JACKIE Chan fans may find his latest movie, Shinjuku Incident, a tad disconcerting as he’s not performing any kung fu stunts at all. But for Chan himself, the movie offers a fresh new challenge and several firsts where his career is concerned.
"The biggest breakthrough for me in this movie is that I’m just an actor – I was not involved in any other aspects of it," he says in Kuala Lumpur recently. Chan and co-star Daniel Wu (right) were in town to promote the movie.
"It was an agreement I had with the director (Derek Yee). I was not to give any opinion whatsoever; I could not change the script or the action choreography … it was very difficult [for me].
"This is also the first time I was a villain, sort of. The first time I play a man who don’t know kung fu, the first time as a village bumpkin, and also I had a bed scene and went naked!"
As Yee is one director he could trust, Chan was willing to go the extra mile. Yee had always wanted to work with Chan as long as 15 years ago, but not on an action flick. Now that Chan has come to realise he wants to be an actor who knows how to do action movies and not just an action star, the time is right for their collaboration.
"Too much of the same thing would become boring," Chan explains. "I’m getting fed up myself. I have been experimenting with different styles and I think if the audience can accept this one, I would be able to do anything. If not, it will be back to Rush Hour 10 or Police Story 20…
"To date, the public response [to Shinjuku Incident] has been good although there were some Japanese fans who stopped me in the street crying because they hadn’t wanted to see me get beaten up or dying."
The movie revolves around an honest tractor repairman from China called Steelhead (Chan), who steals into Japan’s Shinjuku district in search of his girlfriend. There, he sees the Chinese illegal immigrants like him being shunned by mainstream society and oppressed by both the Japanese Yakuza and Chinese gangs.
He decides to take a stand. He strikes an uneasy alliance with Eguchi, a Yakuza head, and is given control of Shinjuku’s night establishments. But all he really wants is a simple life and starts his own tractor repair business, leaving the rest to his friends.
But power corrupts and even his close friend from the same village, Jie (Daniel Wu), formerly a shy, simple-minded youth, is transformed into a demented druggie.
For Wu, playing Jie was challenging as he had to submit to a character change from a mild-mannered young man to one with outlandish make-up and a wild nature.
"In the beginning, we were afraid that the image was a bit too extreme," he says. "But in Japan, we discovered, they were even more so and we adapted to the Japanese style.
"To Jie, the make-up and wig were all symbolic of a mask for him to hide behind. It says ‘keep away from me’ but ultimately, he is a lonely and insecure character and I had to get into that mind-set for the role."
Both Chan and Wu agree that their favourite and most memorable scene was the one where Chan was nursing Wu, who had been brutally beaten. The two had a good cry, even after the cameras stopped rolling. "I was just sitting there and looking at him and he looked so sad and the tears just came," says Chan.
Another interesting scene was the bath scene, where the two actually bared all. "When we went to the bath, we were unaware that it was a public bath and everybody there was naked," reveals Chan. "At first, we had a towel on but then, it would look funny so I said what the heck, and ripped it off." He also ripped Wu’s towel off!
"I was not so much embarrassed but worried that people might make comparisons," Wu chips in mischievously. "After all, he is the Big Brother!"
Of course, fans in Malaysia will not get to see anything as the censorship board has been busy. We also won’t be witnessing Chan’s first bed scene.
"Overall, Yee wanted to bring to light the Chinese people’s life as illegal immigrants and after watching this movie, people will realise that being an illegal immigrant is not a good thing.
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