Anssi Vartiainen In this film, which would later be remade in the West as The Departed, two young men are forced to play a deadly game of cat and mouse with their identities and even very lives on stake. Because it turns out that one of them is an undercover cop infiltrating the triads, while the other is a mole in the police force reporting directly to a powerful crime boss.As in The Departed, the setting and the central idea is truly fantastic here. The duality of these two men is quite fascinating. Both very similar in character, in skill and in conviction. They simply happened to start from different sides. And yet their paths are eerily similar. Both shoulder the burden of secrets they cannot reveal even to their loved ones. Both have crisis of identity, for ten years is a long time to live under pretense without it sometimes seeming like reality.The film is also beautifully acted and shot with skill. Andy Lau as the mole and Tony Leung as the undercover cop are easily the best, but the supporting cast is also strong, though not quite all of them receive the screen time they perhaps would have deserved. Both love interests, for example, are barely in the film.The only other gripe I have about the film is the fact the the plot lost me a couple of times. I always got back on track relatively quickly, but it still meant that I spent a minute or two wondering what had just happened. I've had this problem with Asian films before and it's a matter of style. They simply tell their stories a bit differently. So not really a flaw, but something to keep in mind.Overall Infernal Affairs is a great crime film and I can see why they wanted to make The Departed after seeing it. Definitely worth a watch for all fans of the genre.

sharky_55 Andy Lau and Tony Leung are two giants in Asian cinema and they play opposites in this cop thriller which pits two moles against each other in a complex hierarchy of modern Hong Kong. They are extremely prolific actors because they are capable, which is disappointing because the direction doesn't always allow for them to emote and fully display the gravity of their situation. When Superintendent Wong's lifeless body hurtles down onto the streets, the score instantly turns sentimental and we are treated to black and white flashbacks of their previous scenes, of that connection to Chan's old life instantly severed. But we must be emotionally manipulated into feeling this. When Lau's girlfriend discusses her novel's main character's morality, the score again turns from the tense percussion of the earlier scenes to this soft sentimental piano piece. Her description of this character who is supposedly a good person but who does bad things is so painfully unsubtle that it takes away from this great script. There's an early scene that allows Lau and Leung to display their talent, one that is not in Scorsese's Departed. A simple occurrence of a man buying a stereo allows us to roughly gauge what sort of person Chan is, before revealing he in fact works for the mob. And that stereo of course returns with significantly more important implications. Many of the segments of the script were directly lifted for Departed, and that is an indication of their importance, and their effectiveness. The thematic narrative is just as effective in dreary and gritty Hong Kong as it is in the Irish Catholic underbelly of Boston. There's the drug deal that is monitored from both sides, the respective moles relaying information that is delicately balanced and edited. It's a tense scene which the score better services, a heavy percussion backing over this plucked riff that seems strangely Egyptian, but it works. The tragic climax is also pretty much the same; with the unveiling of the secondary rat in the police department and this execution from Lau to tie up all lose ends and maintain his cover. I am intrigued by one of Scorsese's additions in making the mob boss a corrupt informant himself. Eric Tsang plays the triad leader in Infernal Affairs, and is unfortunately miscast (as he is a primarily comedic actor), too short and too jovial to really be menacing, although the breaking of the cast was a great moment which also served as a red herring of sorts. When Lau executes his former boss here, it's the culmination of his continued undercover life and realising that perhaps this act will lead to a promotion and a more comfortable life henceforth. When Damon does so in Departed, it's because he discovers that the man he is working for is in turn crooked, and his entire life's work and philosophy collapses onto itself. Both work just as well, as do their respective fates, although Nicholson proves to be the difference. We feel saddened by the tragic end of Chan, and the various ways in which his identity breaks down bit by bit. There is a flashback again as he discovers that Lau is the mole, but this one is integral and provides us with even more tension. Infernal Affair's script is a great one, and an original one, even if it's direction and visualisation is not entirely subtle. I am reminded of some better scenes in the film which utilise secondary characters (that are not Lau's placeholder girlfriend) to reinforce those themes of identity, morality and agency (as well as those Buddhist sentiments of rejecting destiny and fate introduced in the beginning). Are we really who we are if we cease to act in that way? Chan runs into an ex girlfriend while going for a massage, an inexplicable encounter, but her face shows only hints of recognition. She comforts her young daughter and talks of her marriage, things that are infinitely out of reach for Chan. Later, he is the sole person who witnesses the other mole's death, Keung, in a dramatic scene where the actor's face is visibly melting with condensation and he speaks on edge. It might be cliché to have someone utter such a confession before they die, but it's emotionally moving, because of the effective performance of that monologue, the yearning for a normal life that is mirrored in Chan's expression. In that penultimate meeting in the office, we agonise over the simple press of a button that erases a man's entire life. We know that Chan's life is over, a fact that he never is confronted with. Perhaps it is better that way.These moments are frustrating because they point to what could have been a great film if not for those over-dramatic death scenes, blatantly unsubtle exposition and unnecessary black and white flashbacks that connect the dots for the viewer as if they were a child. At that policeman's funeral, a teary Sum-Yee whispers to no one but the audience that she will dream of Chan just as he dreamt of her in those therapy sessions where they fell in love. Is this really necessary? But in saying that, we feel the same way for this fallen policeman.

MisterWhiplash The given is that a remake will not be as good as the original. It may be there for reasons that a studio needs to put out something, they have the rights now, let's do another spin on it. And it's not like remakes are new, they've been around since the 1930's in film, maybe even before that (were silent films remade from other silent versions, maybe, but I digress). The Departed was one of those rare occasions where not only did the filmmakers and actors improve on the previous story, they added to it, enhancing the plot. Of course the main ingredients were there in Lau and Leung's film, but it's like taking a bite out of a piece of fried chicken from your local Chinese food delivery, and getting a crisp, golden-fried piece from that awesome restaurant in the city - same bird, different spices and oil. I should let this film on its own speak for itself, and to be fair it does work on its own as a film. But the work of Scorsese, Monahan, DiCaprio/Damon/Nicholson et all took the main plot (and ironically Scorsese quipped it was his first movie that had a plot) and added humor, subtext, extra characters, real romance and stakes that weren't there before.Infernal Affairs is a good movie though because its plot is strong and compelling - you got the cop undercover in the mob, and the young mobster picked by the boss to be undercover in the ranks as a cop. The dramatic possibilities are on a silver platter for any writer (though on the flip-side it could become cliché and trite in the misguided hands). Here, we get a story that has very little fat story-wise, as we follow the drug busts, the twists, the tracking of one cop to another and the deaths of certain cops and criminals, and it's ultimately about the price paid, morally speaking, in this world - which can be a lot or a little depending on which side you're on.Again, it's hard to under-sell how much The Departed looms in my mind seeing the film. It's not totally fair, I know this, but it's also hard when so many scenes are much alike... and yet you can see where, in the opposite of what happens in adaptations, the new filmmaker adding to what's already there. And yet there's certainly good things to recommend about Infernal Affairs, especially if you like specifically HK cop movies - actually, if you're a die-hard follower of those, this seems to be a quintessential watch.At the top of what's good here are the two main actors, Tony Leung and Andy Lau as the cop and criminal undercover respectively. Leung has the more intense part - when we see him after a prologue he has been undercover for 10 years - and I was astonished by how much he dug into the turmoil of this character (normally I see him in more romantic stuff like Wong Kar Wai's films, but here, as in The Grandmaster, he shows he has the cops for it). Lau is also very good, but has to play more... reserved isn't the word, but he has to show fewer emotions, unless he's with his psychiatrist girlfriend (not that developed as a character, by the way, just enough to get by). The two actors, how they play every scene, is captivating.But while the villain here, Sam (Eric Tsang), is fairly strong, I never felt much of a threat or sense of danger about him. Again, hard to stay away from its American version, but there's much less there than in Nicholson's character (albeit that had the boost from Whitey Bulger's story from Boston). With the exception of maybe a couple of scenes, like when the drug deal goes down in the first act of the film, he too doesn't seem to have much to do except act sort of menacing, in a subdued sort of way, to his underlings. It's not that he has to be fun or exciting, but... maybe he does. Maybe he could have been the wildcard or piece of mania to give the material that extra boost.Infernal Affairs works as a kind of well-oiled machine of a thriller, and hen those major turns happen - the reveals of who is really who and not what really seems is what it is - it's satisfying. But it's got its share of flaws, namely in a score that is sappy-melodramatic, like right after when the death of a particular character happens and the hero looks on in despair. And while the directors here have a lot of excellent shots and cinematography to work with in the HK sky-line (and always with the rooftops, a joke is made at one point, which is nice), there's flashbacks once too much. I can give it to this movie that, unlike some other HK action thrillers, this isn't convoluted, it's straight-forward enough really. Actually, so straightforward it doesn't need certain obvious moments repeated for the audience.So, in short, even if I'd seen this before the Departed, it would still work as a movie. But it has short-comings as it is, I didn't find it to be that All-Time Great HK Cop Thriller that some have elevated it to, and if one puts it up against a interpretation by a master filmmaker the faults show more.

Marc Israel Peeked by the American box office remake ("The Departed") I picked up Infernal Affairs to see the genesis of the art I am very familiar within an art form I enjoy watch (crime thrillers). While there are varying viewpoints on remakes, most come from seeing the original first. On its; own, Infernal Affaiars is great story packaged in a fast paced, action laced, Miami Viced and MTV spliced send up to to the Cops & Robbers genre. Interwtining the two sides from the beginning to the end is the twist that is twisted. On the anti side, I found the Directors' storytelling rushed and emotionally forced. The supporting characters state their lines to tell us about the main characters, both of whom are charming. Lets' face it, the charm in our polarized stars can not be equal in style. Within 10 minutes, it was clear that The Departed was plotted step by step and that watching the other 90 minutes was to see how the Chinese Cinema entertains their public and I felt as if this were TV paced, no room for real emotion or explanation, just enough time to collect sponsor money and credits. My summary above describes our two moles who want to reset the clock, but is also about just as much about listening to the original rock and roll albums as it is seeing movies that inspired new movies. The past era in which the art was generated in now gone, so propping it up in any other era is placing it out of context. Is time a hero? Not in this case.