Film Courage: How many times have you watched the original Fast and Furious?
Jason Park, Director, Producer, Writer, Actor, and Cinematographer: I've watched it at least
100 times. I love the franchise. It's one of my top three favorite movies, Fast and Furious,
Terminator 2 and Lion King, those are my three favorite movies. I love everything about car
culture. It's one of those things where everyone that's kind of late 20’s-30’s-40’s, we all watch
Fast and the Furious, we all loved it at its time and it inspired a whole generation of car lovers.
Fast and Furious is kind of a remake of Point Break. Point Break from with Keanu Reeves and
stuff and it follows the same kind of story except it's centered around street racing and
those cars today the Eclipse Supra RX7 those are so iconic in today's world and I don't think they
realized when they created the film that it would turn into a billion dollar 10 movie franchise but
Fast and Furious for any car lover is probably one of the greatest franchises for car lovers
ever to exist because you have muscle cars you have JDM Cars you have Euro Cars you have
exotic cars you have everything and Fast and Furious one is a masterpiece faster too fast
to Furious is so enjoyable Tokyo Drift has some of the best car sequences and it was shot and
the whole theme takes place in in Tokyo and then you have four five six seven eight nine
that slowly morphs into I guess like the hero Espionage spy but still have some cars in there
that's what led me to make four Amigos was after about fast and the furious five they kind of
started steering towards towards International spies and kind of left the tuna cars alone
and I was like okay well there's a niche and there's a space
that is neglected and alienated and I feel like I can help fill that void so
hopefully by this film being successful because I already wrote the sequel It's a three film series
the sequel is done and then I know where the third film's going that it leads to a sequel
but it also leads to other filmmakers to make more tuner Centric films because if I'm able to
do that and say okay hey guys we don't all have to go to space or we don't have to all have these out
of these world events take place within the tuner car space we can create grounded tuner car movies
then if I can do it you can do it too and I would love to watch your film as well because
we all have this common love of cars so if I open that door and people start busting
through the the front of the house and all of a sudden next year there's five tuner movies
I would absolutely be thrilled and delighted because now you have more films that interest
you as a tuner lover right it's the same as Like Loving rom-coms or action films or
sci-fi space films the more the merrier it's the same thing when you think about
movies and remakes and sequels and prequels like I love it because it doesn't take away
from whatever that original was that was your Masterpiece it's just an expansion on that story
what is tuner culture tuner culture is a beautiful culture it's a culture of males females different
races ethnicities it doesn't matter they all come together for the love of their cars and it doesn't
matter if it's JDM usdm or udm Euro exotic Honda Civics by you expressing yourself through your
car your car almost becomes an avatar of who you are it becomes almost like a robot right
it's an extension of you and your soul that's why there's so much color there's so much depth
there's so many different styles of builds you have all motor builds stance builds body kits
track builds you have daily cars like I personally drive a gr86 which is a Toyota grd6 it's the
second generation of a BRZ GT86 and I bought that because it's lightweight rear-wheel drive and it
has adequate power but tuner culture they like to Tinker with everything sometimes you'll have anime
decals you'll have suspension with wheels you'll have ah let me throw on a turbo kit or let me
throw on a supercharger kit let me add a chameleon wrap with some 20 inch wheels with low profile
tires let me do the interior so there's so many different ways that tuner culture Embraces cars
that there's a high love there for everyone that's why places like cars and coffee caffeine
and octane car meets on Tuesday nights it's such a big thing because you're gathering right it's
something like the what the internet brought for people there's people that are like you that have
the same interests as you and if you think of your childhood and I know for my childhood my
best friends we had one thing in common and that was cars my best friend had an MX6 with a klze
swap that I later bought from him I had an MX3 at a time and then at the time and then I bought
a CRX my other friend had a Subaru WRX with a STI swap my other friend had like a Ford Escort
but we all loved cars so after school we'd go meet up with the cars and just have fun right
cars are popular and have such a large following and fan base
because they're introduced to you as your freedom vehicle when you first get your license at 16
and then they're an extension of who you are when it comes to a expression you're able to
show what you have inside on your vehicle and be like yeah this is what I drive this is my whip
so that's why it's so important what makes the Fast and Furious franchise so successful
so we've grown with these characters we've grown with these characters for now 20 years
from the first fast and the furious to Fast and Furious now 10. you know
all of us still feel like the passing of Paul Walker like to this day like we all
know like there was his memorial just took place
we've grown with Vin Diesel Tyrese ludicrous like we've grown with these characters
and you have two audiences now you have the tuna culture that will always support fast and furious
because there's not many other options out there for car films like if you think of rom-coms or
anything else there's plenty of films but for some reason with tuner films there just aren't
many no one else wants to tackle it for some odd reason and then they have action so now you took
the formula of back in the day where action films with Arnold Schwarzenegger and and Jean-Claude
Van Damme and Predator you take that and then now you add tuner cars and you combine them
you have a successful recipe and I think the last five films did like a billion at the box
office or something like that you're gonna win because even if someone's not into tuner cars
they're into the action but then the tuner car which is a multi-billion dollar industry
they want to see the cars too if only now with the later films only if it's for a little bit you
still want to see the NSX or the the Supra on a big iMac screen or in 4k done at the highest level
how does the Fast and Furious rank in all-time franchises do so I don't know as far as hard
numbers but I know that for me it's up there with maybe even surpassed it Terminator
um it's up there with Star Wars it's definitely that they were Star Wars I can't really say Marvel
because Marvel has like 50 films with characters that have spanned 50 to 100 years that have like
really deep following that rooted from comic books and I don't think anything compares to
Marvel right now as far as franchises but I would put it up there even though James Bond
has a longer list of films I would put it up there with really any franchise and what I base
films off of and I know this this might be different for a lot of people are two things
enjoyability and can you re-watch it if you have a masterpiece that you watch sonically it's amazing
visually it's stunning editing everything about it the film is absolutely brilliant but when you
get done watching it and you've got the climax of it you got the story and you never watch it again
that that kind of sucks not that the film sucks but that kind of
sucks that now because you've seen the crux of it you're like okay I
don't know I don't really need to watch it again I've seen it right
for me something like a Fast and the Furious
Marvel films Star Wars alien Terminator you can re-watch those films and enjoy them it's
like Christmas films during Christmas you can re-watch them and enjoy them and I'd rather have
a re-watchable film that brings enjoyment whether you watch it yearly or during specific events
because now that film's living with you it's growing with you you're taking it along with
you so fast and furious definitely has that because even if you're only into the cars
you're able to re-watch it over and over and over if you love cars
and I think that's a rewatchability and enjoyment are two major things that I think people overlook
when they judge movies if you judge a movie based on and you take those things out and let's say
you have something that wins Sundance right it's like oh it wants Sundance it's a beautiful film
but let's say it doesn't do well financially and not to say everything has to do well financially
but in a business it has to do well financially or the whole ship sinks but you have a beautiful
film that went Sundance but it doesn't sell to a distributor and it doesn't get out to
an audience or let's say it does get out to an audience but they don't think it's
that beautiful because they're not a cinephile they like movies that they can turn their brain
off a little bit and just enjoy and then they live with that film for years and years to come
what do you think has more of an impact it's like that Masterpiece that one Sundance that everyone
in the industry claims is the most beautiful film that year or that fast and furious film
or Star Wars film or Marvel film that you can just enjoy and love and watch for your
kids and just have a good time and then you can do the same thing with that same film next year
which one has a greater impact I think the film that has rewatchability and you can enjoy
and you wanted to make your own version yes I wanted to make my own version as much as I could
and I feel like we accomplished that it's a it's a tuner film set in Atlanta you have a an enormous
collection of cars you have car sequences that are extended and longer for the car audience than it
should have been for example if you're going to cut to the scene maybe you have one two three car
shots and then you go into the scene I would take that and turn that into 30 shots of cars and then
go into the scene in hindsight right as you get better and evolve you look at your past projects
and you're like man I wish I could have done this better or oh I could have did that better
but again it goes back to the filmmaker you have to create
in that time and space that you're in and do the best that you can can do in that time with what
you have because if you don't then maybe the opportunity and the timing leaves you
and you may not ever be able to create it again because you waited to try and make it
perfect like there's certain shots where it would have been nice to have a a huge gimbal
attached to a truck and then you get those shots because the shots would have been super steady
compared to a little more shakier because you don't have the right gimbal but that's
the gimbal that you have for that shot so you use it and then you capture what you capture
if you wait to procure that truck what happens if you're not able to procure that truck you're
not able to procure that gimbal something falls through this actor that you shot
all these scenes with no longer can shoot something else happens because life happens
so when that energy consumes you and it inspires you to do something you got to act in that moment
because the moment you second guess you start giving yourself excuses on not doing it and a lot
of times you won't do it if you don't act in that moment and it's sort of like driving as well you
can't really you got to just kind of if you're too focused on being scared of something or whatever
you could actually end up hurting yourself 100 percent how many cars did you have and four Amigos
man a lot so we s2000s VW VOC what Volkswagen the Jettas NSX supercharged brz's Chargers Porsches
of course STIs we had I don't think we had a Corvette in this film but we had an NSX
racing down the freeway Mustangs gt350s 90 Supras 2020 one Supras Mark Mark IV Mark V
we you name it we've had it and the only legendary really car in that list that we kind of didn't
have with within the tuner space was an RX7 so I I couldn't I couldn't procure that and I wanted
to but we had probably a good I want to say 40 cars we had Lamborghinis a Lotus lotuses evoras
Aston Martin's we've had a little bit of everything yeah and how did you get these
cars again you you put out calls yeah so for months I knew that we were going to film on
a specific date so about three four months in advance I would go to every car meet every big
car meets small car meet and I would get emails and I would get contacts and this goes back to me
selling food in Hawaii right I would just hustle and you'd have people say no I'm not interested or
you're a weirdo or whatever and I would approach everybody hey man I'm gonna shoot this this film
can I get your contact you might want to be in it and I would just compile this list over months and
then when it came time to shoot it was like hey guys I'm shooting this is what I'm kind of looking
for do you have it do you have it and because the car community and car culture they're so loving
they were able to embrace me and help guide me and help me bring this film to life
so yeah so so some of them you gave them the call time and they showed up and they showed up and a
lot of the cars in the movie are real cars a lot of the actors in the movie with the cars
it's their car oh cool and I I was able to add them to the film and let them be a part of film
history so it was nice and and in the sequel if I get if I get to the opportunity to make
the sequel it Dives deeper into tuner cars and it's one of those things where I just kind of
wanted to give back to a culture that gave me so much joy and because I realized that there was a
gap there and we didn't have many tuner films to watch I created something for them to watch
where can we see it so four Amigos now it's on Amazon Prime it's on TIVO so you can rent
it I think for 4.99 or 3.99 and then in a couple months it will be on Tubi TV great yeah excellent.