Three teenagers in a manual transmission car show up to an international racing competition and immediately fight a rogue AI on American soil. The movie treats this absurdity, manual cars versus autonomous machines, Japanese underdogs versus everything else, like it's both a legitimate threat and the funniest thing that could happen. You get high-speed comedy where the joke and the action are the same thing, not competing for attention.
Lisa, Lorna and Soichi win Japan's domestic preliminary round and head to Los Angeles to represent their country in the ex-Driver world race competition. On their first night in the city they run into a reckless AI car and manage to stop it. The local police are not pleased, though, and insist on keeping their car overnight to examine it. Then Angela, daughter of the American team's sponsor, goes missing. Lorna realizes Angela had been riding in that out-of-control AI car. Soichi, suspecting she may be in danger, sets out to find her. Instead he is captured by a mysterious man and is shocked to find Angela held with him. Locked in a warehouse, he learns the string of incidents appears tied to illegal gambling on the competition, and now he has to get himself and Angela out. The film mixes sci-fi racing, adventure and comedy.
