Inertia Drift

As a guy, I believe, I think, I see, I encounter talk-cock-sing-song sessions and most of them like to involve cars and soccers. Do a random sampling and you will probably find it so much easier to kick start a conversation on cars and soccers than anything else. Ok, do not pick specialised interest group. Then its an unfair sampling. And I simply know nothing about them. I know nothing about cars, all the more know nothing about driving (hey, I did mention I have no license, din I?).

Watch soccers only when I'm too bored or in some club drinking with some friends. Or maybe when I'm betting. Even then, watching soccer if you bet can gives you heart attack. Not a wise activites, I would say.

Got a message from a friend couple of days back saying about having extra tickets for the movie Initial D (頭文字), asking me with I have anyone in mind to bring along for the movie. I was like thinking har? what bring along? you mean I'm catching the movies with you people? how come I was not informed? Imagine the amount of questions that was going through my mind. No shit. Then I recalled someone organizing it. The person just say that another friend plan to block book the cinema for the show. No shit. I wonder where is he going to find 400 people to take up all the seats. Anyway, to show support, I told my friend to count me in for the show. And the conversation ended there with no followed up. Till I got the message as mention above. So I have to ask when is it since I recalled that I have agree to support.

Oh well, to help my friend, thought I should ask someone if she is interested. Well, not too bad. Lucky the show got Gay Jay Chou, if not I have to tell him to settle the tickets himself. My friend meant to say a block of tickets and not cinema. Else I wonder how is he going to swallow all the tickets.

I know about the existences of the movie. I know its based on the manga by Shuichi Shigeno (しげの 秀一), first published in 1995. I dun read it, or at least its not on my must-read list. 2 good reasons. I'm not big fan of cars/driving/racing and all the faces in the manga is fugly. In fact fugly might even be too kind a word. I tried and I give up. The sexist and cutest babe in the manga totally failed to seduce me.

Frankly, I have no idea why it is called Initial D. I never bother to find out. Then my date has to tell me what it means. How embarassing. She explained and I listened, and the show started. And then I forgotten. But I remember the explaining contain words like Drifting and Inertia.

Drifting is a variation of motorsports that originated in Japan. As opposed to most types of driving, which require a driver to reach a certain point first, or in the shortest amount of time to be declared the winner, drifting relies more on style than anything else. How far sideways you send the car, and how stylish in general your drift is, the better you score.

This type of driving has now migrated all over the world, and various organizations have begun to support it. Chances are if you live in any fairly large city, you can find a drift team or organization around yourself. The best part about it is that you don't need to be rich to compete. If you have a fairly well balanced car, you can do it. It just takes finesse with the controls and a feel for the car. Obviously RWD helps, but isn't neccesary. Due to the magic of the handbrake, even FF econoboxes can drift with some work.

I have stopped paying for tickets to watch any chinese movies in the cinema. I always feel its a total con of money. For the past few years, no chinese movies I catch is ever worth the moolah I paid for. But for this movie, I have no regrets. Although there are twists in the movies that do not match the actual manga, but it still follows the general idea.

You are either captivate by the racing/drifting scene or you are laughing your head off on the slapsticks. Pretty good combo for the movie. It felt like a two hour movie to me though in actual fact, it is less than that. Another thing, I like long movies. As a friend of mine would have put it make your moolah worth.

After the movie, the first thing that was racing through my mind is to cut the night short and go home to start o the anime. I have tons of them and have no goddamn time to do anything about it. Not to mention the piling mountains of manga and comics stack away in my cabinet. My mom been screaming at me that my place look like a warehouse (thank you mah, will consider tidying it up when I find that someone to do it for me).

I did. I did start on the anime and frankly, I still cannot accept their face. They are still fugly. And the other thing, the action in the movie gives you the realism that the anime can't give you. As the anime is heavily CG-ed, and at the time when the 1st Stage was done, CG is still not as exciting as what you are seeing now in Final Fantasy. Although half the realism is lost, but still, its a good anime to watch if you love stunts on your car.

Still, many of the terms still evades me. Damn. Watch one anime also gotta do study so many things. What drifting. What understeering. What FR. What FF. I say WTF!



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