As Vince becomes more suspicious and Dom brings Brian further into his confidence, the crew attends Race Wars, a party in the desert for street car tuners to race each other for cash or pink slips. Dom’s mechanic, Jesse, loses a pink-slip bet with Johnny Tran and flees the event. While trying to pull another job, Dom, Letty and Vince are caught off guard when their mark pulls a shotgun. Letty and Vince are both hurt, and Brian saves Vince’s life by calling in a medevac, identifying himself as a cop to Dom in the process. Later, as Brian attempts to arrest Dom at his home, Jesse is gunned down by Tran and his lieutenant. Brian and Dom give chase, killing Tran and his accomplice, and in a race afterward — because this is that kind of movie — Brian beats Dom, whose car is totaled. As police speed toward the scene, Brian gives Dom the keys to his car, and Dom escapes.

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O’Conner agrees, under one condition: traveling to Barstow, California, in search of his estranged childhood friend Roman Pearce. Paroled but under home monitoring, Pearce accepts O’Conner’s offer to join him undercover to win his freedom. The pair are ordered to pose as drivers for Verone’s efforts to move his fortune out of Miami, with the help of a mole in Verone’s operation in the form of undercover Customs agent Monica Fuentes. While Brian and Roman get inside Verone’s operation and become his drivers, Fuentes informs them Verone plans to kill them once they’ve transported his money.

Anticipating interference from Markham, Pearce and O’Connor work with Tej to create a massive distraction during the cash run, eluding both the police and the attempts on their lives. Verone takes Fuentes hostage, but, because this is that kind of movie, Brian and Roman arrive just in time, leaping their car off a pier onto Verone’s yacht, busting him and rescuing her. Pearce and O’Connor are given their freedom — and manage to nab some of Verone’s cash for themselves.

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Meanwhile, former L.A. cop Brian O’Conner has found a new job with the FBI, investigating a drug cartel led by Arturo Braga. Brian and Dom’s investigations cross paths, as both go undercover as drivers tasked with transporting Braga’s heroin, supervised by cartel lieutenant Gisele Yashar. After transporting the heroin to Mexico, Dom confronts Braga’s enforcer Fenix, who admits to murdering Letty, but Brian and Dom escape with Braga’s heroin before Fenix and his men can kill them.

As Mia tends to Dom’s injuries, he learns that Letty had infiltrated Braga’s operation under Brian’s purview in order to win a pardon for Dom’s criminal history in the U.S. Using the heroin as leverage, Brian strikes a new deal with the FBI — he and Dom will lure Braga into a trap in exchange for a pardon for Dom. But the ambush goes south, and as Dom saves Gisele’s life, Braga escapes. Brian and Dom decide to chase after Braga in Mexico, and before he and Dom leave, Brian and Mia reconcile and rekindle their romantic relationship.

In Mexico, with a location provided by Gisele, Brian and Dom snatch Braga, and in the ensuing chase, Dom kills Fenix and Braga is turned over to the FBI. Rather than running once again, Dom allows himself to be arrested. As Dom is taken to prison to serve a life sentence, Brian, Mia, Tego Leo and Rico Santos overtake his prison bus in black cars.

Other things: Han’s appearance in Fast & Furious sets the film prior to the events of Tokyo Drift, even though Fast & Furious was released three years later. Also, FBI agent Michael Stasiak, a minor character in Fast & Furious, plays a smaller but key role in Fast Six.

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On the train, Brian realizes the cars were impounded by the DEA. As Brian and Mia cut the cars loose, the gang they’re working for arrives alongside the train car, with Vince and Dom in tow, cutting it open. Dom quickly realizes something is up, and sends Mia away in the car that the gang’s leader, Zizi, was most interested in. As the gang opens fire, gunning down several DEA agents on the train, Dom and Brian escape.

In the wake of the DEA agents' murder, Diplomatic Security Service agent Luke Hobbs and his team are sent to find Dom, Mia and Brian, enlisting the aid of local police officer Elena Neves as a translator and fixer.

As Dom, Brian and Mia work to discover why the GT40 is so important to Zizi, Vince attempts to remove a computer chip hidden inside the car's GPS system. When Dom catches him, Vince informs Dom that the car belongs to Hernan Reyes, a major drug trafficker and cartel leader in Rio. Brian quickly learns that the GPS contains Reyes' entire pickup schedule and the locations of his financial assets.

Meanwhile, both Hobbs’ unit and a gang of cartel enforcers led by Zizi, revealed to be Hernan’s lieutenant, converge on Brian, Dom and Mia’s location. In the ensuing firefight, Dom saves Elena’s life, dropping the silver cross he carries to remember Letty.

After the the trio escapes, Mia informs Brian and Dom that she’s pregnant with Brian’s child, and Dom and Brian decide to pursue one last score: Hernan Reyes’ drug fortune. To help, Brian and Dom assemble a team of old friends, consisting of Han Lue, Tej Parker, Roman Pearce, Gisele Yashar, Tego Leo and Rico Santos. Dom and his crew harass Reyes’ operations around the favelas, forcing him to relocate his bankrolls to a central location. But the team learns that their efforts have been too successful — Reyes moves his money to an armored vault within a police station staffed mainly by officers on his payroll, forcing the crew to come up with a new plan.

Later, Dom finds Elena to retrieve his cross. At her home, he sees the photos of Elena’s murdered husband, and he and Elena bond over the loss they share. As the crew prepares to take down Reyes, Hobbs and his team storm their hideout, arresting Dom, Vince, Brian and Mia. But Hobbs' convoy is ambushed by Zizi’s men, who kill Hobbs' entire team. Brian and Dom save Hobbs and Elena, but Vince is killed in the crossfire. Seeking revenge on Reyes, Hobbs agrees to help Dom and his crew with their score.

Using stolen police interceptors, the crew tears Reyes’ vault from the police station, dragging it through the streets of Rio with Reyes, Zizi and every crooked cop on Reyes’ payroll behind them, because yes, it’s that kind of movie. After a more-than-10-minute chase scene, and with Hobbs’ help, Reyes and Zizi are killed, and Hobbs gives Dom and his crew a 24-hour head start before he’ll track them down.

Back at their hideout, Tej opens the safe, revealing the hundreds of millions of dollars inside, and the team goes their separate ways. Vince’s widow finds a full share on their kitchen table; Tego and Rico bet their winnings on red and black in Monaco; Tej and Roman return to Miami, where Tej opens a garage; Gisele and Han travel together across Europe; Brian and Mia move to Spain to start their family, and are followed by Elena and Dom, who have become romantically involved.

In a post-credits scene, U.S. Customs agent Monica Fuentes (from 2 Fast 2 Furious) meets with Hobbs and provides him a file on a hijacking in Berlin involving a well-coordinated team driving very fast cars. Fuentes insists that the team isn’t Dom’s crew, instead showing Hobbs a folder containing a recent photograph of a very-much-alive Letty Ortiz.

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Hobbs explains to the team that Shaw is building a Nightshade device, designed to bring down military communication networks, so that he can sell it to the highest bidder. Brian makes Hobbs a new offer: If the team can bring in Shaw, they will receive pardons and an end to the international manhunt keeping them all from returning to the U.S. Hobbs agrees.

Shaw is traced to a building in London, but he escapes in a supercharged flip car as the rest of his team simultaneously take down Interpol headquarters. As Dom chases down Shaw, Letty comes to Shaw’s aid. When Dom corners Letty, she doesn’t recognize him and shoots him in the shoulder. While Dom and Brian use the bullet to track down more information about Letty, Gisele, Han, Roman and Riley track down the only mechanic who could have built Shaw’s high-powered vehicle. The mechanic they find alerts Shaw’s team, but is killed in the ensuing firefight. With his dying breath, he tells Gisele that Shaw is working with incarcerated drug kingpin Arturo Braga.

Brian contacts his former colleague, FBI agent Michael Stasiak, and arranges to be arrested under an alias back in the U.S., and is transferred to the same prison as Braga. Brian confronts Braga, who tells him Shaw is the one who warned him that Letty was undercover in his operation in the first place. Braga tells Brian that Letty wasn’t killed when his lieutenant, Fenix, shot her gas tank (as seen in Fast & Furious), but was blown clear of the the wreckage of her car and left in a coma. She was left with amnesia, and Shaw recruited her for his purposes. Braga informs O’Conner under duress that Shaw also has a source inside the team Hobbs and Dom have assembled.

Meanwhile, back in London, Dom tracks Letty down to a local tuner meetup and challenges her to a race. When Dom wins, he reminds her of the time they spent together and gives her the silver cross he gave her when he left her in the Dominican Republic. When Letty leaves, Dom is confronted by Shaw, who threatens Dom, stating that Dom’s failure to back down will cost his family dearly. Later, Shaw confronts Letty about her meeting with Dom, and Letty hands Shaw the silver cross and walks away.

Brian returns as the team leaves to pursue Shaw to Spain, and the team intercepts Shaw’s crew as they hijack another military convoy carrying a high-tech tank equipped with the component Shaw needs for his Nightshade device. Because, once again, this is that kind of movie, a classic-cars-vs-tank chase ensues, and Shaw puts Letty’s life in danger to provoke Dom. Dom saves Letty, and Shaw and his team are captured by Hobbs.

However, Hobbs reveals that he’s kidnapped Mia in Madrid and is holding her hostage, forcing Dom and Hobbs to give him the Nightshade device and let him go. As he leaves, Riley reveals she’s been working with Shaw all along. Dom and his crew chase down Shaw as he boards a Russian cargo jet, with Tej and Roman and Gisele and Han attempting to harpoon the plane’s flaps to keep it from taking off as Brian, Dom, Letty and Hobbs board the plane to rescue Mia.

Dangling from a car being dragged by the jet, Gisele sacrifices herself to get a clear shot at a member of Shaw’s crew about to kill Han. With the rest of Shaw’s team dead and the plane disintegrating around them, Mia, Brian, Letty and Hobbs escape, but Dom stays behind to grab the Nightshade device. Dom sees Shaw thrown from the open rear bay of the jet, presumably to his death, and as the fuselage of the jet becomes a giant fireball, Dom drives his car through it, surviving the explosion.

Dom hands Hobbs the Nightshade device and in exchange, Dom’s crew gets their pardon — and the house Mia and Dom grew up in, in Los Angeles. As the team celebrate their freedom and mourn their loss, with Dom and Letty reunited, they sit down to dinner as a family as Han decides to leave for Tokyo.

Other things: There is a post-credits scene in Fast & Furious Six that inserts itself into a later scene in Tokyo Drift, which is discussed below.

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Kicked out of another high school after a drag race that leveled a housing development and left two cars in ruins, high schooler Sean Boswell (Lucas Black) is sent to live with his father in Tokyo to avoid a stint in juvenile hall. Warned by his father that touching another car will have him back in America and in jail, Sean finds himself enrolled in private school, where he meets another American, a kid named Twinkie (Shad Moss/Bow Wow) who introduces him to Tokyo’s drift racing underground.

At a race party, Sean meets Neela, a classmate at school and girlfriend to Takashi, the local Drift King and nephew of the local Yakuza underboss. When Takashi tries to bully Sean away, he challenges Takashi to a race, but without a car, Sean is out of luck — until Takashi’s business partner Han Lue throws Sean his keys. As Takashi effortlessly wins the race, Sean totals Han’s car, and Han informs Sean he’ll have to work it off.

Han becomes a mentor of sorts to Sean, teaching him how to drift and giving him a place to stay away from his father, but eventually, Takashi’s uncle Kamata confronts his nephew, accusing Han of skimming. Takashi confronts Han with Neela and Sean standing by, and when he threatens them with a gun they flee, leading to a high-speed chase through Tokyo.

Note: This is where things get a little complicated. Originally, the high-speed chase through Tokyo comes to an abrupt end when Han flies through an intersection and is T-boned by a Mercedes S Class. Sean and Neela watch as Han stirs in the wreck before flames reach his nitrous oxide canisters, blowing up the car and killing him. In Tokyo Drift, this is presented as a random event.

However, in the post-credits scene of Fast & Furious Six, Han’s chase and crash are presented again, this time interspersed with new footage of the Mercedes S Class and the point of view of the driver listening to a police scanner relaying the chase, providing location details. The crash happens identically in this edited scene, but after the S Class crashes, a new character gets out of the car — Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham), brother of Owen Shaw. As Deckard walks away from the wreckage that remains of Han’s car, he tosses Dominic Toretto’s silver cross at Han and places a call to Dom, informing him, “You don’t know me, but you’re about to.”

This is Han’s death scene as it appeared in 2006 in Tokyo Drift:

This is the post-credits scene in Fast & Furious Six:

The implication here, by the way, is that Deckard retrieved the silver cross from his brother.

This leads directly into the events of Furious 7, which, chronologically and canonically for the Fast & Furious films, comes after the events of Tokyo Drift. Now, back to your regularly scheduled synopsis.

After Han’s death, Twinkie gives Sean a bag full of Han’s money, which Sean takes to Takashi’s uncle in an attempt to make amends. Sean then challenges Takashi to a race to honorably settle their dispute, down a steep hill that no one has raced to the bottom of — except for Takashi. Lacking an viable car, Sean finds the wreckage of the racer Han lent him previously and lifts the intact engine, placing it in the body of his father’s Shelby 67 Mustang — an inclusion that proved controversial in car circles in the real world.

Sean beats Takashi and finds a new home in Tokyo as the new drift king. Later, at another race, Twinkie tells Sean that an old friend of Han’s wants to race him. That racer? Dominic Toretto.

Note: This suggests that chronologically speaking within The Fast & Furious timeline, Tokyo Drift and Furious 7 overlap somewhat.

Other things: Tokyo Drift does not mark the character Han Lue’s first appearance in film. In 2002, Tokyo Drift (and later Fast & Furious, Fast Five, and Fast Six) director Justin Lin made Better Luck Tomorrow, which detailed the lives of a clique of bored Asian-American teenagers who turn to crime and vice — one of whom is Han Lue. Lin and actor Sung Kang have admitted that Better Luck Tomorrow is an origin story for the character from the Fast & Furious films, a history referenced later on when Gisele teases Han about his need to keep his hands busy in Fast Five — a nod to his Better Luck Tomorrow-era smoking habit.

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