On December 12, 2002, "Infernal Affairs" was released in Hong Kong. Under the bleak environment of Hong Kong movies at that time, even the starring Andy Lau did not have particularly great expectations for this movie. Time flies, 15 years have passed in the blink of an eye, and when people look back again, they find that the film "Infernal Affairs" has not only become an epoch-making work in the history of Hong Kong film, but also has become one of the most important Hong Kong police and bandit films. The pinnacle of work.
Before "Infernal Affairs", almost all the undercover images in Hong Kong police and bandit movies were police undercover agents. In those movies, undercover agents usually had a strong heart and remained unshakable even when they suffered various kinds of pain, and finally subdued them by themselves. Bandit leader, put on the police uniform again, with glory. But "Infernal Affairs" is a different kind. What it shows us is that the underworld also has undercover in the police, the undercover police also has a fragile heart, the underworld also wants to be motivated, and the good people are not rewarded .
These things were not found in previous Hong Kong movies.
Anyone who is familiar with Hong Kong police and bandit movies knows that most of the police and bandit movies in the prosperous period of Hong Kong movies, with the exception of "Dark War" and "Dark Flower", are mostly black and white, and the positive characters occupy a lot of space in the movie from beginning to end. The result is that good triumphs over evil. But in Infernal Affairs, it starts with the villain and ends with the villain .
The first person to appear in the film is Liu Jianming, a gangster in his youth. The camera gave him a long close-up, and the audience saw a thin and thin teenager with glittering eyes. In his eyes, we saw His admiration, envy and eagerness to try his boss Han Chen. At the end of the film, the camera is also a close-up of Liu Jianming, but at this time he is middle-aged, and his eyes have no light, showing confusion and contemplation.
Just from the echo of the details at the beginning and the end, you can see how different this movie is.
In addition to the surprises in the plot, "Infernal Affairs" also exceeded the stereotype of ordinary Hong Kong police and bandit movies in form. Just like the scenes of street beatings in Young and Dangerous movies, Hong Kong police and gangster films with sharp contradictions will also have fierce shooting scenes, and even the shooting scenes of several movies have become classic representatives of Hong Kong movies, but in " In "Infernal Affairs", the regular item " shootout " was almost erased. Only after Officer Huang fell from the building, there was a scene of a gunfight between police and bandits, and this shootout only lasted for more than thirty seconds.
It stands to reason that there is no gunfight in Hong Kong police and bandit films, just like cooking without oil, it will arouse strong disgust from the audience, but "Infernal Affairs" has gone out of its own way. The change from "martial opera" to "literary opera" not only did not make the audience not buy it, but it more fit the content of the story, made the story more thrilling, and allowed the audience to devote more energy to the protagonists Liu Jianming and Chen Yongren. This unique approach has also opened up a new way for Hong Kong police and bandit movies, that is, not relying on hot action scenes to attract audiences, but relying on excellent plot and character performance to attract audiences.
Because of its unique approach in form and content, "Infernal Affairs" took its own path and brought a breath of fresh air to Hong Kong movies at that time. Since then, whether it is Hong Kong or the mainland, everyone will more or less learn from "Infernal Affairs" when making police and gangster films. But unfortunately, although everyone is vying to imitate and learn, none of the same type of film and television works after this can surpass "Infernal Affairs", even "Infernal Affairs 2" and "Infernal Affairs 3: Ultimate Infernal Affairs". It is difficult to reproduce the style of "Infernal Affairs". Why is this?
The answer is that times have changed.
The actor factor is important, but what really makes the work shine is the core of the excellent story, and it is the times that can affect the content of the story. At the beginning of the 21st century, the annual output of Hong Kong films was less than 50. Behind this was not only the weakness of the film industry, but also the confusion of the whole Hong Kong society. Although Hong Kong has returned to China in 1997, Hong Kong people are still confused in their ideology, and when the time has passed 2000 years, this confusion has added to the excitement brought by a new century. Just like the young Liu Jianming played by Edison Chen at the beginning of the film, he is overwhelmed but eager to try, eager for the emergence of new hope.
The birth of "Infernal Affairs" is this new hope. It has given the entire Hong Kong film industry a glimpse of the future, but this hope has just appeared and the times have changed. On June 29, 2003, the Mainland and Hong Kong signed the "Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement". Hong Kong films were no longer limited by the amount of imported films, but entered the Mainland market in the form of co-production films. The larger market has brought more opportunities for Hong Kong filmmakers, and it has also invisibly put shackles on the content creation of Hong Kong films.
"Infernal Affairs was not a co-production film, so the story can be written in a more humane way, but now there are some requirements or rules for filmmaking, we have to be careful. Some things you can't guess, but they do happen in life. , making it into a movie, that's a new height. Now more police and gangster movies make changes in vision or technology."
This is the "mystery" that Andy Lau revealed in an interview, which can also explain why some wonderful Hong Kong movies have different endings depending on the release area. And this, from a grander perspective, allows us to see the reason why the movie "Infernal Affairs" unintentionally created an era and unintentionally became the pinnacle of that era.
I can't get to the end, go back to the beginning, enjoy, the endless road
This lyric in the movie is not only the best commentary on the content of the movie, but also the best commentary on Hong Kong movies and Chinese movies. Lu always had to bite the bullet and go on. Mr. Andy Lau said, " I think we can wait. We will hold on to the basics until one day we can write ." I hope that day can come sooner, and when that day does come, we may see more of the meaning of this "Infernal Affairs".
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