The Replacement Killers

Hong Kong's Chow Yun-Fat is surely the most charismatic actor on the planet. Even in such by-the-numbers fare as The Replacement Killers, his star quality is apparent. The leading man of such John Woo favorites as Hard Boiled and The Killer, Chow makes his American debut in this vehicle produced by Woo but directed by first-time feature director Antoine Fuqua, who shot the gothically grim music video for Coolio's Gangstas Paradise. As the title suggests, Fuqua xeroxes Woo's style (his Peckinpah-esque staging of balletlike violence), but without Woo's depth of feeling (his Sirk-like spectrum of operatic emotion).

Still, Replacement is a decent introduction to the magnetic Chow, in a typical role as a hitman with a conscience. Sent by a Chinese-American crimelord to kill a Los Angeles cop's little boy (in revenge for the cop's killing of the gangster's adult son during a drug bust), Chow decides instead to hightail it back to Shanghai and protect his own family from the boss's wrath. He enlists the help of a passport forger (Mira Sorvino), who soon finds herself on the lam with Chow. No time in this brisk thriller for romance; Sorvino's underwritten dyspeptic-buddy character is just along for the ride. This is Chow's show, and even amid the picture's relentless gloom and bombardment of clichés, his subtle fury and eerie grace hold the screen. Let's hope Hollywood lets him stretch next time. At the Copley Place, the Fresh Pond, and the Circle and in the suburbs.

-- Gary Susman