#248 Mou gaan dou [EN: Infernal Affairs] (2002)

Excuse the poor etiquette by starting this off talking about a different movie and including so much off-topic discussion, but...

The Departed, which I am sure most people have seen, is simply an American re-make of this movie - Infernal Affairs. Before viewing Infernal Affairs, I had no idea it was the original foreign version of The Departed. It took about 15 minutes and I just had this feeling I had seen this movie before without English dubbed-over voices and Chinese actors. It hit me when the police Chief (or some high ranking police officer who knew too much) was thrown off the top of the station after being jumped in the elevator by the bad guys. BAM! This thing is a rip-off of The Departed!... wait, no way - it came out BEFORE The Departed, which is a rip-off of Mou gaan dou!!! :-o

So many similarities by the end of the movie, and even more as I think back through both movies. I won't list them here, watch both movies (if you have seen neither, view Infernal Affairs first) and you'll agree.

I liked Infernal Affairs, and if I had never seen The Departed I would be even more enamored with this film. A solid police drama with plot twists galore - you may not see them coming if you haven't seen the "re-make".

In case you couldn't tell by reading what I typed above, I now hate The Departed even more (I never really liked it in the first place). Maybe it wasn't intended to be taken as original (The Departed, that is), but I never saw or heard anything telling me "based on Mou gaan dou (Infernal Affairs)" >.<

Scorsese should be ashamed for trying to pass off The Departed as anything original. He just used American actors and made very slight adjustments (if you can call it that) to the scenes to make money off movie-viewers thinking he had directed an original film.

That is all.