Infernal Affairs

I watched Infernal Affairs (IA) last night. It's a show that I've held off seeing for some 6 years as I wanted to watch IA2 & IA3 back-to-back-to-back. Seeing 3 shows consecutively, or at least on 3 consecutive nights would have meant that I would have to block off a sizeable chunk of time to fit in the movies - something which I have not deigned to do so far.

Anyway, I watched Infernal Affairs last night and the show was ....... excellent. Even though it says in the credits that Andy Lau and Tony Leung are the stars of the show, the real star of the show was the story line i.e. plot. Quite simply, the plot carried the film. Even with the award-winning acting and directing, what really raised the film to excellence was the plot.

In fact this film was so good that it was remade by Martin Scorsese who called it 'The Departed'. 'The Departed' won 4 Oscars in 2007, including Movie of the Year !

What really bemuses me is that one of the Oscars was for 'Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay', won by William Monahan. The original writers of Infernal Affairs, Siu Fai Mak and Felix Chong are not given any credit at all ! I would have thought that, seeing as the original story was theirs anyway, they would have had a share of the accolades.