THE film Alive Drift, also known as Alivehoon, tells the story about introverted top Esports gamer Koichi Oba (Shuhei Nomura) turned pro car drifter.
The story begins with Ryousuke Muto (Takanori Jinnai), veteran drifting car racer who crashes his beloved racecar and ends up on crutches. After the accident, his daughter Natsumi (Ai Yoshikawa) recruits Koichi to race for their team.
As a person who knows pretty much nothing about drifting, the racing scenes were of course impressive.
With no CG used during post-production, it must’ve undoubtedly been a feat to film the scenes. By the end of the movie, I got the gist of how drift racing is scored, and what the roles of a leader and chaser were in twin battles.
You have the standard characters: harsh manager and mentor, lofty but secretly sweet mechanic, rude tough guy rival, potential romantic interest with the cute female protagonist, and even the animesque sexy female manager.
As an avid movie watcher, however, the plot failed to meet my expectations. Granted, the movie most likely did not have a Fast & Furious budget, but everything from the character progression to the colour grading was definitely a miss in my book.
But if you’re looking to watch some high-action level drifting, Drift King Keiichi Tsuchiya even makes a special appearance as one of the commentators and was the technical advisor for the drift scenes.
He oversaw the driving stunts which were performed by real-life Japanese drifters like Naoki Nakamura, Daigo Saito and Masato Kawabata.
For car enthusiasts, you will definitely enjoy the sleek Nissan S15 Silvias, some of which are painfully crashed, and a brief scene at a garage features a panda Toyota AE86 and a couple of R32 Skyline GT-Rs lurking about.
You may also notice a new GR Yaris and A90 Supra because Toyota Gazoo Racing is one of the film’s sponsors, and you’ll also see Koichi drifting in mainly a JZX100 Chaser.
Despite the cheesy storyline, the movie is one to watch for drifting and car fans. With tight shots of doorhandle-to-doorhandle action scenes, the movie is full of real drifting sounds, smoking tyres, and beautiful angles of cars dancing for fans to go ga-ga over.
Directed by Ten Shimoyama, the 122-minute movie is a fairy tale for e-racers who dream of making it to the tracks one day and is out in cinemas now.
Director: Ten Shimoyama
Cast: Shuhei Nomura, Ai Yoshikawa, Takatori Jinnai, Sho Aoyagi and Shodai Fukuyama
E-VALUE: 6
ACTING: 8
PLOT: 5
