First Glimpse Of Jackie Chan In Derek Yee's SHINJUKU INCIDENT

Featuring the first purely dramatic - i.e. non-martial arts - role of Jackie Chan's lengthy career, Derek Yee's Shinjuku Incident has been one of the most anticipated films out of Asia from the day it was announced. And not just for the Chan factor, either, the rest of the cast is dead solid - Daniel Wu and Naoto Takenaka also star - and director Derek Yee has quietly become one of the region's very best directors, highly adept at building tension and tightly wrought characters while drawing career best performances out of his stars. One Night In Mongkok, anyone? And early word on Shinjuku - a film that revolves around an illegal immigrant drawn into Tokyo's underworld - has been very good. Too bad people may bot be able to see it.

See, the thing is Shinjuku Incident has been announced as the opening film for the Hong Kong International Film Festival. Great news, right? Wrong. Problem is the announcement came before the film was cleared by Chinese censors, a situation that comes up from time to time and pretty much always ends badly for the films and film makers involved. Yee's already defiantly saying he won't make any cuts to the film to appease the mainland and would prefer to just not release it there if there are any issues but time will tell if the producers go along with that.

The upshot of all of this is that promo materials for the film have been in very scarce supply, which makes it rather surprising that a healthy reel of footage has turned up on Chinese television. It's grainy, it's got a television commentator talking throughout the entire thing, but it's all there is. And it looks good. Check it below the break.