- I'll fully admit that it's not easy to get past Infernal Affairs' awful English title or the film's choppy first ten minutes. Stick with it, though, and you will be rewarded with one of the best modern crime dramas I've seen out of Hong Kong or anywhere else. The setup is simple: what if the cops and robbers each have a well-placed mole in the other organization? Further assume that only the top brass on each side knows about the mole it planted. In the wrong hands, this may have turned into a plot twist-a-thon in which double-crosses multiplicatively combined to increasingly obnoxious levels. Instead, directors Andrew Lau and Alan Mak skillfully lay out a character-driven tale of two men who find themselves on the wrong sides of a fence that isn't as well-defined as everyone seems to think.
- Chan Wing-yan (Tony Leung) is a scruffy-looking hooligan type whose broken arm presumably resulted from one of the recent instances of assault in which he was involved. We gather that his work for the notorious crime lord Hon Sam (Eric Tsang) involves applying intimidation and force to collect payouts and oversee drug deals. Chan's only moments of peace arrive in the office of his therapist (Kelly Chen), where he takes a series of well-timed and expensive naps. We later discover that he also dreams about her, but his lifestyle doesn't leave any room for romance. You see, Chan is the undercover cop placed by the redoubtable Police Superintendent Wong (Anthony Wong) to infiltrate Sam's gang. Aside from his haggard countenance and the watch Wong gives him as a belated birthday gift, Chan doesn't have much to show for his years of excruciating undercover work.
- Lau Kin-ming (Andy Lau), on the other hand, has a lot to show for his years of service to the police force. He's a decorated detective who has recently moved in to a swanky new apartment with his affectionate girlfriend (Sammi Cheng). He is obviously well-trusted by Superintendent Wong, but the audience also knows that he is exceedingly well-appreciated by his true employer, Hon Sam. It turns out that Lau's other job is to channel information to Sam about police stings and drug busts, enabling the audacious gangster to stay one step ahead of the cops. Complicating matters, however, are the simultaneous efforts by Chan to send Morse code messages to Wong detailing Sam's every move. This competition culminates in the film's tensest scene in which a rapidly evolving arms race develops between cop and crook in the midst of a Thai drug deal. As a result, it doesn't take long for both sides to realize that there must be a mole in their midst. Now the fun really begins.
- From the film's opening Buddha quote that immediately recalls Jean-Pierre Melville to the cool-color cinematography and ambiguous anti-heroes that define the films of Michael Mann, it is clear that Infernal Affairs has taken some cues from the world's best directors of crime cinema. That said, the film still manages to stand out in several respects. For one, it transforms tech-based surveillance, the albatross around the neck of the modern crime procedural, into a strength by having the competing groups monitor one another in constantly changing ways. Additionally, the film's characters, ranging from the two excellent leads and the enjoyably diabolical Sam to a goofy hood (Chapman To) who knows more than he lets on, are all exceedingly well-written and acted. The film's most striking element, however, may be its final resolution. With a quick flash of a badge and the simple line "I'm a cop," one of the two moles manages to walk out of this mess alive. Whether he escapes unscathed is another matter entirely.
- I did my best to avoid mentioning that this film was later adapted by Martin Scorsese into The Departed.
