Hobbs & Shaw, the last outing in the seemingly never-ending Fast & Furious franchise, went over pretty well critically and commercially, but not everyone was happy with it. After all, tons of fans still take umbrage with Jason Statham’s Deckard Shaw for murdering the beloved Han Seoul-Oh.
Series mainstay Chris Morgan, who’s worked on the scripts for Tokyo Drift, Fast Five, Fast & Furious 6, Furious 7, The Fate of The Furious, Hobbs & Shaw and Fast & Furious 9, has promised in the past though that the filmmakers haven’t forgotten about Han’s death and has teased us for a while now that justice was coming. But what most perhaps didn’t expect was the return of Han himself.
Yes, as revealed in today’s blistering new trailer for Fast & Furious 9, Han is indeed back. Then again, maybe fans should’ve expected it. After all, We Got This Covered told you months ago that the character was returning in a future Fast movie and now, it seems our scoop has been confirmed.
But how does it feel for actor Sung Kang to be back with the crew? Well, the star touched briefly on his surprising return, saying the following earlier today:
“It’s emotional — it feels like I’m going back to a family reunion,” said the actor ahead of his surprise appearance onstage at Friday’s pre-Super Bowl trailer premiere and concert event in Miami. “It’s a relationship that has been missing in my life since the last ‘Fast.’”
“We [also] know who and what Han is,” said Kang. “And we’re older now. This Han is older. The things that we’ve learned as men in our personal lives, I hope it can transcend on-screen.”
Speaking on the Justice for Han movement, which fans have been pushing for a while now, the actor said:
“At first it was easy to dismiss it. I wondered, does the audience really have a voice?”
Kang also shared his thoughts on Shaw being invited into the fold, saying:
“When Shaw came in and was revealed to be the killer and got invited into the family fold … that’s where you went, ‘Well, is this character being respected?’”
For those who haven’t been keeping up with the series, Han Lue was “killed” at the end The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift when his car was T-boned by a vehicle driven by a mysterious individual. In the post-credits scene of Fast & Furious 6, we found out that the driver who killed him was Statham’s Shaw. But somehow, someway, he’s alive and well and will be seen again in the next installment.
How exactly he factors into things remains unclear, of course, but fans can at least rest easy now knowing that the beloved Han is back and will rejoin his old family when Fast & Furious 9 zooms into theaters later this year, on May 22nd. Don’t miss it.