It's very easy to animate a chain in Newton and you don't need any complex joints. The trick is that you only need to add masks to your footage.
Get Newton for Adobe After Effects : https://aescripts.com/newton
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Here's how:
Here's what you should get in Newton / AE preview:

And you can of course attach stuff to you chain (here with a Pivot Joint)

And you can make this video for example!
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