Shinjuku Incident

Marketed as a film that shows of a side of star Jackie Chan that his fans have never seen before, Derek Yee's Shinjuku Incident attempts to feature one of the world's most recognized and popular martial arts star in a role that features not one single fight scene. In fact, there are no signature Jackie Chan "-isms" in this film at all. Instead, Jackie is (gasp) simply acting in this one. The synopsis according to a review on Twitch:

The story is set sometime in the early 90s and Steelhead (Jackie Chan) is an illegal Chinese immigrant in Tokyo. He has come to find work but also to look for his childhood sweetheart, Xiu Xiu (Xu Jinglei). He teams up with a group of Chinese workers, including Jie (Daniel Wu), and numerous familiar faces from Hong Kong Cinema like Lam Suet and Chin Kar Lok, who help him get some manual labour. While cleaning garbage out of sewer drains, Steelhead’s group of workers are chased off by police, and during the scuffle Steelhead inadvertently saves the life of Inspector Kitano (Takenaka Naoto). Steelhead escapes but Kitano now feels indebted to the illegal immigrant. Steelhead also meets bar owner Lily (Fan Bing Bing) and a turf war is brewing in Shinjuku between rival Yakuza gangs and when Steelhead recognizes the wife of mob boss Eguchi as none other than his beloved Xiu Xiu, he can no longer resist the urge to get involved.

Here's the trailer. Apologies for the sound quality, but this is the best version not embedded in a Flash site.



It is certainly different from what you're used to from Jackie Chan; the story is definitely a realistic if only a little overly dramatized plight of immigrant workers in Japan. Of note is that only an edited version was screened in mainland China while an unedited version is what was distributed in Japan despite the unflattering depiction of Japanese attitudes toward immigrants that is obviously a key theme of the film. Reviews have been good, but not glowing. However, any film from Jackie Chan, especially one where he is trying to flex his acting muscles, should certainly be checked out.