Shinjuku Incident

Shinjuku Incident is the latest film from Jackie Chan, and it is also the first film of his to be focused heavily on drama rather than action. It also lived up to its promises, with no martial arts sequences at all. Let’s take a look at how Chan fared in this new role.

The movie is set in the 90’s, when Chinese immigrants began illegally crossing into Japan. There seems to be plenty of racism among the Japanese and Chinese. Combine that with the turmoil growing in the yakuza, and you get a good story.

Jackie Chan plays the role of Steelhead who crossed into Japan to look for his girlfriend, XiuXiu. What he doesn’t know is that XiuXiu has already married a yakuza leader, Eguchi. Upon learning this, Steelhead decides to stay in Japan.

Ironically, he saves Eguchi from a rival yakuza clan. Steelhead then joins up with Eguchi to consolidate power and gain legal documents for his friends. But power makes his friends cruel, and Steelhead must find a way to end it all.

While Jackie Chan isn’t the best at drama roles, he’s certainly not bad. The storyline is very powerful, and at times, the audience can’t help buy grieve with him. The ending was especially different from most movie endings, and it left a powerful impact. A sense of identification with the underdogs also helps bring the film to life.

The little things in the plot are what make this movies watchable. It certainly isn’t as cliché as most of the films being released nowadays, and this makes Shinjuku Incident a worthy film to watch if you have to kill time.