Infernal Affairs (2004)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Touches You

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Infernal Affairs follows the police department as they attempt to find the criminal mole in their midst while the opposing gang attempts to find the undercover mole in their group. If you ask me this is a pretty awesome concept. Neither side is able to get anywhere with the other because they're both constantly receiving information from the other. It's a conflict that can't end with either side winning until they take action specifically against their opposing moles. I'm not doing it justice, but it's pretty cool.Unfortunately, it doesn't handle it nearly as well as it could. The acting, for starters, is okay. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bland. It really depends. Most of the time it was pretty good, but it does falter enough for it to matter. The movie suffers from it's lack of ability to develop any of the characters or their relationships. Some of them have romantic relationships that are treated like a major part of the story, but they're so poorly written and unfocused that it makes it hard to really care about them. My biggest frustration with the movie is the editing. It's hilarious how dated it is. Multiple scenes end with a still frame while dialogue continues to play, followed by the screen fading to black. When did this movie come out? 2002? Yeah, it's a little late for that. Clearly someone didn't get the memo. Overall Infernal Affairs has an awesome concept that it couldn't quite pull off. The writing and characters aren't fleshed out enough, and the editing is hilariously dated. In the end I'd really only recommend this movie to a handful of people.

This is an enthralling and riveting crime movie that is thrilling from beginning to end. There is investigation and quite a bit of mobster talk but it's fast paced and for the most part gets to the point. I remember watching this for the first time in theaters and was blown away at how cool and clever the execution was. The plot revolves around a ballsy undercover gangster that is basically a mole within the triad gang. And a cunning and meticulous triad gang member that is a mole in the intelligence on the other side. And how they are trying to figure out each sides plans and sniff each other out before time runs out. It's actually a clever premise and executed quite well. I really enjoyed the cat and mouse premise in this, with each side trying to track down the mole on the other side while trying to out-think one another. It's not a action packed Hong Kong thriller but it's a thriller with a lot of clever elements. This is a engaging film from start to finish and it's a film that I want to watch again later down the line. It's basically a cult classic from China and for good reasons that I can highly recommend.9.3/10

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.

A story between a mole in the police department and an undercover cop. Their objectives are the same: to find out who is the mole, and who is the cop.Some of the film's brilliance is lost in translation. The Chinese title means "The Unceasing Path", a reference to Avici, the lowest level of hell in Buddhism, where one endures suffering incessantly. Translations tried to give the English title a reference to Dante's Inferno, a parallel that Westerners would understand. But is it really the same?The film gets increased American attention because it was remade as "The Departed". This extra attention is good, but the comparison of the two is not. While it is, indeed, a remake, they are not exactly the same film. Martin Scorsese moved away from the Triad theme and used Whitey Bulger as his background instead, at a time just before the Bulger story really broke. The context and connotations are completely different.