
After years of films that had minimal plots but were simply vehicles for his ridiculous, life-threatening stunts and nigh-on impossible kung fu, Jackie Chan appears to have decided to give it all and become a serious actor.
It's not surprising that he's throwing in the towel. The punishment that he's inflicted on his body over the years is ludicrous, and the older he gets, the more he's likely to suffer as a consequence. Children who trained in the old Chinese Opera schools must learn to be somewhat stoical -- separated from their families and beaten mercilessly while they coerce and cajole their bodies into doing virtually impossible stunts. But there's only so much trauma that a body can take, and now he's got to be feeling it.
I've watched a couple of very good Jackie Chan biopics lately. Curious, because I'm not really a fan. One was about his relationship with his father, who had a second family in a remote village in China that Jackie knew nothing about. This was less a biopic than a documentary as his father reveals his story for the camera, and a tearful reunion with his kids is recorded by the cameras. Not compelling, but more interesting than your average Jackie Chan film.
The other movie was much better. Painted Faces is a Sammo Hung vehicle, in which Sammo plays the master who runs the Chinese Opera school at which Sammo, Jackie and a bunch of other people from Hong Kong cinema trained. Although some people have said that the cruelty that was inflicted on children in the school seemed unrealistic and over the top, in fact, Sammo is believed to have been overly generous to his old master when it came to the brutal severity of punishments at the school. I enjoyed that one a lot.
So, what to make of Shinjuku Incident -- Chan's first attempt at a serious role? As with so much in HK cinema, it tries to broaden its appeal by being part refugee drama, part triad/yakuza crime drama and while watchable, it suffers from many of the same flaws from so many films that are constructed with an eye to the cash register rather than simply trying to tell the best story that you can.
Jackie plays Steelhead -- a refugee from the industrial rural North of China, who leaves his home town to try and find his one true love who has gone missing in Japan. He takes lowly jobs to support himself, attempting to stay on the righteous path -- until he learns that his girlfriend has run off with a Yakuza, and the leader of the Taiwan triad group chops off the hand of his best pal.
From there on in, it starts to get a bit ludicrous as Jackie organizes his pals into their own little triad crew, and after saving the life of a Yakuza underboss, they get enough protection to steal the turf of the triads.
Shinjuku Incident isn't exactly a bad film -- OK, it *is* a bad film, but that didn't stop me enjoying it -- but there are problems all the way through. Chan appears to have had either a facelift, or he's shot so full of Botox his range of emotions runs from sad to sad. The plot is piss poor -- even by the standards of the Hong Kong Triad movie, which is pretty low indeed. Somewhere inside all this, was a good film, struggling to get out -- but it never actually makes it.
He does get into a couple of fights, but they lack the extreme coreography of the typical Chan movie. In fact, during the first fight, when a hostess escorting a drunk punter is set upon by muggers, Jackie simply trades a few blows and then starts shouting for the police.
And despite being a killer and the leader of a criminal gang, at heart, Jackie is still a hero who would risk his liberty to save a dying cop, and refuses to take protection money from the other Chinese merchants in the area. This lack of a killer instinct proves to be his undoing as his gang start engaging in moneymaking schemes behind his back, and the fortunes of his Yakuza protector turn around.
I'm sure this won't be Jackie's last attempt at a serious film. It probably won't be his worst attempt at a serious film either. In a couple of years time, it'll pop up on Film 4 as a late night option, and it's worth watching if you've nothing better to do. But I wouldn't recommend that you go out of your way to catch it.
Oh, one last thing. Lam Suet has a small supporting role. As ever, he's wonderful. Best thing in the whole film.

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