Infernal Affairs
This is an elegant, sophisticated actioner with a rock-solid premise: An undercover cop infiltrates a crime gang, a gangster infiltrates the cops, and each seeks to discover the other’s identity. Co-directors Andrew Lau (who also stars as the gangster-cop) and Alan Mak stage their existential thriller against a bleak and unforgiving Hong Kong, much like the L.A. of Michael Mann’s “Heat” — a major visual and thematic influence. While “Infernal Affairs” (2002) has some operatic qualities, by and large it’s efficient and restrained. Lau and the great Tony Leung (the cop-gangster) perform in the same clipped, businesslike style. The story has a ruthless momentum, quickly establishing how each man began to infiltrate the other’s organization 10 years earlier before moving to the present. The scenes with their respective love interests are a bit sugary for American tastes, but the movie never loses its hard edges.
UPDATE: Before I saw “The Departed,” Martin Scorsese’s big-budget remake of “Infernal Affairs,” I thought Scorsese would have trouble capturing Lau’s austere emotional palette. I shouldn’t have worried. Scorsese and screenwriter William Monahan made “The Departed” their own by infusing it with bracing gallows humor. “The Departed” is juicier, less solemn and more fun than its source material.