Dom go rather than have him arrested.
As he and Letty become wanted criminals, they leave the States and seemingly build a different
crew. Clearly, Leysa was part of that crew for a short time. According to ET, Diesel revealed
that Cardi B's character will return for the series' 10th installment, and that she will be
expanded on even more. Discussing Leysa's future in the franchise, "F9" director Justin Lin stated,
"She's actually really embedded into the overall universe,
she's been around for a long time and this is just the first time we are seeing her,
so I'm really excited to explore that character of her."
The timeline in the "Furious" franchise can get a little murky. Although "The Fast and the Furious:
Tokyo Drift" is the third film to have been released in the franchise,
it actually takes place as the sixth in the timeline. This is because Sung
Kang's character Han is introduced and seemingly killed in "Tokyo Drift." At the end of the film,
Dom appears for a race to honor the friend he thought he'd lost. At the time, Dom's appearance
was a big deal. as this marked the return of Vin Diesel to the "Furious" franchise.
As the "Furious" films continued throughout the years, it's shown that Deckard Shaw is
responsible for Han's death in retaliation for what Dom's crew did to his brother Owen Shaw
in "Fast & Furious 6." But wait, there's more! The plot gets even thicker when it's revealed
that Han didn't actually die. Instead, he went into hiding in order to protect a little girl.
While the story of Han is a confusing one, there's a small but entertaining detail about his name
that we can't get out of our heads. In "Furious 7," it's revealed that his full name is actually
Han Seoul-Oh, a clever nod to Harrison Ford's iconic Star Wars character Han Solo. However,
director Justin Lin later revealed on Twitter that this is actually just an
alias that Han uses, and that his full name still remains a mystery.
"No reward is worth this."
"The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift" introduces drift racing into the franchise. Up until this
point, the series was all about street racing, with a dash of police drama for good measure.
"Tokyo Drift" is also the only movie in the franchise that does not follow Brian or Dominic.
Instead, an entirely new cast gets introduced. The film also made the interesting choice to have most
of the characters be high school students, rather than adults taking part in criminal activities.
In short, it's definitely the most divisive story to come out of the "Furious" franchise.
A small scene in the film that holds a lot of weight is when audiences see a fisherman
watching Sean as he embarrassingly attempts to drift for the first time. The fisherman
is actually the real-life "Drift King" Keiichi Tsuchiya. According to an eagle-eyed Reddit fan,
"Tsuchiya helped popularize the art and Touge driving, which also features heavily in the film."
Surprisingly few professional drivers have actually made cameos in the Furious franchise,
so Tsuchiya's appearance sets "Tokyo Drift" even further apart from its counterparts.