INFERNAL AFFAIRS (Hong Kong, 2002)
Directed by: Andrew Lau, Alan Mak
Starring: Andy Lau, Tony Leung, Eric Tsang, Anthony Wong, Sammi Cheng

“The picture signals a new era for Hong Kong filmmaking…”

— Elvis Mitchell, New York Times

"Without a doubt, Infernal Affairs is the best commercial movie from Hong Kong in a long while."

— Andrew Sun, the Hollywood Reporter

Hong Kong Film Awards - 2002

Winner – Best Movie
Winner – Best Director
Winner – Best Screenplay
Winner – Best Actor – Tony Leung
Winner – Best Supporting Actor – Anthony Wong

Golden Horse Awards – 2002

Winner – Best Movie
Winner – Best Director
Winner – Best Actor – Tony Leung
Winner – Best Supporting Actor – Anthony Wong

It's the ultimate “why didn't I think of that” high concept: a cop goes undercover as a gangster, while simultaneously a gangster infiltrates the police force, pretending to be a cop. These two sleeper agents live underground for years before a series of mistakes clues in all the wrong people as to what's going on and they’re each ordered to root out the mole, which in both cases happens to be themselves. It’s like the Philip K. Dick movie that Michael Mann always wanted to direct.

Hong Kong's 30-year history of gritty, urban crime films have been leading to this moment. Folding in the street cynicism of Kirk Wong, the wounded romanticism of John Woo, and the kinetic savagery of Ringo Lam, INFERNAL AFFAIRS is a gleaming, titanium-hard package without a wasted shot: everything — from set dressings, to costumes, to the action, to the score — is designed to wring maximum tension from its story. Saturated with gleaming chromium hues, INFERNAL AFFAIRS stars Tony Leung (Hero) as the scrappy, simmering undercover cop, and pop star, Andy Lau (Running on Karma), as the cold-blooded over-achieving gangster who's infiltrates the police. Chris Doyle, who shot Hero, consulted on the cinematography and as a result it bears his saturated, radiant fingerprints. A huge success when it was released (the movie topped the 2002 Hong Kong box office and went on to perform well in Korea, Japan and China), INFERNAL AFFAIRS has already spawned two sequels, and the trilogy stands as the most inspired crime saga since Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather trilogy.

Still, this first film in the trilogy is the tightest and most inspiring of the three. Tony Leung bloodies himself as he thrashes about in self-destructive spasms, desperate to leave his undercover work behind before it kills him, while Andy Lau slowly drowns in his own impacted self-loathing. Anchoring the film’s terse shoot-outs, and excruciatingly drawn-out set pieces are performances by Anthony Wong as the one police officer who knows that Tony Leung is an undercover agent, and Eric Tsang, who normally plays comic roles, as the paternal gang boss who employs both men. Both men are veteran character actors in Hong Kong, and both of them give the performances of their careers in this movie where there are no bad guys – only victims. A hot-blooded throwback to the big, actor-intensive, dark cop dramas of the 1970’s, INFERNAL AFFAIRS writes its story in burning blood, on paper made of ice.