Adaptation

originally published March 7, 2007

Years of nods and no awards finally culminated in Martin Scorsese’s glory day at this year’s 79th Annual Academy Awards, with The Departed sweeping Best Picture, Best Director (Scorsese), Best Adapted Screenplay (William Monahan), and Best Editing (Thelma Schoonmaker). For those of you who have not yet seen The Departed , shame on you. Stop reading this and go watch it. For those of you who have, you are probably wondering, ‘Where did this masterpiece come from?’

Infernal Affairs

Infernal Affairs

(R) 2002. Wai Keung Lau and Siu Fai Mak directed a sleek thriller by the name of Mou Gaan Dou ( Infernal Affairs ) a few years ago. The screenplay, whose title puns on a top police department, that of Internal Affairs, and non-stop hell, was written by Felix Chong and the film’s co-director, Mak. Hong Kong box offices were blown away by the film’s reception, and it was heralded as a creative revival of Hong Kong cinema. Miramax bought the rights to the film and gave it a very limited release in 2004, and the film was later purchased by Plan B Entertainment with plans for an adaptation to be directed by Scorsese. Infernal Affairs’ plot is swift and twisted. Tough cop Chan Wing Yan (Tony Leung) is sent undercover to infiltrate the corrupt and unbreakable Triad mob. After three years on the job, his case is interrupted when the Triads plant a mole within the police department, Lau Kin Ming (Andy Lau). The mole rises in power and eventually comes into the position of Inspector, a role he abuses in order to hunt down the rat within the Triads. In a classic game of rat vs. mole, each man is hell-bent on uncovering the other's identity.

Screenwriter William Monahan took the original screenplay and stretched it over a typically Scorsesean skeleton - a mob drama set in and around Boston. Monahan enhanced the original story with deeper character relationships and gradual plot progression. Add mob-master Scorsese’s veteran direction and the end result is a damn good drama that has grossed over $130 million at the U.S. box office and over $200 million internationally.

Now the obvious question: how does the original film stand up to its award-winning American offspring? Visually, Infernal Affairs is striking. A steely aesthetic and industrial-urban backdrop capture the filth and darkness surrounding each man’s double-identity. Moody artistic direction bolsters the film’s twisting plot of deceit.

Reinventing the popular plot of good cop versus bad cop, the film translates the simple conflict into a slightly more complex morality tale. The categorization "drama" should never enter the plot’s description, however; this is strictly an action/ adventure thriller, and, at moments, a rather ordinary one at that.

Characterization is rather two-dimensional, and both protagonists and antagonists appear impenetrable and unbelievable. The Triad’s boss (Eric Tsang) is also comical looking and not at all intimidating, and it’s hard not to stop thinking about how badly Jack Nicholson would own him in a street fight. Two performances stand out, Leung and Anthony Wong, who plays the SP Wong Pi Shing, the only officer who knows Yan’s true identity. Both men manage to relay a sense of depth in a story so compact it leaves little room to breathe, much less deliver thought-provoking performances.

The dialogue is rather shallow and punctuated with stiff clichés like “I’m the best candidate for the job.” A string of strange and emotionless lines such as “the calm before the storm and all that” create an awkwardness within the film which sticks out like a sore thumb despite the movie's cinematographic prowess. This may not, however, be the original screenwriters’fault. I do not speak Chinese, thus I have no clue as to how much of the original script was lost in translation. If not the fault of the original script, then the film’s English translation should have made more of an effort to reach beyond the surface of speech.

The Departed

Despite the film’s fallibility, something must be said for a plot that draws the attention of Martin Scorsese. Furthermore, all of The Departed ’s strongest scenes and sequences are taken directly from Infernal Affairs , and it is interesting to compare the directors’different execution of identical scenes. Scorsese's direction extends far beyond his Hong Kong counterparts to transform a one-and-a-half hour action film into an engaging, two-and-a-half hour drama whose plot is more visceral and whose action is far more subtle.

It is certainly worth your while to watch the original film just to see just how skillfully and dynamically Scorsese can work within a single genre. Infernal Affairs is the first film of a trilogy, and already there is rumor of a Departed sequel. Do Monahan and Scorsese have a trilogy up their sleeves? If so, it’s not unlikely that the subsequent films will also be direct adaptations of their Chinese predecessors.

C

Robin Geddie