Review of Shinjuku Incident (2009) by Patrick C — 18 Sep 2009

The Chinese Goodfellas.

Shinjuku Incident tells the rise of Chinese immigrant Steelhead from destitute illegal immigrant to head of the Chinese mob in Japan.

This a turn in Jackie Chan's career from comedy action star to serious actor, and I like this direction he's going for giving a very solid and emotional performance as Steelhead. He did very well in portraying a character that had done many bad things to survive while trying to avoid corruption from his new found power. Daniel Wu was also terrific as Jei, Steelheads best friend who is struck with bad luck and becomes tormented from his disfigurements.

There were some scenes that got me real into the film such as the stand offs between gangs, I thought the directing was perfect with quick zoom in shots.

The end left me hanging though leaving some important characters unresolved, also the romance between Steelhead and Lily had very little development and that a little more focus on that would have helped the character of Steelhead a great deal.

This was a great film, a solid Chinese drama with an interesting commentary on the flood of Illegal immigrants in Japan.