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The Corruptor - New Line Platinum Series

The Corruptor - New Line Platinum Series

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Honestly, one of Chow Yun Fat's finest acting jobs.
Review: I was really surprised at how good this film was. Chow Yun Fat was absolutely mesmerizing. Both he and Mark Wahlbergh create an unexpected chemistry between their two characters. This is a lot more restrained in the action department than the usual John Woo directed gun fest, but it's actually a welcome respite from the cartoonish violence in most of Fat's films. Robert Foley, the director, struck a good balance: There is enough action and acrobatics to satisfy most HK action fans, while a strong plot and good performances round out the rest of the film.

This is a good American crossover for Fat's cool charisma and tragic hero character.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Wow!
Review: I was really surprised by how good this movie is. I figured a straight-forward shoot-'em-up and some exotic intrigue was about all it would have going for it. The cover had the usual fatuous nonsense on it: "You can't play by the rules when there aren't any." Why is it 90% of video covers have a reformulation of the same stupid subtitle? Apparently there is some lucky guy out there is employed writing new, yet indistinguishable ways to either deny the existence of Rules/Boundaries/etc. or at least deny their applicability to some beautiful, well-armed people. Good for him.

Anyway, this movie definitely exceeded my expectations. Great direction, but most of all great performances from Chow-Yun Fat and Mark Wahlberg. Wahlberg's relationship with his father was fairly cliched, yet it still came across as believable. The various moral predicaments of the two cops were just as interesting and well-done as the fight scenes. There is one major chase scene, which I found silly after a while, since it gave the impression that there were absolutely no other police cars within ten miles of some maniac with an Uzi blowing away civilians.

But that is a nothing criticism. Really, the only sore spot was the FBI goonish guy, who was both tiresome and one-dimensional in comparison with the other characters. But on the main, an excellent action-thriller. Chow-Yun Fat wasn't limited by John Woo's formula this time around, and his chops definitel show as a result.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: finally a great US flick for Chow
Review: I've seen this movie one month ag and I to confess it's one of the best thriller ever : you may dislike the plot but you have to agree with me that the dark side of the law enforcement is pretty fascinating. AND, of course, there's a lot of action, I mean really violent action, blood and guts, only, on your windshield. Look for the gunfight on wheels !!! Positively no mercy !!!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Two great performances in midless crime drama
Review: In The Corruptor, rookie New York cop Danny Wallace gets assigned to the Chinatown section. It soon looks like he is in way over his head. He's the only Caucasian in a formerly all Chinese unit, and his fellow cops don't want him around. This includes his partner, Nick Chen. There is enough crime and violence in a single day in Chinatown to fill an entire season of the TV series Law and Order. Wallace doesn't have long to prove his worth in this sea of criminals and gang lords movie, but reality is utterly disregarded. Midway though The Corruptor, something dawned on me. The action isn't supposed to reflect reality. What has happened over the last two decades is that one of the greatest and purely American genres, the Western, went out of fashion. You couldn't pay the public to see one. Yet the power of the Western as an idea remained, and it reappeared in the form of these modern cops and robbers movies. So, when the bad guys are chased in their vehicles by the good guys, it's no different from when the outlaw gang rode into town. Shots would be fired, and it was up to the citizens to take cover. There were no rights to be read, no one to keep the law officers in line. People dropped like flies in those old Westerns. The differences were that fake blood didn't fly from their bodies, and the sound of the gunfire didn't explode in Dolby digital sound. From now on, I will tell myself that I am watching a 21st Century Western.

Mark Wahlberg and Yun-Fat Chow really do try their best to be professional throughout the movie, although they throw each other some knowing glances that probably have nothing to do with the script.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: DON'T EVER LISTEN TO ANYONE WHO LIKED THE REPLACEMENT KILLER
Review: It makes me sick that "The replacement killers" gets praise. CHow yun fat is an actor, not just a suit with guns. The Corruptor, was an equal blend of this, good action sequences and a good story. Chow plays nick chen, a NY cop on the Asian Gang unit. newcomer Danny Wallace (Wahlberg), is put on the unit, to take down mobster henry lee before the local punk fukienese dragons gang puts him out of business. There are so many twists and turns in this film that i don't want to give anything away. I had high hopes for this film, after the replacement killers and it fulfilled them. It gave chow a chance to act (more than the 13 words he had in replacement killers), not just shoot (although it's nice). The ending of the film I found particularly well shot and acted. All in all a good showcase for chow's talents, and a worthy third rank under Serpico and prince of the city for movies about police corruption.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: DON'T EVER LISTEN TO ANYONE WHO LIKED THE REPLACEMENT KILLER
Review: It makes me sick that "The replacement killers" gets praise. CHow yun fat is an actor, not just a suit with guns. The Corruptor, was an equal blend of this, good action sequences and a good story. Chow plays nick chen, a NY cop on the Asian Gang unit. newcomer Danny Wallace (Wahlberg), is put on the unit, to take down mobster henry lee before the local punk fukienese dragons gang puts him out of business. There are so many twists and turns in this film that i don't want to give anything away. I had high hopes for this film, after the replacement killers and it fulfilled them. It gave chow a chance to act (more than the 13 words he had in replacement killers), not just shoot (although it's nice). The ending of the film I found particularly well shot and acted. All in all a good showcase for chow's talents, and a worthy third rank under Serpico and prince of the city for movies about police corruption.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Good features Poor film!
Review: It's a shame that some other distributors dont take a leaf out of this book for features, better films than this could benifit from having such great features. I am afraid that the film, for me, was a total borefest. I would have thought Marky Mark would have gone for a better film after such a great performance in Boogie Nights.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Chow Yun-Fatand Mark what's his name do a new kind of killer
Review: Snunk in to see this thinkng it was garbage and they were wasting Chow Yun-Fat skills, boy was I wrong. I'm getting the DVD even if there aren't any seens with extra footage but it's a worthy addition to the Killer and A Better Tomorrow and HardBoiled. Mark did better in The Big Hit but Chow Yun-Fat needed someone to be his sidekick.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: weak action film
Review: Sorry to say, "The Corruptor" is a ho hum, strictly by-the-numbers police procedural set in a precinct in the heart of New York City's Chinatown. Chow-Yun Fat stars as the officer in charge of the district, a generally serious and dedicated cop whose corruptibility we see played out as he beds local prostitutes and makes cozy sweetheart deals with a racketeer in the neighborhood. Then in walks Wallace as a neophyte cop, the first white man ever to work in this all-Asian department. The question then becomes: is this new officer (Mark Wahlberg) as corrupt as Nick or is there a secret hidden behind his façade of "green" newcomer?

Actually, the story of the film emerges as more interesting in cold print than it does in its final cinematic form. As written by Robert Pucci and directed by James Foley, the film, particularly in its early stages, verges practically on the incomprehensible. This is partly due to the fact that the thick accents of virtually the entire cast render much of the dialogue indecipherable (and Wahlberg is not a heck of a lot better on that score in all honesty). One almost wishes that the entire film (rather than just a few brief snippets) could have been translated with subtitles. Adding to the incoherence is the astonishing profusion of characters hurled our way almost from the very beginning. We spend much of the film just trying to figure out who is who, how each person is related to the others, exactly how many gangs are involved in the proceedings and what exactly it is they are all after.

Luckily, about halfway into the film, the elements begin to jell a bit and the interest level increases ever so slightly as the two principal characters begin to discover truths about each other initially held back from both them and us. Even here, though, the film actually treads over ground that was explored to far greater effectiveness in "Donnie Brasco" a few years back. That earlier movie, however, was considerably more intrigued by the moral complexities of its situations and characters than "The Corruptor," with its weak and uninspired screenplay, ever manages to be. For the most part, this film is executed like a standard issue cops-and-robbers shoot-em-up, filled with mediocre car chases and poorly staged gun battles. The filmmakers simply don't have the intellectual where-with-all to cope with the ethical issues they want so desperately to explore.

It's highly unlikely that even the most die-hard action movie fan will be particularly impressed with this tepid genre entry. The saddest aspect of the film is watching the talented Mark Wahlberg (who has scored most effectively in the past when appearing in more serious, non-blockbuster roles and films) as he continues his unsuccessful attempt to secure a place as a sure-fired draw at the movie box office. The best advice to Wahlberg may be to simply stop trying to be a star and concentrate on being an actor.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Character development and continous action!
Review: The Corruptor is a film in which Mark Wahlberg and Chow Yun Fat try to keep the streets of Chinatown safe from Asian Gang Members that open fire on the streets and enforce prosititution. The plot does seem a little off, but the character devleopment in Wahlberg and Chow make this film wothwhile. The action scenes start off pretty good, but then fade off after hearing those gunshots atleast 700 times! Yet, this film has that special bit od something (devleopment) which makes this one of the best action flicks of the year!


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