Infernal Affairs (2002)

Infernal Affairs (2002)

a.k.a Mou gaan dou

Directors: Andrew Lau and Alan Mak

Synopsis

A story between a mole (Andy Lau) in the police department and an undercover cop (Tony Chiu Wai Leung). Their objectives are the same: to find out who is the mole, and who is the cop.

Male Deaths

• Tony Chiu Wai Leung [Chan Wing-yan]
• Anthony Wong Chau-Sang [SP Wong Chi-shing]
• Eric Tsang [Hon Sam]
• Chapman To [Tsui Wai-keung]
• Ka Tung Lam [Inspector B.]

Female Deaths

• None

Gallery

Tony Chiu Wai Leung

Anthony Wong Chau-Sang

Eric Tsang

Chapman To

Posters

Trivia

1. When Yan and SP Wong are waiting at the elevator, the digital floor counter skips the 4th floor. In China and Hong Kong, the number 4 is considered bad luck because it sounds similar to the word 'death'.
2. When referencing this film as the inspiration for the Best Picture-winning The Departed (2006), the announcer at the 79th Academy Awards mistakenly identified the Hong Kong production as Japanese.
3. The psychiatrist's name, "Lee Sum Yee", is a homophone (in Cantonese) for "your psychiatrist".
4. The film had been selected as the Hong Kong entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 76th Academy Awards but it was not nominated.
5. The English title is a play on words mixing Ming's job in the IA, the infernal nature of both characters' double lives, and finally Dante's Inferno, relating to the original Cantonese title.
6. Martin Scorsese, director of The Departed (2006), claims he was unaware that his film was a remake of this one during filming.
7. Tony Chiu-Wai Leung and Anthony Chau-Sang Wong were both in Hard Boiled (1992), where Leung also played an undercover cop. In both films, he receives a gift from a superior officer (a cigarette lighter in that film and a watch in this one).
8. The hi-fi shop scene was later recreated with additions of excerpts of the film to encourage businesses to join the Quality Tourism Services Scheme in Hong Kong.
9. The rooftop scene between Andy Lau and Tony Chiu-Wai Leung specifically does not allow gunfire. Hence, the scene (though having guns displayed) contains no actual gunfire.
10. According to Ka-Tung Lam, who was asked whether Andy Lau had anything learnable to him which few people knew in a TVB interview, Lau deleted many scenes in which he himself appeared so as to balance every cast's screentime.
11. Yan and SP Wong briefly enter a stairwell before Wong takes the elevator. The number "4" is visible on the far wall, which is bad luck in China and Hong Kong as has been mentioned before.
12. It was Hong Kong's biggest box office grosser of 2002 ahead of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) and Spider-Man (2002).
13. The alternative ending found as a special feature on most Western DVD releases was created for release in China, where the authorities were uncomfortable with the political implications of the original ending.