'Shinjuku Incident' to Open in Hong Kong

The star-studded film 'The Shinjuku Incident' by Hong Kong director Derek Yee will soon open in Hong Kong on April 2.

Leading actors Jackie Chan has teamed up with co-star Fan Bingbing to shoot a spread in Cosmopolitan magazine to promote the film. The two appeared together on the magazine's cover in last September's issue.

The drama, originally set to hit screens by late September last year was postponed. According to media reports the film has not passed the censors on the mainland.

Reportedly, the production team had thought to tone down the violence in the film to meet the requirements of the mainland but finally scrapped the idea as it would destroy the film's integrity.

The drama, set in 1990s, portrays the lives of Chinese immigrants in Tokyo's bustling Shinjuku district.

A tractor mechanic from China nicknamed Steelhead (Jackie Chan) enters Japan illegally in search of his girlfriend Xiu Xiu (Xu Jinglei). Steelhead and his friend, Jie (Daniel Wu) meet in the busy Shinjuku district and take manual labouring jobs to earn money. When Steelhead finds out that Xiu Xiu has married a Japanese Yakuza leader named Eguchi (Ken Watanabe), he decides to remain in Japan. To obtain citizenship, he agrees to work for Eguchi as a killer, but quickly becomes used to the power. Soon he has become embroiled so deeply in the ways of the Yakuza that there is no turning back.

In this big-budget movie that costs $25 million, Jackie Chan breaks away from his typical image as an upright and unbeatable action star. At the end of movie, protagonist Steelhead is killed, marking Jackie Chan's first on-screen death.

The majority of the movie was shot in Japan.