Film: Infernal Affairs - The Complete Trilogy
Release date: 27th December 2010
Certificate: 15
Running time: 332 mins
Director: Andrew Lau & Alan Mak
Starring: Tony Leung, Andy Lau, Anthony Wong, Eric Tsang, Shawn Yue
Genre: Action/Crime/Drama/Mystery/Thriller
Studio: Palisades Tartan
Format: Blu-ray
Country: Hong Kong/China/Singapore
Infernal Affairs is Hong Kong’s most celebrated export. With awards galore in its native land, and cult attention over the ocean, the trilogy went on to inspire Martin Scorsese’s first Oscar triumph. With The Departed came a resounding success but it is Lau and Mak’s original where the betrayal, shifting allegiances and inner turmoil of the story was born. With a stunning vision of a Triad ridden Hong Kong, this was a true event in Asia, one that sadly many have passed up for its Hollywood counterpart.
Infernal Affairs (2002)
Chan Wing-Yan is part of triad boss Hon Sam’s prestigious collective. He is a hood who enforces the gang's multi-million pound dealings - and he is a police mole. Lau Kin Ming is a decorated member of the Hong Kong police force, his proven track record sees him climbing the police ladder of promotions and accolades - and he is a mole for Sam’s gang.
Tensions between the police and the triads grow when a drug raid goes wrong, and it becomes clear that both sides have an informer playing for the other team. Police superintendant Wong is Yan’s only allie in the police force, and the only man who knows of his true identity - he gives Yan the task of sniffing out Sam’s rat. Meanwhile, whilst balancing the trust of the triads, police and girlfriend Mary, Lau is instructed by Sam to discover which member of his team has been placed by the cops.
As suspicions rise and leads are followed, the two moles fight to preserve their hidden identities. As each side closes in on the truth, an urban battle between both sides of the law is coming dangerously closer to a bloody end...
Infernal Affairs II (2003)
The second instalment of the trilogy begins in 1991, nine years before the events of the original. Lau is a young member of Sam’s gang, preparing to join the police force, whilst Yan, a promising young trainee officer, has been kicked out of the academy for his triad family routes. Howver, he is contacted by Wong to become an undercover agent.
As the two become more involved with their covers, Yan is torn between his police duty and half-brother Hau, who is a triad. Hau’s time as boss is coming to an end as Sam, now an up and comer in the Ngai family, is climbing the ladder in the triad family, whilst working with Wong as an informant. Wong helps Sam as he considers him a mob boss he could control. Lau assists Sam’s rise whilst establishing himself in the force and harbouring secret feelings for Sam’s wife, Mary...
Infernal Affairs III (2003)
Following the deaths of Billy and Yan, Lau is under investigation and has been demoted in the police force. His reputation tarnished, he returns to Infernal Affairs with the knowledge that Sam had installed five moles in the division all along. He suspects SDI Yeung - and is determined to find him out.
Meanwhile, Lau’s impending divorce, fear of being uncovered, and guilt over the murder of Yan are catching up with him. Hallucinations lead him to question his sanity as he begins to feel Yans presence long after his demise...
Each film is a true genre piece, and its American influences are clear. The police/criminal relationship is played out with all the tactics and mind games of Michael Mann’s Heat, and the organised crime of the triads and the decade spanning narrative echo The Goodfather series and Goodfellas - you can imagine the filmmakers’ delight to hand the reigns to Scorsese, someone they have seemingly learnt a lot from.
Lovers of Scorsese’s stylish violence and ever memorable multi-head shot sequence will be less thrilled by killings accompanied by black-and-white, slow motion and haunting opera tones. However, whirring cameras, painful close-ups and the beautiful capture of Hong Kong and its skyscraper roof tops give the trilogy a fantastic spectacle. A lack of excessive violence and action is more than made up for by the installation of dramatic tension that is utterly engrossing.
This is due to writing of the highest quality that is acted with complete conviction by its talented cast. Andy Lau and Tony Leung Chiu Wai play the two moles with all the self-convolution, shame and denial that form the story’s most evocative theme. Mary is writing a novel about a man with twenty-eight faces - a look at a man who plays out so many different identities that he has lost his own true being. She notes, “I don’t know if he’s a good guy or a bad guy.” The two moles have spent so much time on the other side that they are losing touch with their allegiances.
Their connection is strong as they contrast each other’s situation. Yan exclaims, “You don’t know what it’s like to be undercover,” as Lau fakes a smile knowing he too has lost his identity. The tragedy of their rivalry is that they are the only two who know each other’s pain. They are by no means opposites, but they are ultimately living out each other’s lives. Yan is kicked out of the police academy and the instructors threaten, “Who wants to be next?” Lau replies under his breath, “I do.”
The second film sees Edison Chen and Shawn Yue reprise their roles as the young Lau and Yan. Unfortunately, the characters, which Lau and Wai made their own in the original, are considerably less convincing, as you are sometimes left struggling to relate them to their elder selves. The film does build on the relationship between Wong and Sam, and a scene at the beginning reveals Sam to be an informant to Wong. As Sam sits eating a police prepared meal, our memory takes us back to a far more hostile encounter between the two in the first film, which ends with Sam flinging his food aside in anger. Their friendship, mistrust and eventual rivalry is an absorbing layer to the story.
As a trilogy filled with sub-plots, flashbacks and red herrings, this film maintains a great consistency, whilst elaborations and reveals answer nagging questions from the first film satisfactorily, and offer new meaning to the characters’ actions.
The third film sees the introduction of Leon Lai as SP Yeung. The character is suspected by Lau of being another mole in the police department, thus ensues a battle of wits between the two. This rivalry never reaches the intensity or intrigue of Yan and Lau’s fight for discovery; attempting to re-create a rivalry between two undercover cops that was so riveting in the first film. This serves to emphasise that, despite the reprisal of Andy Lau and Tony Leung’s roles, the main battle of the trilogy is over. Lau and Yan both occupy different strands of the narrative, and their direct rivalry is sorely missed.
This film does, however, provide closure. With the demise of Yan, Sam, Shen and Wong in the threequel’s predecessors, we are shown the final downfall of Lau. For a character that shows such a personal struggle between good and bad, his loss of control and self educed death seems fitting, as well as tragic.
Truly an Asian giant. The first film alone is enough to make this trilogy a must-see, the second is a worthy accomplice and the third is, as genre dictates, a bit disappointing. With a complex insight in to lives of the undercover, there is enough powerful drama, cerebral pondering and complex characters to make this a classic of the crime genre. LW
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