Andrew Lau and Alan Mak’s Infernal Affairs trilogy, which was both groundbreaking and commercially successful, is getting a 4K Ultra HD remake. According to Indiewire, a screening of the restored Hong Kong action franchise will take place at Lincoln Center, providing new audiences with the best possible look at the iconic picture and its sequels that inspired one of Martin Scorsese’s biggest films. Starting September 16, all three films will be shown in theatres. The plot of Infernal Affairs is deceptively straightforward: a member of the Hong Kong police force infiltrates a criminal organisation that already has a mole in the department.
Each man is leading a double life to try to outsmart the other, putting his principles to the test and forcing him to choose between two uneasy allies. After receiving rave reviews in its home country of China, the film spawned two prequels that provided context for the original’s events and introduced viewers to the characters of Lau Kin-ming (Andy Lau) and Chan Wing-yan (Tony Leung). Though neither sequel was able to match the success of the first, the trilogy was nevertheless a financial success for Lau and Mak and remains one of the most cherished film trilogies of all time. Even though Infernal Affairs had a small theatrical run in the United States, its influence here wasn’t fully realised until Scorsese remade it as the acclaimed Boston criminal drama The Departed.
The picture, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon, has a similar idea to Goodfellas, however, Scorsese and writer William Monahan gave it their own spin by moving the action to Boston and adding a realistic touch with references to the actual Boston Hill Gang. Scorsese’s picture is one of his most successful commercially and critically, winning four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. In Infernal Affairs, Lau and Leung, two of Hong Kong’s biggest movie stars, took centre stage. Both would return for Infernal Affairs III, but as Infernal Affairs II was a straight prequel, Edison Chen and Shawn Yue played the parts of their younger selves in that film instead.
Kelly Chen, Anthony Wong, Eric Tsang, and Chapman To have all made appearances over the series’ run. The film was scanned using an ARRISCAN film scanner from the original camera negatives, and the music was remastered from the original soundtrack recordings. On September 16 at the Lincoln Center, Janus Films, known for importing a broad variety of foreign films to the United States, will show the restored version of Infernal Affairs.
Synopsis
Tony Leung and Andy Lau, two of the most recognisable names in Hong Kong cinema, square off in this spectacular thriller that helped kick off a successful series and served as inspiration for Martin Scorsese’s ‘The Departed.’ The setup is devilishly simple: a police officer (Leung) is tasked with infiltrating a ruthless triad by posing as a gangster, and a gangster becomes a police officer in order to serve as a spy for the underworld, only to find themselves locked in a deadly game of cat and mouse as they race against time to unmask the other. As the number of parallel lives, ambiguous moral choices, and lethal betrayals in “Infernal Affairs” grows, so do the profound questions it begs about what it means to be caught in the maze of two separate but equally compelling worlds.