Try as he might, strut as he does toward climactic showdowns with ruthless adversaries, [Chan's] character remains an incongruous muddle. Same goes for the movie.

Shinjuku Incident forgoes flashy action scenes in favor of old-fashioned moralism. Warner Bros. could have made it in the 1930s, and that's a compliment.

Shinjuku Incident strains for social significance, but it is too timidly produced to risk depicting any recognizable reality.

It's more social drama than gangster movie, but there is plenty of violence, all of it of a furiously sloppy and savage nature of street thugs.