Shinjuku Incident (2009)
Starring: Jackie Chan, Daniel Wu
Studio: Emperor Dragon Movies Ltd./Sony Pictures 34728 [6/8/10]
Video: 2.35:1 anamorphic/enhanced for 16:9 1080p HD
Audio: English (sort of) DD 5.1
Subtitles: English, French, English SDH
Extras: Select scenes with commentary by Jackie Chan, “Say Hello to the Bad Guy: Up Close with Jackie Chan”
Length: 120 minutes
Rating: ***½
This must be the first Jackie Chan film in which his character dies in the end. In the Up Close featurette he talks about wanting to show he is a real actor and not just an action movie star. He also mentions that the story required some gory and violent scenes which would get it censored in the Chinese market, and that he wanted to bring to public attention the plight of the many struggling illegal immigrants in various countries. To some degree all three things get accomplished in the film, though not perfectly. Chan certainly goes in a darker direction with this one.
A small title goes by so quickly at one point that one has to hit the Still button to read it. It says there are 1.5 million foreigners in Japan. It fails to say if they are all illegal, but the basis of this movie is that many are; from China and other SE Asian countries. Jackie plays Steelhead, a Chinese mechanic who goes to Japan searching for his former girlfriend, who he finds is now the wife of a top Yakusa boss. He struggles with menial work, trying to avoid crime. There are scenes of the immigrant Chinese laborers cleaning sewers, sorting recyclable garbage, etc. Little by little Steelhead is drawn into selling fake phone cards, stealing from Pachinko machines and other petty crime, because he wants to improve life for himself and his immigrant brother and friends. He becomes more and more angry with the way they are treated.
He is befriended by a police detective whose life he saves, and by the Yakusa leader who married his girlfriend, because that gangster is one of the few who is not prejudiced against the Chinese. There is also a violent Formosan Chinese gang involved. Thru a series of unlikely occurrences Steelhead becomes head of the Chinese gang, and attempts to turn them away from serious crime such as drug-dealing, and to open a legal restaurant. It comes to naught, since once gaining some power, the Chinese immigrants become as violent and inhuman as the other gangs. Some of the bloody gang in-wars occur in the middle of Toyko at midday, which seems highly unlikely. It all ends in a super-gory and violent showdown.
Don’t expect Jackie’s patented gung fu balletics and Keatonesque physical humor; there is none of that here. Do expect a really terrible English dubbed soundtrack; I don’t know if Jackie did his own voice, but you can only understand about half of what he mumbles. Some of the scenes are under-lit and grainy-looking. Strangely, this film came out on Blu-ray last year, with the original Cantonese and Mandarin tracks and English subtitles – probably "you ‘betta off" watching it that way. I don’t know if those scenes looked any better with higher resolution imaging. There’s little use of the surround sound. The featurette with Jackie is fairly interesting though.
— John Sunier
