Infernal Affairs

Chan Wing-yan, a police officer, goes undercover into a triad; only his direct superior, Superintendent Wong, and Yip, the police academy principal, can confirm his mission and true identity. Around the same time, Lau Kin-ming, a triad member, infiltrates the Hong Kong Police Force on the order of a powerful triad boss, Hon Sam. Each mole has been planted by the rival organisation to gain an advantage over the other side. Over the course of ten years, Chan experiences great stress from his undercover work while Lau quickly rises through the ranks in the police department. However sometime later Yip passes away, leaving Wong the only person who can confirm Chan's true identity.

Using Morse code, Chan is able to relay data back to the police. However, Lau alerts Hon, giving him enough time to order his minions to dispose of the evidence. After the incident, both Wong and Hon are tasked with finding the moles in their respective organisations.

Wong intends to pull Chan out of undercover work for fear of his safety. However, Wong is caught by Hon's men and is killed when he is thrown off a building, having refused to reveal Chan despite a beating from the gangsters.

Through this incident, Lau retrieves Wong's cell phone and contacts Chan; both of them agree to foil a drug deal by Hon. The plan succeeds and many of Hon's men are arrested, while Lau betrays Hon and murders him. Everything seems to have returned to normal. However, back at police headquarters, Chan discovers that Lau was the mole and leaves immediately.

Chan and Lau meet on the same rooftop where Wong was killed earlier. Chan disarms Lau and holds a pistol to his head as a rebuke to Lau's plea for forgiveness and request to remain a cop. Inspector B arrives on the scene shortly and orders Chan to release Lau. Chan holds Lau as a hostage at gunpoint and backs into the lift, but upon moving his head from behind Chan is suddenly shot in the head by B, who then reveals to Lau that he is also a mole planted by Hon. As they take the lift down to the lobby, Lau kills B out of his desire to eradicate traces of his past, become a "good guy" cop, and end the mole hunt. Stepping out of the lift, Lau shows his identity card to the police to identify himself as one of them.

Months after Chan's death, his psychiatrist, Lee, discovers records revealing Chan's true identity as an undercover police officer; B becomes a scapegoat for Lau as the real mole in the police force and the case is closed. Lau salutes Chan at his funeral. A flashback reaffirms the point at which Lau wished he had taken a different route in life.

When the movie was shown in Mainland China and Malaysia, a different ending was used: Lau is exposed as a triad spy and he gets arrested when the police arrive. This ending does not connect the first movie to the sequels.

• Andy Lau as Senior Inspector Lau Kin-ming (劉健明), Hon's mole in the police force.
  • Edison Chen as young Lau Kin-ming
• Tony Leung as Chan Wing-yan (陳永仁), an undercover cop in Hon's triad.
  • Shawn Yue as young Chan Wing-yan
• Anthony Wong as Superintendent Wong Chi-shing (黃志誠), Chan's superior.
• Eric Tsang as Hon Sam (韓琛), the triad boss and main antagonist.
• Chapman To as "Silly" Keung (傻強), Hon's henchman.
• Gordon Lam as Inspector B (大B; Big B), Lau's subordinate who is also a mole in the police force.
• Sammi Cheng as Mary, Lau's fiancée.
• Kelly Chen as Lee Sum-yee (李心兒), Chan's psychiatrist.
• Berg Ng as Senior Inspector Cheung (張Sir), Wong's subordinate.
• Wan Chi-keung as Officer Leung (梁Sir), the chief superintendent of the internal affairs department.
• Dion Lam as Del Piero, Hon's henchman.
• Elva Hsiao as May, Chan's ex-girlfriend.
• Hui Kam-Fung as Yip, Chan's cadet school principal

Infernal Affairs garnered mainly positive reviews from film critics and audiences. Feedback for the film has been overwhelmingly positive, with an approval rating of 94% on review website Rotten Tomatoes based on 63 reviews, with an average rating of 7.53/10. The website's critical consensus remarks the film as, "Smart and engrossing, this is one of Hong Kong's better cop thrillers."[4] The film received a score of 75 out of 100 on the critical aggregator website Metacritic based on 19 critic reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[5] While an overwhelming majority of viewers praised the film, a few film critics complained of the generic and forgettable plot-line.[6]

The original film score for Infernal Affairs was written and performed by Chan Kwong-wing.

The theme song, Infernal Affairs (無間道), was composed by Ronald Ng, lyrics provided by Albert Leung, and performed in Cantonese and Mandarin by Andy Lau and Tony Leung.

Although not included in the soundtrack, Tsai Chin's (蔡琴) song "Forgotten Times" (《被遺忘的時光》) features prominently in this film as a recurring element of its storyline, and also in its sequels.

With start power visual allure and an engaging script, Andrew Lau and Alan Mak’s Infernal Affairs /《無間道》(2002) did very well critically and financially, spawned two sequels and a television series, and attracted the attention of Hollywood.[10] In 2003, Brad Pitt's production company Plan B Entertainment acquired the rights for a Hollywood remake, named The Departed, which was directed by Martin Scorsese, and starred Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, and Mark Wahlberg, set in Boston, Massachusetts, roughly based on the life of famed Boston mobster James "Whitey" Bulger. The Departed was released on 6 October 2006 and won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Andrew Lau, the co-director of Infernal Affairs, who was interviewed by Hong Kong newspaper Apple Daily, said: "Of course I think the version I made is better, but the Hollywood version is pretty good too. [Scorsese] made the Hollywood version more attuned to American culture." Andy Lau,[11] one of the main actors in Infernal Affairs, when asked how the movie compares to the original, said: "The Departed was too long and it felt as if Hollywood had combined all three Infernal Affairs movies together."[12] Lau pointed out that the remake featured some of the "golden quotes" of the original but did have much more swearing. He ultimately rated The Departed 8/10 and said that the Hollywood remake is worth a view, though according to Lau's spokeswoman Alice Tam, he felt that the combination of the two female characters into one in The Departed was not as good as the original storyline.[13]

Lau, Tsang, and Jacky Cheung parodied the cinema scene to promote the Hong Kong Film Awards. Lau and Tsang, in their respective characters, go through the scene where they meet to gather info on the undercover cop amongst Hon Sam's gang. Lau Kin-ming asks Hon "Why do we always meet in a cinema?", to which Hon answers "It's quiet. No one comes to movies". Cheung comes out from the shadows behind them and says "I don't know...quite a few people watch movies" and we see a slew of Hong Kong celebrities watching various clips of Hong Kong films on the screen. Originally Tony Leung was going to appear but scheduling conflicts led to the recasting.

The 2003 TVB spoof celebrating the Chinese New Year called Mo Ba To (吐氣羊眉賀新春之無霸道), the 2004 comedy film Love Is a Many Stupid Thing by Wong Jing, and the 2004 TVB television drama Shades of Truth were re-writings based on the plot of the film.

In Taiwan SHODA (劉裕銘) and a secondary school student Blanka (布蘭卡) cut and rearranged the original film and inserted new sound tracks to produce their videos Infernal Affairs CD pro2 and Infernal Affairs iPod on the web. The videos had many views and both producers removed their videos after receiving cease and desist letters from the Group Power Workshop Limited (群體工作室), the Taiwan distributor of the film.[14]

Media Asia released a limited edition of eight-DVD set of the Infernal Affairs trilogy in an Ultimate Collectible Boxset (無間道終極珍藏DVD系列(8DVD套裝)) on 20 December 2004. Features included an online game and two Chinese fictional novels of the film series by Lee Muk-Tung (李牧童), titled 無間道I+II小說 ISBN 962-672-259-2 and 無間道III終極無間小說 ISBN 962-672-271-1.

The hi-fi shop scene was later recreated with additions of excerpts of the film to encourage businesses to join the Quality Tourism Services Scheme in Hong Kong.[15]

In 2009, a Korean remake City of Damnation, which was directed by Kim Dong-won was released on 22 January 2009.[16] In 2009, a Telugu remake Homam, which directed and acted by JD Chakravarthy along with Jagapathi Babu was released and became a notable movie.[17][18] In 2012, Double Face (ダブルフェイス), a Japanese television remake starring Hidetoshi Nishijima was released by TBS and WOWOW.[19] The production aired in two parts: "Police Impersonation" on WOWOW and "Undercover" on TBS.

A TV series remake debuted in 2018 produced by Media Asia and former TVB producer Tommy Leung. The series, which is titled Infernal Affairs like the film, stars Gallen Lo, Damian Lau, Paul Chun, Lo Hoi-pang, Eric Tsang, Derek Kok, Dominic Lam, Toby Leung and Yuen Biao.[20] The TV series uses the same concept as the film, but with an entirely new story and characters, and the setting expanded beyond Hong Kong to include Thailand and Shezhen. It stretched through three seasons with each season consisting of 12 episodes.[21]

A Hindi remake is in progress and is produced by Mumbai-based production Azure Entertainment and Warner Bros India[22]

The success of the film inspired many genres, including an open-world video game from United Front Games titled Sleeping Dogs (or True Crime: Hong Kong before canceled by Activision Blizzard in 2011),[23] with the protagonist of the story infiltrating the criminal underworld as an undercover police.

• Infernal Affairs film series
• Cinema of Hong Kong
• List of Hong Kong films
• Andy Lau filmography
• List of films featuring surveillance
• List of films set in Hong Kong

• Infernal Affairs at IMDb
• Infernal Affairs at Box Office Mojo
• Infernal Affairs at Rotten Tomatoes
• Infernal Affairs at Metacritic