Shinjuku Incident, The (Review)
Thursday, 18th February 2010, 17:22

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Introduction
Once in a while, I get the impression that Jackie Chan is getting too old for kung-fu movies. Not that he actually is too old for kung-fu movies, rather it seems incongruous watching a man in his sixth decade punching out moves that put actors a third his age to shame. It’s a little like watching your dad on the dance floor, with the proviso that your dad can actually dance. There’s something about it that seems wrong. Fortunately for us, the Jackie Chan kung-fu comedy is a genre that has been consigned to Hollywood, in a succession of films that never really quite live up to their promise, mainly because Hollywood likes its actors neatly pigeonholed. In recent years, Hong Kong cinema has allowed Jackie Chan to explore his talents and demonstrate his versatility. There’s a lot more to Jackie Chan than just kung-fu, and The Shinjuku Incident is a film that is totally devoid of martial arts. It’s also given me a reason to look forward to a Jackie Chan film once more, after the comparative disappointment of The Myth.

Steelhead was a tractor mechanic quite content with his life in North-eastern China, but the problem was that his childhood sweetheart, Xiu Xiu looked Eastward for a life of wealth and prosperity. She wasn’t alone, and many of the villagers wanted to move to Japan to find a better life. Steelhead gave Xiu Xiu his blessing when she promised to return as soon as she made enough money. First Xiu Xiu’s aunt in Japan passed away, then the letters dried up, and then Steelhead’s friends in Japan told him she had just vanished. And so it was that Steelhead also became one of countless illegal Chinese immigrants to sneak into Tokyo, although his purpose was just to find Xiu Xiu. He finds that life for illegal Chinese in Tokyo isn’t easy, constantly wary of the authorities, and having to rely on petty crime to supplement paltry wages from odd jobs, just to make a living. And where there is petty crime, there are the immigrant gangs, and not too far behind the Japanese Yakuza. Steelhead has to let go of his dreams when he learns that Xiu Xiu is now Yuki, and married to a Yakuza boss. Unable to return to China, Steelhead has to make a life for himself in Japan, and the only way to do that is through petty crime, in the hope of one day becoming legal. But petty crime is just the start of a downward spiral, and soon Steelhead finds himself in the middle of a Yakuza civil war.

The Disc
The Shinjuku Incident gets a 2.35:1 anamorphic transfer, and it’s my first experience of a Film-PAL native transfer from Cine Asia, which is warmly welcomed. The image is clear and sharp, the colours are a tad over-saturated, but that may be a creative choice, and the only real issue I can find is some slight aliasing. All in all it’s a splendid image transfer. In terms of audio, you have the obligatory English dub, which really must be avoided at all costs, mostly for the awfulness of the thing, but also because it erases the language barrier that is a major part of the storyline. The reason for this becomes apparent in the native language audio tracks, DD 5.1 and 2.0, in which the actors speak either Japanese or Mandarin according to their character’s ethnicity. It’s not an action movie per se, but the 5.1 audio is appreciated for the more strident scenes.

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