Directed by Derek Yee (Protege), the crime drama "Shinjuku Incident" marks a new turn in Jackie Chan's career as he begins to move away from the action and comedy-oriented fare that has largely defined his film career since his first notable break starring as a Bruce Lee clone in director Lo Wei's "New Fist of Fury" (1976). This film apparently features very little of Chan's trademark screen action and instead focuses largely on a dramatic story. The film also sports so many quality actors including Naoto Takenaka who is a three-time Japanese Academy Award winner. Then it has mainland Chinese talents Xu Jinglei (The Warlords) and Fan Bingbing (The Forbidden Kingdom), great character actors like Lam Suet (Exiled) and Paul Chun (Fist of Legend), and action veterans Chin Kar-lok, Ken Lo and Yasuaki Kurata (So Close). "Shinjuku Incident" was released in early April 2009 in many countries in Asia to favorable reviews eventhough it was banned in China for its unflattering portrayal of illegal Chinese immigrants and for its sexual themes and violence. Now, Chan's controversial and violent crime thriller will arrives on English friendly DVD and Blu-ray, and you can find the original uncut version DVD and Blu-ray via YesAsia.com.
The story of the film set in the early 1990s, a tractor mechanic from China nicknamed Steelhead, portrayed by 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 of Tokyo and take manual labor jobs to earn money. When Steelhead finds out that Xiu Xiu has married a Japanese yakuza leader named Mr. Eguchi (Masaya Kato), he decides to remain in Japan. When Eguchi was targeted to be murdered, Steelhead saves his life. To consolidate power, Eguchi formes an alliance with Steelhead to carry out his revenge. Soon, Steelhead has become embroiled so deeply in the ways of the yakuza that there is no turning back..
DVD Specs: Release Date: 2009-07-09 Language: Cantonese, Mandarin Subtitles: English, Traditional Chinese Country of Origin: Hong Kong Picture Format: NTSC Region Code: 3 - South East Asia (including Hong Kong, S. Korea and Taiwan) Rating: III Duration: 120 (mins) Publisher: Joy Sales (HK)
“Coming Soon” is another Thai horror that has something to do with a haunted cinema, which quite similar with Thai horror flick, “The Screen”. Came along with the tagline, “The horror that you just saw is about to happen to you in real life!" the production company GTH surely put a big hope that this film will make a good deal on Halloween season, as they released the film on the cinema at 30th of October last year. Perhaps the biggest player in the country's horror genre currently, this studio also recently got their success with the anthology project “Phobia” that apparently quite good both in viewers and critics reception. For that film, they’ve already split the directing duo from “Shutter” and “Alone” triumph up for solo shot segments. And now, in "Coming Soon", it’s time for the co-writer of those two projects, Sophon Sakdaphisit to have his directorial promotion and utilize for more to capitalize on those films’ successes. “Coming Soon” apparently deal with this concept: "What kind of scenes in a horror film scares you the most? When a ghost appears totally unexpectedly? When the main character does not see the ghost sneaking up behind him? When at the very end you find out that the main character was actually a ghost all along? But none of this compares to the feeling of arriving home alone and suddenly being stuck by a feeling of deja vu that you are reenacting the very same scenes in the horror movie you just saw! This movie had promised to scare the audiences from the second they step inside the movie theater. It will get you wondering if Something or Someone might be waiting for you to let your guard down. The horror movie that you just saw is about to happen to you in real life! Coming Soon." The film has now up to pre-order at YesAsia, "Coming Soon" English subtitled Hong Kong version DVD set for release on this June 19th.
Plot & Review (from ThaiFilmJournal): "Coming Soon" is a movie about a movie. Set mostly in a Bangkok multiplex cinema, it's also a reminder of how unsettling those big places can be late at night, especially when you're directed to make your exit out the back staircase into a carpark where there is no escape from the exhaust fumes.
And as I watched the movie, I couldn't help but wonder what the employees of the theater were thinking when they were unfurling the huge banners and setting up the lobby standees for Coming Soon. The posters for the movie are in the movie, as are the realistically creepy standees of a woman hanging in a noose.
The movie within the movie is Vengeful Spirit (Winyarn Arkhad), about an insane old woman who kidnaps children and gouges their eyes out. A little girl's father leads villagers on a rescue mission, but he is too late. The villagers, enraged, lynch the woman.
Offscreen, in the cinema, we learn that the story is based on actual events. At the test screening, the director is sitting in the corridor, pensively chain smoking, wondering if he should re-edit the hanging scene.
The projectionist Shane, meanwhile, has been tasked by his boss Yod to swap out the reels and keep them for later, when they plan to videotape the movie and sell pirated copies of it before its release. Shane, it seems, has a gambling problem, and he needs money. He's not much of a hero. He used to be on drugs, and beat his ex-girlfriend Som (Worakan Rojanawat) -- a theater usher -- and pawned her watch. Somehow though, "Ter" Chantavit Dhanasevi plays a sympathetic character.
During the videotaping, Yod disappears. Shane finds the camera, and what he sees in the captured footage is darned peculiar and downright chilling. He keeps seeing things in the shadows. He tells Som he thinks the old woman from the movie might be a real ghost and she's haunting him. From there, Som forgives her abusive ex-boyfriend and pitches in with her computer skills to Google up more about the old woman and the hanging.
There aren't really many big scares -- they are mostly anti-climactic jumps of the don't-open-that-closet nature. The scraping of the high strings in the orchestral score work overtime, and it gets to be stomach churning.
But I loved Coming Soon for how it transcends the worlds of the cinema and the screen, both in the movie and in our world. I'm not sure it will work the same when it comes out on DVD. There's just something pretty special and weird about sitting in a big multiplex cinema, munching on popcorn, and watching people on the big screen do the same.
Coming Soon even goes behind the scenes of the movie within the movie, in a remarkable bit of self-reflection by first-time director Sophon Sakdaphisit. Could it be the co-writer of the GMM Tai Hub horror hits Shutter and Alone is having misgivings about his line of work? Hope not. Because audiences are depending on him.
I am just an ordinary guy who likes watching and collecting info about movies. I really do love everything about movies especially if it comes from Asia, which is my lovely hometown territory. I hope you can enjoy my attempts in sharing some info film and cinema on my blogs, and don’t hesitate to give your comments. Please excuse me first if there were any grammar mistaken. Please enjoy...
