Reaching out with Shinjuku Incident
Sharyn Yap
REPORTS in a newsmagazine about Chinese immigrants in Japan during the 1997/1998 period caught acclaimed director Derek Yee’s attention and an idea germinated. According to Yee, the notion of Chinese people forming their own pockets of communities in places they migrate to was not something new but unlike other more open societies, Japan has always been a tough place for migrants to gather roots because the Japanese were wary of them.
"Very little was known of these communities that sprang up in Japan because they were illegal and stayed very much underground," he said. "I wanted to present a Chinese viewpoint of life within these communities.
"It’s not a real story, of course, but an adaptation of what my research revealed."
The result is Shinjuku Incident, a blockbuster movie that brings together two of Hongkong’s biggest boxoffice draws – international action star Jackie Chan and Yee (of Protégé, One Nite in Mongkok and Full Throttle fame).
Made at a cost of more than US$25 million (RM90 million), the film pools several top talents from Hongkong, Mainland China and Japan, including Daniel Wu, Xu Jing-lei, Fan Bing-bing, Naota Takenaka and Masaya Kato with location shootings in Japan’s Shinjuku and China’s Suzhou and Changchun.
Because the research was so fascinating with the story evolving all the time, Yee said that the film probably took him the longest time to complete but the result should be worth all the effort.
The story revolves around a tractor repairman from Heilongjiang in northern China, played by Chan, who sneaks into Japan illegally in search of his girlfriend Xiu-xiu (Xu Jing-lei) after he loses contact with her.
Once there, he joins the other immigrants, who are shunned by the mainstream society, hounded by the Japanese yakuza (the Japanese triad) and who go about their days under fear of discovery and being repatriated.
Under the guidance of a friend, Jie (Daniel Wu), he settles into a routine and soon discovers that Xiu-xiu has married Eguchi, a yakuza leader. He later finds himself working with Eguchi but Jie’s betrayal brings things to a head…
Shinjuku Incident boasts a side of Chan never before seen by his audiences after over three decades in the movie business with the action choreography in the capable hands of Chin Kar-lok (Full throttle, All’s Well Ends Well 97 and Full Alert), who started his career as part of Sammo Hung’s stunt team and who has become one of Hongkong’s top stuntmen and martial arts choreographers today.
The thing that struck Yee as he was researching for the script was how little human nature has changed through the years.
"People have always moved to where the money was or where the economy was booming," he said. "We are not just talking about the Chinese but also Europeans as well. And, when these migrants settle in and are oppressed, they survive by uniting and evolving into organisations.
"I think audiences will take away different things from Shinjuku Incident. All our own personal experiences will find a resonating chord or two in the story that unfolds in the movie." - Sharyn Yap
Shinjuku Incident is distributed by Golden Screen Cinemas and opens nationwide on April 2, 2009.
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