Review of Infernal Affairs (2002) by Yash S — 27 Jun 2009

This movie, wow. Here's the thing : if you saw The Departed first, I'm afraid you wont like watching Infernal Affairs very much after that. And I'm so sorry for you.

Admittedly IA lacks the savage wit and godless brutality of the remake, not to mention the cinematic flair and technical flourishes. If you've already seen the remake, you'll have to watch IA at least twice before you realize that, in an intellectual sense, this is by far the superior film. This is where all those great ideas originated, including the spy-versus-spy concept and the marvellous structure. The film has barely a couple of unnecessary moments ; it manages to articulate all these intriguing ideas within a very lean running time of 100 minutes. Despite the low budget, its one of the most sane, intelligent and professionally made Asian films you'll see.

What I dont like about this film is that its tooooo sentimental in places. The remake manages to be far more cunning, suspenseful and lethal, while using the exact same story.