Film: Infernal Affairs
Release date: 28th June 2004
Certificate: 15
Running time: 101 mins
Director: Andrew Lau Wai-Keung & Alan Mak
Starring: Andy Lau, Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Anthony Wong Chau-sang, Eric Tsang, Kelly Chen
Genre: Crime/Mystery/Thriller
Studio: Tartan
Format: DVD
Country: Hong Kong
When Infernal Affairs was released in Hong Kong, in 2002, it was described by the media as a ‘box office miracle’, resuscitating an ailing local film industry that had been experiencing one of its leanest periods. In 2006, its core story was reintroduced to international audiences as The Departed, the film which would go on to win the Best Picture Oscar. Eight years on, does it still stand up as one of the finest achievements in contemporary Asian cinema?
Yan (Tony Leung) and Ming (Andy Lau) are both Hong Kong police officers. They are also both in the employ of ruthless Triad kingpin Sam (Eric Tsang). How is this possible? Both are moles. Yan was plucked out of the police training academy as a teenager to work undercover with criminals, an assignment that has dragged on for nearly ten years, wreaking havoc on his soul and psyche in the process. Ming grew up under the guidance of Sam, and entered the police force specifically to be Sam’s man-on-the-inside.
Now, the double lives led by both men are beginning to cross, as the determined Superintendent Wong (Anthony Wong) makes it his mission to take down Sam. Yan and Ming are thrown into the deadliest game of cat-and-mouse, where the victor will reclaim his identity and honour, while the loser will spend eternity in “continuous hell…”
Commercial Hong Kong cinema, with its basic business model of quick productions generating even quicker profits, is not renowned for its traditions of slick plotting and deep characterisation. The emphasis has always been on spectacle filmmaking, the scripts - such as they are/were - functioning to justify the set-pieces, for which Hong Kong film has long been justly renowned. So, it was no surprise that Infernal Affairs - a film which effortlessly marries Hong Kong cool with a tight script full of ingenuous suspense sequences and rich character - was a standout film in the first half of the noughties, becoming a bit of a breakout cult hit when released internationally.
On first viewing, Infernal Affairs feels like a brand new experience: an intriguing set-up giving its brilliantly cast co-lead roles they may never better; and expertly crafted suspense sequences that prompt much hand-wringing from the audience (look no further than the first act drug bust sequence, with Yan and Ming behind enemy lines, desperately trying to help their real bosses, not to mention keep themselves alive afterwards; that it revolves around sly morse-code communication makes it all the more thrilling). Yet, what is most notable about the film is the way it builds on Hong Kong cinema tradition to provide that brand new experience. Infernal Affairs is the next logical step in the evolution of the Cantonese gangster movie, a direct descendant of John Woo’s equally seminal 1986 movie A Better Tomorrow, his 1989 masterpiece The Killer, and Andrew Lau’s own mid-90s Young And Dangerous saga. Those earlier films are its aesthetic, formal foundations to spin a complex, elusive tale, with an appealingly grounded, down-to-earth sensibility not found in its genre ancestors. John Woo’s films, with Chow Yun-fat in the lead role, were instant myths; the Young And Dangerous movies were relentlessly kinetic, cinematic manga, with a troublingly romantic view of the Triad lifestyle. Infernal Affairs, in contrast, combines the very best elements of urban Hong Kong cinema - the enthralling drama of Woo’s heroic bloodshed, combined with Lau’s energy and innate cool; and, topping it off, the existential ponderings connoisseurs would most frequently associate with Wong Kar-wai.
That the film recalls Wong Kar-wai’s work should be no surprise. Co-director Lau, who is also co-credited with cinematography, is a veteran collaborator of Wong’s, serving as cinematographer on As Tears Go By and sharing credit on Chungking Express with Christopher Doyle, who is credited here as Visual Consultant. Quite what Doyle’s role, and his level of influence was is perhaps unknowable upon viewing, but there’s no denying that Infernal Affairs has a unique visual look that is not quite replicated or matched in its two sequels. Hong Kong has rarely looked better than it does here; the camera capturing the beauty of the island, while also reflecting the characters’ growing sense of paranoia and isolation. Even scenes taking place in broad daylight, on rooftops overlooking the magnificent harbour, somehow manage to feel claustrophobic.
But this is also a testament to a tight script, spinning wickedly from its simple but ingenuous set-up. By placing utmost priority on the central characters, Infernal Affairs plays like an urban Shakespearean tragedy, with snap decisions and (dis)honourable impulses creating knock-on effects that spill out of the characters’ control. To claw their way out of one mess, Yan and Ming have to place themselves in an even bigger mess, creating a pervading sense of doom (or, more poetically, the concept of “continuous hell,” introduced in a subtitled Buddhist proverb over the film’s closing credits) looms large, even in the quiet, expository scenes. Yan and Ming live under a dark cloud of threat and retribution, the cloud constructed of their own existential guilt.
Co-directors Lau and Mak pull off a master-stroke with the central casting of Tony Leung and Andy Lau. Veterans of Hong Kong cinema, with numerous popular and art house films on their CVs, they were guaranteed to bring in as many mainstream as discerning viewers; their well-matched charisma sells the more stylised sequences and occasional unlikely plot-turn/contrivance; and their sheer talent conveys the slowly-mounting inner agony of both men.
Lau’s turn here was something of a surprise. One of the biggest box-office draws in all of Hong Kong cinema, known internationally for more mainstream, genre films, his quiet intensity is as alluring as it is despicable; Ming’s mouth may tell his colleagues one thing, but his eyes tell the audience another. Though he expresses a wish to simply break free of Sam’s grip, and live up to the high-achieving persona he has created for himself, Ming’s shifty, alert gaze is a window into a mind working overtime to figure out how best to save his own skin, whatever the cost.
In any other year, Andy Lau would have won the Hong Kong Film Best Actor award for which he was nominated, but the lone superior performance was in the same film. As Yan, Tony Leung brings all of the quiet, soulful sadness of his earlier award-winning role in Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood For Love, infusing it with a more volatile, unhinged personality than we regularly see from him. With the retrospect provided by the sequels, it is easy for the audience to imagine the angst and anguish rioting in Yan’s heart; but in the first Infernal Affairs all Leung had to work with was a breakneck prologue establishing the premise. Nevertheless, ten years of deception and paranoia is etched into Leung’s face. It is a magnificent performance.
The supporting cast are not afforded the time and attention to match the central pair, but there is a brace of truly wonderful turns from Anthony Wong, whose gravitas elevates a slightly underwritten superior officer role, de facto father figure to both moles. The surprise package of the secondary roles is Eric Tsang, who eschews the buffoon persona he perfected in Sammo Hung’s Lucky Stars series (the films for which he is perhaps best known internationally) in favour of a startlingly villainous, oddly charismatic Triad boss.
Infernal Affairs is an undoubted classic of its genre, though not without the odd flaw. Its plot is dependent on contrivances made forgivable by the strength of the theme and characterisation, even if the directors’ touch with characterisation is not extended to any of the three female roles. Under-written and underplayed to the point of irrelevance, neither Kelly Chen as Yan’s appointed psychiatrist, Sammi Cheng as Ming’s live-in girlfriend (whose aspiring novelist character often feels like a missed opportunity), or Elva Hsiao as an old flame of Yan’s make a mark on the film - theirs being ‘written’ emotions that do not match the organic, genuine and raw emotions of the male cast. Cheng is a trophy girlfriend, there to represent what Ming has put at risk with his double-dealing; Chen serves as a counter-point in scenes acting as breathing space between plot sequences, her half-hearted exposition and musings telling the audience nothing Tony Leung isn’t making clearer just with his eyes; and poor Hsiao has a thankless role where she gets misty-eyed over a clichéd and obvious back-story at odds with the vitality of the rest of the film.
But these niggles are ones the viewer applies after the fact. Put simply, Infernal Affairs is a film about troubled men, and if the female characters don’t contribute much to proceedings, they certainly don’t subtract from a viewer’s enjoyment of a well-crafted, slyly plotted, and brilliantly acted thriller that is one of the finest, most enjoyable, and gripping films of its decade.
Infernal Affairs has certainly left a legacy, not just in the obvious cribbing of its visual and tonal stylings in Hong Kong/Asian cinema. As noted above, it formed the basis of Martin Scorsese’s The Departed, which went on to worldwide success, as well as awards glory - in its wake came some pleasingly sophisticated crime dramas and thrillers, most notably and recently in the directorial work of Ben Affleck, whose Gone Baby Gone and The Town owe a clear debt to Scorsese’s film and, by extension, to Scorsese’s source, Infernal Affairs. To return to the very beginning of this retrospective, it was said upon its release that the original Infernal Affairs was a ‘box office miracle’ in Hong Kong - a little bit of that miracle was sprinkled over Hollywood, and it was the movie-going public that benefited. Superlatives are exhausted. See this film if you haven’t already. JN
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