Infernal Affairs (2002)

Review by Chris Tsui

August 27, 2004

The Movie

I personally do not like Hong Kong films a lot, but 2002's Infernal Affairs wowed me. It's one of the best Hong Kong films I've ever seen. Tony Leung, Andy Lau, Anthony Wong and Eric Tsang provide solid performances and the story is intriguing. The plot describes the painful lives of Yan (Tony Leung) and Ming (Andy Lau) as moles for SP Wong (Anthony Wong) of the police and gang boss Sam (Eric Tsang) respectively.

Although the story seems to be simple, Infernal is in fact a quite complex but really entertaining film that won't make you feel bored. The score, sound effects and editing are excellent. It did extremely well in the box office during its theatrical release, and also became the big winner of the 2002 Hong Kong film awards, sweeping away awards including Best Picture. Tony Leung and Anthony Wong received Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor respectively.

Seeing the success of the movie, Media Asia has brought us a 2-disc set for Infernal Affairs (something rare for Hong Kong films which are usually single-disc), released only less than two months after its theatrical release. The DVD comes with a slip-cover with excellent cover-art.

CHRIS' EVALUATION

Fast-paced, exciting and interesting storyline.

The DVD

Disc 1: Infernal Affairs (The Movie)

Picture: B+ / Audio: Dolby Digital B+; DTS A; Stereo B / Extras B

Note: Before reviewing the disc, I have to complain that Disc 1 of the Infernal Affairs DVD has a copyright warning, a montage of film clips and a Sony MD commercial before the menu appears, and they are all unskippable and extremely annoying. This is simply outrageous.

Infernal Affairs is presented in its original widescreen aspect ratio of 2.35:1, enhanced for 16x9 TVs on this single-sided, dual-layered DVD.The cover boasts its image comes from a high-definition transfer from the original negatives. However, I don't see anything special about that. Although the image is overall very clean and crisp, with no edge enhancements or anything distracting, there are specks of dust and dirt flickering throughout the film occasionally. The film could have easily got an "A-", but because of the minor flaws, it lowers to "B+". Note that there are 2 alternative endings for the film: one which was shown in Hong Kong theatrically; and one which was shown in mainland China. The 2 endings are extremely different, but I would prefer the Hong Kong ending anytime.

Audio sounded crisp and clear in all the tracks provided, but the most stand-out presentation was from the DTS track. Sound effects like gunshots and car screeches made good use of the back speakers creating a great sound environment, and the film's award-nominated score sounded terrific here.

The disc also features an audio commentary by directors Andrew Lau and Alan Mak with part of the cast, including Andy Lau. The commentary provides a lot of insight to the film and is very informative, but I find the participants to be talking in a very boring way.

And so, we move on to Disc 2...

Disc 2: Avicinar Aka (Special Features)

Disc 2 is officially called "Avicinar Aka", which actually means Hell in Buddhist scriptures. Well, in this disc, there's nothing like hell but some special features.

Unfortunately, the first feature of the disc is The Story of the film. How nice. Do they think that people would actually read this while the movie is available on Disc 1? It's one of the dumbest "special features" I've ever seen.

Next, we have something called the Confidential File. It contains some footage from the making of the film, some short interviews with Shawn Yue and Edison Chen, and clips from a dinner with the cast and crew after the film's success at the box office. It doesn't tell you anything, but is still fun to watch. What's more, there is an English trailer of the film at the end of the clip which is definitely worth viewing.

After that, we've got two Music Videos of the Cantonese and Mandarin versions of the film's theme song, performed by Tony Leung and Andy Lau. It has a really catchy tune and both versions of the song are equally great.

Then, there is a 16-minute Making Of featurette, you can choose to watch the entire featurette completely or watch them by 4 split chapters. It has some in-depth talk about the film and how the cast and crew think about it.

Next up are some Trailers, which includes a teaser trailer, a theatrical trailer and a TV spot. In the same category there is an option called "More Attractions", which provide trailers of Cat and Mouse, Naked Weapon and He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not.

Before the last feature, we've got a list of Cast & Credits, which tells us a bit more about the cast and the directors.

Finally, a Photo Gallery is available, with 7 lobby stills, 12 movie posters and 10 outdoor billboards and banners. There are also some photos of souvenirs related to the movie. Some images have never been seen before, as they were early concepts.

Conclusion

Overall, this 2-disc set of Infernal Affairs is a good one, with top-notch video and audio, although they could improve the quality and quantity of the extras a bit more. I highly recommend this set.

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