0:00 Okay, this is a interesting topic because this topic comes up a lot in different circles, but I feel like we have the perfect uh people to talk about it because you were around when the import scene was still completely underground. There >> was no movies yet on the mainstream. There wasn't even much coverage in the mainstream about like the import scene. >> Not not mainstream at all, but there were like flyers and stuff. >> Yeah, there flyers, tapes, DVDs, magazines. Do you believe that Fast and Furious, so this is like an an actual like claim a lot of people are making that when Fast and Furious got created, it deasion the import scene >> a billion bajillion quadrillion medillion%. >> But by that time though, I would argue that it was it wasn't even peak car scene. It was toward the decline.
0:52 >> Yeah. >> I wouldn't Yeah, it was already at the time where >> You thought it was already the popularity was dying down. I don't know if that's the word, but I don't think that people started going, "That's not real racing." Like, they were questioning it. Remember? >> Oh, yeah. The like how legit it was. >> Yeah. Because because like that's when everyone started wising up to like you can't really get the rice rockets that fast. >> Nothing made sense in the first one. The freaking floorboard falling off. Like none of that. Yeah. All of it didn't make sense. >> Even in the scene, like people used to just soup up their Civics, right? And that used to be really sick. And then I think toward the end you actually had real Supras and R seven. I mean, you know, like you had real like uh like Skylines being imported from Japan. But before that, the scene started with like s█████ >> C like two-door Civic >> Cresas.
1:42 >> Yeah. That aren't fast. >> Yeah. >> But then you know the the whole thing of like when the rest of the world found out about the import scene, they took a lot of the Asianness out of it. >> Oh yeah. Yeah. >> How like do Asian dominant that whole scene was, >> you know, like >> that's how I felt about it when I when I watched it. >> Yeah, I actually felt about like that way too >> cuz especially like if you if um so I grew up in Critos and then a lot of the uh those main shops that did like the remember like they would like put a B16 in the like they would do the motor swaps or you put the veil side body kits or whatever. Everyone knew you had to go to the SUV to get that stuff done. So there was a ton of shops up and down Garvey and Valley did the body kits, the motor swaps. Yeah. Yeah. All that stuff, right? And um that was what the scene was. So if you're a Mexican, you still
2:32 went to the Asian shops to get it done. If you're a white guy from Huntington Beach, you went to Asian shops to get it done. And all those like >> And the Asians went to Mexican shops to get stereos done. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The car audio. And then up and down Valley, Atlantic, Garvey, you would have those miscellaneous car shops with air fresheners, seat belt covers, metal pedal covers, all that stuff. And I remember uh >> That's right. >> being in that scene. >> Um or even being adjacent to it cuz I really really didn't have a car like sick like that. But I I had friends that were in car magazines. I had friends that won like trophies at car shows. So just being like like involved in it. When I saw the movie come out, I'm like, "What the ████ Shouldn't like the first 10 listed cast be all Asian. I've literally never seen a bald ginormous buff guy. >> I love bald guy.
3:22 >> I never saw a ████ Huntington Beach looking white boy like this." And then there's ████ like Hector and all these other guys. >> And then Yeah. And then Johnny Tran or Johnny Kim, whoever the the Ed Rule. >> Yeah. It's like it's like this small of the story when it should be probably the other way around. >> Yeah. Because when we were young, like do you remember like even if you didn't have a car, you were still part of that community cuz you were into that scene. And when you went to those events, Hotport Nightboard, Show Off, whatever, just were Asians that just liked being around it. And I felt like, hey, that's kind of weird that like I didn't even think there were I mean, there were white people winning a lot of these things and they were still there, but by a large margin, >> they were like less than 5% of the scene. But Hollywood did have a way of Hollywoodizing >> everything because like
4:13 >> they never were great at accurately showing a culture. Now they're really good at that. >> Yeah. Back then what they would do is they just bring this multicultural ensemble >> and then like they would try to fit it all in. But we watching know we're like no dude like white guys race but they did drag cars. Like they did muscle cars and then like they used to do drag racing but they didn't race like we did. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Like that import scene the way that they raced was they would pick they would they would um they would compete on the highway >> and then they would look at each other and just go. Right. But um and then so like you didn't really have white guys in a scene like that. Maybe like in the show like when they would soup up their cars for show they wouldn't actually race it. There were rarely any black. So that was weird right cuz they hook up their they every culture didn't like
5:06 what do you call it back back then you stayed in your culture. low riders, Hispanics, dons, black, >> muscle, white, >> right? >> And you just didn't do that. Like if you're Asian, you had your own thing. >> Yeah. Yeah, for sure. >> But then after that movie though, a lot of Mexicans got into the scene. >> Oh, yeah. For sure. Yeah. That's the thing that that was so strange to me because it always felt like it wasn't that I felt like they weren't present. I just thought Asians loved that stuff the most. Like I just thought those were the people that liked that scene the most. I didn't know that other people even cared because, you know, even the the friends that I had that weren't Asian didn't really care that much about it. So then it was weird to see the not that I I think the movie came out bad. I love the movie. I'm glad it happened and everything, but it's it's interesting that it like sucked away completely what
5:57 it looked like in real life to all of us. But don't you think that they the Asians started weaning off already around that time? It was getting popular >> and then they they kind of >> I think a generation of them did, but I was just getting into it cuz I just got a I started driving in 01, you know? So then I was like, damn, now I'm going to be in the scene. I'm going to swap my Civic front for Integra front. I'm going to butcher the whole thing like all this stuff. And then by the time I was able to join it, it was like, oh, okay. I guess it's like >> there there are little parts that I would say I was upset, >> but then um I think I also understood that for mass appeal, you have to change the story. >> So, one of the parts I was like most upset about was, you know, with the whole Asian gangsters and stuff. I'm like, who the ████ wears leather pants? I don't know. No Asian gangsters wearing leather pants and ████ I'm like, what
6:47 the ████ But I'm like, oh, okay, I get it. Like you like if you see like Dickies on camera, it's not cinematic. It's not visually, you know, like like you watch any mob movie, the guys wear a leather jacket. How many leather jacks you see in real life? No one wears leather jacket. >> It doesn't set that crew apart far enough from the other people. >> Yeah. So I'm like, okay, I get it. And then also just like Hollywood wise, I'm like, you have to have a buff guy, you have to have a good-looking guy, then you have the hot girl. Now the story is so much more like >> you could like tap into it. So, I understood why they had to Hollywoodize it. >> And then, uh, the other part that I I um that I was like, isn't all of this just rooted though in Japan because all the most coveted cars were right-hand drive anyways? >> So, it was like to I think to me it was like I knew they took just the essence
7:38 of the culture and they kind of bastard and told a new story and and created a whole whole new thing about it. >> Yeah. And I think at that time I was just so happy also to see something that small >> become mainstream. >> And then it went one step further where like once it became Tokyo Drift that's great it's in Japan. They have all these awesome Asian characters but then at the time of uh you know that we were in you still needed a white main character to tell the story so that like mass appeal could put themselves in his spot. >> Yeah. There was no way they were going to have a all Asian cast and then it it be marketable. It just wouldn't work at the time. >> Yeah, even the girl the love interest wasn't even like full Japanese, right? >> Devon Aayoki. >> No, the from Tokyo Drift. >> Oh, >> or she maybe she wasn't Japanese at all. But remember it's she's like from the international school. >> Yeah.
8:28 >> The same the same reason why Lil Bow was in it. >> Bow. >> You know what I mean? They're like Navy kids or something. >> Yeah. But I get it though. Like >> you need your um people to feel represented. So it's like you got to have the black kids, you got to have everybody like Mexicans, everybody to be like, "Oh, I got to go see it." Cuz you know, but you know what's really great that a lot of people don't know is like, you know, like the RJ Divera or like people that were really integral to the import scene, Asians were part of like the consultation team. They were they were featured like the guy that's playing video games in his car. >> Remember that in the race in the first one? >> Yeah. >> And there's one Asian guy in the race. >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. like he's an actual like really well-known figure in that world. So, at least they're tipping their hat a little bit. So, what I thought was cool was um >> so one of my friends, he was part of the
9:20 casting call for the cars. >> And I thought what I thought was cool was uh when they they wanted to be as authentic to the culture as possible. So, when they did the casting call, they reached out to all the car teams. >> Yeah. So they would have like hundreds of cars come in and they wanted to pick the actual cars that were known in the scene. So if you're about the scene, you're like, "Oh, that was the one that won 2003 Hot Empors, or that's the one that won 2001, whatever." So they didn't just make random cars and then put it on screen. They were actual car like award-winning cars in the scene. >> And they took Craig Liber Craig Lieberman's cars. So he's like one of I think he was the technical director or something, the technical designer or something. They took his actual cars that he made that were really famous in the scene and they made clones of them for the movie. >> They would make like four or five of his car to use it in the film
10:11 >> in case they have to crash it. >> Yeah. Cuz they were toting most of them. Yeah. >> Yeah. And that's that's one thing that I don't think anyone has complaints about are the cars. Yeah, >> like they did a great job with the accuracy and the scene is just >> it might be more about like where it's gone and the magnitude of money that it's made that when you trace it all the way back down to the genesis of it was just an Asian scene, but it was still big for us cuz even the director was the Better Luck Tomorrow guy like um >> Justin Lynn >> Justin Lynn for like a long time, you know, >> and then so it it still captured like people from the community. >> Oh yeah. Yeah. But I understand the conversations that people are having about it because if I mean I wasn't even close to really being there being there. But for those guys who were there and helped build that scene and helped build the interest and them putting their
11:01 money and time into this scene to grow it to get enough attention to even want to make a movie out of it for them to see it. I feel like I understand if they're looking at it like >> bro what the ████ has it become? You know what I mean? Like and I guess like they're saying the next Fast and Furious after uh you know the last one the um they're saying it's going to go back to the original. It's going to go back to the essence of import scene. So who knows? >> But the import scene doesn't even exist no more. >> Yeah. All the best guys became overlanders. They honestly did. >> All those shops they converted into overlanding. That's true. Like uh one of the biggest shops in the SGV right now. I think they're called 88 rotors. >> And when you see the guys, you're like, "Oh, like all the 40-year-olds now, you're like, like when you're like 17, I'm sure you
11:53 had a Civic or an Integra or whatever." And you just kind of converted that into overlanding. >> Dads and they want to go camping during co. >> Yeah, it's understandable. No, people got tired of scraping their car everywhere.
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