I just finished watching The Departed, Martin Scorsese's latest bloodbath. It was, as expected, great. For all the flack he gets, I think DiCaprio is easily one of the most talented actors of his generation. No stranger to violent Scorsese films, he fit right into the part of an in-deep undercover cop slowly losing his sense of identity.
For his part Matt Damon also did well, revisiting his Boston accent and playing the straight-laced mole in the police department.
The clincher of the film, unsurprisingly, was Nicholson. With a handful of recent softy movies, it's nice to see jack's back!
His character has all the vile and murderousness of The Joker, and all the wit and humour of Melvin Udall. How can you not love a man that delivers perfectly the following dialog:
Frank Costello (Jack): How's your mother?
Man in Bar: Not so good, she's dying.
Frank Costello: We all are, act accordingly.
Scorsese and William Monahan (who penned it) kept quite close to Siu Fai Mak's original script for Infernal Affairs. I watched IA last year, and it was one of the few Chinese movies I loved for more than the action or cinematography. The emotionally complex plot made it stand out from the other Hong Kong movies I've seen. When I was home in Canada this past summer and saw the preview for The Departed, I only hoped it would do the original justice. I think it did that with an even hand and a LOT of bullets to the head.
The marks of Hollywood are as much evident on The Departed as HK's flavour is stewed into Infernal Affairs – but both deliver the same message with much the same style. Not so coincidently, I loved Eric Tsang's character in the first as much as I loved Nicholson in the adaptation. Both DiCaprio and Damon fit well the weaselly/conflicted and cold/clean-cut characters of Tony Leung and Andy Lau respectively.
If pressed, I'd have to choose The Departed over IA for the simple reason that I could follow the story a little more clearly, and connected with the characters just a tad better. That said, both were great to watch. I wonder if Scorsese will remake the sequels.
KK: 
Marble Bath Accessories: 
Cordie Dadd: 
Eliana Osika: 
Percy: 
there are sequels!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
hek
Yup, two. Both suffer from increasing degrees of suck.
I haven’t seen The Departed but I will try to find this film and see it. For Infernal Affairs I have seen for seveal times and the film have three part to describe different period of the story. The film is one the most favorite film in China in recent years.
I completely agree with your assessment of The Departed, and raise you one. I think that 50 years from now it will be on every top 100 list, maybe every top 50 list. It (and Nicholson) are THAT good!
@Terry: It’s definitely worth giving a look.
@CLB: That’s a tall order, but why not. Of course, I thought Daniel Day Lewis was fantastic in Gangs of New York – but the movie and his roll fell away to the annals of time quite quick.
@All: Continuing my comparison of the two films; I find that the biggest difference between Asian films and their American counterparts are that in general Hollywood spells things out much more in their films, where as Hong Kong (and Mainland) movies tend to leave things hanging a lot more – letting the viewer to think how they will.
That said, I think a lot of films that come out of the US have (and I’m going to get crucified for this) much more depth, they just tend to spell it out too obviously in under-estimating their audience’s ability to piece it together.
It often seems to me that Chinese directors leave things wide open because they’re not entirely sure what they’re saying, but are hoping everyone will just go, “wow, he’s such a visionary and an artist”… which is utter bullocks. Do you here me Wong Kar Wai?? Do you!!??
Where is the spoiler tag?
I haven’t watched The Departed yet, but from what I hear about the ending, it’s not as good as IA. Compared to IA1, the ending leaves Matt Damon / Andy Lau in a much better state than it does in the original, where Andy Lau is condemned to a lifetime of suffering.
And does it carry the same sense of conflict between one’s loyalty to men and one’s loyalty to absolutes? I enjoyed the internal conflict for Leung Chiu Wai between his growing affection towards his colleagues and his remaining loyalty towards law and society, but I suppose the treatment sucked; he was tilting towards an unconvincing betrayal until “that man” got killed out of the blue.
@Inst: The ending is good. You’re right that he doesn’t suffer as much. As for the conflict, I certainly felt it, but I’d seen the original, so I knew what to look for – it might cause a bit of a bias.
Ryan,
I have listend to some of your songs. They are very fresh. If there were the words for them, it could be much better.
dont be fucking daft -_- i watched the remake of IA and oh my god i wanted to put a bullet in my head . i watched all the american remakes of the hk and jap movies . they all suck
@Neko_Guy: Bit slow to the punch there. This is more than a year old.
But yeah, I guess Fist Full of Dollars does suck. Of course, I’d be lying.
Sounds like you had your mind made up way before watching it.
i watched both movies and IA is much better than the departed. The departed is good movie but not that good especially the acting….. really can’t compare to IA . They got into a real gangster life and u can obviously understand their feeling…………………..too far too compare