Han's 'F9' Return Was So Secret That Sung Kang Didn't Even Tell His Wife
The death of Han (Sung Kang) in the Fast and Furious franchise is one of the series' single most important moments. It sparked the #JusticeForHan movement, has been depicted numerous times from several different angles across multiple movies, and Han's impending doom cast a melancholy shadow over the films set before that event on the franchise's complex timeline.
But somehow, Han is back in F9, and early reviews suggest that his return is handled in a satisfying way. So how exactly does that resurrection happen? Actor Sung Kang is not telling – in fact, he wanted to preserve the reveal so badly that he didn't even share the secret with his wife.
"[Director] Justin [Lin] and Universal, everybody was really on top of hiding me on set," Kang explained in an interview with Digital Spy, talking about how the team was able to keep Han's return a secret until the first F9 trailer was released. "There's a lot of cast photos early on. If you look at the Fast 9 photos from set, there's all these birthday parties and stuff, I'm never invited. I would see the birthday cakes from afar, but it's part of the fun. It's really cool to be part of that kind of narrative."
Kang also explained that he has kept the reveal of how exactly Han comes back "very close to my chest" – so close, in fact, that he's even kept the specifics hidden from his own real #family. "I actually haven't even told my wife," he pointed out. That's some impressive self-control.
How Does Han Return? Here Are a Few Guesses
There are only a few more days until the new sequel hits theaters, so this is our last chance to offer some potential guesses about how the filmmakers managed to work Han into F9.
Option one: After rewatching the films closely, I think there may have been a brief window in which a dazed Han could have wriggled out of that flipped car before Jason Statham's Deckard Shaw blew it to smithereens.
Option two: In a nod to the film Beerfest, Sung Kang is actually playing Han's identical twin in F9 – a guy who appreciates the dynamic between his brother and his group of car thieves so much that he insists that the group members call him by his brother's name.
Option three: Dominic Toretto finds himself in desperate need of one more precision driver, and decides to go to terrifying, dangerous lengths to bring Han back from the dead by visiting a character with supernatural resurrection powers. (Don't give me that look! You know this franchise is perpetually only about five degrees away from a story like that at any given time.)
F9 hits theaters in the United States on June 25, 2021.