Not normally one for action films or the Mark Wahlberg “experience,” I went into “The Corruptor” with low expectations.

This film comes in under the radar. It delivers not only an exciting “thrill-a-minute” action adventure with plenty of bloody violence and high-adrenaline chase scenes, but also a plotline that is actually complicated enough to keep the interest of higher mammals.

“The Corruptor” is a complex tale about the attraction of evil. Chow Yun-Fat (“The Replacement Killers”) plays Nick Chen, the first Chinese-born cop on the NYPD and the head of the Asian Gang Unit investigating organized crime in Chinatown.

He is a highly decorated officer with a secret. He is under the influence of the Tong’s leader, Uncle Benny, and Uncle Benny’s lieutenant (Henry Lee Ric Young, “Seven Years in Tibet”).

Chen tries to keep the peace as a new and extremely violent gang called The Fukienese Dragons move in on Tong interests.

Enter Mark Wahlberg (“Boogie Nights,” “The Basketball Diaries,” “Fear”) as Detective Danny Wallace, a young white cop with high ideals who quickly becomes seduced by Henry Lee.

Chen and Wallace eventually discover their state of mutual corruption and a tentative partnership turns into friendship as each man tries to come to terms with his own compromised position.

To reveal more would give away too much about the plot, which is more complicated than a story about two corrupt cops. “The Corruptor” offers the audience more than the usual good guys vs. bad guys story you might find in “Lethal Weapon” or “Die Hard.”

This film does a good job of showing us how even a good person can be simply deluded by thinking their character is beyond reproach.

No matter how straight we think we are, evil men can find a way to control us through kind acts.

Nowhere is this demonstrated as well as in Ric Young’s performance as Henry Lee. His smiling face and friendly manners hide his duplicitous nature. One would be hard-pressed to find him evil or threatening in his early scenes.

This helps to draw the audience into the web of corruption. When we see how Wallace is drawn in, we can empathize with his situation.

Chow Yun-Fat was great as Nick Chen. He composes himself on the screen with immense style and masculine grace. He is an impressive action star with a screen presence as compelling as an action star can have without transcending the genre.

Yun-Fat is equally convincing playing the good cop and the tool of the Tongs. He kicks ass in a realistic manner. His performance isn’t so over-the-top as to make him unrealistic, but at the same time, it is bombastic enough to make it exciting.

In one scene, he is viciously beating on the leader of the Fukienese Dragons, and in the next he is cracking jokes about how to be Chinese, you have to eat the gross stuff, too.

He isn’t popping off one-liners every other minute either, and that helped make the movie more believable as well.

There is nothing more tiresome than listening to action heroes spout off the most ridiculous puns and quips for two hours.

Wahlberg is fun to watch. He isn’t the greatest actor, but he does play the na‹f who kicks butt well. His performance made an interesting counterpoint to Chow’s, and if things had turned out a bit differently in the end, this could have been a much better buddy picture series than “Lethal Weapon.”

The film was shot in Toronto’s Chinatown, which helped give it a unique, dirty, urban look without being too familiar.

We have all seen every inch of New York City filmed endlessly and the current trend of filming in Canada makes even tired American movies seem fresh and new.

“The Corruptor” is definitely what I would call the thinking-man’s action movie.

It isn’t quite up there with James Bond in terms of complexity or action, but it could easily spell out a new standard of excellence in a tired, old genre that could seriously use a kick in the pants.

There are only so many explosions and gunshots an audience can witness in a lifetime without becoming irretrievably bored.

“The Corruptor” takes the genre to a new level by incorporating complex moral themes into a tapestry of action, offering something to the viewer who normally eschews action films and the die hard fanatic of explosions and kicks to the head.

4 stars out of five

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Greg Jerrett is a graduate student in English from Council Bluffs.