Prepare yourself for Jackie Chan as you have never before seen the Asian martial artist in Hong Kong director Derek Yee's contemporary, message-oriented opus "The Shinjuku Incident," a violent, sometimes bloody, urban crime thriller about illegal Chinese immigrants struggling to survive on the mean streets in metropolitan Japan. According to Chan on the DVD commentary track, director Yee and scenarist Tin Nam Chun based their screenplay on scores of actual stories about the trials and tribulations that the Chinese face when they enter Japan illegally. They wind up groveling so they can be induced to take the lowest, filthiest tasks that no self-respecting Japanese man or women would embarrass themselves by taking. The picture that "The Shinjuku Incident" depicts of these victims is not what you'd expect from a typically wholesome, lightweight Jackie Chan movie. Indeed, "The Shinjuku Incident" represents an extreme change of pace for Chan, particularly because he does not dazzle us his martial arts skills but rather behaves like a person who knows just enough to stay alive. What all this boils down to is that Chan isn't prancing around in elaborately orchestrated fights performing acrobatic stunts. Chan has to rely on his sympathetic character as the leader of an aimless group of itinerants existing on society's fringes and often encroaching on the Japanese Yakuza when they aren't avoiding the local police with a passion. In fact, nobody here practices martial arts, but the Yakuza wield their razor-sharp swords to good effect. Chan's traditional American fans who have grown accustomed to his moral Hollywood image in the "Shanghai" movies may find it difficult to tolerate the blood, gore, and murder the permeates "The Shinjuku Incident" as well as the racial intolerance that the film assails. Apart from Chan's astute low-key performance, the actor who steals the show whenever he appears on camera and has the best role belongs to Daniel Wu of "Naked Weapon" as a young man named Joe who swings from one extreme to another before this 119-minute epic concludes. Indeed, Wu's transformation from a nice guy to a complete dastard after a Japanese gang slices up his face and chops off his right hand with a knife and cooks it in a stove is something to see. Along the way, our hero Nick (Chan)saves the life of a Japanese cop Inspector Kitano (Naoto Takenaka of "Space Battleship Yamato")and work together to try to stop Joe from escalating violence. Things come to a head when Nick is approached by a Yakuza chieftain, Toshinari Eguchi (Masaya Katô)to kill his rivals within the mob because he cannot do it. As a consequence, Eguchi gets Nick a legal card to carry and makes him the boss of the Chinese sector of the city. This is about the time that Joe goes from being a nice guy to a villain who wears a wig, a fake hand, and deals drugs without Nick's permission. The ending is a real surprise as our hero is shot and stabbed and ends up being carried away in the current of the underground Japanese sewer system.
Review of Shinjuku Incident
