Shinjuku Incident is a Jackie Chan’s movie that is full of action and drama. The movie also stars Daniel Wu, Xu Jinglei, Fan Bingbing and Jaycee Chan, Jackie’s son.
SPOILER WARNING: Plot and/or ending details follow.
Jackie Chan in "Shinjuku Incident"
Jackie plays a tractor mechanic nicknamed Steelhead and enters Japan illegally like many others in the 1990’s. There he meets Jie (Daniel Wu), his friend and they do laboring jobs to make a living. Most of the time, Steelhead, Jie and the Chinese immigrants spend their time running away from cops. At one time, Steelhead even manages to save Inspector Kitano (Naoto Takenaka) from drowning in the sewer.
When Lily (Fan Bingbing), a beautiful young lady, also from Mainland China sees Steelhead doing the dishes, she generously offers him some money. Steelhead inadvertently saves Lily’s customer from some gangsters and thus become closer with Lily.
Before long, Steelhead finds out that Xiu Xiu has married a Japanese Yakuza boss called Eguchi (Kato Masaya), therefore he decides to remain in Japan and obtain citizenship. When life gets tougher, Steelhead decides to earn a living by doing illegal activities, including selling phony phone cards and cheating at slot machines by tampering with the microchips. As Jie is too cowardly to continue doing illegal work, Steelhead and the rest pull together some money to buy Jie a chestnut cart.
However, one unfortunate day, Jie temporarily replaces his housemate in a slot machine game when the Taiwanese mafia already suspects tampering of the microchips. Jie becomes a victim and the Taiwanese gangsters beat him up and violently chop off his left hand using his chestnut wok and steel turner.
After saving Jie from the Taiwanese gangster, Steelhead seeks retaliation and secretly walk into the Taiwanese establishment. By chance, Steelhead finds out that one of the Japanese Yakuzas plans to lure Eguchi to the establishment and have him assassinated. When the Taiwanese mob leader attempts to thrust a knife into Eguchi, Steelhead appears from underneath a table and slices the mob leader’s hand. They manage to escape and Eguchi even brings Steelhead to his house and greets his wife, Yuko Eguchi where her real name is Xiu Xiu. Initially Steelhead refuses to work with Eguchi but when the both of them meet again together with Lily, Steelhead accepts Eguchi’s offer of assassinating two Japanese Yakuza leaders in exchange with legal documents and the territory where the Taiwanese is currently occupying.
Soon, Steelhead has made a name for himself by becoming the largest foreign gangster in Japan as his cronies are controlling most parts of Shinjuku. As Inspector Kitano owes Steelhead his life, he has many times let Steelhead off with a warning instead of arresting him. While Steelhead makes money the legal way, he has little idea that his other members are selling drugs and the likes. Steelhead confesses his wrongdoings to Inspector Kitano and brings him to his establishment to arrest Eguchi. At the same time, the elders of the Yakuza has decided it’s time to wipe out the Chinese immigrants as their power has become too dominant. Nakajima (Kenya Sawada) and the Taiwanese mafia all march towards Steelhead’s establishment with their samurai swords.
Brutality and gang fights take place. Many of the Chinese immigrants whom are now legal residence of Japan are killed in the battle. Even Eguchi is shot to death. Steelhead manages to escape but in the end, he bleeds to death and he returns the inspector a favor by giving him the flash drive belonging to Eguichi, which contains vital information about the Yakuza’s dealing.
Overall, the movie is brutal, dramatic and is full of action. Jackie Chan shows a different side of himself besides being a comedian and a kung fu expert. A must-watch film of 2009!
My ratings: 8 out of 10.
Popularity: 2%
