Review – Infernal Affairs III

March 9, 2011

Infernal Affairs III – Hong Kong, 2003

Making a sequel to a film that is intended to fill in the gaps that existed in a previous film is risky for two reasons. First, there is an advantage to leaving some things to the imagination of the viewers. It creates mystery and the possibility for there to be multiple interpretations of what went on after the screen faded to black. Second, what fills in a gap may leave viewers greatly underwhelmed, and such feelings have the potential to lessen someone’s appreciation of an earlier film, even one as good as the first Infernal Affairs. Unfortunately, the final installment of the Infernal Affairs series may do just that for some viewers.

Infernal Affairs III is part prequel, part sequel. It takes us back to the time of the first film and adds an additional adventure to the story of Inspector Lau Kin Ming (Andy Lau) and undercover cop Chan Wing Yan (Tony Leung), this one involving Sam’s potential partnership with a weapons dealer from Mainland China. The part of the film that is a sequel explores the fate of Lau months after Yan’s death. I expected this part to be about a man struggling with his place in the world and trying to come to terms with his actions in the first film, and to the film’s credit, there’s some of this in the film. However, I did not expect there to also be a subplot that seems more appropriate for an Alfred Hitchcock film than a serious police drama. Surprises can be a welcome at times, especially if done well. This is not one of those times, however, and to be honest, it’s not done all that well either.

The film introduces a new character to the Infernal Affairs universe, SP Yeung Kang Wing (Leon Lai). In flashbacks, we learn that he was suspected of working with Sam. After Yan’s death, SP Yeung is suspected of something much more sinister, the murder all of the other moles that Sam had in the police department. Therefore, it stands to reason that Lau must stop him before Yeung comes after him. So essentially what we have in the film is a potentially corrupt cop trying to off a cop who the audience already knows is corrupt. There’s not much reason to care for either one of them under such a scenario.

In the flashback part of the film, we witness Yan trying to ingratiate himself into Sam’s gang, and his efforts are hardly what you would call rewarded, which again makes one wonder just why Sam trusted Yan so much in the original film. We watch as Yan relays information about Sam, Yeung, and a mysterious man from Mainland China known as Shen (Daoming Chen) to SP Wong, and what he witnesses seems to indicate that Sam is now trying to expand his empire past Hong Kong’s borders with China. This story is interrupted often by events that followed Yan’s death. Most of them involve Lau, Yeung, and Dr. Lee. There’s a lot going on in both stories, and the film would have benefitted from a bit more focus.

Internal Affairs III, despite reuniting the main cast from the first film, is one of those sequels that simply wasn’t necessary, at least not in its present form. A film that focused exclusively on Lau’s fate could certainly have been made, and I’m sure it would have been interesting. Infernal Affairs III is just not that film. Many of the flashbacks are unnecessary, and what happens to Lau turns out not to be all that interesting or plausible. In addition, the film’s major revelation towards the end makes you wonder just why Yan would have met with Lau alone at the end of the first film given that he had someone else on the inside other than SP Wong who knew who he really was.

I’ll mention one last thing about Infernal Affairs III that should have been cut from the film: the flashbacks involving Yan and his court appointed psychiatrist, Dr. Lee Sum Yee (Kelly Chen). The mystery of their relationship was one of the best parts of the first film, and viewers had to be paying close attention to what these two characters said to each other to fully understand the extent of their relationship. What we see in Infernal Affairs III suggests that directors Andrew Lau and Alan Mak simply didn’t have confidence in their audience. Therefore, they filmed all of the details that an intelligent viewer already knew had happened. There’s an additional reason why these scene should have been left on the cutting room floor. Dr. Lee looks completely uncomfortable during the scene, and therefore, the passion that should have been evident to viewers is practically non-existent.

Having said all this, I will reaffirm my esteem for the original Infernal Affairs. It remains a tight, compelling film, and I cannot recommend it more highly. The film two sequels have not yet dampened my appreciation for it. However, my advice to future viewers would be to be finished with the series after the first one. Sad, but true. (on DVD and Blu-ray)

2 and a half stars

*Infernal Affairs III is in Cantonese and Mandarin with English subtitles.

Review – Infernal Affairs II

March 5, 2011

Infernal Affairs II - Hong Kong, 2003

Perhaps one of the hardest kinds of films to make well is the prequel, for there must be some unresolved part of the story for a prequel to be necessary, some mystery that viewers had at the end of the first film that they will now have the answer to. For example, many viewers wanted to know just how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader, and they flocked to the three Star Wars prequels to have that question answered. Compare their response to the empty theatres that accompanied the second prequel to The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal Rising. The only example I can think of of a prequel that doesn’t fit into either category is The Godfather Part II, yet it should be said that the story of Vito Corleone’s rise to power was a part of that film, not the entire narrative. Using this idea of a mystery that needs answering as a barometer, it’s difficult to say that a prequel was needed for the first Infernal Affairs film. There was no mystery to tie up, no hidden story that would help viewers better understand the events that transpired in first film. In fact, the opposite was true. I suspect that many people wondered what would happen next, not what had happened before. Therefore, Infernal Affairs II, in its present state, seems wholly unnecessary.

The film takes viewers back to 1991, six years before Hong Kong reverted back to Mainland Chinese control. The Hong Kong underworld appears to be controlled by the Ngai family, and Sam (Eric Tsang), the Triad boss in the first film, is somewhere down the ladder, and it doesn’t even appear that the four families that pay money to the Ngai’s value his opinion in the slightest. How he could then have already sent a group of young men to infiltrate the police force is a bit of a mystery. The force trying to put the Ngai family in jail is once again led by SP Wong (Anthony Wong) and SP Luk (Jun Hu), who had already died before the events in the first film. Interestingly, in Infernal Affairs II Wong and Sam seem to be rather close acquaintances, which actually gels with how their interacted in the first film. And of course, there’s Yan (Shawn Yue) and Lau (Edison Chen). We learn that Yan was expelled from the police force due to his connection to organized crime. He’s the half-brother of Hau Ngai (Francis Ng), the new head of the Ngai family. As for Lau, we learn that he was in very much in love with Sam’s wife Mary (Carina Lau), a rather ambitious woman who thinks Sam should be much more powerful that he is when the film begins.

The film begins with the assassination of the Ngai family patriarch, an act that could unleash a flurry of violence on the streets of Hong Kong. That is doesn’t happen is the result of some clever blackmail on the part of Hau Ngai, yet the uneasy calm that follows does nothing to settle Hau’s bitter feelings, an observation that is clear to Sam, but not to the other four uncles. Yan is sent in to spy on the Ngai’s. Lau, with the exception of his actions at the beginning and the end of the film, doesn’t do much else.

A good rule of thumb for prequels is this: if a particular character was not in the first film then there’s a good chance he won’t be alive by the time the credits roll. In accordance with this rule, if a character was in the previous film, then any drama revolving around him being in danger can only be resolved one way. Based on the first rule, the future does not bode well for the Ngai family, Mary, the four uncles, or many of the henchmen that the camera focuses intently on. The second rule unfortunately sabotages what are intended to be rather suspenseful moments. For example, when Sam is shot point-blank in the chest, there’s absolutely no surprise that he survives – only incredulity. In fact, Infernal Affairs II could easily have been titled The Rehabilitation of Sam, for I’ve never seen a film go to such lengths to portray a villain is such a positive light. Even worse, by the end of the film, you may wonder just how Sam could ever say that he trusts Yan above all others, let alone hire him.

What makes Infernal Affairs II somewhat interesting is its exploration of the feelings of its characters regarding the events of 1997. Some are trying hard to retire before the handover; others are worried that they won’t be needed anymore, which for some soldiers indeed turned out to be true, a subject expanded on in Fruit Chan’s 1998 film, The Longest Summer. In Infernal Affairs II, the Ngai family views the event as giving them a chance to step out from the shadows of disrespectability. I wonder how many other criminal families had the same idea. However, by the end of the film, it’s clear that the only thing that has really changed is the picture of public enemy #1 that hangs on the wall of SP Wong’s office. We see Hau’s picture come down and Sam’s go up in its place. Now, who didn’t predict that? (on DVD and Blu-ray)

2 and a half stars

*Infernal Affairs II is in Cantonese and Mandarin with English subtitles.

Review – Infernal Affairs

March 2, 2011

Infernal Affairs – Hong Kong, 2002

If you needed further proof of the insanity of the Oscars, look no further than the nominees for Best Foreign Film in 2004 – The Barbarian Invasions (Canada), Evil (Sweden), The Twilight Samurai (Japan), Twin Sister (the Netherlands), and Zelery (the Czech Republic). In mentioning these films, I am not making a comment about the quality of the films nominated, for in truth, I have only seen two of the films listed above. However, I would like to point out one glaring omission, glaring simply because the remake of it was thought of so highly by the Academy that it was declared the best film of 2006. In fact, looking at the voting record of the Academy as a whole, the omission is not surprising. The Academy tends to favor foreign films that are slightly light-hearted or not very controversial over fast-paced films or ones with much darker undertones. Consider these decisions: Mediterraneo over Raise the Red Lantern in 1992, Belle Epoque over Farewell My Concubine in 1994, Nowhere in Africa over Hero in 2003, The Sea Inside over Downfall in 2005, and Tsotsi over Paradise Now in 2006. And who can forget that a recent film that has come to be regarded by many as one of the best films of all time was not even nominated for Best Foreign Film, that being 2002’s City of God? Therefore, given its track record, I’m not surprised that the Academy passed over the film Hong Kong submitted for the 2004 Academy Awards. A foreign film like Andrew Lau and Alan Mak’s Infernal Affairs was probably just not their cup of tea. Their loss.

Infernal Affairs is the story of two young men, each assigned to become a mole. As a young man, Kin Ming Lau (Andy Lau) is placed in the Hong Kong Police Department by Sam Hon, the head of a Hong Kong Triad. His job is to rise in the department and one day help Sam’s business remain unobstructed. The other young man, Chen Wing Yan (Tony Leung), is recruited during his initial police training for a long undercover assignment. It is supposed to be three years. However, towards the beginning of the film, we learn that it’s already been six. In order to maintain his cover, his assignment is known by only two men, one of whom has recently passed on. Yan’s ultimate goal is to integrate himself into Sam’s gang and help bring him down.

All of the details above are explained extremely quickly at the start of the film. This is a wise approach, for it leaves the majority of the film’s running time for the intense cat-and-mouse game that follows. In the first major scene, we see one mole sending information to his boss at the Hong Kong Police Department while the mole in the police department tries his hardest to warn Sam of the police’s every move. It’s a very tense scene, and by the end of it, each of the moles has become aware of the other’s existence. In a nice touch, the mole in the police department is the one eventually assigned to find out who the leak is.

There are two female characters that deserve mentioning. Neither of the characters is given much screen time, but their presence is important nonetheless. The first is Lau’s girlfriend, Mary (Sammi Cheng). She decides to write a novel about a character with twenty-eight personalities who becomes so confused about his identity that he cannot remember which personality is really his. In essence, he does not know whether he is a good man or a villain. It’s clear early on that she’s basing this character on Lau, and her confusion about the character’s true nature tells us much about her conflicted feeling towards Lau. And it’s no wonder. In one scene, Lau walks around the apartment they share together talking to Sam on the phone and telling him things that just don’t sound very innocuous, all within earshot of the woman we assume he wants to keep in the dark about where his true loyalties lie. Just what is she supposed to think? The second character is Dr. Lee Sum Yee (Kelly Chan), Yan’s court-appointed psychiatrist. She plays cards while Yan gets some much needed sleep during their rather unsuccessful counseling sessions. After one session, Yan flirts with her rather politely, and she makes no attempt to quote ethical codes that prohibit relationships between doctors and patients. Years later, they run into each other, and Lee makes a very revealing mistake during their brief conversation.

Infernal Affairs is perfectly paced and extremely well directed. Lau and Leung give impressive performances, and their scenes together cackle with energy and raw emotion. It’s a credit to Lau that his character never becomes truly hated. In fact, I suspect many people will have a degree of pity for him. Matching these two performances is the work of Eric Trang, who plays Sam, and Anthony Wong, who plays Yan’s boss, Supervisor Wong, the only person who knows that Yan is really a cop.

Infernal Affairs is largely credited with reenergizing the film industry in Hong Kong, an industry that one of its box office heavyweights once described as producing way too may films that were subpar. By 2002, some of its most famous directors, such as John Woo, had left to make films in the United States, and superstars Jackie Chan and Jet Li had already been starring in American film for several years. However, in Hong Kong in 2002, Infernal Affairs was more popular than both Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Spider-Man. It eventually spawned two successful sequels in addition to the aforementioned American remake, Martin Scorsese’s The Departed. In addition, in 2002 only four of the most successful films in Hong Kong were actually from Hong Kong; the following year, the number had risen to six. Unfortunately, the upwards trend has not continued, and only two of the most popular films in 2010 were local productions. It’s highly unlikely that Infernal Affairs was the sole reason for the rejuvenation of Hong Kong cinema. In fact, on CNN’s Talk Asia, Andrew Lau attributed his role in the turn around to luck. However, it must be said that there is something very special about Infernal Affairs, and unlike some other recent influential films, time has thus far not diminished it a bit. It is a truly towering achievement that I predict will continue to stand the test of time. (on DVD and Blu-ray)

4 and a half stars

*Infernal Affairs is in Cantonese and Mandarin with English subtitles.