GREAT SCENES
A Better Tomorrow / 英雄本色 (John Woo, 1986)

In a spirited homage to Johnny Boy’s entrance in Mean Streets, Mark Gor (Chow Yun-fat) sashays his way into a restaurant before a shootout.

With A Better Tomorrow, Woo ignited the “heroic bloodshed” genre of Hong Kong action cinema, combining operatic montage sequences, charismatic criminals as protagonists and recurring themes of redemption and chivalry.

Shinjuku Incident (Derek Yee, 2009)

David Liu | 21 March 2010

Derek Yee’s Shinjuku Incident begins with a flock of illegal Chinese immigrants riding waves of opportunity to the shores of Japan in the early 1990s and ends with its most illustrious member floating away on an irreversible current of ruin. Call it a reversal of karmic proportions. A search for a lost love becomes a dream for glory, and with it arrives unwelcome guests - demons of greed and complacency, tucked away under fleeting disguises of brotherhood and honor.

Much has been said about this being Jackie Chan’s first attempt at serious drama, and for what it’s worth, his performance here is neither revelatory nor disastrous. The venerated action icon plays Steelhead, a tractor mechanic from Northeastern China who enters Japan illegally in search of his girlfriend Xiu Xiu (Xu Jinglei). Working a variety of meager jobs in Tokyo’s bustling Shinjuku district, Steelhead befriends Jie (Daniel Wu), a headstrong young opportunist with unspoken inner fears. Together, Steelhead and Jie form their own gang in an attempt to preserve national identity and provide a haven for other fellow Chinese immigrants.

Their idealistic ventures hardly last long, as a rise to prominence means having to deal with every other entity struggling for control of the district: city police, organized Yakuza, factions of other established Chinese and Taiwanese gangs. As he and his companions become embroiled in disputes that veer straight into perilous territory, Steelhead finally stumbles upon his former girlfriend – only to discover that she has married the local influential Yakuza boss (Masaya Kato).

Through a dizzying chain of events, Steelhead makes an unlikely rise to power within the Tokyo underworld, unbeknownst to the growing chaos that threatens to split his former posse apart. A strange friendship with a tough police inspector (Naoto Takenaka) begins to play a major role as the film careens toward an improbably Shakespearean denouement.

The underlying moral of Derek Yee’s mob saga is hardly new: Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Brutal sequences of gangland retribution are juxtaposed with touching depictions of harmony and humanity. The film’s most major pitfall lies in its uneven pacing, which significantly diminishes some of the narrative’s staying power and results in a somewhat unsatisfying final movement. Yet even during its weaker moments, this flawed noir manages to paint a compelling portrait of fallen heroes, oddly serene in the face of certain death.