Infernal Affairs Vs The Departed Analysis

6 Reasons why "Infernal Affairs" is better than "The Departed"

“Infernal Affairs” is one of the most successful films in Asia and it became internationally known when Martin Scorsese adapted it to shoot “The Departed”.

Chen Wing Yang is an undercover agent who has been chosen since his days in the police academy to infiltrate the crime world, particularly the gang of the notorious Sam. The sole individual who knows his actual identity is chief Wong. On the other hand, Sam has chosen Detective Lau Kin Ming to act accordingly inside the police force. While Sam prepares for a large operation, the two moles come face to face, realizing each other’s role. Unavoidably, one of them has to die.

Lau directs a sublime urban noir thriller that retains

"Infernal Affairs" starts and ends with a sutra verse: " The worst of the Eight Hells is called Continuous Hell. It has the meaning of Continuous Suffering. Thus the name". The last sentence refers to the Chinese title of the film, "The Unceasing Path," a reference to Avici, the lowest level of Hell in Buddhism, where one endures suffering incessantly.

This phrase summarizes the general subject of the movie, and functions as a warning of the karmic destinies of the characters, who live in crime, lies, deceit, fear, hatred and almost constant violence. In that fashion, it leaves the spectator wondering how much worse their lives will be in the afterlife.

Scorcese also uses religion as a theme, and that is the reason he set his film in Boston, in order to associate his Irish-American characters with Catholicism. In that fashion, he explains a part of their characters, particularly Costigan, Sullivan, Costello, Dignam and Queenan's, who may have detached their selves from the church, but still feel the sense of guilt for breaking its laws.

However, this notion is presented in a quite obvious fashion, thus stripping the film of another deeper lever, which, eventually, gets buried under the rest of the aspects of the

Better editing

"Infernal Affairs" is a definite Hong Kong action cop film, particularly in the way it is edited. Curran and Danny Pang use fast, constant and dynamic editing and montage with many zooms, close ups and some minor special effects for the transition scenes. Good examples of this trait are the scenes where the key characters are introduced where a combination of freeze frame a desaturation filter is implemented. Fast cuts and multi angles give the film a constant sense of speed, in a truly kinetic pace.

Thelma Schoonmaker's editing in "The Departed" is more stable and grounded, and thus the pace much slower, which explains its duration (50 minutes more than the original). This technique gave Scorcese the chance focus more intently on his characters, but derived from its general aesthetics, since the movies occasionally moves too slow. Furthermore, Schoonmaker did not use editing effects almost at all, a tactic that occasionally faults the film, particularly in the action scenes.

6. Key scenes

Scorsese may have changed some elements of the script, but the key-scenes, who are actually the backbone of both films, remained. However, while Lau used a subtler, more artistic approach, Scorcese used the in-your-face approach, so usually associated with Hollywood