Drive (1997)

Toby Wong (Mark Dacascos) has technology installed inside his chest, endowing him with special abilities. Chinese criminals want to extract it from Toby’s body. Chased by henchmen, Toby goes on a road trip across California with his hostage, Malik Brody (Kadeem Hardison).

Firstly, Drive’s novelty is its cocktail of Hong Kong and American action movie styles. The spellbinding martial arts battles are certainly its strongest aspect, ingeniously choreographed by Koichi Sakamoto. Scored with acid house beats, Drive also stands-out for bringing elements of sci-fi into a neo-noir road movie. It boasts a uniquely comic book tone and hyperbole in a realistic setting, illustrating its own particular, fabulist universe.

At heart, Drive is a jovial buddy comedy, with a humorous badinage between Dacascos and Hardison. The late Brittany Murphy is most-memorable, however, for her charming, endearing turn as ‘Deliverance Bodine.’ On another note, the interior design of the climax’s setting is like a condensation of nostalgic ‘90s style. This is a dim bar shaped like a space rocket, filled with neon pink lights, chessboard floors and space travel motifs. Evocatively, it looks like a cinema lobby, laser tag location, or a bowling alley of its time.