it's no more Mr Nice Guy for Jackie Chan as he trades his image of old for a morally-complex character who reluctantly becomes a gang boss in this thoughtful, if brutal, gangster drama.
A cross between One Nite In Mongkok and Goodfellas, the film's already been banned in China for being too violent.
It remains to be seen whether its blood and violence will get past British censors.
Chan plays an illegal Chinese immigrant called Steelhead (so called because he's a mechanic) who arrives in Tokyo looking for his childhood sweetheart Xiuxiu.
Nothing has prepared our good-natured lover for the harsh realities of life in Japan, however, and he soon falls foul of the local Triads.
Forced into a corner, he must fall in with a rival gang to survive.
Lacking Chan's trademark stunt and balletic martial-arts, Shinjuku Incident is many miles from the goofy charms of the Rush Hour series.
Dark, grimy and filled with conflicted characters, it's also a seriously bloody affair, with swords being jabbed through throats with alarming frequency.
Yet while it's a departure for Chan, the film's not quite the success he was probably hoping for.
The trouble is, it's a movie of two halves that don't quite mesh.
The first hour of this 166-minute feature is a gentle affair as we learn of Steelhead's childhood and see his arrival in Japan.
Then the gears crunch audibly upwards as we take a turn into flashy but familiar gangster territory. The ending's a bit sappy, too.
1 comments:
I just watch Shinjuku incident yesterday. yeah i'm ketinggalan.. but it's true, this is his movie without any kungfu acts from him.. i'm so.. can go into the story. when they sad, i feel sad too; when they united, i feel i'm in the team too; when they angry, i feel angry too.. very good movie but really 18sg with a lot of blood..
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