For all his hamminess and propensity to do Brett Ratner movies, Jackie Chan is still a goddamned living legend (and in his defense, he’s said he thought Rush Hour sucked too).  The director of his latest movie, The Shinjuku Incident, recently said the film won’t be released in China on account of it being too violent, leading me to believe that it’s probably awesome.   Violence = awesome.  Because movies are like sex, you see.

In any case it looks pretty good.  It’s about a Chinese guy (Chan) who goes to Japan to find his girlfriend, only to find out she’s married to a Yakuza leader (Ken Watanabe).  Some Japanese-Chinese violence ensues.  They hate each other but we can’t tell them apart.  So basically, it’s like the Israelis and Palestinians, but with Karate.
Read the rest of this entry »

Saying it’s too violent, the director of Jackie Chan’s latest movie has declined to release his film in mainland China, where public executions for shoplifting are still considered fun for the whole family (limit 3).

Hong Kong director Derek Yee said he considered toning down the violence in “Shinjuku Incident” so it could pass censorship in China, but decided not to because he thought it would hurt the integrity of the movie.
Yee said the $25 million Chinese-language movie, in which Chan plays a refugee who escapes to Japan and becomes a killer for the mob, has scenes that show characters getting a hand chopped off and pierced with knives.
“We tried to cut the violent scenes to meet the requirements of the Chinese market, but producers I invited to watch that version thought it was incomplete,” he said. [Yahoo]

“It’s not something I want my child exposed to,” said Chiang wo-Ping, an exotic animals butcher from Guangzhou. “He should remain focused on his job at the chemical factory.”  The shelving of the film is also said to be a blow to the Jackie Chan memorabilia industry, which has been booming ever since the release of the Rush Hour trilogy, or as it’s known in Chinese, Good Cop, Black Cop: Negro Policeman Lacks Discipline.  You can read about all this and more in my upcoming book, Jokes about China Really Write Themselves.