Justin Lin, the youngfilm-maker whose debut feature Better Luck Tomorrow was a hit at the Sundance Film Festival in 2002, haslanded the job as director of Universal Pictures' The Fast And The Furious 3 (tentative title).

Neal H Moritz, who producedthe first two instalments in the series The Fast And The Furious and 2 Fast 2 Furious, will again produce. Chris Morgan (Cellular) has written the script for the third film whichwill take place in Tokyo in the underground world of Japanese drift racing.

The film is set to go intoproduction in the autumn in Asia and the US. Universal Pictures vice presidentof production Jeff Kirschenbaum will oversee the film for the studio.

The story will focus onShaun Boswell, a loner at school, whose only connection to the world is hispassion for illegal street racing. To avoid jail time, he is sent to live inJapan with his uncle in the military in a cramped apartment in a low-rentsection of Tokyo. There he becomes involved in drift racing and unwittinglytakes on DK, the Drift King, who has ties to the Yakuza.

Lin was born in Taipei butgrew up in California and graduated with a degree in film from UCLA. He is alsoattached to direct Strangers atFocus Features as well as a remake of Park Chan-wook's Oldboy at Universal. He is currently in post-production onTouchstone Pictures' Annapolisstarring James Franco which is set to open later this year.

The Fast And The Furious was directed by Rob Cohen and grossed $207.4m inglobal box office receipts in 2001, while its sequel 2 Fast 2 Furious was directed by John Singleton and took $236.2m in2003.