MANILA, Philippines?Jackie Chan turns serious in ?The Shinjuku Incident,? and it?s a performance that is, for the most part, worth taking seriously: There?s no clowning around, and no goofy yet graceful martial arts moves?nothing, in short, that will bring to mind Chan?s iconic roles?except for the presence of the man himself.

Immigrants

The action superstar?s latest film is a straight crime-drama. Set in the 1990s in the seedy and colorful Kabukicho district in Shinjuku, Tokyo, it stars Chan as Steelhead (Nick in the dubbed version), a mechanic from a village in China who lands illegally on Japanese shores in search of a missing sweetheart. He is welcomed by a group of similarly paper-less immigrants and soon finds himself enmeshed in the Yakuza- and Triad-controlled environment of the district.

The film traces Steelhead?s journey from being an honest man on the street to Yakuza henchman. It?s not easy to reconcile the idea of an amoral gangster character with the whole Jackie Chan-as-a-bumbling-good-guy mythology and, indeed, this is something that writer-filmmaker Derek Yee appears to have realized. Thus Chan?s character doesn?t change completely?he remains a nice guy at heart and manages to redeem himself in the end.

The action star is surprisingly effective at playing it straight?though, there are times when serious moments suddenly become funny if only because he?s in them?and he?s supported by solid actors. Chan, who also produces, is joined here by Daniel Wu as Steelhead?s hometown friend, Jie; Naoto Takenaka as Inspector Kitano, a cop whose life Steelhead saves, and Masaya Kato as Eguchi, the Yakuza crime boss whose life he also saves, even though it turns out that the gang lord has actually married the sweetheart he came looking for. Xu Jinglei plays that part, and Fan Bingbing is Lily, the pretty owner of a hostess bar. Everyone gets a chance to chew up the scenery, though both female characters are rather two-dimensional. It?s the men who are the stars here, and Wu, whose character undergoes an almost 360-degree change, manages to make it look convincing.

Tension

Effective performances notwithstanding, however, the movie doesn?t really take off. Yee aims for an epic feel, but fails to hold the film together. While the production is put together well enough to keep you engaged throughout, the narrative feels disjointed. There are more than a few taut and riveting scenes, but the tension builds and dissipates, resulting in a string of good scenes, but no overall grand arc of tension to unify them all.

Still, while it?s not the grand piece of cinematic art that its makers want it to be, ?The Shinjuku Incident? does work as an image-changing vehicle for Chan, as well as a fairly interesting?and, sometimes, even compelling?look at gang culture, violence, Sino-Japanese relations, and the effects of diaspora.