With a running time almost an hour under Martin Scorsese’s THE DEPARTED remake (see above), this Hong Kong original has a lack of grandiosity & heft far better suited to the basic material. The set-up is all but indestructible (the cops have a mole in the mob & the mob boss has a mole in the police force) and helmers Siu Fai Mak & Wai-keung Lau keep the lines of parallel action clear & exciting. (There’s more flash & dash editing prowess than called for, but that’s the current fashion.) DEPARTED stays closer to the narrative line than you might expect, but INFERNAL manages the violent, twisty ending without Scorsese’s typical fall into unintentional OTT giggles, and it goes out with a pleasingly ambiguous coda. Tony Leung is a standout as the undercover cop (played by Leo DiCaprio in DEPARTED), and Chapman To, playing a slow-witted gangster, steals every scene he’s in.
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: DB/LINK: As mentioned, THE DEPARTED/’06, Martin Scorsese’s inferior remake. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/05/departed-2006.html
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