It’s difficult to make a truly original racing film, but not as hard to simply make an entertaining one, which is what commercial director Eiichirō Hasumi achieves with his latest outing, Over Drive.
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Many auto racing films have been made before, from Days of Thunder to Initial D to Rush to, of course, Fast and Furious. The terrain has been well travelled. It’s difficult to make a truly original racing film, but not as hard to simply make an entertaining one, which is what commercial director Eiichirō Hasumi achieves with his latest outing, Over Drive, which is also a homage to the sport of rally racing and to the mechanics working tirelessly behind the scenes while the driver basks in the glory.
The film stars Mackenyu Arata (Pacific Rim Uprising) and Masahiro Higashide (Death Note: Light Up The World) as two brothers at loggerheads with each other. Arata plays Naozumi Hiyama, an ace but hot-headed driver under Spica Racing Factory; while Higashide plays Atsuhiro Hiyama, a chief mechanic, in charge of ensuring that his younger brother’s car is in tip top battle-ready condition.
Standing between Naozumi and the first prize at the Seiko Cup Rally Series, which qualifies the winner to compete at the World Rally Championship, is Akira Shinkai, played by Takumi Kitamura, a fellow ace driver from rival team Sigma. Shinkai is diametrically, if rather clichely, the opposite of Naozumi. He is calm, clean-cut, and collaborative. Naozumi, meanwhile, shirks his brother’s advice to be less reckless, is unappreciative of his team’s efforts, and drives however he wants. We all know where this will inevitably lead.
Anchoring the film is the fraught relationship between the two brothers, which is the film’s main strength. Through flashbacks, we learn the origin of their conflict and find out what motivates Naozumi to drive as fast as he can, even if it puts him in danger. What else can it be but love? When the brothers were younger, they were caught in a love triangle with a girl. A lie told to the girl by Naozumi leads to her to leave for the States, where she was gunned down. Naozumi blames himself for her death and strives to keep the promise he made to her. This narrative turn admittedly makes Naozumi, who has hitherto comes across as an egotistical hothead, a more sympathetic character, someone the audience can root for to win.
For a racing film, its racing sequences are nothing to boast about. They are passable, even generic. Nevertheless, racing films from Japan are few and far between for some reason, making this film a welcome entry to a genre that sometimes forget that underneath all that exhaust-pumping torque, a story with a heart is more important, which this film fortunately possesses.
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