1. All action scenes are filmed with real cars
Justin Lin, who is in charge of Fast & Furious 9: Legend of Speed and is also the director of 4 other movies in the series, refused to use special effects to edit the image of an exploding car in the movie. Lin demanded that all the cars in the action scenes be real. The director said that the audience sees cars every day, so even the smallest part of the car in the film, if created with special effects, will make viewers feel unreal.
However, the technique is still used in many other aspects of the film, especially when Fast & Furious 9 burns and crushes dozens of cars.
2. Cars have to “test for the role” for the movie
The cars in Fast & Furious play an equally important role as the actors. Choosing which car model to appear in this latest movie is not an easy decision. According to Vin Diesel, each car is carefully “tested for the role” before officially becoming a part of the film. Each car when appearing with the character is an important representation of their personality and people.
Behind-the-scenes clip “destroying” a series of cars in Fast & Furious 9
3. It took 8 months for a 4-second shot
The level of detail and complexity that is taken care of for the action scenes of Fast & Furious approaches insanity. On his personal twitter page, director Justin Lin once revealed the behind-the-scenes footage of the Toyota 86 being dragged through a building in the movie. The total length of this scene is only 4 seconds long, but the crew spent 8 months preparing, shooting continuously for 4 days and destroying 3 cars to complete. “The result of a creative team of more than 100 most dedicated and talented people. This is the best work in the world,” exclaims director Justin Lin.
4. The most epic scene in the movie was created by a 9-year-old boy
The scene where the car is sucked into the air by a magnet is one of the most iconic scenes in Fast & Furious 9. Surprisingly, the idea of this scene was born from the son of director Justin Lin. “The team was in London for a week at the time and my son Oqwe was also with me. The only way we could be together was for Oqwe to attend meetings with me. Fortunately, meetings were held. It was full of toy cars, and when an action scene gave us a hard time, Oqwe immediately suggested a solution with two words: a magnet plane. We were talking about the scene in the ravine, and Jakob needed to get to the other side somehow. Oqwe just picked up the toy car and came up with the idea. The crew then spent hundreds of hours planning the details for this scene.” told.
5. Both dangerous car flip scenes were filmed for real
Extreme car flips have become part of the Fast & Furious franchise. And in this movie, there are two scenes of car flipping that make viewers’ hearts flutter. The film’s creative team had to find a way to make the scene real without putting anyone in danger. The first scene is when Letty uses a car magnet to grab onto an SUV during a climactic chase in Tbilisi, Georgia. To do this, the team had to reconfigure Letty’s car so that it could drag and drop the second vehicle at the right time.
Similar to the scene in the movie Dom pulls two SUVs to his magnet car. When the two cars were sucked in, only one was intact, the other jumped thanks to a hidden ramp built by the action staging team. The key to this scene is a technique called motor flip. Basically, the car is placed on a giant pad with two extended hydraulic arms, causing the pad to flip up and launch the car at the same time.
The collection of “racing monsters” and action scenes with 1-0-2 are the “specialties” that attract players and car enthusiasts of the Fast brand. And with Fast & Furious 9: The Legend of Speed, director Justin Lin always limits the use of visual effects: “In the context that popular movie franchises are mainly dependent on VFX, I feel a sense of responsibility. “My goal is to always start things on a real basis. There are things that VFX can’t emulate.”
Fast & Furious 9: Legend of Speed (original title: Fast & Furious 9) premiered on January 7, 2022
