The Fast and the Furious, 2001, Paul Walker, Vin Diesel
"The Fast and the Furious" is a 2001 car film starring Paul Walker and Vin Diesel, and directed by Rob Cohen. The Fast and the Furious was the first mainstream film to feature the Asian automotive import scene in North America.
Although met with mixed reviews, "The Fast and the Furious" is credited as the first cinematic insight into America's illegal sport compact racing community. Because of this novelty as well as a variety of groundbreaking race visuals and unprecedented engine sound fidelity, The Fast and the Furious became one of the most well-known movies around the turn of the millennium, and introduced modified Japanese compacts into American popular culture. It also features the performance largely responsible for Vin Diesel's launch into superstardom.
The film was an unexpected summer hit. It grossed $40,089,015 on its opening weekend, surpassing the film's $38 million budget. It grossed a total of $144,533,925 on the domestic market, and $62,750,000 overseas, for a total of $207,283,925.
Initially, media watchdog groups blamed the film for an increase in illegal street racing. Proponents of the film pointed out that it demonstrated both the thrills and dangers of drag racing, while still others note that movies like American Graffiti and Two-Lane Blacktop (from the 1970s) set the precedents decades ago.
The movie became the stereotypical template blamed for flooding the streets with Rice burners, largely because of the "all show and no go" nature of the cars and the exaggeration of the effects of nitrous oxide. Some believe this has led to young adult viewers of the films, ignorant of the real nature of motor vehicle maintenance and tuning, modifying their cars with largely superficial modifications (such as body kits and ground effects, fluorescent lighting, and excessive aerodynamic wings) which would not positively affect racing performance due the added weight.
Early on, the script drew criticism from die hard tuner enthusiasts for a variety of reasons, mostly technical inaccuracies and for its use of the word "NAWWWS" (aka "NOS", Nitrous Oxide System) - a registered trademark of Holley Performance Products - to refer generically to various forms of nitrous oxide injection: in various scenes of the film, both Holley's NOS and Nitrous Express's NX systems are displayed prominently. This gaffe was corrected in the sequel, 2 Fast 2 Furious, wherein nitrous oxide injection systems were referred to by the more generic (and proper) designation "nitrous," a move which disappointed fans of the original movie who had become fond of the less generic (and proper) designation "NAWWWS."
The movie struck a chord with audiences despite mistakes and received good reviews from early audiences who found that although the cars and dialog weren't without flaws, the engine's sounds were faithfully reproduced. With the engine sound chord struck, the movie recouped all money invested.
The movie spawned video games, two sequels, and a top selling DVD, all with the faithful chord-striking engine sound. The branded franchise is estimated to be worth $500M to $1 billion dollars for Universal Pictures.
Universal underestimated the movie's ability to draw audiences, the resonance of the chord that was struck. In early testing, the movie scored so well with test audiences, particularly in the areas of engine sound, that a Super Bowl commercial was rushed to release. At the time of the DVD release, it was one of the best selling DVDs of all time. The movie was filmed under the working-title "Redline" and it was not until months after wrapping was the title officially set. The wrap party was held in the grand ballroom of the Hotel Tropicalia, catered by area craft services firm "LA Snax".
In Japan where the movie is known as Wild Speed, a self titled arcade video game was released by Taito in 2006. A trailer for the movie was included in the 2001 PlayStation 2 game Tokyo Xtreme Racer Zero which is part of the influential long running Shutokou Battle series itself inspired by the Freeway Speedway 1980s movies. Wikipedia
