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Infernal Affairs Movie Review

Infernal Affairs is a 2002 Hong Kong action thriller film co-directed by Andrew Lau and Alan Mak. It stars Andy Lau and Tony Leung. It is solid, though overrated.

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“I’ll dream of you, Officer Yan“

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When released from the police academy, Chan is recruited to infiltrate a notorious gang. However, things become complicated when a mole slowly emerges within law enforcement. This is the original version from Hong Kong that eventually would get a US remake that would end up winning Best Picture. It’s crazy to me that this one wasn’t even nominated in the foreign category, yet its remake won, but the two are pretty much the same movie.

The highlights are the characters and the actors playing them. Tony Leung is reliably outstanding in a great role for him while Andy Lau basically started his career with this film that saw him reach immense fame. The two are so amazing that the others were all underdeveloped and uninteresting in comparison.

Infernal Affairs is technically strong. The cinematography is great, the directing from both of these men is very good and the script is interesting. The complex nature of identity and how these two men switch their job positions and their identities was fascinating to explore and it made for a superb third act.

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But the rest of the movie wasn’t as entertaining and the film needed more intense moments and better pacing. Overall, the characterization is only fine, but for this type of story the characters needed to have been much better developed. The dialogue is also only okay.