2 January, 2008

Review: The Departed (2006)

I wasn't sure whether I wanted to see this, as I resent the idea that 'Mou gaan dou' ('Internal Affairs'), a wonderful 2004 film which just happens to be in Chinese, needed to be remade for an Anglophone audience too lazy to read subtitles.

This is the bit where I say "actually, it was pretty good", right?

And it was. Because the original was pretty good. The American version had a big-name director, but that didn't disguise the fact that it was the same film, merely moved from Hong Kong to Boston and reduced to a showcase for big-name Hollywood stars (who, frankly, merely provided their standard, well-established performances). Well, with the graphic violence turned up a notch, and the ending totally ruined by 'closure'.
I think its carbon-copy nature is my main problem with 'The Departed': it doesn't complement 'Infernal Affairs', it replaces it; if you've seen one, there's little reason to see the other. No doubt most people (outside Hong Kong/China) will choose the Martin Scorsese movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, et al. over the Wai-keung Lau/Siu Fai Mak film starring Andy Lau and Tony Leung, thereby burying the latter (deservedly in the IMDb Top 250, 'Infernal Affairs' is currently 193 places below 'The Departed'). And that's a great shame: money will take precedence over originality.

This is the bit where I hope to fight back a little. Watch 'Infernal Affairs'. Avoid the rip-off. Not 'only' as a matter of respect to the original film-makers, but because theirs is the better-realised setting, offering greater insight into the characters' inner turmoil (with no simplistic resolution) – and two good sequels.