The Corruptor

If Serpico had been directed by John Woo (Face/Off) and produced by Stephen Bochco (NYPD Blue) and Jerry Bruckenheimer (The Rock), The Corruptor would be the likely end result. It's a big, noisy, jazzed-up cop drama replete with implausible, blazing-gun battles and more twisting subplots than a soap opera. Under the direction of James Foley (After Dark My Sweet and Fear) the film looks handsome, but the real attraction here is the charisma of Chow Yun-fat. In his second stateside outing, following The Replacement Killers, the Hong Kong action star is more assured and seizes the opportunity to showcase the sly, knowing facial expressions and devastating machismo that made him an international icon under Woo's tutelage.

Playing a rogue Asian-American cop, Chow singlehandedly keeps the lid on Chinatown's welling crime world. He's saddled with a green partner (Mark Wahlberg) who has an uncharacteristic affinity for Chinese culture -- "yellow fever," as Chow jests -- and a few skeletons in his closet. Everyone in the arduous web of intrigue has a hidden agenda. Is Chow a dirty cop on the take? Will Wahlberg sell his partner out? The answers are far too convoluted for a dumbed-up action flick, but when the camera comes to rest on Chow's über-cool persona, The Corruptor becomes unconscionably justifiable.

-- Tom Meek