Jason Statham reacts to Han's F9 revival: 'They better bring me back'
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Justice is coming — and Jason Statham hopes he'll be there for it.
When the first trailer for F9 debuted way back in January 2020, fans lost their minds at the last-second reveal that fan-favorite Han (Sung Kang) is alive and well. For those suffering from a case of Letty's amnesia, Han was originally shown being killed by a random car during a high-speed chase in 2006's The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, only for director Justin Lin to upend the Fast timeline and set the next few films before Tokyo Drift, allowing Han to have further adventures with the family. But 2013's Fast & Furious 6 finally caught up, once again showing that deadly scene, except this time we met the driver of that not-so-random car: Statham's Deckard Shaw, the vengeful brother of Fast 6 antagonist Owen Shaw (Luke Evans).
"They better bring me back, because I need to put out that fire," Statham tells EW with a laugh. "If he's got any score to settle, it's with me."
Universal Pictures; Giles Keyte/Universal Jason Statham as Deckard Shaw and Sung Kang as Han
At the time, Fast 6 appeared to be the finish line for Lin and Kang's Fast runs, while Statham's was just beginning, as he would return as the primary villain in director James Wan's Furious 7. From there, Shaw slowly transformed from the killer of a beloved family member to a hero in his own right — first in The Fate of the Furious, and then in the spin-off Hobbs & Shaw. This treatment led fans to call for "justice for Han," something we're now getting with Lin and Kang's returns in F9.
"I don't want to be negative, I honestly don't want to do that," Lin recently told EW of feeling the need to do some course correction. "I do think that, as an outsider looking in, I'm still baffled… So being away, and the way I found out, I still don't know what happened, but it's okay because I got to come back. And one of the great things is that it feels a little poetic. Honestly, if none of that happened, Han wouldn't come back. And so when I left [after Fast 6], I came in with Han, I'm leaving with Han. So if there was no justice for Han and I came back, I probably wouldn't have brought him back. Again, it feels like everything happened for a reason. And I'm not here to judge anything, but I'm glad we're able to put the right touches on it, and, like I said in January, 'justice for Han' isn't just this movie. I think how we treat this character as we move forward, that's going to be the 'justice for Han.'"
For his part, Statham, who isn't expected to appear in F9, wants to be a part of whatever plan Lin has for the final two Fast installments.
"I'm game," the actor says with a smile. "I love Justin Lin, he's a great director. It's a shame because when I joined the franchise all those years back, he went on to do something else and all I did with Justin was a little tag at the end. I need to do a movie with him. And I'd love to see all the Fast crew, Vin [Diesel] and everybody, they're all great people. I have a lot of affection for them."
Statham will next be seen in Guy Ritchie's Wrath of Man, which is out May 7, while F9 hits theaters June 25.
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