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Infernal Affairs
Directed by: Wai Keung Lau and Siu Fai Mak
Starring: Tony Leung
Genre:
Action-Adventure/
Foreign
Run Time: 101
min.
Release Date:
September 2004
On The Web:
Official
Site
Teaser:
Movie Trailer
Reviewed by
Chad Wilson |
There has
been a great deal of films produced in the Hong Kong crime drama genre,
but also equally prolific criticism in recent years for a decided lack
of creativity. INFERNAL AFFAIRS (Mou gaan dou) rises to
the challenge, departing from the accepted crime film formula and
instead creating a dramatic thriller with a powerful script, amazing
performances, and tension that never lets up. Infernal Affairs
is without a doubt one of the best Hong Kong crime thrillers to date and
has even inspired master filmmaker Martin Scorsese
to remake the film for American audiences (see
THE DEPARTED).
Infernal Affairs follows the story of two talented men on
opposite ends of the law, one a mole for the mob and the other, an
undercover cop. Lau (Andy Lau) is an ambitious young member of
the Triads who infiltrates the police by training to become a cop and
eventually rising to the level of detective. Chan (Tony Leung) is a cop deep undercover in the
Triads for years, his identity so thoroughly erased only his boss,
Police Superindendent Wong (Anthony Wong), knows his true identity. When a
drug deal between Triad boss Sam (Eric Tsang) and Thai gangsters goes bad for
both the Triad and the Police, Lau and Chan realize there is a mole in
their respective organizations. It becomes a race against the clock,
both men trying to uncover who the mole is before each is discovered.
Shot with cinematic panache and written with intelligence, Infernal
Affairs is an absolutely riveting film from beginning to end.
Virtually every scene is filled with suspense and the script never lets
the chase for the mole stop. The cinematography is fluid and sharp, with
effective uses of camera movement that give the film incredible style
and contributes greatly to the editing. With each passing moment, the
need to find the mole leads to desperation and both men take greater
chances as time shortens, stopping at nothing to find the other.
Foreshadowing is brilliantly used to exacting effect, each scene
building upon the other until we see the investigation itself become a
character, shaping the lives and fates of each character in the story.
This also serves the subtle eastern religious undertone of the film, a
remarkably tight web of ideology that has the character's trapped in a
continuous hell, played out again and again each time the identities of
the two moles slip away from the other side. Even the finale itself,
culminating in a fantastic showdown, leaves the audience with both a
sense of closure and an unending limbo.
The performances in Infernal Affairs are magnetic, keeping the
audience firmly rooted in the story. In particular, Tony Leung's Chan is
brilliantly brooding and the most sympathetic character in the film.
Leung displays the perfect matching of angst and duty, making his
journey throughout the film very relatable and empathetic. Andy Lau's
Triad mole is intensity incarnate, played with a mix of fiery ambition
and near machine-like efficiency that makes his story nearly
unfathomable to behold, each scene keeps the audience in awe wondering
how far he'll go and to what end. Triad boss Sam is played with savage
ruthlessness by Eric Tsang, often described as Hong Kong's Joe Pesci
for both his stature and menacing performances. Tsang plays the
character with charisma and humor, yet it is this same attachment to the
character that makes the performance so powerful once Tsang turns on the
malice and brutality. Lastly Anthony Wong is brilliantly cast as Chan's
police boss, played with a dogged determination and wisdom, Wong is the
driving force behind the police. Wong's portrayal of the dedicated
officer is embellished further by his feeling of responsibility for Chan,
driving his need to take down Sam.
While largely avoiding cliches with a smart script and enjoying grounded
performances from the cast, Infernal Affairs does suffer some
small flaws for what is otherwise a solid film. There is some
melodramatic excess, limited mostly to one scene that heavy-handedly
uses flashbacks interspersed between a performance that should have been
unedited. There are also one or two scenes that fall flat, sapping the
tautness built in the rest of the story with a scene that is overly
-long or a piece of dialogue that should have been cut. But such
nitpicking cannot reduce the worth of everything the film gets right. At
an engrossing 97 minutes, Infernal Affairs is filled with so
much tension and explosive acting that it achieves more than films far
longer and with less exposition. The film flows steadily and unerringly
toward it's climax, rarely wasting a scene or a piece of dialogue.
An instant classic of the cops-and-mobsters crime genre, Infernal
Affairs has acting, style, intelligence, and tension that delivers
a film thrilling to watch and a story audiences won't want to miss.
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Image from Infernal
Affairs
DVD cost: $10.99
Purchase:
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Film Review Stew
Favorite? No.
Stew Poo-Poo? No.
Newsworthy:
When referencing this film
as the inspiration for the Best Picture winner THE DEPARTED
(2006), the announcer at the 79th Academy Awards mistakenly identified
the Hong Kong production as Japanese.
Movie Quote: "There's
a traitor in our department."
Other Actors/Actresses
from Infernal Affairs
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