2009 December 19 « Reviews from movies OLD to NEW

Shinjuku Incident December 19, 2009

Posted by Adrian in Uncategorized.
3 comments

Cast

Jackie Chan as Steelhead
Naoto Takenaka as Inspector Kitano
Daniel Wu as Jie
Chin Kar Lok as Hongkie
Xu Jinglei as Xiu Xiu (Yuko)
Fan Bingbing as Lily
Masaya Kato as Eguchi
Yasuaki Kurata
Lam Suet
Hideaki Takizawa

The film is centered around illegal Chinese Immigrants, among them, Steelehead (Jackie Chan) who is the main protagonist of this film, the story takes place in Japan during the 90′s. The storyline has a brutal, dark, dramatic, gruesome twist, showing an entirely different side of the comedic, kung-fu fighting Jackie Chan everyone knows.

Shinjuku Incident is more violent than the typical J.C film. From the happy laughter of the previous films to the sorrow and anger of Shinkjuku Incident, the punches and kicks were converted to swords and knives slitting and slicing every single person that gets too close. And it is because Jackie Chan has tried to make a more serious approach to his films, that is the reason why I (unlike most but not all others) favoured this movie over his past movies.

To me it was a great change from his typical action comedy. It surpassed my favourite older movies from him such as New Police Story and The Myth. Though I do still enjoy his comedic action, this change is one I am hoping to see once again in his future films.

The movie was planned for almost 10 years, and I must say that it was worth the wait, with its dark, dramatic tone, but also it’s gruesome violence which is circling around the film. It goes to and beyong the extreme of typical American-Hollywood violence. The more gruesome parts of this film is the torture of Steelhead’s friend Jie, as his hand is being burnt in the cooker of his cart, and eventually is cut off, and again before the cutting of his hand, a knife was dragged across his face, slit and dugged into the flesh of his very own face. And just before the torture, he was brutally beat up by the father of one of his customers even after showing hospitality to both the customer and the father, his roasted chustnuts cart is taken away and his simple dream of selling roaste chestnuts shattered. Being scarred, he experienced nightmares, and even after the phyiscal torture, his mind was being tortured. And it is because of this, that he had turned to the dark side (that sounds to corny).As Kitano and Steelhead escaped out of the building, the cops arrived to assist. Steelhead escaped on his own and found Jie in a abandoned building, high on cocaine. Steelhead tried to get him to leave with him, but Jie died as Steelhead realized he was disemboweled. His friend Steelhead, finds his body and just sits there crying his heart out. Eventually he cover Jie’s lifeless, blood covered corpse. Jie’s last words were “Its seems…I’m still a coward…”

As read above, the film has an extremely dark nature, and due to the violence, director Yee considered toning down or cutting the violence in order to pass censorship, but felt it would hurt the integrity of the movie. Set mostly in Tokyo, Derek Yee’s hard-boiled, gangster flick Shinjuku Incident has some pretty nasty violence. A defiente change for those used to domesticated Jackie Chan films.

*SPOILER* The ending:

As Kitano and Steelhead escaped out of the building, the cops arrived to assist. Steelhead escaped on his own and found Jie in a abandoned building, high on cocaine. Steelhead tried to get him to leave with him, but Jie died as Steelhead realized he was disemboweled. Steelhead then called Yuko to warn her of danger and to meet with her along with Ayako in Okobu station, but Togawa already secured the Eguchi estate and held Ayako hostage. Togawa demanded the location of Steelhead or Ayako will be killed. Nakajima and his group intercepted Steelhead and attempted to corner him to finish him off. The police also arrived in time for a shootout. Kitano and his fellow police took care of the Yakuza and managed to shoot Nakajima dead, but Steelhead suffered a bullet wound and escaped. Kitano realized Steelhead had escaped into the sewers, the very place Steelhead saved his life earlier. Kitano tried to pull him out of the water, but Steelhead told him it was useless. Steelhead then passed the USB (from Eguchi) and floated deeper into the sewer. Before he fades beyond Kitano’s sight, he told Kitano they are even.

There was no epilogue to tell what happened to the remaining characters. It is presumed Steelhead died in the sewer, Kitano used the USB as evidence against the Yakuza, and Eguchi’s family survived Togawa’s torment (or not). The ending shows a simpler time when Steelhead and his comrades were celebrating over Jie’s chestnut cart.

Overall, I would give the film a 9/10 but not a 10/10 Sadly because, Too many plot holes and bad pacing had spoiled what could be a movie of both technical and scriptwriting brilliance.

But apart from its faults, Shinjuku Incident is really worth watching. It may be difficult to follow and may not have much of an after-effect but it certainly proves to people that not only can Jackie Chan act but can also play an entirely new deep character.

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For further reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinjuku_Incident

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1075419/

To watch the Movie:

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=24CD394B06B0AA42&search_query=Shinjuku+Incident

or copy and paste the link of each part in a new tab.