One of the most underrated action flicks of the late nineties, The Corruptor, starring Chow Yun-Fat and Mark Wahlberg, is finally getting a 4K Blu-ray release courtesy of Arrow Video’s new boutique label, Toy Robot Video.
Back in the late nineties, I discovered Hong Kong action cinema on a Canadian cable channel called Showcase, when they aired two John Woo classics, The Killer and Hard Boiled. Both movies deeply resonated with me, as did the coolness of their star, Chow Yun-Fat. When he made his American film debut with The Replacement Killers, I was first in line, and it’s become a cult classic, most noteworthy for being the feature debut of director Antoine Fuqua.
But, truth be told, I was an even bigger fan of his follow-up, The Corruptor, which paired him with a young Mark Wahlberg, who was coming off two movies I loved from that era, Boogie Nights and The Big Hit. Wahlberg plays a young cop working in New York City’s Chinatown precinct who’s partnered with a more experienced detective, played by Chow, who turns out to be in the pocket of the local Triad boss.
Directed by the late James Foley, who also directed Wahlberg in his breakthrough role in Fear (and made great films like At Close Range), it was a gritty urban thriller that played like an indie crime movie, albeit one with incredible moments of ultraviolence, including a thrilling car chase through Chinatown that remains one of my favourites from that era.
Sadly, the movie was a total bomb, grossing only $15 million worldwide. It didn’t hurt Wahlberg’s career, but it pigeonholed Chow Yun-Fat into martial arts movies (despite him not being a martial artist), because that was pretty much the only way Hollywood cast Asian leading men in that era. Indeed, his next movie, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, would finally make him a major star in North America—and it was, you guessed it, a martial arts movie (which was actually against type for him).
There’s no word yet on what the bonus features will be, but Arrow always goes all out. The Corruptor was trimmed to secure an R rating after being threatened with an NC-17, so if they managed to reinstate any of the censored footage, that would be killer.
The Corruptor arrives in November. The release was teased by Toy Robot Video online when it posted a still from the movie that eagle-eyed fans quickly identified. It’ll be awesome to revisit this one, as I haven’t seen it in twenty-five years.
Have you seen The Corruptor? Let us know in the comments!
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