(Photo by Rim/courtesy Everett Collection)
Chow Yun-fat Movies Ranked
We’re ranking the films of Chow Yun-Fat! Let’s start with his Certified Fresh films, including Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and John Woo’s The Killer. Those are followed up with more Fresh Hong Kong action epics like Hard-Boiled, City on Fire, and Full Contact. Yun-fat broke into Hollywood shortly afterwards with late-’90s crime films like The Replacement Killers and The Corruptor, the unfortunate Dragonball: Evolution, and culminating in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. —Alex Vo
#1
Adjusted Score: 98368%
Critics Consensus: The Killer is another hard-boiled action flick from John Woo featuring eye-popping balletic violence and philosophical underpinnings.
Synopsis: Mob assassin Jeffrey (Chow Yun-Fat) is no ordinary hired gun; the best in his business, he views his chosen profession...
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#2
Adjusted Score: 104911%
Critics Consensus: The movie that catapulted Ang Lee into the ranks of upper echelon Hollywood filmmakers, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon features a deft mix of amazing martial arts battles, beautiful scenery, and tasteful drama.
Synopsis: In 19th century Qing Dynasty China, a warrior (Chow Yun-Fat) gives his sword, Green Destiny, to his lover (Michelle Yeoh)...
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#3
Adjusted Score: 98155%
Critics Consensus: Boasting impactful action as well as surprising emotional resonance, Hard Boiled is a powerful thriller that hits hard in more ways than one.
Synopsis: A cop who loses his partner in a shoot-out with gun smugglers goes on a mission to catch them. In...
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#4
Adjusted Score: 85356%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: An undercover cop (Chow Yun-Fat) infiltrates a gang of jewel thieves, but things go terribly wrong during a heist....
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#5
Adjusted Score: 80719%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Jeff (Chow Yun-Fat), who works as a nightclub bouncer in Bangkok, saves his friend Sam (Wong Chow-Sang) from a beating...
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#6
Adjusted Score: 87620%
Critics Consensus: With few narrative missteps, Office delivers a soft critique of capitalism elegantly wrapped in a one-of-a-kind, three-dimensional musical.
Synopsis: Following the Lehman Brothers collapse, Miss Chang prepares to list her billion-dollar company on the stock exchange. Before the shares...
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#7
Adjusted Score: 75437%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A hoodlum (Chow Yun-Fat) feels threatened by his town's new governor (Wen Jiang), who is really a bandit in disguise....
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#8
Adjusted Score: 70724%
Critics Consensus: Melodrama, swordplay, and CG armies -- fans of martial arts epic will get what they bargain for, though the baroque art direction can be both mesmerizing and exhaustively excessive.
Synopsis: In 928 A.D. a power struggle emerges in the palace of China's emperor (Chow Yun-Fat). A cruel man, he is...
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#9
Adjusted Score: 29872%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Three art thieves (Chow Yun-Fat, Leslie Cheung, Cherie Chung) try to re-steal a painting after their crime boss double-crosses them....
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#10
Adjusted Score: 56726%
Critics Consensus: Beautiful cinematography can't prevent Anna and the King from being boring and overly lengthy.
Synopsis: Anna (Jodie Foster) has been employed to educate the king's (Chow Yun-Fat) 58 children. She knows very little of King...
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#11
Adjusted Score: 49748%
Critics Consensus: This uninspiring cop thriller doesn't measure up to Chow Yun-Fat's Hong Kong work.
Synopsis: Martial arts expert Detective Nick Chen (Chow Yun-Fat) teams up with his colleague Danny Wallace (Mark Wahlberg) to keep several...
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#12
Adjusted Score: 22228%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: The life story of the Chinese philosopher....
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#13
Adjusted Score: 53142%
Critics Consensus: POTC: AWE provides the thrilling action scenes, but mixes in too many characters with too many incomprehensible plot threads.
Synopsis: Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) join forces with Capt. Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) to free Jack Sparrow...
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#14
Adjusted Score: 38660%
Critics Consensus: Chow Yun-fat makes his dubious English-language debut in The Replacement Killers, a stylish but muddled knockoff of the Hong Kong shoot-em-ups that earned the star his international renown.
Synopsis: Hired assassin John Lee (Chow Yun-Fat) is asked by Chinatown crime boss Terence Wei (Kenneth Tsang) to murder the young...
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#15
Adjusted Score: 33515%
Critics Consensus: This beautifully photographed but dramatically flat war drama recounts an important chapter in history with little cinematic freshness.
Synopsis: In 1930s China, British journalist George Hogg (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), an American nurse named Lee (Radha Mitchell) and a Chinese...
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#16
Adjusted Score: 27176%
Critics Consensus: Venerable action star Chow Yun-Fat is the only saving grace in this silly action flick that more often than not resembles a commercial in style.
Synopsis: For 60 years, a mysterious monk with no name (Chow Yun-Fat) has zigzagged the globe to protect an ancient scroll...
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#17
Adjusted Score: 5123%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Ken's daughter and his protege Vincent are getting married, and the enormous wedding is being held at a resort in...
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#18
Adjusted Score: 15807%
Critics Consensus: Executed with little panache or invention, Dragonball Evolution lacks the magic that made the books upon which it was based a cult sensation.
Synopsis: On his 18th birthday, Goku (Justin Chatwin) receives a mystical Dragonball as a gift from his grandfather. There are only...
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#19
Adjusted Score: 4078%
Critics Consensus: Shanghai is crippled by a weak story and fatally undermined by clunky direction, making for a period political drama that lacks all of its key components.
Synopsis: In the months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, an American intelligence official (John Cusack) investigates a friend's death in...
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