Fans of Chow Yun Fat can finally exhale; he has made a decent Hollywood movie at last.

I went to see "The Corruptor" this past Saturday in HK. While it's not an especially good film, it's a solid piece of entertainment. Most importantly, it allows Chow Yun Fat to be Chow Yun Fat. Whereas he was stiff and tentative in "The Replacement Killers", in "The Corruptor" Chow burns up the screen. From the very first few seconds of his appearance in the movie you can see that "The Coolest Actor in the World" is back in form.

In fact, it's the acting that saves the movie. The story is a tired one, but Mark Wahlberg and especially Chow are charismatic and make their characters sympathetic. Chow also develops an onscreen chemistry w/ Wahlberg that was completely absent in his partnership w/ Mira Sorvino.

Because of it's uninspiring storyline, however, "The Corruptor" will probably still not make Chow a household name in America. But it will win him lots of new fans. Let's hope this upward trend in Chow's career continues w/ "Anna and the King".

On the surface this is just an old fashioned tale of a slightly wet newbie cop teaming up with a hardened veteran , in short it`s a buddy movie that were very common in the late 80s/early 90s but what sets THE CORRUPTER apart from similar movies is just how stylish it all is . James Foley started his career by directing videos but with one brief exception this doesn`t really show too much with his action style being inspired by the likes of John Woo and Hong Kong action movies . There`s some superb technical aspects such as the editing and the cinematography is breath taking especially the scenes where light filters through windows and we see the spectrum imposed on the characters faces

There are some flaws to the movie of course . One is Foley has cast actors whose native tongue is not English which does cause some unintentional sniggers namely when the characters mention the word " Fokkien " , yeah okay I know it`s set in Chinatown but as is common in movies no one will complain if the characters speak perfect English no matter their ethnic origin or upbringing . The script does get a bit confused and complicated in the final third which did spoil the movie slightly and some people will no doubt be put off by the sometimes over the top violence , but as a violent thriller I was entertained by this movie