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Special Features
Select Scenes Commentary with Jackie Chan
Say Hello to the Bad Guy: Up Close with Jackie Chan
Say Hello to the Bad Guy: Up Close with Jackie Chan
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Unreleased in mainland China due to its excessive violence, Derek Yee's crime picture Shinjuku Incident is a rare attempt at serious drama for action star Jackie Chan. As Steelhead, a taciturn mechanic who endures the punishing life of illegal Chinese immigrants in Japan while looking for a missing sweetheart, Chan drops his trademark balletic martial arts and broad comic style, and for the most part he's successful at conveying the character's basic goodness and dismay (and finally, anger) at the situation faced by his compatriots. Daniel Wu is also fine as a hapless friend whose entanglement with gangsters forces Steelhead to team with the local yakuza for a gruesome showdown. Stateside audiences who've grown accustomed to Chan's Mr. Nice Guy persona may find his darker turn, as well as the jaw-dropping violence, off-putting; fans of Asian action cinema, however, will appreciate Yee's noirish aesthetic but may also be split over a Chan who displays neither his astonishing skills nor his considerable charm. --Paul Gaita
Product Description
Action superstar Jackie Chan leads this tour-de-force as Steelhead, a Chinese laborer who comes to Japan hoping for a better life. Unable to find honest work and bullied into the shadows with his fellow Chinese illegal immigrants, he soon finds himself ascending as the boss of a black market mob. After providing a deadly service to a powerful Yakuza crime boss, Steelhead's rise to mafia power spirals rapidly out of control as he's given reign over the dangerous and lucrative Shinjuku district. Get set to root for the underdog as Jackie Chan battles Asia's most ruthless underworld gangs in this action-packed crime drama.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 17 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Tense + Dark + Bloody + Vividly portraits gang lives in Japan + Best drama-acting of Jackie Chan so far
August 23, 2009
By Cestmoi
Format:DVD
- It's fast-paced, tense, dark and bloody.
- To some degree, it faithfully and vividly portraits the gang lives of some Chinese illegal immigrants in Japan. For example, it shows them making money buy selling fake phone cards, stealing from gambling machine, cleaning sewers, sorting garbage in recyclable and non-recyclable stuff, etc.
- The ending is predictable.
- It gives enough time to develop some good character development.
- This is not a typical movie by Jackie Chan. There's no joke. It's not a comedy-action movie.
- It's the BEST drama-acting of Jackie Chan so far. All his previous attempts at this are bad jokes. It's Definitely Worth Watching..
- To some degree, it faithfully and vividly portraits the gang lives of some Chinese illegal immigrants in Japan. For example, it shows them making money buy selling fake phone cards, stealing from gambling machine, cleaning sewers, sorting garbage in recyclable and non-recyclable stuff, etc.
- The ending is predictable.
- It gives enough time to develop some good character development.
- This is not a typical movie by Jackie Chan. There's no joke. It's not a comedy-action movie.
- It's the BEST drama-acting of Jackie Chan so far. All his previous attempts at this are bad jokes. It's Definitely Worth Watching..
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
By L. Combs
Format:DVD
I became a Jackie Chan fan almost 30 years ago (while living in Japan). I've collected probably over seventy of his movies.
This is an interesting, unexpected and out-of-character film for him. No humor. No martial arts. No outtakes. Graphic violence, and (some) gore. The main character is an average guy, a Chinese illegal immigrant to Japan, driven by desperation to a life of crime.
It is stated that three years were spent researching the history of illegal immigration to some parts of Japan; and the involvement of the Yakuza (Japanese organized crime). It is a fascinating expose of the way dishonesty, cruelty, immorality and violence may develop in any group of people trying to survive in an alien environment; crime as self-defense and self-preservation.
Most interesting to me, was Jackie Chan's narrative during the "Special Features." He is, as I have always thought, a good man with an optimistic (even simplistic) world view; and he spoke from a viewpoint of innocence, even naivete. Plainly, he was shocked and dismayed by the human stories he had uncovered. He talks about his research into these areas of illegal immigration and crime; how the "bad people" (human traffickers) lie to the aspiring immigrants, telling them that another country (Japan, even America) is better than their own country, but "this is not true, stay where you are, you will at least have your friends and family around you." Without knowing the language, illegal immigrants cannot speak to anyone and must live on the underbelly of society, stealing or (at the very least) being taken advantage of, to survive. He also spoke of how the women are mistreated in such circumstances, often forced to become prostitutes; and this seemed to hurt him to his heart. Even when the illegals learn the language of their new country, they live in fear all the time.
The basic message here (as it often is, in his movies) is, "Do the RIGHT thing." I think he tried to make clear how good intentions can be subverted, and how wrong actions will lead (eventually, perhaps even inevitably) to a terrible end. In other words -- crime does NOT pay. (And -- spoiler alert -- pretty much everyone of any worth in this movie, dies.)
While (I confess) I initially missed the usual martial arts, physical comedy and his signature humor, this film kept me riveted to the very end. It was -- surprisingly, in this cynical day and age -- a movie with a moral. It was in fact the most thoughtful one I've seen this year. (And I actually liked it better than "The Karate Kid.")
Thanks, Jackie. You did good.
P.S. And although this wasn't a martial arts movie, I think I did recognize some of his old crew in the cast. OK, it wasn't Sammo Hung or Yuen Biao... but that guy who got his throat cut near the end, I'm pretty sure was a familiar face. Good to see.
This is an interesting, unexpected and out-of-character film for him. No humor. No martial arts. No outtakes. Graphic violence, and (some) gore. The main character is an average guy, a Chinese illegal immigrant to Japan, driven by desperation to a life of crime.
It is stated that three years were spent researching the history of illegal immigration to some parts of Japan; and the involvement of the Yakuza (Japanese organized crime). It is a fascinating expose of the way dishonesty, cruelty, immorality and violence may develop in any group of people trying to survive in an alien environment; crime as self-defense and self-preservation.
Most interesting to me, was Jackie Chan's narrative during the "Special Features." He is, as I have always thought, a good man with an optimistic (even simplistic) world view; and he spoke from a viewpoint of innocence, even naivete. Plainly, he was shocked and dismayed by the human stories he had uncovered. He talks about his research into these areas of illegal immigration and crime; how the "bad people" (human traffickers) lie to the aspiring immigrants, telling them that another country (Japan, even America) is better than their own country, but "this is not true, stay where you are, you will at least have your friends and family around you." Without knowing the language, illegal immigrants cannot speak to anyone and must live on the underbelly of society, stealing or (at the very least) being taken advantage of, to survive. He also spoke of how the women are mistreated in such circumstances, often forced to become prostitutes; and this seemed to hurt him to his heart. Even when the illegals learn the language of their new country, they live in fear all the time.
The basic message here (as it often is, in his movies) is, "Do the RIGHT thing." I think he tried to make clear how good intentions can be subverted, and how wrong actions will lead (eventually, perhaps even inevitably) to a terrible end. In other words -- crime does NOT pay. (And -- spoiler alert -- pretty much everyone of any worth in this movie, dies.)
While (I confess) I initially missed the usual martial arts, physical comedy and his signature humor, this film kept me riveted to the very end. It was -- surprisingly, in this cynical day and age -- a movie with a moral. It was in fact the most thoughtful one I've seen this year. (And I actually liked it better than "The Karate Kid.")
Thanks, Jackie. You did good.
P.S. And although this wasn't a martial arts movie, I think I did recognize some of his old crew in the cast. OK, it wasn't Sammo Hung or Yuen Biao... but that guy who got his throat cut near the end, I'm pretty sure was a familiar face. Good to see.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
There is certainly an auteuristic streak in the small amount of cinema I have seen from Derek Yee. His previous film Protégé (2007) dealt with the drug trade in a didactic manner which is similar to the approach this film takes in dealing with illegal immigrants in Japan. Both this and Protégé have a curious and sometimes overacting performance from Daniel Wu (Rob-B-Hood). They also both involve severing an arm. But it is his didactic approach that annoys me a bit in this film. I could not quite verbalize it until watching the extras in which Jackie Chan states that the message of the film was that of "be happy where you are" which is, of course, simplistic and ultimately deadly if you are living in a repressive regime. However, I could forgive a bit of lesson-oriented cinema (I did in Protégé), but there were other issues on the forefront that lessoned my enjoyment of the film.
The biggest issue I think some people will have this is that they will be expecting a "Jackie Chan" film. It is not. I admire Jackie for extending his reach into cinema to take on a decidedly un-charismatic role though this is nowhere near the first time with Crime Story or New Police Story for roles in this vein and for a true antagonistic performance you can go way back to The Killer Meteors (1976). I think his performance is good. I did not think his character, along with several others, was well thought out though.
Jackie stars as "Steelhead" an illegal immigrant in Japan who is looking for his lost love Xiu-Xiu (Xu Jing-lei: The Warlords) who has disappeared at the same time he is trying to just survive. While this is a May-December relationship (she is much younger than he is), nothing is said about this in the film. I am not sure if he was portraying a much younger man (especially due to flashbacks of them younger which would put them close to the same age) or ego was involved or there is just a strange miscasting. He befriends several immigrants like Lily (Fan Bing-bing: Flash Point), Jie (Daniel Wu) who only wants to be a chestnut vendor and Hong Kong Boy (Chin Kar-lok: Protégé) and eventually has a relationship with Lily in a vastly underused plotline that gets exploited in the end that left me vastly unsatisfied.
Meanwhile two big things happen: he saves the life of Inspector Kitano (Takenaka Naoto) who is in charge of enforcing immigration and he also saves the life of Eguchi Toshinari (Kato Masaya) who happens to have a high position in the Yakuza and coincidently is also married to his former sweetheart Xiu-Xiu. The sheer coincidence of Jackie saving several lives seemed a too fortuitous but also those scenes go completely against some of the decisions he makes later in the film. It is like Yee wanted him to do evil things to show the depths someone can go to when they are pushed to the brink, but his character remains almost ignorant of them even though he committed some heinous atrocities in the name of helping out himself (to procure a "legal" Japanese ID) and his fellow immigrants. Soon you will see a rise of Scarface proportions with Steelhead serving directly under Eguchi as well as with his Steelhead's friends most notably Jie who turns into a drug using anime looking character.
The strength of the film is in particular scenes such as the plethora of issues that are presented to the illegal immigrant from not speaking the language, locals who do not want you there, loneliness, poverty and odd jobs like cleaning the sewers that no one else wants to do. This is a familiar situation to many countries. I do wish that a bit more was spent on why they wanted to leave in the first place. The film had such promise early on that the varied contrivances of the plots and characters started to get more and more overbearing. I think part of the reason was that the director Derek Yee had been working on this for so long and wanted to put so much of what he learned about the topic in one film that a compendium of characters was shoved into Jackie Chan and others that so much seemed contrived.
If you have seen Protégé and liked it, then it is possible that you will like this as well. If you are specially looking for a stereotypical Jackie film you will most likely dislike it. The action here is presented more realistic so everything appears clumsier. There are times when you expect Jackie to break out and use weapons or handle multiple bad guys with ease, but that is not a fault of the film and is more my preconception. I have read positive reviews on this film (I disagree with them) though most do tend to talk about "plot problems" and several seem to give this a passing mark solely because of the good performance from Chan. While I was happy enough with his performance the myriad of character and plot inconsistencies for me was the biggest reason I am giving this movie a mediocre review.
The Sony R1 release of it is good. Be warned there are three different English subtitles. One for the dubbed released, one for the dubbed release added with hard-of-hearing and one for the Chinese version. It technically is not completely dubtitles, but it did not always vary that much from the English soundtrack. I easily prefer the original audio track because you get to hear the many different languages used that are lost on the English dub. There are two extras: selected scenes commentary with Jackie Chan (9m) and Say Hello to the Bad Guy (10m) which is a good extra that talks about how long Derek was working on this, the suicide of an actor (not mentioned) who was going to play the role in the film, why the film lost the Mainland China market and various tidbits that make it worth of a watch. Both are short and easily worth the watch to learn more about this film.
The biggest issue I think some people will have this is that they will be expecting a "Jackie Chan" film. It is not. I admire Jackie for extending his reach into cinema to take on a decidedly un-charismatic role though this is nowhere near the first time with Crime Story or New Police Story for roles in this vein and for a true antagonistic performance you can go way back to The Killer Meteors (1976). I think his performance is good. I did not think his character, along with several others, was well thought out though.
Jackie stars as "Steelhead" an illegal immigrant in Japan who is looking for his lost love Xiu-Xiu (Xu Jing-lei: The Warlords) who has disappeared at the same time he is trying to just survive. While this is a May-December relationship (she is much younger than he is), nothing is said about this in the film. I am not sure if he was portraying a much younger man (especially due to flashbacks of them younger which would put them close to the same age) or ego was involved or there is just a strange miscasting. He befriends several immigrants like Lily (Fan Bing-bing: Flash Point), Jie (Daniel Wu) who only wants to be a chestnut vendor and Hong Kong Boy (Chin Kar-lok: Protégé) and eventually has a relationship with Lily in a vastly underused plotline that gets exploited in the end that left me vastly unsatisfied.
Meanwhile two big things happen: he saves the life of Inspector Kitano (Takenaka Naoto) who is in charge of enforcing immigration and he also saves the life of Eguchi Toshinari (Kato Masaya) who happens to have a high position in the Yakuza and coincidently is also married to his former sweetheart Xiu-Xiu. The sheer coincidence of Jackie saving several lives seemed a too fortuitous but also those scenes go completely against some of the decisions he makes later in the film. It is like Yee wanted him to do evil things to show the depths someone can go to when they are pushed to the brink, but his character remains almost ignorant of them even though he committed some heinous atrocities in the name of helping out himself (to procure a "legal" Japanese ID) and his fellow immigrants. Soon you will see a rise of Scarface proportions with Steelhead serving directly under Eguchi as well as with his Steelhead's friends most notably Jie who turns into a drug using anime looking character.
The strength of the film is in particular scenes such as the plethora of issues that are presented to the illegal immigrant from not speaking the language, locals who do not want you there, loneliness, poverty and odd jobs like cleaning the sewers that no one else wants to do. This is a familiar situation to many countries. I do wish that a bit more was spent on why they wanted to leave in the first place. The film had such promise early on that the varied contrivances of the plots and characters started to get more and more overbearing. I think part of the reason was that the director Derek Yee had been working on this for so long and wanted to put so much of what he learned about the topic in one film that a compendium of characters was shoved into Jackie Chan and others that so much seemed contrived.
If you have seen Protégé and liked it, then it is possible that you will like this as well. If you are specially looking for a stereotypical Jackie film you will most likely dislike it. The action here is presented more realistic so everything appears clumsier. There are times when you expect Jackie to break out and use weapons or handle multiple bad guys with ease, but that is not a fault of the film and is more my preconception. I have read positive reviews on this film (I disagree with them) though most do tend to talk about "plot problems" and several seem to give this a passing mark solely because of the good performance from Chan. While I was happy enough with his performance the myriad of character and plot inconsistencies for me was the biggest reason I am giving this movie a mediocre review.
The Sony R1 release of it is good. Be warned there are three different English subtitles. One for the dubbed released, one for the dubbed release added with hard-of-hearing and one for the Chinese version. It technically is not completely dubtitles, but it did not always vary that much from the English soundtrack. I easily prefer the original audio track because you get to hear the many different languages used that are lost on the English dub. There are two extras: selected scenes commentary with Jackie Chan (9m) and Say Hello to the Bad Guy (10m) which is a good extra that talks about how long Derek was working on this, the suicide of an actor (not mentioned) who was going to play the role in the film, why the film lost the Mainland China market and various tidbits that make it worth of a watch. Both are short and easily worth the watch to learn more about this film.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Shinijuku Incident
Everything I excepted. Very good movie, love anything Chan does.
I have most of his collection in vhs.
Mary Abbott
I have most of his collection in vhs.
Mary Abbott
Published 5 months ago by Mary Abbott
3.0 out of 5 stars
Shinjuku Incident
I was a little disappointed in this movie. It starts out slow and never seems to gather much speed. Read more
Published 13 months ago by B. J.
4.0 out of 5 stars
"I want to show the audience I'm the actor who can fight, not the...
That above is a quote from Jackie Chan. Jackie was also heard to remark: "I truly want to do something without action, just acting. Read more
Published 14 months ago by H. Bala
4.0 out of 5 stars
A deadly Jackie Chan movie
Jackie Chan is better known for his mix of action/comedy movies. Shunjuku Incident is starkly different. It's about gang warfare in Japan, particularly amongst Chinese immigrants. Read more
Published 18 months ago by Enjolras
4.0 out of 5 stars
41/2 stars easy... Walked passed it.., Who knew!...
Walked passed this Dvd a dozens times.., Who knew!...This reminded me of Leonardo DiCaprio's "Gangs of New York" and our illegal immigrant story combined... Read more
Published 23 months ago by Smoothjazz
4.0 out of 5 stars
Terrific, intense performance by JC in an engrossing gangster tale
This Hong Kong-made flick is great, like an Asian version of SCARFACE. Jackie is a Chinese immigrant in Japan who works his way up from a lowly dishwasher to a gang lord. Read more
Published on May 3, 2011 by William T. Wiggins
5.0 out of 5 stars
jackie chan movie
he did a great job in Shinjuku incident(they had one scene showing his behinee-that much I didn't need to see but eh! he's Jackie Chan! the man! ;)
Published on January 8, 2011 by S. F. Brown
4.0 out of 5 stars
An honest opinion
I was not sure what to expect when I heard through the media (Both American and Asian) that Jackie Chan was making his first debut in a drama movie. Read more
Published on September 28, 2010 by J. Chung
5.0 out of 5 stars
like you never seen him before
a good movie well done and enjoyable jackie did a great job on this movie
Published on August 7, 2010 by Chris D. Williams
2.0 out of 5 stars
only OK
This wasn't a bad gangster movie. It is interesting to see Jackie Chan trying to act dramatically. But he is just OK and so is the movie. Read more
Published on June 16, 2010 by CP
