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[]
Posters[]
Trivia[]
- 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'.
- 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.
- The psychiatrist's name, "Lee Sum Yee", is a homophone (in Cantonese) for "your psychiatrist".
- 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.
- 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.
- Martin Scorsese, director of The Departed (2006), claims he was unaware that his film was a remake of this one during filming.
- 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).
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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).
- 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.