Infernal Affairs

All police movies--or at least the really fun, pulpy ones--are about the thin line between cop and criminal. But this diabolically clever movie, the apotheosis of the Hong Kong police thriller, takes that theme to new heights. We have a cop (Tony Leung) who's gone deep undercover as a mole in a local crime organization, and--in a twist that the Lethal Weapon and Die Hard movies can only admire from afar--we have a gangster (Andy Lau) who's gone deep undercover as a cop in the H.K. police force. And, in a bit of plot ingenuity so crafty that it should probably be illegal itself, each of these men has been assigned by his unwitting boss to root out the other. Enough accolades cannot be heaped upon Leung and Lau for their slyly mesmerizing performances as two men who, as the cliché goes, are not so different from each other, filled with overdeveloped senses of honor and a love of the game even when it gets them into deep trouble. Kudos to director Andrew Lau (not the same guy as the actor Andy Lau) and his co-director, Alan Mak, who wrote the film with Felix Chong. Infernal Affairs leavens the pulp with surprising sensitivity and shades of gray for a slam-bang shoot-'em-up cop flick, while also maintaining almost unbearably delicious suspense. Highly recommended. [Note: DVD extras include a subtitled 15-minute “making-of” featurette, the six-minute behind-the-scenes featurette “Confidential File,” a three-minute alternate ending, and trailers. Bottom line: a small but solid extras package for a foreign action winner.] (M. Johanson)