The Corruptor (DVD)

Released By:

New Line Home Video, Distributed by Warner Home Video

Features:

1999; 110 Min; Rated R; Dolby Digital 5.1 English; Dolby Surround English; Anamorphic Widescreen (2.35).

Extras:

"From the (Under) Ground Up," The making of The Corruptor; Audio Commentary by Director James Foley; Music Video, UKG "Take It Off;" Isolated Score (5.1); Cast and Filmmakers' Biographies; Theatrical Trailer.

Review:

While Chow Yun-Fat is well know in the realm of Hong Kong cinema, he is still know in America due to his somewhat lack luster domestic debut in The Replacement Killers, with Mira Sorvino. When I first heard about, The Corrupter, and learned that Mark Wahlberg was his co-star, I joked that Wahlberg's character would take Yun-Fat into the porn industry to corrupt him. Of course, this film is far from it, but it was amusing none the less.

Chow Yun-Fat plays the head detective in a New York police department division, AGU., concentrating on gang violence in Chinatown. In traditional Yun-Fat (?) style, the movie opens up with an explosion, and guns blazing by the third chapter. Needless to say, Chan's basic character is established.

Wahlberg plays Danny Wallace, a rookie cop assigned to the AGU, to help promote racial diversity in the police department, a bit of reverse affirmative (re) action I guess. Chan begrudgingly take him under his wing, and their first assignment is to perform a raid on a Ginza.

Later, Wallace is introduced to Henry Lee, one of the crime lords of Chinatown. It becomes fairly apparent that he has done something under the table with Chan, but it is not clear, until later. Chan is revealed to be taking pay-off's from an Uncle Benny, but it helps to keep a lid on some of the town's violence, but the question of right and wrong is raised, also a Chow Yun-Fat character tradition.

The plot of The Corruptor is not simple, but director James Foley weaves it together almost seamlessly. This is one of the better crime-dramas to come down the pipe lately, and with a solid base in the rental market, it should firmly establish Chow Yun-Fat in America.

What surprised me most about this film, is that both Wahlberg and Yun-Fat are balanced together very well with screen time. While I know they are both established actors, I expected the language barrier to be a bit of a hindrance for Chow Yun-Fat. One can see that he has been taking a lot of dialog coaching, and it's definitely playing off. After his next film, Anna and the King, he'll probably be allowed to carry a film by himself in the states.

New Line has struck gold with this DVD. The picture and audio are reference quality. While the movie contains a lot of dark and smoky scenes, they are razor sharp. The colors almost jump off the screen. By the way, this is the first disc I've been able to play with since I received my new Pioneer Elite DVL91 combo player (my old LD player died, see the editorial from September 4th). I was able to hook up its DVD portion with the component video to my Toshiba TV and wow, the colors are so much more stable, compared to the S-Video from my Sony DVP3000. My DVL91 also doesn't display a somewhat soft picture when down converting this Anamorphic DVD. I will do a more in depth review of my new toy at a later date, but so far, I'm really impressed.

The sound will test your system from the start. All of the Dolby Digital channels are used to full effect. If you need a chapter for reference, just go "The Ginza Raid" (Chapter 5), it is simply awesome.

One of the best thing about this disc are the supplements. Unlike Blast From the Past, New Line has made plenty info available on the disc itself, ie it not only on the DVD-Rom section. The documentary "From the (Under) Ground Up" runs about 40 minutes long. Foley describes in decent detail, what he and Robert Pucci based the film on. The film is based upon some of the real life, violent event that had been occurring within Chinatown. Foley also describes how they wanted the realism of the situation to be shown, such as the innocent bystanders being killed, and the consequences for the police department (though just hinted at). As usual, I haven't gotten to the commentary yet, but somewhere down the line (When I retire 40 years from now?) I'll get to it. After New Line's somewhat lack luster effort with Blast from the Past, this is a great disc. I'm anxiously awaiting my Nightmare on Elm Street set.

If you're a Chow Yun-Fat fan, buy this disc! This isn't even open to debate. For those of you who rent, don't be put off by The Replacement Killers, this is the real deal, rent it!

The Corruptor is what the Replacement Killer wanted to be, and should have been, it scores a 7.

The overall disc presentation ranks a 8.5, New Line does it again.

Dan Linzmeier, FIT Productions
Fitprod@aol.com
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