Infernal Affairs: Hong Kong Crime Thriller

Andrew Lau and Alan Mak direct “Infernal Affairs”, a 2002 crime thriller that takes place in Hong Kong. A hit at the time of its release, it achieved a certain level of international success, enough to catch the attention of american film legend Martin Scorsese. He then went on to remake the film with Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon and Jack Nicholson in 2006; the title of the remake was “The Departed”, what propelled Scorsese to his first ever Best Picture and Director Oscar in his career, and the rest is history. Being a big fan of “The Departed” I wanted to watch the original version for quite some time now, and now I’ve finally gotten around to do it. While I did find Lau’s and Mak’s film to be pretty good and entertainment, I can’t deny that it pales in comparison to Scorsese’s treatment of the story. And yet, it is actually unfair to compare the movie (or any other movie for that fact) with one of the masterpieces of one of the greatest living directors, but its inevitable since I saw “The Departed” way before watching this one. Still, I’ll try to refrain from drawing too heavy comparisons in this review.

If you’ve seen “The Departed” you know the basic story: Chan (Tony Leung) is an undercover police officer working as a mole in a Hong Kong triad ruled by Hon Sam (Eric Tsang). At the same time, Sam has Lau (Andy Lau) infiltrate the police department to spy on their operations and always be one step ahead of them. As both parties become aware of the situation, both Chan and Leung are tasked with finding themselves and each other.

The film has a pretty interesting and entertaining story that gives rise to all sorts of moral and existential questions: does being on either side of the law define you as a human being? Can someone decide whether he or she is good or bad? Is our identity defined by how we’re archived in the system? And while I already knew the outcome of the story, it was still interesting to see how the Hong Kong filmmakers dealed with certain situations compared to the american version. Directors Lau and Mak manage to handle narrative tension particularly well. Also, there are some positive differences narrative wise with the Scorsese film, beyond the Boston setting and different characters: for example, the first meeting between Sam and and Superintendent Wong (Anthony Wong) is handled differently, and it lets a different kind of dynamic ensue. Directors Lau and Mak manage to handle narrative tension particularly well

That being said, and I know I said I would try not to compare, but it is basically impossible now, I can’t help it but “The Departed” is superior to “Infernal Affairs” in virtually every aspect. Almost the entire first act of Scorsese’s film is done here in the first ten minutes, what ultimately compromises our investment in the main characters. Also, Hon Sam is a much weaker character than Frank Costello (Nicholson): whereas Costello is a psychopathic, power-addicted and yet strangely charming gangster, Sam is just another mobster boss with nothing to differentiate him from other similar figures within the genre. And somehow, Scorsese’s version maages to be much subtler than the original, and we all know that Scorsese is everything but subtle. The recurring flashbacks to thing we’ve already seen in the movie, the use of generic and emotionally sugestive music, it all adds up to a kind of by-the-numbers experience.

It may seem that this review rather falls on the negative side, but I want to reiterate that “Infernal Affairs” is in fact a good movie and a very enjoyable one too. Like I said, it is kind of unfair for it to be compared with one of Scorsese’s strongest films, but that’s the way it is. Lau and Mak did a pretty solid flick, its only that Scorsese did the same film better just a couple of years after the release of the original. Still, it is a very good movie and it even spanned two sequels (though to be honest, I’m not that interested in seeing them). If you haven’t seen “The Departed” I’d suggest you watch this one first, that way you can enjoy the film for what it is and not on how it was done better later, and even if you have seen Scorsese’s version and liked it its pretty interesting to see where it all came from. This might be one of the few cases in which a remake improved on the original, but then again, the talent behind the remake makes it an unfair game altogether. Still, I’m pretty sure many of you will disagree with me and actually liked “Infernal Affairs” better,; I would certainly like to know your thoughts on this!

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The Filmic Figure of the Gangster

“In ways that we do not easily or willingly define, the gangster speaks for us, expressing that part of the american psyche which rejects the qualities and demands of modern life, which rejects ‘Americanism’ itself.”

-Robert Warshow, “The Gangster as a Tragic Hero”

In 1948, film scholar Rober Warshow wrote a short essay titled “The Gangster as a Tragic Hero”, in which he analyses from a cultural perspective the gangster genre and figure. It is important to note that this was in a time where the most common references for this (sub)genre were Howard Hawks’ Scarface (1932) or Mervyn LeRoy’s Little Caesar (1931); there was no Godfather trilogy (Coppola, 1972-1990), no Goodfellas (Scorsese, 1990), no Pulp Fiction (Tarantino, 1994). Since the publication of this essay the genre has already been developed, reimagined, deconstructed and reconstructed countless times. Also, while the article focuses on mainly american productions, the genre has seen many interpretations in world cinema, with the likes of Japan’s Tokyo Drifter (Suzuki, 1966), Brazil’s City of God (Meirelles, 2002), Italy’s Gomorrah (Garrone, 2008) or France’s A Prophet (Audiard, 2009). Still, I recently had to read Warshow’s essay for the university and I wanted to discuss his ideas onto the genre and how this may apply (or not) to the films post-1948. For the sake of simplicity, I will focus on american gangster films, just like Warshow did in the 40s.

First we have to define the gangster genre: “Gangster Films are developed around the sinister actions of criminals or gangsters, particularly bankrobbers, underworld figures, or ruthless hoodlums who operate outside the law, stealing and violently murdering their way through life.” (http://www.filmsite.org/crimefilms.html) Ok, that’s a simple definition with which we can work with. Second, we must understand the difference between crime film and gangster film: a crime film can be a detective story for example, naturally crime plays a big role, but its focus doesn’t necessarily lie in the gangsters themselves; whereas gangster films are crime films, not every crime film is a gangster film – the gangster film works rather as a subgenre of the crime film.

That being said, let’s take a look at Warshow’s main thesis, which can be seen clearly in the quote above. The figure of the gangster exists with the sole purpose of subverting the american dream, of rising from the masses as an individual and achieving success. This success comes, as expected, at the expense of crime and violence. We as an audience only get to see the criminal and violent aspects of a gangster’s career, thus we associate their enterprise and business mentality with this acts of brutality. And yet, there’s a part of us that admires the gangster and even wishes to become him: they are anti-heroes in the sense that they do what most of us wouldn’t dare, namely going against the establishment into the criminal underworld and rising from the masses as a powerful individual. Much like horror films (click here for my analysis on that genre), the gangster film can reveal aspects of our psyche that we’d rather ignore, but then again, just like the aforementioned genre, it may provide a sort of catharsis for such “inpure” desires.

Warshow adresses the gangster mythos by claiming that the core of it all is the city, a hostile place where anonimity reigns above the individuals and the gangster depends on his wits and brutality to raise in such enviroment. He further says that it is worth knowing the difference between a criminal and a gangster: for him, the former exists in real cities and real underworlds, while the latter exists only as an imaginary construct of our culture. Basically, the gangster is a mythological figure (and a tragic one at that) that has been romanticised by a culture that knows it should condemn him but deep down sympathizes and even adores him.

But there is a second dimension to the function of the gangster genre as a cultural phenomena, and here is where I wanna draw differences between the films pertient to this genre before the writing of this article and those that came later. This dimension is, in essence, a moral one: in the classical era, all gangster films (according to Warshow) end with the death of the anti-hero, a downfall that serves as a reckoning for those who dare go against the system and go into the criminal world (it is also worth noticing that most of these were produced before the Hays Code kicked in in 1932). And while I won’t argue that in more modern iterations the gangster doesn’t suffer consequences for his actions, it is his final punishment that is different: by the end of The Godfather Part II (which was intended to be the final entry before Coppola decided to return 16 years later because of financial reasons) Michael loses his family, the trust of his closest allies and even his convictions by killing his own brother – he may still be at the top of his empire, but he has basically lost everything on a personal level; at the end of Goodfellas, Henry is forced to renounce his wealthy lifestyle and his dream of always being a gangster in order to simply survive; in American Gangster (Scott, 2007), Lucas is caught by the police and is sentenced to 70 years of prison (though to be fair, his sentence is shortened because of his collaborating with the police).

Sure, there are still plenty of examples of newer films where the gangster is dead by the end, but it comes as a final ordeal after having already suffered greater punishment: Sullivan’s wife leaves him after discovering his involvement with the mob in The Departed, and by the end of Reservoir Dogs basically every gangster is dead except for one, but before that the heist went completely wrong and their trust as a group was broken. Ok, we can agree that the practice of killing the gangster by the end of the movie as a sort of moral judgement and as a message of warning is still in use, but what I’m trying to argue is that this particular trope, which was employed in virtually every gangster film of the classical Hollywood period according to Warshow, is an example of an aspect of the genre that has been revolutionized since the essay was written.

We can still see in the american gangster films of today many of the traits with which Robert Warshow characterized the genre back in 1948: the gangster as an anti-hero who subverts the ideal of the american dream, the desire to trascend the masses and raise as an individual, and the final punishment of justice falling above him as a consequence for the crimes he has committed throughout his career. Still, given that this essay was written 70 years ago, it is no wonder that the genre has evolved since then – in this case, I wanted to show how the gangster’s final fate is not exactly how it was executed back in the day, even though we still get examples for such resolutions. The gangster genre is one that is very interesting to look at, and many of the greatest films ever made can be found within this genre. That’s why it is important to look into it and its theories, they may reveal aspects of our culture we hadn’t considered before.

Sources:

-Robert Warshow, “The Gangster as a Tragic Hero”

-“Crime and Gangster Film”, http://www.filmsite.org

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