"Shinjuku Incident(Jackie Chan)" opened last Friday in select U.S. theatres

[Guest Markgway]

Warner Bros only distributed The Protector. Officially it was a Golden Harvest production.

Same with The Big Brawl. Although Fred Weintraub still worked for Warner Bros at that time it was technically a Fred Weintraub production not Warner Bros as they gave him his own company.

[The Running Man]

The Protector had to have American co-financing of some kind. If it wasn't Warner then it was someone else as that was the only way James Glickenhaus's version was kept because Jackie hated it but couldn't do anything about it except for Asian territories. If he could have, he would have booted Glickenhaus right out.

With The Big Brawl well you could've fooled me. Weintraub had very strong ties with Warner Brothers to the point that most of his productions were handled by them. I think he was even Executive V.P. of Warners at some point.

[Guest Markgway]

The Protector had to have American co-financing of some kind.

Yeah, Warner Bros would've purchased the international distribution rights upfront. That's a common way for indies to get financing. Warners already released The Big Brawl with Jackie and presumably pre-sold the film with his name. When this project was being made everyone involved thought Jackie would be the next big thing and that he was just unlucky with The Big Brawl. They figured that if comedy didn't work they'd try serious. That didn't work etiher. Glickenhaus had a contract that allowed him final cut. Jackie filmed those additional scenes in HK behind his back. I would presume that because Harvest retained the Asian rights that allowed Jackie to get around any legal issues if the new cut was released only in Asian territories. Warners wouldn't have been involved in the actual production. It was pure Golden Harvest. The movie had several producers all of whom worked for Golden Harvest.

With The Big Brawl well you could've fooled me. Weintraub had very strong ties with Warner Brothers to the point that most of his productions were handled by them. I think he was even Executive V.P. of Warners at some point.

Yeah, he was made VP circa 1970. Warners were so impressed with him that they financed his production companies and let him have cart blanche with projects. One of which was Enter the Dragon with Paul Heller and Concord. Although I believe Enter went out officially as a Warner co-production. Subsequent films were from Weintraub-Heller Productions. The Big Brawl was just A Fred Weintraub production. But his backing by Warners meant the US distribution was all but sewn up.

[dionbrother]

Note BIG BRAWL was released on dvd as BATTLE CREEK BRAWL by Fox and not WB.

I think GH owned the film 100%. Leo Fong said Weintraub was embezzling from WB in one of his commentaries. I'd believe it.

Oh, and how am I getting two pussy Jackies for the price of one in Twin Dragons? Where in that movie does Die Hard act like a pussy? That was in fact the whole dichotomy between the twins. One grew up in the streets and was a fighter the other was the complete opposite.

Is his name Die Hard in your version? It was something goofy in my old Vidi tape. I wanted a badass fight between Jackie Chan and Wang Lung Wei, and all I got was both Jackie's fighting like Bob Hope.

[The Running Man]

Isn't "Battlecreek Brawl" the international name and "Big Brawl" the US name? If so, that would explain why the Fox's release carried the name "Battlescreek Brawl" since they were putting out Fortune Star's stuff out at one time. That's why Fox's Bruce Lee releases under the Fortune Star deal had the correct English titles for the Bruce Lee films and not the (screwed up) US ones like Fox had on their previous home video releases.

In regards to Twin Dragons, "Die Hard" is the character's original name. They changed it to "Boomer" in the English dubs.

A lack of a hardcore fight between Johnny Wang and Jackie Chan is hardly a cry of "pussy" in that flick. Everything Die Hard does in it would make him a far cry from a pussy. Speaking of pussy, he even jumps right into it. Literally. He runs right upstairs, strips away, jumps half naked at Nina Li and gets laid.

[dionbrother]

I think he was called something like Boomer in the Taiwanese subs, which were usually different than the HK versions. It wasn't Die Hard.

He may have jumped into it, but it was not a top fight. Should have been a two man version of the POLICE STORY mall fight. Instead, it looks like something out of a Marx Brothers comedy. I originally blamed Tsui Hark, but Jackie did nothing but underwhelming fights for the rest of the decade. "You pay $7 to see Jackie run and throw furniture" is what he should have said on the talk show circuit.

BATTLE CREEK BRAWL was the international title, BIG BRAWL was the WB copyrighted title. Back in the 80s, you could buy it from Rainbow Video under the BCB name.

[The Running Man]

I think he was called something like Boomer in the Taiwanese subs, which were usually different than the HK versions. It wasn't Die Hard.

You could be thinking of "Bok Min". That's what was on the original Hong Kong English subtitles of the film. Essentially, not translating his nickname. "Die Hard" showed up in the last Hong Kong DVD edition which had a more accurate translation.

He may have jumped into it, but it was not a top fight. Should have been a two man version of the POLICE STORY mall fight. Instead, it looks like something out of a Marx Brothers comedy. I originally blamed Tsui Hark, but Jackie did nothing but underwhelming fights for the rest of the decade. "You pay $7 to see Jackie run and throw furniture" is what he should have said on the talk show circuit.

A Police Story fight wouldn't have fit the context of the movie. It was a comedy about two opposite brothers. One a fighter the other one not. The fighting brother did his tough guy thing and the other did his nice guy thing.

I think Stanley Tong is partially to blame for that kind of tamer Jackie. He did that to the Police Story movies and those two films were released theatrically in the US and it seemed that's what Jackie latched onto for his re-launch in America.

I heard a rumor, don't know if it is true or not, that Dimension originally wanted to release Crime Story in theaters but Jackie didn't and that's why Police Story 3 was put out in theaters. Although I don't really buy it because if they didn't listen to him in terms of not altering his movies, why would they listen to him in regards to what movies to put out or not?

[Guest Markgway]

Note BIG BRAWL was released on dvd as BATTLE CREEK BRAWL by Fox and not WB.

I think GH owned the film 100%. Leo Fong said Weintraub was embezzling from WB in one of his commentaries. I'd believe it.

Ha Ha! I won't even comment on that.

The original US video rights went to Warners along with the theatrical rights, but these have looooong since expired and reverted to Golden Harvest/Fortune Star.

Warners have nothing to do with the film now. They still have US domestic rights to The Protector though. Their international rights have lapsed and reverted to Fortune Star.

Is his name Die Hard in your version?

I think that's the Cantonese translation.

[Guest Markgway]

Isn't "Battlecreek Brawl" the international name and "Big Brawl" the US name? If so, that would explain why the Fox's release carried the name "Battlescreek Brawl" since they were putting out Fortune Star's stuff out at one time. That's why Fox's Bruce Lee releases under the Fortune Star deal had the correct English titles for the Bruce Lee films and not the (screwed up) US ones like Fox had on their previous home video releases.

The film was shot under the title Battle Creek Brawl, but changed in pre-release to The Big Brawl. In Asia they kept the shooting title. Most countries saw it as The Big Brawl. So I would say that technically The Big Brawl is the "original" title. But you could probably go either way.

Speaking of pussy, he even jumps right into it. Literally. He runs right upstairs, strips away, jumps half naked at Nina Li and gets laid.

Who wouldn't??

[The Running Man]

I think that's the Cantonese translation.

The appropriate transliteration, unlike what's on the original Hong Kong subs, would be "Bok Meng". It's a Cantonese term which means doing something crazy even if that means risking one's lives. Tinlunlau's subs on the Joy Sales DVD picked "Die Hard" which seems like a good approximation.

The film was shot under the title Battle Creek Brawl, but changed in pre-release to The Big Brawl. In Asia they kept the shooting title. Most countries saw it as The Big Brawl. So I would say that technically The Big Brawl is the "original" title. But you could probably go either way.

I suppose that the other countries that had "Big Brawl" were following the American title whic isn't unusual. Did Warner Brothers have distribution outside of the US? If an a discussion on what's the original title should be had, I would argue that "Battlecreek Brawl" is the original title since it was kept in certain territories and that was the title it was shot under which means it is the original title as it was meant to be.

One doesn't even really need to put much thought into where and how "Big Brawl" came about. Seeing both titles, you could easily guess that "Big Brawl" originated in the US as everything is dumbed down over here due to marketing bozos thinking that it might confuse viewers because they won't know what "Battlecreek" means.

Remember, Harvey Weinstein wanted to release "Shaolin Soccer" in the US as "Kung Fu Soccer" because he thought no one would know what "Shaolin" means. The name was kept in the US however the "Kung Fu Soccer" title was what was used in other territories Weinstein had rights to.

Funny how certain things don't change throughout the years.

[Guest Markgway]

I suppose that the other countries that had "Big Brawl" were following the American title whic isn't unusual.

It would seem so.

Did Warner Brothers have distribution outside of the US?

I believe they distributed the film theatrically in the UK, but not on VHS. Guild picked up the video rights from Golden Harvest along with those for The Young Master and Dragon Lord. Their print was still called The Big Brawl though.

If an a discussion on what's the original title should be had, I would argue that "Battlecreek Brawl" is the original title since it was kept in certain territories and that was the title it was shot under which means it is the original title as it was meant to be.

I wouldn't argue.

[Neil Koch]

Sorry to bump an old thread, but I thought some might be interested in my review of the new US DVD from Sony.

The short version: the movie looks and sounds fine, but there's little in the way of extras and the subs are dubtitles.

http://hkfilm.net/dvdrevs/shinjuku.htm

[masterofoneinchpunch]

Sorry to bump an old thread, but I thought some might be interested in my review of the new US DVD from Sony.

The short version: the movie looks and sounds fine, but there's little in the way of extras and the subs are dubtitles.

http://hkfilm.net/dvdrevs/shinjuku.htm

Quick comments:

Unfortunately, even though the subtitles (which are available in English, English closed captioning, or French) are in a nice yellow font that's easy to read, they are "dubtitles", meaning that they follow the English dub, not the actual translation of the original dialogue.

Missed one, there is an "English for the Chinese version" subtitles which is a weird mix. It seems dubtitles, but it is occasionally modified with different words, extras words etc...

Also the Jackie Chan commentary is 9 minutes.

Some random thoughts:

I ended up watching this over the weekend and will write up more thoughts on it later. Still thinking what exactly I think about it . I think fans of Protege will like this more than others. I wasn't really that happy with it especially in terms of plot and character. I know Yee worked on this for many years and part of the problem may be that this film is a compedium of many events that happened all roled into one film. JC's character was certainly weird going from "good guy" to murderer back to "good guy" and not even lamenting the fact that he just killed two people. I like how in the extras Jackie said the lesson was basically don't leave your country .

Derek Yee certainly has a certain auteur streak in these last two films. I wonder if he does a love story there will also be a missing arm scene. Of course it would be didactic as well.

I can't believe someone can prefer Drunken Monkey over Drunken Master II . I'm glad I didn't read DM III over DM II.

[masterofoneinchpunch]

not quite done with it; but tired of writing on it:

Shinjuku Incident (2009: Derek Yee: Hong Kong) **/****

There is certainly an auteuristic streak in the small amount of cinema I have seen from Derek Yee. His previous film Protégé (2007) dealt with the drug trade in a didactic manner which is similar to the approach this film takes in dealing with illegal immigrants in Japan. Both this and Protégé have a curious and sometimes overacting performance from Daniel Wu (Rob-B-Hood). They also both involve severing an arm. But it is his didactic approach that annoys me a bit in this film. I could not quite verbalize it until watching the extras in which Jackie Chan states that the message of the film was that of “be happy where you are” which is, of course, simplistic and ultimately deadly if you are living in a repressive regime. However, I could forgive a bit of lesson-oriented cinema (I did in Protégé), but there were other issues on the forefront that lessoned my enjoyment of the film.

The biggest issue I think some people will have this is that they will be expecting a “Jackie Chan” film. It is not. I admire Jackie for extending his reach into cinema to take on a decidedly un-charismatic role though this is nowhere near the first time with Crime Story or New Police Story for roles in this vein and for a true antagonistic performance you can go way back to The Killer Meteors (1976). I think his performance is good. I did not think his character, along with several others, was well thought out though.

Jackie stars as “Steelhead” an illegal immigrant in Japan who is looking for his lost love Xiu-Xiu (Xu Jing-lei: The Warlords) who has disappeared at the same time he is trying to just survive. While this is a May-December relationship (she is much younger than he is), nothing is said about this in the film. I am not sure if he was portraying a much younger man (especially due to flashbacks of them younger which would put them close to the same age) or ego was involved or there is just a strange miscasting. He befriends several immigrants like Lily (Fan Bing-bing: Flash Point), Jie (Daniel Wu) who only wants to be a chestnut vendor and Hong Kong Boy (Chin Kar-lok: Protégé) and eventually has a relationship with Lily in a vastly underused plotline that gets exploited in the end that left me vastly unsatisfied.

Meanwhile two big things happen: he saves the life of Inspector Kitano (Takenaka Naoto) who is in charge of enforcing immigration and he also saves the life of Eguchi Toshinari (Kato Masaya) who happens to have a high position in the Yakuza and coincidently is also married to his former sweetheart Xiu-Xiu. The sheer coincidence of Jackie saving several lives seemed a too fortuitous but also those scenes go completely against some of the decisions he makes later in the film. It is like Yee wanted him to do evil things to show the depths someone can go to when they are pushed to the brink, but his character remains almost ignorant of them even though he committed some heinous atrocities in the name of helping out himself (to procure a “legal” Japanese ID) and his fellow immigrants. Soon you will see a rise of Scarface proportions with Steelhead serving directly under Eguchi as well as with his Steelhead’s friends most notably Jie who turns into a drug using anime looking character.

The strength of the film is in particular scenes such as the plethora of issues that are presented to the illegal immigrant from not speaking the language, locals who do not want you there, loneliness, poverty and odd jobs like cleaning the sewers that no one else wants to do. This is a familiar situation to many countries. I do wish that a bit more was spent on why they wanted to leave in the first place. The film had such promise early on that the varied contrivances of the plots and characters started to get more and more overbearing. I think part of the reason was that the director Derek Yee had been working on this for so long and wanted to put so much of what he learned about the topic in one film that a compendium of characters was shoved into Jackie Chan and others that so much seemed contrived.

If you have seen Protégé and liked it, then it is possible that you will like this as well. If you are specially looking for a stereotypical Jackie film you will most likely dislike it. The action here is presented more realistic so everything appears clumsier. There are times when you expect Jackie to break out and use weapons or handle multiple bad guys with ease, but that is not a fault of the film and is more my preconception. I have read positive reviews on this film (I disagree with them) though most do tend to talk about “plot problems” and several seem to give this a passing mark solely because of the good performance from Chan. While I was happy enough with his performance the myriad of character and plot inconsistencies for me was the biggest reason I am giving this movie a mediocre review.

The Sony R1 release of it is good. Be warned there are three different English subtitles. One for the dubbed released, one for the dubbed release added with hard-of-hearing and one for the Chinese version. It technically is not completely dubtitles, but it did not always vary that much from the English soundtrack. I easily prefer the original audio track because you get to hear the many different languages used that are lost on the English dub. There are two extras: selected scenes commentary with Jackie Chan (9m) and Say Hello to the Bad Guy (10m) which is a good extra that talks about how long Derek was working on this, the suicide of an actor (not mentioned) who was going to play the role in the film, why the film lost the Mainland China market and various tidbits that make it worth of a watch. Both are short and easily worth the watch to learn more about this film.

[daisho2004]

I finally got around to seeing this film tonight, and I have to say I really liked this side of Jackie Chan this is a role you really would'nt see him b4. It really is a Yakuza film which is always great to see it kinda reminded me of the Yakuka Papers series.

[phoenix_darshan]

i first welcomed the grittiness of jinchuku incident and the break with the run of the mill persona Jackie usually plays.

but there were major lapses int he plotline, such as for me it was unbelievable that JAckie would turn a brutal assassin, also his friend Jie is absolutely overacted turning into a crack loving transvestite looking metrosexual.

I liked some of the insights into Chinese society and the pearls of wisdom given by Chans ex, but no decentfight scenes I found the yelling Yakuza guys a bit ridiculous and their code of honor seemed a bit twisted. how would you as a man of honor accept that the guy who tried to kill you ,walks about happily.

Having the whole story downsized a it would have done a lot good to the movie, instead of overdramatising it.

when one of chans squad gets hit by a stone thrown from the street, coincidence reached a new level of unbelievability.

I liked how the director played with language and covered the topic of racism though.

but having purchased the dvd i might pass i ton as it was not enough to keep me hooked for a second watching.

enough of a rant, I was shocked and intrigued by some of the imagery and never thought about turning it off, I am also a big fan of unhappy endings, so it pleased me in this respect but thats about it.

[Megadautilus]

I thought it was a really cool film. The story and the characters made no sense, such as the friendly Jackie Chan character who helped the police but later became a killer? It was also to gritty to be taken seriously. Another problem is that it's just hard to watch some of these characters not break out into a fist fight when they are played by already established stuntmen (Jackie Chan, Masaya Kato, Yasuaki Karata, Ken Lo, Kenya Sawada). The whole style of the film was really cool though. 8/10.

[mpm74]

I know i'm late in the game, but finally saw this movie...

FANTASTIC!!! Review is up if anyone is interested.

Was just reading through this thread. I'm surprised that nobody really likes it as much as I did? hmmm....

[Kennedy Il Sung]

I really loved this movie as well, easily Jackie's best of the 00's.