Infernal Affairs II (2003)

For last month’s Genre Grandeur at MovieRob’s site, I revisited Infernal Affairs and showed how I have very deep appreciation for that one.  You can check it out HERE! That brought on my desire to continue watching the trilogy.  So thats what we’re going to do for the next few days 🙂 I believe Infernal Affairs 2 & 3 are not very popular outside of Hong Kong.  I’m not even sure if they were popular within Hong Kong. But it is in fact a trilogy and therefore, it just seems right to finish it off in style.

**A word of advice: If you HAVE NOT seen the first one, you might want to check it out before blindly moving into the following two.**

Let’s check it out!

Director: Wai-Keung Lau & Alan Mak

Cast: Eric Tsang, Anthony Wong, Carina Lau, Francis Ng, Shawn Yue, Edison Chen, Jun Hu

Rewinding back 12 years before the events of Infernal Affairs, Yan (Shawn Yue) is expelled from the police academy due to his family background.  Despite wanting to distance himself, to the point of using his mom’s last name, it still caused him have that result.  However, all is not lost, Superintendant Wong (Anthony Wong) offers him a chance to be an undercover and try to get involved with his family after the sudden murder of his father by helping out his half brother, Hau (Francis Ng). On the other hand, Sam (Eric Tsang) has sent in Ming (Edison Chen) to be the mole at the police department without knowing that his wife Mary (Carina Lau) had secretly asked him to take out Ngai, the big boss of the triad and also Hau’s father. As both the police and triad have been infiltrated with each other’s men, how long could their secrets be locked up?

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. We all climb towards heaven. We all fall towards hell. – Infernal Affairs 2

Infernal Affairs 2 starts with that quote up there before anything happens.  As the scene rolls in, it lets you know right away that we’ve turned back time to see how young Yan (Shawn Yue) and young Ming (Edison Chen) got to where they were in the first part.  All these events correlate in a certain way and if you paid enough attention in the first one, you’ll see the links.  I thought that was very well pieced together.

Although, Shawn and Edison are both rather green actors when this movie came out, they were surrounded by a stellar cast.  Before I go and talk about the rest of the cast, I do believe that I think, despite them not having a whole lot of screen time (surprising for the purpose of this movie), their roles were enforced enough to make the story strong enough to make us understand how the events had spiraled into Infernal Affairs.  In the first one, even the grown up Yan and Ming are not particularly talkative but more analytical and therefore, they didn’t have much dialogue either.  Many times, silence can enhance the atmosphere of a movie, especially ones that keeps the audience guessing. I honestly think this was just to mask their lack of ability to act but it kind of did work decently.

In the first Infernal Affairs, I already talked about the awesomeness with Eric Tsang as Sam and Anthony Wong as SP Wong. So I’m not going to be back to that.  With these two, the quality is always almost insured (at least I can’t remember anything bad from then right now).  However, the role of same did change a little as did their chemistry.  So I’m going to talk about Francis Ng, who plays the calm businessman type of triad leader Hau (some would compare him to Michael Corleone). He has a silent violent personality which we don’t quite see till the finale.  He knows how to get dirt on the people around him as he  has eyes everywhere. His story is the one that causes all the effects here by means creating subplots. So in this one, the chemistry between Anthony Wong’s SP Wong and his are the ones that spark some intense chemistry.

Another person worth mentioning is Carina Lau who plays Mary, the beautiful soft-spoken wife of Sam.  Her main goal is to help her husband move up from where he is and one day be the boss and not the minion to protect him.  With the help of young Ming, who she brought into the triad business, he has a certain dedication to her.  Her character is actually quite honorable and by far, one of my favorite roles that she’s been in.  Don’t get me wrong, Carina Lau is a wonderful actress and I’ve seen her across many genres but this role was really impressive.  The chemistry between her character Mary with Sam are limited as they have very little screen time together but in turn, we see her true colors in her interactions with the Young Ming.

 This is the second time I’m watching Infernal Affairs 2.  I watched this back in 2004 or so after the trilogy had been released.  Back then, I found this pretty good.  This time around, I found it still pretty good because it creates a nice vibe even though the purpose of the movie promoted wasn’t exactly what really happened as the focus was not on young Ming and Yan but rather on the people around them. However, it starts feeling really long when I started realizing how many subplots they had stuff in it.  I’m not saying its not necessary but at a certain point, it feels like it drags a little before it hits the big finale and things pick up a little again.

Overall, Infernal Affairs is worth a watch.  It gives some stellar performances and it does set up the partial backstage for what does happen in Infernal Affairs.  The audience gets an idea as to not only where young Ming and Yan come from but also the people around them who influenced them more in depth especially SP Wong, Sam and the additional characters with Ngai and Mary. Although the length is my biggest complaint, this one is worth a watch.  It sets up the stage for maybe the anticipation of the third movie.

Have you seen Infernal Affairs 2? Are you familiar with the actors/actresses in this one? 

Chinese New Year Movie: All’s Well That Ends Well 2011 (2011)

I know Chinese New Year was yesterday but at my house it ends 7 days later, because my mom told me that on the 7th day its called people’s day, which means its everyone’s birthday. Still, how could I not take the opportunity and review a Hong Kong movie? Plus, this one is one of the longest ones going on. They’ve been making one for Chinese New Year since 2009.  In 2009, it was rebooted from its original starring Stephen Chow back in 1992.  The 1992 version still stands as one of my favorites but when they rebooted it in 2009 it took similar characters and gave it a connection and it helped that movie get really popular.  But as you see, I’m not reviewing the 2009 one or the 1992 one (yet) but I’m reviewing the 2011 one.  That one was good fun because it had Donnie Yen and he was not doing martial arts…

Director: Hing-Ka Chan, Janet Chun

Cast: Louis Koo, Cecilia Cheung, Donnie Yen, Carina Lau, Chapman To, Bak-Ming Wong

This is a romantic comedy which is something like the cross of Valentine’s Day (many interlinked storylines) with Scary Movie (mocking/implementing snippets of multiple movies concepts).  Here’s how the storyline goes: Sammy (Louis Koo) is a straight guy who pretends to be a gay make up artist in order to thrive in his industry.  He is very popular and always has to appear in TV shows and events, etc.  When a Chinese oil tycoon (Bak-Ming Wong) decides to buy a growing entire beauty products company called Beauty for his girlfriend Dream who doesn’t know anything about running a business, and because of that Sammy gets tricked into being hired as the CEO. He is then assigned to have a clumsy, chatterbox assistant called Claire (Cecilia Cheung) who in an photo shoot attracts the attention of a rich guy, Slippery who is scared of women because he’s always tricked by women for his money.  Its there, Sammy tries to set up Claire with Slippery.  At the same time, Sammy also hires Keung (Donnie Yen), who is also a make-up artist who isn’t doing as well but understands what women want and how to transform them into extreme beauty, and has him work in the most expensive and popular make-up counter in Hong Kong to serve rich ladies to help promote Beauty.  The side story here is Keung is actually in love with his first girlfriend, Moni (Carina Lau) who is now just a good friend who is an author who writes under someone else’s name and always pretends to be someone else.  A Cinderella story happens with Slippery and Claire, while an unrequited love happens with Keung and Moni, at the same time, the oil tycoon wants to make sure that Dream will be not leave him and decides to do anything for her with the help of Sammy to get into shape and to make himself more attractive.  However, the main character is Sammy who learns how to become himself and be confident that being himself he can still have great accomplishments both in career and love.

This is a few love stories all mashed together with a lot of funny slapstick humour.  Is it my favorite among all the All’s Well that Ends Well? That it is not but this one has a lot of funny moments that keeps me watching it all the time.  Plus, you know, the selling point is Donnie Yen not doing martial arts and believe me, he can a funny man.  This was just the first one where he does a comedy because he’s also in All’s Well That Ends Well 2012.  But I mean, who doesn’t like Donnie Yen? He’s just complete awesomeness, especially when Carina Lau (Moni) makes fun of Ip Man.  If you have seen Louis Koo in Flashpoint, (also a Donnie Yen action film), you won’t ever imagine him doing this role but fact of the matter is, Louis Koo has been in the business for a long time so his acting skills are fantastic.  They have a great cast to support it.  Also, one face you will recognize if you’ve seen Infernal Affairs is Chapman To.  He is a very good comedic actor in Hong Kong so they threw him in here and it helps out the movie quite a bit.

There isn’t really much to say.  It has a strong cast and offers an entertaining time. Its a funny movie that celebrates and always ends with a happy ending and almost always has a shot similar to this with the cast wishing everyone a Happy Chinese New Year!

To end it off, here is the trailer: