More monochromania...

I finally got the chance to watch Infernal Affairs, a Hong Kong-based crime thriller about two cops standing on opposite sides of the law. One is a dirty gangster posing as a mole in the police force. The other is an undercover cop posing as a Triad member. The story follows the intertwined lives of the two characters as one is determined to find and rat out the other in order to gain advantage and save himself.

I have been a fan of Martin Scorcese's The Departed before I saw this film, and my coworker loaned me a copy of this DVD to test my preference among both films. The hard thing about trusting a Hollywood remake of films is in its lack of originality. What more does Hollywood want to do with a film that is already brilliantly made? This was probably one of the questions swimming in my friend's mind as he awaited my response on watching the original Chinese version of the film.

I am a sucker for brilliant photography. Just give me a row of impressive images and I'm all eyes. This is one of the strongest points of Infernal Affairs. Another thing I love about this original is in the simplicity of its plot. The story focuses on games of hide-and-seek between the two central characters, leaving little room for distractions common in lengthy and convoluted subplots. And, of course, the most important thing about this movie that I did not find in the Scorcese version is, yellow men. Dozens and dozens of awesome yellow men.

Kidding aside, I believe in the original concept of the plot, focused characterization, and amazing photography that is showcased in this film. Do I think it more brilliant than The Departed? No. Did the experience lessen my belief in Scorcese? It even strengthened my fascination with his vision.

These are the reasons why I believe The Departed is one of the greatest films of all time, regardless of the fact that it is a mere remake of a brilliant classic:

WARNING: Spoilers ahead. Read on at your own risk.

The Departed strays from the simplicity of plot of Infernal Affairs. It is rich in subplots that entangled the lives of the main characters that drove them to greater conflicts and thus left the audience at the edge of their seats more times than the original version did. While a complex plot can make a movie disastrous, this worked to the advantage of Scorcese. The scenes towards the ending of The Departed, so arranged to unite all its twisted, intricate subplots, worked well to give the audience a satisfying ending.

The presence of a female character in The Departed is another necessary change from Infernal Affairs. The movie brilliantly showcases another angle to the lives of the two characters, which provided another strong conflict to the story. While the bad has had the upper hand in so many instances throughout the story, in the end, the good lives on in the form of an unlikely love child.

The widely popular change that The Departed introduced is the award-winning character played by Mark Wahlberg. He is the uniting factor to the twisted, messy portions of the story. He allowed the original movie to redeem itself of the dark ending that it was made to finish with. In the original, the bad loses to eternal hell. When your audience does not 100% believe in the concept of karma, it's hard for suspension of disbelief to work to the advantage of such an ending. But when you put in a feisty, trigger happy character, willing to kill whoever goes in the way of justice, you provide a satisfying ending that strays from the consequences of death and makes death the main consequence of man's actions.


I enjoyed watching both films, and I love that both have two largely different ways of telling the same story. I still am a fan of the Scorcese version, and continue to list The Departed as one of my favorite movies of all time.