Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

Infernal Affairs Blu-ray Movie Review

How much did Scorsese depart from this version?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 11, 2011

Oh, for those thrilling days of yesteryear when good was good, evil was evil, and the heroes and villains made it all easy by wearing white and black hats. Moral certainty has obviously gone the way of the dinosaur, at least for films like Infernal Affairs, which has so many characters at cross purposes and with conflicting motives that had they all been wearing hats, they no doubt would have been uniformly gray. Infernal Affairs was a sensation in 2002 when it was released in Hong Kong and it went on to provide the inspiration for the film that finally won Martin Scorsese a Best Director Academy Award, The Departed. If you’ve seen The Departed, Infernal Affairs makes a fascinating Ur-experience, as if some archival version of the Scorsese film had been unearthed and suddenly provided an alternate universe version of the basic storyline. If you haven’t seen The Departed, at least some aspects of Infernal Affairs might initially be confusing, as this film whizzes by at the cinematic equivalent of the speed of sound, and the conflicting motives and interrelationships of several of the characters can take a second viewing to completely unravel. Director Andrew Lau wastes absolutely no time in this film, providing a brisk prologue (which might not be completely clear to first time viewers) that sets up the two main characters, Chan (ultimately played by Tony Leung) and Lau (ultimately played by Andy Lau, not the same as the director), shown here in their relative youths and set up as rival “moles,” each unaware of the other. Chan is shown to have been deceptively “expelled” from the police force, when in actuality he’s been recruited to go undercover and infiltrate the triad crime organization run by local mob boss Hon Sam (Eric Tsang). At the same time, Hon himself has recruited a whole slew of young men he’s set up to infiltrate the police, chief among them Lau. The bulk of the film takes place a few years later, after Chan is well ensconced in the criminal underworld and Lau has climbed the ranks of the police force and is a trusted Senior Inspector.

Much of Infernal Affairs plays out as a sort of mirror image cat and mouse game. Lau’s superior Wong (Anthony Wong) wants to discover who the mole is on his force, ultimately helping Lau get promoted to investigate the situation (obviously investigating himself, as it were). Wong is also one of the few people to know Chan’s real identity, but wants Chan to stay undercover until Hon can be arrested. Meanwhile, Hon is out to figure out who the mole is in his organization, and guess who ends up investigating that? Chan, of course. In the meantime, Chan in his guise as undercover cop is attempting to ferret out who the police mole is, and he comes dangerously close to uncovering Lau’s secret. Making all of this all the more convoluted is the fact that the two men actually know each other socially from an early scene in a stereo shop, where Lau buys a system from Chan.

What the real subtext of Infernal Affairs is, though, is “who are these guys, anyway?” These are two men desperately pretending to be something they aren’t, and running not just from the truth but from their own inner conflict about what their choices in life have brought them to. If Lau is putatively the more comfortable, he’s perhaps also the more duplicitous, sneaking in information to the crime boss right under the noses of his police superiors. Chan on the other hand is on the verge of a breakdown, wanting more than anything to ditch the criminal lifestyle and reclaim his life as a policeman. He’s conflicted enough that he’s seeing a therapist, something that plays out in unexpected ways as these two lives collide late in the film.

Some of Infernal Affairs can be a tad confusing, especially because director Lau takes things at such a breakneck pace and the viewer is more or less plopped down into this labyrinth without a lot of preparation. If you can get past the opening gambit, where characters are introduced rapid fire and the basic set up is initiated, the bulk of the film falls nicely into place and things become much clearer after the first half hour or so. At that point both moles are firmly ensconced in their respective territories and the real cat and mouse games can begin.

The creative team both in front of the camera and behind it in Infernal Affairs is on record as stating that while they appreciate The Departed, they feel it was a Hollywood-ized version of their film, and the fact is that really can’t be disputed, especially when one considers the megawatt star power the Scorsese project offered. What Infernal Affairs offers that perhaps The Departed didn’t is a grittier, more unseemly ambience that may exaggerate the moral ambivalence of these characters but which makes their inner turmoil all the more visceral. Infernal Affairs cops out a little (no pun intended) in its final moments, not offering the standard denouement those with a firm moral compass might have wanted, but that, too, may be part of director Lau’s insistence that the days of white hats and black hats are long, long gone.

Infernal Affairs Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Infernal Affairs is presented on Blu-ray with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.34:1. This is a weirdly shoddy looking Blu-ray that is plagued with noise, digital sharpening and a just kind of ugly look that may argue that the source elements were not all they might have been, despite the film's relatively recent vintage. Some of the film looks quite good, oddly the opening credits sequence being one of the standout segments. Some of the close-ups in outside locations also pop with abundant clarity and fine detail. But large swaths of the film are just bathed in noise that begins to approach the look of swarms of locusts, things are quite soft generally while having the odd addition of edge enhancement offering considerable haloing at times, and despite overall strong color and decent contrast, this is somewhat of a disappointing Blu- ray debut for a film that has such an impressive pedigree and influence.

Infernal Affairs Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Infernal Affairs has two lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 audio options, one in the original Cantonese and the other a fairly useless English dub. To dispense with the English dub first off, it's mixed obscenely loudly (just toggle back and forth between the English and Cantonese mixes for a quick example of this), and the dub frequently has little to do with the original Cantonese dialogue, at least judging by the subtitles. The Cantonese mix on the other hand is incredibly robust (without being overly loud), with some fantastic directionality with a wealth of ambient environmental effects and several great action sequences. Dialogue is clear and well prioritized, and the film has some aggressive use of LFE in several sequences. Dynamic range is surprisingly wide in this film, which has several quieter dialogue moments interspersed with the more action-heavy sequences.

Infernal Affairs Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• The Making of Infernal Affairs (SD; 15:21) features interviews with the principal cast and crew interspersed with film clips.
• Confidential File: Behind the Scenes Look at Infernal Affairs (SD; 6:04) is a brief featurette showing a couple of scenes being shot.
• Alternate Ending (SD; 2:54) has Lau getting a little more comeuppance than he does in the final version.
• International Trailer (SD; 2:21)
• Original Chinese Trailer (SD; 1:47)

Infernal Affairs Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

If you're a fan of The Departed, you'll probably really enjoy seeing the film that inspired Scorsese's remake. This original version may not be as nuanced as Scorsese's film, but in a way it's more visceral, due partly to its breakneck pace, but also due to the fact that it doesn't spend a lot of time psychoanalyzing these characters (despite Chan being in therapy). Instead the viewer is simply presented with the cold, hard facts of two men who are each pretending to be something that they're not as the noose is tightening around both of them. Some may actually prefer the alternate ending presented as a supplement here to the one actually in the film, which is a bit hard to swallow in terms of what we've seen gone down between these two moles. The big issue with regard to this Blu-ray is the image quality, which is surprisingly shoddy at times. But taken as a whole, and with the bombastic audio helping to tip the scales at least a little in the opposite direction, this release comes Recommended.