The Strange Precaution The Cast And Crew Had To Take On Tokyo Drift
At this point, breaking the law is pretty much a given in the "Fast & Furious" franchise. What started out as a series based on the seedy underground world of illegal street racing became an all-around action series about corruption and espionage. Whatever the subject matter, however, the heroes of the franchise are often found on uneasy terms with the law.
With that in mind, it's interesting to know that there are times when the makers of the series, Universal Studios, also finds itself engaging in some potential criminalities for these films. It's easy to think that filmmakers might always get the necessary permits to make a movie with no legal interference, but that is not always the case. Still, that doesn't mean that studios like Universal don't take precautions against being caught. In one notable case, Universal Studios even arranged for someone to act as a paid fall guy for one "Fast & Furious" director.
The time Universal hired a guy to go to jail
During the filming of "Tokyo Drift," the third "Fast & the Furious" movie, Director Justin Lin decided he wanted to film some racing sequences in an authentic location, the densely packed Shibuya ward of Tokyo, Japan. However, they had some difficulties making this work from a legal standpoint.
"When we went to shoot in Tokyo it's a very different culture. They don't give out film permits," Lin said in an interview with Digital Spy. "The [cops] shut us down, I'd gotten all my shots, but I didn't know they were going to arrest me. Another guy stepped up and said, 'I'm the director.' I found out that it was his job to take the fall for me."
Despite all this effort, very little of the footage shot in Shibuya ended being used in "Tokyo Drift's" final cut, according to Screen Rant. However, Lin told Digital Spy that he is "forever grateful" for the sacrifice he made to help make the movie. That being said, is getting paid by one of the world's largest movie companies, Universal Studios, to spend just a single night in jail that much of a sacrifice?