Han Lue Fast and Furious: Who He Is and What Happens to Him

Han Lue is a former drift racer and a member of Dominic Toretto's crew, played by Sung Kang in Los Bandoleros, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Fast & Furious, Fast Five, Fast & Furious 6, F9 and Fast X. He is credited as Han Lue in the cast lists of every one of those films except Fast X, where he is simply Han.

What is Han's real name? Han Lue is the name the films credit him under, and it is the only full name given for the character in the cast records. Los Bandoleros, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Fast & Furious, Fast Five, Fast & Furious 6 and F9 all list him as Han Lue, and Fast X shortens it to Han. No other real name for him appears in those records.

Han makes his first theatrical appearance in The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, where Sung Kang is billed third behind Lucas Black and Nathalie Kelley. In that film he is the man Sean Boswell works for to pay off a debt, and he becomes Sean's friend along the way. The short film Los Bandoleros, directed by Vin Diesel, also features him: it shows Dom meeting Han, Tego and Santos in the Dominican Republic, and it sets up the fuel tanker job that opens Fast & Furious.

If you are new to the saga, the order matters for Han more than for almost anyone else. His story is told out of sequence, so the Fast and Furious movies in order page is the place to sort release order from chronological order before you read on.

Han Lue's arc runs from drift mentor to crew member to apparent casualty and back again, across seven appearances told out of order. In The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Sean works for him after wrecking a borrowed Nissan Silvia, and Han teaches Sean to drift. Han is killed when another car hits his and it explodes during a chase connected to his dealings with Kamata, the yakuza leader.

Chronologically, his story begins earlier. In Los Bandoleros he meets Dom in the Dominican Republic, and in Fast & Furious he is part of the crew. In Fast Five he is one of the old friends Dom assembles for the vault heist in Rio, and in Fast & Furious 6 he is on the team that hunts Owen Shaw. Gisele is lost saving Han in that film, and a mid credits scene shows him in Tokyo, caught in a chase and hit by a car. The driver leaves Letty's cross necklace at the scene and phones Dom with a warning.

That scene leads into Furious 7, where Deckard Shaw kills Han in Tokyo and Dom flies there to bring his body home for a funeral in Los Angeles. F9 then reverses the loss. Han turns out to be tied to Project Aries, and he explains that Mr. Nobody had him protect Elle, whose DNA activates the device. He also reveals that Deckard Shaw helped fake his death. In Fast X, Han is on the Rome job with Roman, Tej and Ramsey, which turns out to be a trap set by Dante Reyes.

Han's closest ties are to Dom, Sean Boswell, Gisele and Deckard Shaw, and each one is defined by a specific film. With Dominic Toretto, the bond is family. In the final scene of The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Dominic Toretto challenges Sean Boswell to a race and tells him Han was family.

Sean Boswell, played by Lucas Black, is the student, because Han teaches him to drift. No film shows Sean Boswell learning that Han is alive.

Gisele Yashar, played by Gal Gadot, is lost saving Han in Fast & Furious 6, which is one of the film's heaviest moments for him. See Gisele Yashar for her own page.

Deckard Shaw is the most tangled link. Deckard kills Han in Furious 7, and F9 later reveals that Deckard helped fake the death. Han also works alongside Roman, Tej and Ramsey in F9 and Fast X, and Mr. Nobody and Elle are the other names tied to his return.

Han Lue appears to die in Tokyo in The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, a crash that Furious 7 attributes to Deckard Shaw, but F9 reveals the death was faked and he is alive as of Fast X. That crash sits later in the timeline than his appearances in Fast & Furious, Fast Five and Fast & Furious 6, and the Fast & Furious 6 mid credits scene shows him being hit by a car in Tokyo.

F9 explains how he is alive. Mr. Nobody had Han protect Elle, and Deckard Shaw helped fake the death. In practical terms, the funeral Dom attends in Furious 7 was for a staged death.

His latest status comes from Fast X, which ends on a cliffhanger. A plane carrying Roman, Tej, Ramsey and Han is shot down by Dante, and the film does not resolve the outcome. Universal has dated Fast Forever for March 17, 2028, and Han's fate after the Fast X plane attack is unresolved.

Han Lue's best moments are the drift lessons in The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, the Fast & Furious 6 mid credits scene and his return in F9. In my opinion, they share one thing, which is that the series lets a calm character carry a scene.

The drift lessons work the way a good garage tutorial does: Han breaks a hard technique into steps for Sean, and the film lets you follow each one.

The mid credits scene is a short beat in which Han is caught in a chase in Tokyo and hit by a car. The driver leaves Letty's cross necklace at the scene and phones Dom with a warning, which sets up the next film.

His return in F9 reverses the loss from Furious 7, and TheWrap's coverage of the first F9 trailer recorded the #JusticeForHan reaction to seeing him back. If you want to see him at his best, start with The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, then watch F9.