Shinjuku Incident

Blood. Violence. Gangsters. Chopped Hands. Gun shots. Sex scenes with a prostitute. Just another American gangster movie like the Godfather or similar? How about a Jackie Chan film? Yes, you read that last sentence correctly, a JACKIE CHAN film.

The film in question is called Shinjuku Incident, released in April of 2009 in Asia. I had read about the movie online and had been interested in seeing it for some time. The main reason for wanting to see the film was to see Jackie Chan doing a more dramatic role versus his trademark action and comedic roles like most of his old Hong Kong and recent American films.

I happened to come across a DVD release of the film in a local shop recently and picked it up immediately. The movie stars Chan playing the lead character Steelhead along with American born Daniel Wu co-starring as his brother Jie.

The plot of the movie takes several different turns during the course of the film. As there are plenty of locations on the Internet where you can find a detailed plot summary, let me give you the major points. Chan's character Steelhead has come to Japan illegally in search of his finance Xiu Xiu (played by lovely Chinese actress, director AND blogger Xu Jinglei). Chan locates and enlists the help of his brother Jie. Together, Steelhead and Jie work dead end jobs for money while looking for Xiu Xiu.

Steelhead later discovers that Xiu Xiu has taken a Japanese name (Yuko) and is married to a Japanese Yakuza leader named Eguchi (played by actor Masaya Kato). Seeing that his fiance has left him, Steelhead, Jie and other Chinese illegal immigrants in Japan begin to engage in some illegal activities to earn a living. Unfortunately, Steelhead, Jie and their friends end up crossing paths with a Taiwanese triad gang led by Gao (Taiwanese actor Jack Kao). The Taiwanese gang gets their revenge later on by beating up and later torturing Jie.

With Jie badly hurt, Steelhead plots to get revenge by attacking Gao. Instead, Steelhead walks into a Yakuza ambush and ends up saving the life of Eguchi instead. Steelhead and Eguchi both escape to Eguchi's home where Steelhead is reunited with his fiance. Eguchi is thankful for Steelhead saving his life.

Seeing that Steelhead is illegally in Japan, Eguchi offers Steelhead a job as part of his Yakuza clan. Steelhead politely refuses and leaves. Later on, Eguchi tracks down Steelhead to request that he perform hits on two leaders of rival clans. Steelhead agrees but makes two demands which Eguchi agrees to. Steelhead accomplishes his missions and Eguchi keeps his promise. The rest of the film deals with the consequences of Steelhead's involvement with the Yakuza.

With the brief summary of the film done, let me mention some of the more interesting aspects of the film:

1. The first thing you will probably notice is that the film is LONG. The total run time was almost TWO HOURS.
   
2. As I noted in the opening paragraph, there is a lot of blood and violence in the film. There are people shot and stabbed throughout. However, that is the tame parts of the movie. There are several graphic scenes which I describe below.
   
3. Jie gets the worst of it. Initially Jie is just beat up by the Taiwanese gang. However, the gang later tortures him by cutting his face AND chopping his right hand off. Jie's is shown without his hand in several scenes after. In addition, the Taiwanese gang later pulls out the severed hand and is shown stepping on it.
   
4. When Steelhead saves Eguchi's life, he wields a sword and chops Gao's hand off during a sequence.
   
5. After Steelhead initially sees Xiu Xiu with Eguchi, he gets down and depressed. Along with Jie, they both go out for a night on the town and sleep with prostitutes.
6. Jackie Chan hardly smiles throughout the movie. If you were looking for his trademark action, martial arts or stunts, there were none. While there were fights, it seems like there was a conscious effort not to show Jackie's skills in martial arts.
   
7. Jackie Chan speaks Mandarin and Japanese in the film but not Cantonese. For the duration of the movie, I wondered why Jackie did not speak Cantonese. After thinking about it, I remembered that Jackie's character of Steelhead was from China. Since Mandarin is China's official language and Cantonese is more of a regional dialect, it made sense for Steelhead to only speak Mandarin.
8. Jackie Chan as a bad guy? While he wasn't necessarily the bad guy in the film, Jackie did engage in illegal activities that you haven't seen in many of previous films.
   

I'm sure I missed other major details but these were the ones that really stood out. As a whole, I was surprised by the style and tone of the movie. I was expecting Shinjuku Incident to be more like Chan's 1993 release Crime Story. Like Shinjuku, Crime Story was a dramatic movie with Jackie minimizing his action and comedy. However, I don't recall that Crime Story had as much graphic violence that was shown in Shinjuku.

The other interesting aspect of the film involved Jackie engaging in illegal activities. I remember reading in Jackie's autobiography many years back that he could never see himself being a bad guy in film. Maybe Jackie got tired of playing good guys and decided to take a step in the dark side. Though, Jackie does somewhat redeem himself at the end of the film.

The biggest shock of the film was Jackie having a sex scene in the film (with a prostitute no less). It wasn't much of a scene and it probably lasted for (maybe) a couple of minutes. I understand WHY the scene was done. Jackie's character was down and out and he needed to get some release.

Knowing Jackie doesn't traditionally do love or sex scenes in his movies, I thought the scene was out of place. I know Jackie has expressed his wish to be a more dramatic actor or perhaps a romantic lead in the future. Given that he had not one but TWO lovely actresses playing along side him in the movie, a love or sex scene with either one would not have been a bad idea.

As a whole, I thought the film was alright but I probably won't be watching it again. It seems like to me that Jackie Chan decided to make Shinjuku Incident an ANTI JACKIE CHAN film. Most Jackie Chan films are kid and family friendly with action, comedy and martial arts. Shinjuku Incident is definitely a film you DON'T want to be watching with your kids. They may not sleep for many days after watching some of the graphic violence. I personally was a little bothered by the violence as well.

I'm perfectly fine with Jackie Chan wanting to change his style and image. He's done action comedies for so long that it's very difficult to surprise audiences anymore. However, I'm not sure Shinjuku Incident was the best example of Jackie as a dramatic actor. His acting was ok but may be overshadowed by the other things I mentioned above.