Infernal Affairs (DVD)

Just thought i would have a gander at the reviews given for this film, and to my horror i have discovered that there a none. It is a shock as this has to be one of my favourite films, and definatly in my top ten. Ok so first point that must be made about this, is that it is the film that The Departed is based on. It annoys me when people believe that to be an amazing film (and it is a good one), but do not realise that there is an original. It has a different setting, being in Hong Kong not long after the independence from the UK. However the story is pretty much the same. The acting is superb and its one of the cleaverist films out there. Its well writen, which was ...  Read the complete review

Mou gaan dou- This is the gripping cop thriller that capulted the Hong Kong cinema from complete obscurity to an acknowledged place of cinema alongside Japan and South Korea. It became popular overseas that even a remake of the film was created, namely the Departed- which is not a chip on the original. The film really did change my view on Hong Kong cinema, as I had the belief that the Hong Kong cinema could not reinvent themselves after a saturation of films that was released being all the same. I was utterly wrong. Gone are the gangs-gun films like The Killer, Hard Boiled, City on Fire, etc. The release of the film that met with instant success ...  Read the complete review

A lot of us know that Infernal Affairs a.k.a Mou gaan dou is the movie that was remade by Martin Scorsese. I usually see the original, before I see the remakes, plus this one was on my must see list long before Scorsese's remake. I0t was hard to get hands on this one, but after Hollywood popularization, DVD's start raining even in Europe. Story is fascinating. A crime boss sponsors some young boys, that they join the police force. Infiltrating the police, right from the start. Many years later, now the grown up men are in all sectors of the police, keeping crime boss stacked with information. Simultaneously police chiefs decide to put one cadet on the ...  Read the complete review

note: also appears in part on Flixster and The Student Room Infernal Affairs is a great film, there is little doubting that, but I appear to be in the minority of people who think that Martin Scorsese's Best Picture-winning film The Departed actually managed to outdo the original film and be the rare remake that has improved on its source material. That isn't to discredit Infernal Affairs, though, because it's still a cracking film that has one main advantage over the remake: it doesn't concede to Hollywood formula with its devastating ending. The film's protagonist is Chan Wing-Yan (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai), a police officer who goes deep cover in the ...  Read the complete review

A lot of you will already know this film is the "original" from which The Departed came. It was erroneously described as a Japanese film at the Oscars because it was actually made in Hong Kong and is based around the Triad movement in the city and their interaction with the police force. The beginning of the film opens at the police academy and we are introduced to the two co-stars - one of whom is a triad and the other a young police cadet. Without giving the entire plot away, the two are not what they seem. Each is asked to be a mole in the other establishment so we are faced with the confusing situation of a policeman who is actually a Triad ...  Read the complete review