The Corruptor (1999)

Powerful

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Absolutely the worst movie.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

With the aid from a New York City policeman (Mark Wahlberg), a top immigrant cop (Chow Yun-Fat) tries to stop drug-trafficking and corruption by immigrant Chinese Triads, but things get complicated when the Triads try to bribe the policeman.Roger Ebert wrote, "Director James Foley is obviously not right for this material. It's a shame, actually, that he's even working in the genre, since his gift is with the intense study of human behavior." High praise for Foley, who made the excellent "Glengarry Glen Ross", but has also gone on to work in the "Fifty Shades" franchise. Maybe Ebert was too kind.For some reason, this film seems like it had the script of an exploitation film but the budget of a major feature. This ends up with sleazy situations and bad dialogue that do not belong in anything this major. One wonders how this was not a major stumbling block for Wahlberg, though it may not be his only misfire.

I am really annoyed as the Advertiser, our local newspaper, didn't give a review of the Corrupter this week it was released. They usually review all of the films released during the week and it seems that the Corrupter missed out, which is really annoying. Anyway, knowing that my tastes generally diverge greatly from those of reviewers, they would probably have given it a one star and labelled it as a pointless movie with lots of violence. This I would object to because Chow Yun Fat is an absolutely brilliant actor and most of the movies that I have seen that he has been in I really enjoy. Okay, Hard Boiled was little more than a huge gunfight through a hospital, but it was still a great movie.Chow Yun Fat is a highly decorated cop in New York's Chinatown. One day a white cop joins up, much to the annoyance of the other cops in the Asian vice squad as they are Asian and a white man does not know how Chinatown runs. It seems that this new cop is an eager and naïve boy who wants to change Chinatown, but as Fat says, "you don't change Chinatown, Chinatown changes you." The new cop is portrayed through the movie as being the epitome of innocence caught in the middle of a dangerous a violent world that is Chinatown. The movie opens with a shop exploding and then the members of the Fookanese Dragons, a gang trying to take over from the ruling Tong gang, kill the owner of the store. This violence is contrasted with the almost innocent life of the white cop, who we then learn has a father who is in a lot of trouble with the mafia due to gambling debts.There are two themes that run through this movie, that of shattered hope and that of corruption: even the most honoured and respected people have a corrupt side, while even the most corrupt can be capable of huge amounts of good. This is in contrast with Divorcing Jack where the corrupt are trying to create peace, only to have their corruption exposed and the peace being shattered. In the Corrupter, the corrupted are sought after, but even with the evidence to expose the corrupted, it is put aside for they are very much capable of performing great deeds.I thought that this movie was going to be predictable. It is not. As soon as you learn that the white cop is in internal affairs working to expose Fat's corruption, we expect then to turn on each other and begin to fight. The movie is not that shallow. As we remember from the quote made: you don't change Chinatown, Chinatown changes you. The internal affairs officer has a purpose but the corruption then seeps into even his most resolute honour. The FBI are portrayed as rather nasty individuals, though they are simply obsessed with their job, and they hide themselves away behind desks, coming out only to claim fame for somebody else's bust.Internal affairs isn't much liked here, but we do sympathise for the white cop because he has experienced what it is like on the street and he is as affected by it as everybody else. He is there to collect evidence against Fat, but in reality he finds himself becoming more closer and loyal to him, when in the end Fat chooses not to shoot but to move to save his life. One cannot expect to move into Chinatown and change everything - rather they need to become a part of it, accepted by it so that the evil may be rooted out and destroyed.The main crime here is slavery. This is where the shattered hope theme comes in. Asians are illegally imported into New York for a price, and then the price is jacked up forcing them to work as prostitutes. Those who refuse are simply killed and dumped into trash cans. It makes one think about the whole idea of America being a better place. They come out to America (and Australia) expecting a better life but find themselves trapped on the streets with no money and having to degrade themselves by selling their bodies to people who simply want to abuse them. This is not the better life that they hoped for.We may all snarl and growl at criminals, but what many of us forget is that this is a harsh and uncaring world, and some people are thrown into situations which they do not know what they are doing and once they are there, they can never get out again. Drug use is the most common example, for they can find themselves without money and jobs and desperate for the drug and thus they must resort to violence to get it. In a way we should not be hating them and calling for them to be locked up in gaol. The true villains are really very few. Many of the criminals are foolish or simply caught up in something that they never expected to land up in. As such we should be helping them not causing them to be cast out.I have digressed from the movie, but we do see are very dark and miserable world here. A world where idealistic youths can't change. This is a real world with real problems that simply cannot be solved by locking people up or even by shooting them.

People who are not aware of Chow Yun-Fat's legacy in Hong Kong consider him to be skilled in 'Kung-Fu', something they know from watching 'Bulletproof Monk and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon'..This is a complete fallacy. Chow Yun-Fat is not trained in any sort of martial arts, he started his career doing Dramas and playing romantic roles which of course were tied in with the epic gun fights, that created an entire genre of film, now known as 'Bloodshed'.Therefore, it was natural that Chow Yun Fat would look to expand his portfolio by conquering Hollywood, sadly that has not happened, instead he has travelled back and forth from Hollywood to Hong Kong as a shadow of an actor he once was, simply because the roles are not being given to him....Yet, the Corrupter; I felt, displayed Chow Yun-Fat's talents as an dramatic actor capable of going toe to toe with America's finest; he's suave, smooth, sexy and more importantly cool.The Corrupter is about a cop named Chen, who is one of the best in China Town; unfortunately he is given a new partner, Wallace (Mark Wahlberg) who needs guidance and is a little too 'green' for his own good. Wallace soon realises that in order to find criminals in China Town, you have to go to bed with them...make back alley deals; give something in order to receive something. The acting is of the highest calibre, every one gives a brilliant performance, but Chow rises above them all, even out-shining Mark, the action scenes are again brilliant.

This flick is a downer! Everything about it is just sub-par!Mark Wahlberg and Chou-Yun Fat, two pretty good actors, are wasted in this "snooze" fest. They are two cops, who don't necessarily play by the rules and are asked to bring down some huge, Chinese drug kingpins. However, the close links in ChinaTown working with them are merely playing them. This results in back stabbings, constant profanity, drugs, prostitution, murders, boring gun fights, wasted talent, a car chase scene which shows gratuitous shots of innocent civilians getting gunned down ( that's just not right! ) and a real clunker of an ending which involves the death of Fat's character. The main problems are mainly the script and the directing. Director James Foley, despite making some acclaimed films, just isn't at his best. There are several scenes of the same thing (vulgar shouting, gun fights, etc.) happening over and over again to the point where it's completely old. I know it's a cop film, but it's not a well-executed one. The writers add some suspense to even it all up, but the film comes off as nowhere close to being thrilling.It's not a "beyond bad" film, but it's not really worth a viewing either.