Cinema: The Corruptor

Chow Yun-fat, the epitome of swaggering suavity in John Woo’s Hong Kong crime films, wears his role as a good-bad cop dapperly in this good-middling drama set in Manhattan’s Chinatown. He’s the tough guy teaming with Mark Wahlberg’s sweetly anguished type to battle a local triad. Foley (After Dark, My Sweet), who choreographs the snazziest New York car chase since The French Connection, specializes in close-up portraits of people sweating on the inside. But no matter how dank the moral dilemma, Chow will never break a sweat. In Hong Kong or New York, he’s just too cool.

–R.C.