Infernal Affairs reunites old buddies Andy Lau and Tony Leung in this
explosive cop thriller. It has been a long while since both actors
have starred in a film together, and along with veterans Eric Tsang
and Anthony Wong, the hype was already up and running about this film
becoming the biggest hit of 2002.
Most cop thrillers are based upon police officers
going undercover, but what about the other way round? What if a
triad member joined the police force and became a mole for crime
lords? This is the pretext of the film, and we see triad boss Sam
(Eric Tsang) and police officer Wong (Anthony Wong) placing their
respective moles into each other's territories.
Ming (Andy Lau) has become a top police officer
and is under the command of Officer Wong, but he secretly works
for Sam. Meanwhile, Yan (Tony Leung) is an underling of Sam, but
has been an undercover cop for the past ten years, and the only
person who knows his true identity is Officer Wong.
Both Ming and Yan live in parallel lives whose
roles are mirror images of each other, but while Yan wants out and
become a true police officer, Ming has become ambitious, and his
role as a top police officer makes him dangerous to both Officer
Wong and Sam.
Leung, Lau, Wong and Tsang give impressive performances,
but it is really Leung's performance which makes the film. His vulnerability
is often masked by a stonefaced persona he had acquired after being
undercover for so many years, as a single mistake could literally
kill him. However, this mask hurts him in more ways than one, and
the only person he could confide into is his psychiatrist (Kelly
Chan), even though he knows he shouldn't.
Tony Leung's role as an undercover cop reminds
me of the same role he played in John Woo's Hard Boiled (which also
starred Anthony Wong), but whereas Hard Boiled featured extreme
gunplay, Infernal Affairs offers only miniscule action. Most of
the film is about characters outwitting others, and so therefore
if you're after a film like Hard Boiled, then this is not for you.
But if you like an intelligent film, full of great solid characters
and a more than decent plot, then I'd suggest you give this a shot,
although I found the ending to be a bit disappointing.
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