The man behind the beloved character who inspired the successful #JusticeforHan campaign, Sung Kang is no stranger to onscreen car action thanks to his longtime role in the Fast & Furious films. At IGN Live today, he debuted a new trailer for his upcoming directorial debut, Drifter, which puts him back into a driver’s seat.
In the film, which Kang also wrote, he stars as Tree, a janitor at a racetrack whose gift for drifting was long curtailed. But he’s given a single chance to compete at a pro drifting event, even as he tries to navigate his own tragic past and the barriers it’s created for him.
At IGN Live, Kang described Tree as “a person who lives in the shadows, who has no voice, who has no place on this Earth,” only to find his place and a community to join.
Kang explained a major goal of his with the film was to create a love letter to the car community, saying he felt “traditionally, films have not respected the car community in the way I see the car community.”
Han from Fast & Furious notably began life in an unrelated movie, 2003’s Better Luck Tomorrow, directed by Justin Lin, who’d bring Han into the Fast series with The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift. But Kang said he never was tempted to try and make the lead character in Drifter Han as well. “I waned to keep it separate,” Kang said. “It’s been a blessing being part of the [Fast] franchise, but now I want to make stories that are so authentic to the community around me.”
Looking back on the Justice for Han phenomenon, Kang said he truly thought his time as Han was over, but that “the beauty of franchise like Fast is it is made by the audience and for the audience,” noting that the people wanted him back and they were heard by Universal.
Drifter is expected to open later this year.
Be sure to keep up with everything going on at IGN Live 2026. You can check the full schedule to see what else is coming up across games, movies, TV, streaming, and more.
