I'll be honest. I saw this film after seeing The Departed a total of eight times in theaters, and so my viewing was consciously more of a Venn diagram between the two versions than seeing it as its own beast. Scorsese's version towers over this film, but not without a few preferences from Hong Kong's side of the concept.
The head of the special investigations unit for whom the undercover cop, played with a highlight performance by Tony Leung Chiu Wai, works, played in Scorsese's The Departed by Martin Sheen, is portrayed so much better in this version. Despite how much better The Departed is than its predecessor, there was a stiffness to Martin Sheen's performance and in some of his scenes, especially his final one, which in IA is given a much looser, less comfortable, and frankly better stylized effect.
The scene in The Departed which two henchmen are joking about how to spot undercover cops is handled so much better in IA. In The Departed, there's an inexplicability about the scene, because it doesn't seem funny and it doesn't seem to have a purpose. In Infernal Affairs, the scene grows organically out of the dialogue.
Infernal Affairs is a decent thriller, yet it lacks the density and might of Scorsese's version. For instance, the female character in The Departed is a very human, poignantly pegged police psychologist played sensitively by Vera Farmiga. In Infernal Affairs, each male character, at least each one with a Roman numeral in the alphanumerical outline, has their own respective laxly probed "girl" character, the most hollow of which has the least amount of screen time and is for some reason featured on the cover scantily clad with a hand cannon as big as her head, the likes or ensuing effects of which she is not seen anywhere near in her very spare time on screen.
Infernal Affairs features flashbacks during its unraveling of plot twists. These flashbacks consist of replays of scene fragments that we've already seen, as if we didn't pick up on them before. It's one thing when we're looking back to get a look at something we already saw from the other end of the telescope, but here we're only being refreshed, which isn't needed. If a movie shows you something, then it's trusting you to absorb it. To replay it for the same reason you showed it in the first place is an insult to the audience's intelligence.
The Departed digs deep into the culture of its Irish-American environment, implying few degrees of separation between distant characters' upbringings, the aging neighborhoods, and details of that nature. I suppose Infernal Affairs didn't need to do this, but then again neither did The Departed. The verdict is that The Departed is a much more memorable film not simply because of the towering production values of a Scorsese film but because it's so much richer. Infernal Affairs is just another thriller to me. (Doesn't that title bother you? Infernal Affairs. It's silly, really. Its sum worth is an overt pun.)
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ldrinkyourmilkshake
17 years ago
Infernal Affairs is a silly title, but that's just the English title they use for the US (i don't know about other english speaking countries, but they might use that title too). The actual title of the movie is mou gaan dou which literally translates to "no-stop road" i believe. relating back to the whole theme of choosing a path in this film, i think this is a pretty well-fitting title.
personally, i enjoyed this film a lot more than the departed. i thought the ending was much more thoughtful and actually gave you something to think about in infernal affairs. the ending in the departed was kind of comical (which i guess was intentional) but it just sort of left me with a feeling of wow, that was all pointless.
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punits
17 years ago
I saw Departed first and liked it. Watching IA later definitely spoilt the suspense, but still i felt it was better made than Departed.
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