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The Corruptor: Platinum Series
In New York's Chinatown, the Triads are in charge. Polished and well-heeled, they present themselves as local businessmen to anybody who cares to notice. But a new, upstart Asian gang, the Fukinese Dragons, are starting to lean on the Triad turf, threatening a gang war that will destroy the Triad-enforced peace. Standing between them is Nick Chen (Chow Yun-Fat), the first Chinese-born cop to wear an NYPD badge, and his Asian Gang Unit, which has enjoyed a wink-and-nod relationship with the Triads. It's a relationship that Chen and his colleagues don't expect their new recruit, white boy Danny Wallace (Mark Wahlberg), to grasp, and the straight-arrow neophyte soon has to learn that there's the law, and there's the law of Chinatown. Appropriating the experienced cop/unsophisticated rookie archetypes, The Corruptor does a neat bit of casting by pairing Hong Kong action legend Chow with Wahlberg, a lesser-known actor who hit the big time in 1997's Boogie Nights and is now apparently building an action career of his own. Wahlberg is convincing here, but still outclassed by Chow, who has been speaking English for barely three years and yet manages to pull small gestures and facial expressions out of thin air, filling the room with his restrained intensity. If the leads are solid, the script of The Corruptor comes up a little short of the mark, with an engaging tale that at times seems too intricate for a 110-minute film and at least one plot twist that arrives far too late. Get it to see Chow in action (face it, every movie he does is worth watching), along with an excellent transfer and the many Platinum Series supplements, including a commentary track with director James Foley, a behind-the-scenes documentary, a trailer, music video, and textual supplements. Additional DVD-ROM content includes "script-to-screen" interaction between the screenplay and the movie and Web links.
—JJB
