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Review

It would be difficult to overstate the importance of the remarkable Infernal Affairs trilogy on the current Hong Kong film industry: post-1997 handover (and, frankly, for a few years prior to that), the once glorious Hong Kong moviemaking machine fell into a serious slump, as attendance figures and film quality both plummeted over the years, despite the occasional (and often uninspired) local comedy or action hit. The 2002 release of directors Andrew Lau and Alan Mak's melodramatic gangster epic Infernal Affairs was preceded by huge industry expectations: the superstar presences of Andy Lau and Tony Leung Chiu-wai together in a film from one of Hong Kong's few reliable hitmakers (Lau), in a project which promised to deliver a sleek, mature thriller that would bring new life to Hong Kong moviegoing. To say they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams would be an understatement: Infernal Affairs went on to become that year's highest-grossing film, just as it also swept all of the year's significant Hong Kong Film Awards, spawned two equally impressive sequels that had many hailing the trilogy as Hong Kong's equivalent to the Godfather saga, inspired thousands of gushing website fan posts, and resulted in a U.S. remake rights deal for a film to be co-produced by Brad Pitt and directed by Martin Scorsese. But here's the real accomplishment: the film actually is that good, and stands as one of the rare productions that's fully worthy of the hype.

Riveting, intelligent, suspenseful, and emotionally wrenching, Infernal Affairs is not a traditional Woo-styled Hong Kong shoot-'em-up action endeavor so much as it is a powerful meditation on the nature of individual identity, loyalty, and betrayal. Leung and Lau both obviously have charisma to burn, but it's refreshing to see them in roles that also -- particularly with respect to H.K. pop idol Lau -- challenge their dramatic chops: Lau is Lau Kin Ming, a triad gangster who has been living for years as an undercover mole in the Hong Kong police department, while Leung is Chan Wing Yan, an undercover cop who has been serving the same secretive function within the same triad gang that also employs Lau. Their identities have been clandestine for years, but both organizations now begin to suspect that they each have a rat in the house, and the tension mounts as both police and gangland bosses get closer and closer to the truth. Directors Lau and Mak focus on the personal relationships between Leung and Lau with their superiors, as both undercover agents are torn by their divided loyalties and tormented inner lives; this gives Infernal Affairs a consistently gripping human gravitas that would never have been present if the filmmakers had opted to go down the car chase and bullet hit route. Already established as a classic of the genre -- with a prequel, Infernal Affairs II (2003), that is every bit as exceptional as its predecessor -- Infernal Affairs is required viewing, and not just for the traditional Asian genre film fans, but for anyone interested in superlative, accomplished thriller filmmaking.

 -- Travis Crawford