Well, not really. For one thing, this isn't Chow's Hollywood debut. That was a wretched flick from 1998 called The Replacement Killers that paired Chow with unconvincing tough chick Mira Sorvino. I'm trying to forget about that. And for another thing, he really deserves better than this material, although this material isn't too bad on its own terms. In a way, it's a shame that a major motion picture starring one of the biggest action stars from the Asian continent (only Jackie Chan and Jet Li can compete, in my mind) and set in New York's Chinatown portrays that community as a relentlessly ugly place, populated by sneering hit men, effeminate mobsters, and dead hookers in dumpsters. One action scene kicks into high gear only when about a half-dozen innocent bystanders get caught in the vicious crossfire, which makes you imagine that Manhattan below Canal Street must look more like Sarajevo.

But that's the difference, for instance, between Chow Yun-Fat and Jackie Chan. Chan's films are violent but good-natured yarns suitable for his sizable pre-adolescent fan base. Chow, meanwhile, is sort of the Hong Kong equivalent of Cary Grant, with a dark side. Watch John Woo's HK crime masterpiece The Killer to see Chow at his cool, stylish best, but take a look at Ringo Lam's delirious Full Contact to get a taste of Chow in flat-out ultraviolent mode. So in a way, this grittiness is the right backdrop for a Chow Yun-Fat movie -- he often thrives in the kind of atmosphere that makes you yearn for a hot shower. Still, just one three-dimensional female character would have made this a lot less distasteful.

Mark Wahlberg plays Danny Wallace, a young, fresh-faced cop assigned to work in Precinct 15, Chinatown, as partner to Chinese badass Nick Chen (Chow). Wallace voices a naive commitment to investigative procedure, confident that the cops can bring down Chinese gang overlord Uncle Benny by working their way up from the bottom. For Chen, already in the pocket of Uncle Benny's number two, a flamboyant manipulator named Henry Lee (Ric Young), Wallace is naive and a nuisance. Furthermore, he's white -- which doesn't figure to increase the department's credibility with the locals, but seems to please the NYPD brass. The real assignment from the top, Chen explains, is to make sure that tourists don't get shot. Chinatown will take care of itself.

That's not good enough for Wallace, who is horrified to find that Chen isn't interested in investigating those dead naked women who keep showing up in dumpsters, and takes it upon himself to do a little legwork. The conniving Lee sets his sights on the new kid early on, gaining his confidence by feeding him tips that lead to reputation-boosting busts and plying him with whores and money (Wallace needs it for his father, who owes lots of it to unseen thugs). Before long, Wallace is playing the same games that Chen is, and their fates become inextricably linked.

There's actually more to it than that, courtesy a plot twist at about the two-thirds mark, but The Corruptor remains pretty standard action fare, shot with a lurching stylishness by director James Foley. The centerpiece car chase, with aforementioned splatter, is impressive but wholly derivative, and the obligatory gunfight that wraps the whole thing up is strictly ho-hum. Wahlberg is pretty good as the conflicted young partner, but he gets a big boost from playing his rather plain role opposite Chow, who is by turns brash, fierce, cocky and charming. It's Chow who imbues this material with humanity and even the hint of tragedy. But he's still in need of an English-language script worthy of that mad charisma.