Though no Fast & Furious film has ever been rooted in reality, the seemingly never-ending franchise gets more over-the-top with each new installment. Nonetheless, when last week’s Fast & Furious 9 trailer dropped online and revealed that Dominic Toretto’s old friend Han Lue was still alive following the events of 2006’s The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, the twist proved hard for many to swallow, even if fans were overjoyed that Han was back.
For those who don’t recall, during a chase scene in Tokyo Drift, Sung Kang’s character appeared to die when his car was rammed by a mysterious driver and then subsequently exploded. In 2013’s Fast & Furious 6, we found out that Jason Statham’s Deckard Shaw was the one who was behind the wheel of the other car and in Furious 7, Dom and co. even attended a funeral for their fallen friend.
Suffice it to say, Fast & Furious 9 has a lot of explaining to do it regards to how Han’s been alive this whole time, but for director Justin Lin, getting the chance to give justice for the character is one of the main reasons he decided to return to the franchise for the upcoming installment.
“Han means so much to me because he was a character before Fast & Furious. Somebody asked me about Han and [Deckard] Shaw. I was like: ‘Wait, what? Shaw is at the barbecue in 8?’ [laughs] Really, I was so confused. One of the big reasons to come back was I felt like we needed to correct something.”
What Lin’s referring to here is the #JusticeForHan hashtag, which spawned from the journey of Deckard Shaw, who went from villain to hero and even got his own spinoff movie opposite Dwayne Johnson’s Luke Hobbs. For many, his redemption only served to show us how the person he killed got a raw deal and thus, the hashtag was born.
But Han somehow survived the events of Tokyo Drift and while the fans certainly have their theories on just how that is, all will be revealed when Fast & Furious 9 speeds into cinemas on May 22nd.