The Corruptor Reviewed By Vince Yim
Despite being proclaimed as one of the coolest actors in the world, Chow Yun-Fat's first Hollywood picture, The Replacement Killers, failed to have the desired impact. However, his latest, The Corruptor, reassures Chow's coolness factor.
The Corruptor tells the tale of two New York cops: the head of the Asian gang unit, Nick Chen (played by Chow Yun-Fat) and Danny Wallace (played by Mark Wahlberg), the young idealistic cop who's partnered up with Chen amidst recent tensions between two gangs, the Triads and the Fukienese Dragons. Both of Chen and Wallace have hidden agendas, as Chen has ties to the Triads while Wallace is torn between his loyalties to Chen and turning him in for corruption.
Coming up with a good short plot summary for this film (at least without giving away the story) is difficult, although that is one of the charms of the film. While The Replacement Killers is a mindless shoot-'em-up action film, The Corruptor has a complex storyline with characters you actually care about, which gives the ending a lot more impact (loyal fans of Chow Yun-Fat will know what I'm talking about). While the film is not without its action sequences, they simply cannot compare to the masterful bullet-ballets of Chow Yun-Fat's frequent Hong Kong collaborator, John Woo.
Not that they aren't memorable, though. The film has its share of wonderfully violent shoot-outs and a nerve wracking car chase on a very busy street. The end result is that a lot of stuff gets trashed and few people get to walk away from the incident.
Chow's English has improved much since The Replacement Killers, which is a good thing, especially since his dialogue consists of much more than "I...need...forged...documents" and "I...need...guns." This is a film that requires a bit of thought, albeit a bit much, as some of the storyline tends to gets a bit muddled near the middle. Either that, or I was just anticipating the next shoot-out too much.
Simply put, The Corruptor is not a film that you can just turn your brain off before you watch. The film is more than endless scenes of bullets flying and bodies falling. Best described as an "intellectual action film," it puts story and characters ahead of the action sequences, while still including one of the coolest car chase scenes in recent memory. As well, the two leads pull off very good performances, especially when compared to their last films (although I really did like The Big Hit, also starring Mark Wahlberg).
While saying this film is better than The Replacement Killers isn't saying much, the film can definitely stand on its own (even if I did happen to like both of them). While not the best film starring Chow Yun-Fat, it is definitely one of the better films around, which is something sorely lacking in today's film market of mind numbing fare.
Rating: 7/10
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