As many readers know by now, Martin Scorsese was honored by his peers, winning the Best Director award for The Departed from the Directors Guild of America. There are people who were surprised that Scorsese and the film got the kind of acclaim and critical attention received so far. If they had bothered to see the film that The Departed is based on, they wouldn’t have been so surprised.
Available on DVD, Infernal Affairs, is considered the film that saved the Hong Kong film industry when it came out in 2002. In addition to being a commercial hit, the film won several major awards, both from the Hong Kong Film Awards and the Golden Horse Awards. Both times, Infernal Affairs won Best Picture, Best Director (for Andrew Lau and Alan Mak), Best Screenplay (for Mak and Felix Chong), Best Actor for Tony Leung (in the role played in The Departed by Leonardo Di Caprio) and Best Supporting Actor for Eric Tsang (the crime boss played by Jack Nicholson in the remake).
If you haven’t seen Infernal Affairs yet, what are you waiting for?
I just hope that anyone who wins an Oscar for The Departed is gracious enough to thank Lau, Mak and Chong for making a great film that served as the basis for an equally terrific film.
By the way, one of the editors of Infernal Affair hasn’t done too badly either. Now a director, Danny Pang had the top movie this past weekend with The Messengers
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Marina said
February 5 2007 @ 1:10 pm
As much as I enjoyed “The Departed”, “Infernal Affairs” is still, to me at least, a much better film.
bert borum said
February 5 2007 @ 5:19 pm
the HK original is a brilliantly paced, acted, edited film. that scorsese would choose to remake it, shows his good taste, but in the end (rather, especially the ham-handed “irony” of the very last shot of the film) it’s the best thing he’s done since casino.
die, leo. die.
bert borum said
February 5 2007 @ 5:22 pm
also, the two sequels to the HK one are pretty barf-inducing.