Infernal Affairs (2004)

SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

The movie that inspired "The Departed" - which basically copied this movie from scene to scene to murder to murder --------------------------------------------- Tale follows two cadet school trainees , one becoming an investigative cop and one being an undercover . Assigned to arrest the Triad Kingpin - with moles on both sides things get complicated between both parties .It's a race against time to see who can reveal who's identity , with the stakes getting higher each passing day ...

The inspiration behind Scorsese's Oscar-winning The Departed, this Hong Kong original contains the core fabric of that story but few of its offshoots. It's strictly the tale of two double-agents, working both sides of the law in a desperate race to be the last man discovered, as the stakes climb steep and swift. Rapid and concise, it speeds impressively through some very tricky waters, effectively ratcheting the tension to an almost-unbearable level through both plot and cinematography. As a non-Mandarin speaker, it's often tough to keep pace with the lightning-quick subtitles, but strong performances from the two yin-and-yang leads saves the day on more than one occasion. Ballsy and cold-hearted, I wish the American adaptation hadn't spoiled so many of the twists for me. I have a hunch the ending would've been twice as jolting if it hadn't.

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.

"Infernal Affairs" is a mystery - thriller movie in which we watch a story between a mole inside the police department and an undercover cop who is working inside the mafia. Their goals are the same, to find the mole for the police department and the cop for the mafia and kill him.I really liked this movie because of the plot which was well written and I have to admit that I have not watched any other movie like this, with the same plot. I believe that was the most important thing for me because I could not predict or expect anything in this movie and I was in tense in the whole duration of it. In addition to this I have to say that I also liked the swifts that this movie had and kept me also in tense. About the direction which made by Wai-Keung Lau and Alan Mak I want to say that it was really good and also the cast interpretations. Especially it has to be mentioned the interpretation of Andy Lau who played as Inspector Lau Kin Ming and he was simply magnificent but also equally good was the interpretation of Tony Chiu Wai Leung who played as Chen Wing Yan.Finally I have to say that "Infernal Affairs" is a really good movie because it combines very well mystery with crime and thriller and this combination makes it so special. I think that is a must see movie and I am sure that if you like movies with much of suspense then this is your movie and you will love it. I strongly recommend it.