Sean Boswell is an outsider, who uses street racing as a temporary escape from an unhappy home, it has also made Sean unpopular with the local authorities. To avoid jail time, Sean is sent to live with his father, a military-man stationed in Tokyo. Now officially a gaijin (outsider), Sean feels even more shut out in a land of foreign customs and codes of honor. But it doesn't take long for him to find some action when a fellow American buddy, Twinkie, introduces him to the underground world of drift racing. On his first time out drifting, Sean unknowingly takes on D.K., the "Drift King." Sean's loss comes at a high price tag when he's forced to work off the debt under the thumb of ex-pat, Han. Han soon welcomes Sean into this family of misfits and introduces him to the real principles of drifting. But when Sean falls for D.K.'s girlfriend, Neela, an explosive series of events is set into motion, climaxing with a high stakes face off.