An Affair to Remember

Edi

son Chen doesn't much resemble Robert De Niro. Maybe it's the oversize aviator sunglasses, the spiky haircut or the fact that he's a 22-year-old Canto-pop idol. But as Chen strides down the claustrophobic hallways of a Hong Kong tenement in the opening scenes of Infernal Affairs II (IA2), there's a whiff of De Niro menace—especially when Chen, his gun concealed in an envelope, shoots an elderly crime boss through a doorway grill in a brutal, abrupt hit. The shot is a conspicuous reference to De Niro's first murder in Godfather II, and it stakes the ground for IA2's epic—and violent—aspirations.

When the original Infernal Affairs came out last December, it took the box office by storm, providing a welcome jolt for Hong Kong's moribund movie industry. The tight, tense cop thriller showcased two of Hong Kong's top actors as a pair of dueling moles: corrupt police inspector Ming (Andy Lau), informing for a criminal gang; and Yan (Tony Leung), an undercover cop who had infiltrated the same triads. Infernal Affairs raised the bar for what a Hong Kong film could be, and its commercial success guaranteed sequels—a slight problem given that most of the cast is killed off in the original. Instead, co-directors Alan Mak and Andrew Lau decided to go prequel for the first sequel (the third film will take place after the original), bringing on inexperienced actors/idols Edison Chen and Shawn Yue to play young versions of Ming and Yan, respectively. The co-directors also abandoned the rigidly structured cat-and-mouse formula that gave the original its paranoid charge, opting to create a sprawling crime epic of family, loyalty and betrayal. That's the kind of Godfather territory Hong Kong's run-of-the-mill triad flicks rarely tread. "We knew we had the chance to do something really different and great, so we took it," says director Lau. "But there's a lot of pressure because if the second one doesn't do well, forget about the third."

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It works. IA2 is messy around the edges and constantly in danger of collapsing under the weight of its operatic ambition, but it pulls through. Bereft of their original headliners, the directors wisely don't ask too much of Chen and Yue, keeping their characters to the periphery—although by the end of the film Yue has managed to capture some of Tony Leung's moral queasiness while Chen assumes a bit of Andy Lau's cold-blooded charm. The focus is on the grownups: Anthony Wong's borderline-rogue police inspector; and Eric Tsang's joyful triad tough, who goes from being a naive mid-level criminal to a malevolent little (and powerful) toad, willing to whack any and all enemies. Given room to act by a story that stresses character rather than plot, both add depth to their memorable performances in the original.

Like any good sequel, IA2 cranks up the violence and the gore by several notches, and the film's murky visuals are a deliberate counterpoint to the original's silver-skinned crispness. That makes sense—IA2 muddies the moral waters until no one, cop or triad, escapes without some implication in its cycle of violence and death. Who knew that a Hong Kong cop flick could offer such a subtle pleasure as moral complexity?