The Fast and Furious movies are a series of quintessential blockbuster movies, focusing mainly on cool cars and over-the-top action sequences. However, while the franchise's stories tend to be on the lighter side of depth, that hasn't kept one plot element from becoming incredibly confusing to some people.
The character of Han is remembered for his death in The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, but somehow, he returned as a main cast member in subsequent films. Here's how the timeline of the franchise allowed Han to expand his role, despite the character meeting an untimely end.
Tokyo Drift was the Fast & Furious franchise's third entry and the first directed by Justin Lin. It was based around characters seemingly unrelated to the main crew of the first two movies, mostly due to the studio being unable to get any of them to be involved in the project. For this reason, it was retooled to make it stand out more, focusing more on racing than previous entries.
One of Tokyo Drift's more notable characters is Sung Kang's Han Lue, who first appeared in director Justin Lin's Better Luck Tomorrow. As its name would suggest, it involves the illegal Japanese sport of drift racing, which Han and his friends are involved in. However, towards the climax of Tokyo Drift, Han is able to outmaneuver the antagonistic Takashi, only to be T-boned by another oncoming vehicle. The film concludes with his friends honoring him and posthumously revealing he was a member of Dom Toretto's crew.
Despite Han's death in Tokyo Drift, he returned as a main member of Dom's crew in the franchise's fourth and fifth entry. This likely confused audiences at first, but his role was meant to bridge the gap between the off-shoot third move and 2009's Fast & Furious, which takes place before Tokyo Drift. Han's roles in Fast & Furious and Fast Five were small compared to Tokyo Drift, but they helped establish why Dom considered him part of his family.
Han's would return to prominence in Fast & Furious 6, which, chronologically, is still a prequel to Tokyo Drift. He begins the movie in a relationship with Gal Gadot's Gisele Yashar before her death, which also precedes Han's own. But in the movie's mid-credits scene, Han's death in Tokyo Drift is shown again, and the franchise finally catches up to the events of the third film. It's what else is shown in this scene, however, that sheds more light on what really happened to Han.
After striking Han's car, a character played by Jason Statham enters the frame and cryptically calls Dom. This plot thread is immediately picked up in the next film, Furious 7, when Dom's house is destroyed around the same time Han is killed. It's revealed that this is the doing of the vengeful Deckard Shaw, who wants revenge for what Dom's crew did to his brother, Owen. Dom is eventually able to take out Deckard, but despite him killing a member of the crew, the villain joins forces with them in Fate of the Furious.
As many now know, however, Han is set to return to the franchise once again in F9. This means his tragic death in Tokyo Drift wasn't quite what it seemed, and that the character will get another chance to work alongside Dom's crew in the present. Hopefully, he'll get to stick around this time as the series nears its conclusion.
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