Chow Yun-fat was well into his 40s when, after establishing himself as one of the biggest movie stars in Hong Kong, he tried his luck in Hollywood. He was revered by movie buffs as the cocky, charismatic, guns-blazing protagonist of John Woo classics like “A Better Tomorrow,” “The Killer” and “Hard Boiled” (though I’d argue he never topped his performance in Ringo Lam’s action masterpiece “Full Contact”), but the majority of the American moviegoing public had never seen these films. Chow was going to have to earn his stateside stardom via the dynamic presence that had made him a superstar in Asia.
Chow’s first Hollywood movie, Antoine Fuqua’s “The Replacement Killers,” was a dud. It grossed $40 million against a $30 million budget, and lacked the gonzo flair of Hong Kong action cinema. It was like watching Michael Jordan play baseball. You were consistently aware you were watching a thoroughbred actor, but he was completely out of his element.
The Chow Hollywood experiment immediately seemed like a bad idea, and, judging from the trailer, his second U.S. feature, “The Corruptor,” did not look promising. It was another action B-movie, one that paired him with Mark Wahlberg, who was still trying to find his groove as a movie star. Still, there was reason to be hopeful. Director James Foley (“At Close Range,” “Glengarry Glen Ross”) was a highly skilled craftsman known for getting stellar performances out of his actors, and his previous collaboration with Wahlberg, “Fear,” was a rock-solid thriller. Additionally, Chow Yun-fat playing the head of an NYPD Asian gang unit sounded like a wheelhouse role for the star. “The Corruptor” may not be a blow-your-doors-off action classic, but it is well worth your time if you dig this kind of movie.
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The Corruptor is a bang-up Chow Yun-fat showcase
Chow Yun-fat looks cool in a leather jacked as Lieutenant Nick Chen while Mark Wahlberg looks scruffy as Detective Danny Wallace in The Corruptor – New Line Cinema
My primary concern going into “The Corruptor” was that James Foley’s moody, behind-the-beat aesthetic was the antithesis of John Woo’s hyperkinetic, front-foot cinema. Foley, however, could shapeshift when called upon, and he did so here, employing a kind of Woo-lite sensibility that gave you the feel of watching a genuine (rather than Americanized) Hong Kong movie.
“The Corruptor” received mixed reviews when it hit theaters in 1999, but I admired it as a smartly plotted crime flick that gave Chow a conflicted character worthy of his considerable talents. His NYPD lieutenant is dirty, but Chow’s intense yet nuanced performance draws us in; we understand the push-pull of his position as a Chinatown-focused cop, and we want him to find his conscience.
The action sequences are no great shakes, but that’s what I like about the movie. Foley knows he can’t do “Hard Boiled” (a gay-coded movie), so he winds up making an actors’ piece in the mold of an HK flick. No one’s doing their best work here, but everyone is fully committed to making a quality motion picture. There’s a gritty integrity to “The Corruptor” that you don’t see in programmers nowadays (which I’ll chalk up in part to the fact that it’s shot on film). I miss movies like this.
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