In a nutshell, Bored & Dangerous syas: “I’ll definitely be watching the two sequels (prequels?).”
The main reason I started this blog was to make me watch more movies, and to vary the kinds of movies I watched. The first part of that has been well and truly accomplished with me watching hundreds of movies for the first time, instead of falling back on old favourites over and over again. But l’m not sure if I’ve varied my selections enough. I still watch mainly American movies, with directors, writers and actors that make them a pretty safe bet. So this year, I’m forcing myself to seek out more international movies. With Foreign Language Weekends, every weekend(ish) during 2016, I’ll review two(ish) non-English language movies.
“Remember this, if you see someone doing something but at the same time watching you… then he is a cop.”
As a wannabe movie nerd, I know there’s a real hole in my knowledge of and appreciation for Hong King cinema, specifically Hong Kong action cinema. I think before now, John Woo’s Hard Boiled might have been the total extent of my Hong Kong viewing. And even then, I was a little underwhelmed by what I’m lead to believe is a bit of a bench mark in the genre. Maybe I’d seen too many derivative American knock offs to really appreciate what Hard Boiled had to offer, but it didn’t compel me to see more. What did compel me to see more was knowing that Martin Scorsese’s The Departed was a remake of the Hong Kong movie, Infernal Affairs.
Tony Leung is Chan Wing-yan, a cop who goes undercover to infiltrate a gang of triads, he’s the Leonardo DiDacprio of Infernal Affairs. Andy Lau is dirty cop Lau Kin-ming, on the payroll of the same triads, let’s call him, Matt Damon. Their shared triad boss is Eric Tsang’s Hon Sam, AKA Jack Nicholson. If you’ve seen The Departed, you know this is a cat and mouse game where Leung and Lau are both constantly cat and mouse at the same time. Each is hot on the other’s trail, trying to uncover their deception, while all the time knowing they’re also being pursued by one another. It’s an ouroboros, snake eating its own tail kind of deal. (more…)