Andrew Wai-Keung Lau

2002 R-rated Asian (Hong Kong) Police Thriller that remade in the USA as "The Departed" by Martin Scorsese (screenplay by William Monahan, and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Mark Wahlberg, Jack Nicholson and Vera Farmiga).

"Infernal Affairs" is the first released movie in a series and is known as "Wu jian dao" in Hong Kong (known as "Infernal Affairs" and "I Want to be You" in Hong Kong English). There are currently three movies in the series (Infernal Affairs 2 and 3; #2 is actually a prequel that occurs roughly ten years before Infernal Affairs 1 (different actors play Lau Kin Ming and Chan Wing Yan in the prequel; same directors and writers made all three films) and #3 occurs roughly ten months after Infernal Affairs 1).

DVD Features: Contains the movie and Special Features. The movie is available in "Spoken Languages": Cantonese or English and in Captions & Subtitles: English for the Hearing Impaired, English, Spanish, and None. The Special Features are: "Making of Infernal Affairs," "Confidential File: Behind-The Scenes," "Alternate Ending," "International Trailer," and "Original Chinese Trailer."

Credits: The movie stars Tony Leung (Chan Wing Yan; "Hero"), Andy Lau (Lau Kin Ming; "House of Flying Daggers"), Anthony Wong (SP Wong; "The Storm Riders"), and Eric Tsang (Sam; "The Accidental Spy"). The directors are Andrew Lau (a.k.a. Wai Keung Lau; "The Duel") & Alan Mak (a.k.a. Siu Fai Mak; "A War Named Desire"). The writers are Alan Mak ("A War Named Desire") & Felix Chong ("Cat and Mouse").

Plot: During training, one police officer trainee "fails" the program and becomes an undercover cop. Another police officer trainee enters the force, but is secretly working for organized crime. Neither the mole nor the undercover cop knows the secret identity of the other (though both know of the existence of the other; and both organizations know they have a mole in their organization). Both undercover agents are tasked to find the other.

Review: Good/great music (Chan Kwong Wing - Original Music). Obviously money was spent on this film, a high quality professional looking film, and the dubbing is so good that I'm not sure if there was dubbing or if they actually filmed scenes in English (most of the time). There is a similarity to the Colin Farrell "The Recruit" where a CIA trainee "fails" the program and then goes undercover (an agent going undercover with the other trainees thinking he failed and with the undercover agent having only one contact with the organization; neither of these plot points is a "secret"). Though in this instance, the undercover guy has been undercover for ten years.

A very tense thrilling movie. Good acting, good music, tense strong plot, and there is even some humor involved (and sadness). Quite intriguing and ingenious, cops chasing cops chasing criminals with criminals chasing criminals chasing cops. Definitely not a movie where you can spot what is going to happen three moves ahead. Gripping right to the end. One irritating aspect, though, is that there are at least four times when Asian characters are on the screen, without English translation (in English spoken language mode, there is a translation, but you need English Caption on (which I turned on for two of the occasions, and learned that the spoken English and the English for the hearing impaired have different English translations (the spoken English is better for most of the small scene I saw, but the caption English was better for one translation))).

Contains bloodshed and death, but less violence than expected. Overall, I would give the movie 4.87 (the lack of English translation for those four occasions lowered the grade).… (meer)