Luke reviews a lot of stuff. Typically when he writes about music, I either skip it or skim it. I couldn’t be more clueless about music if I tried. I just listen to stuff.
But when he talks about books or movies, I pay attention, because I do know a little bit about those things. And today, he presents us with one of the most thoroughly enjoyable film reviews I’ve ever read, about a movie I’ve never heard of.
The only film genre more formulaic than romantic comedies is Hong Kong action. Every time out it’s the honorable cops versus the craven triads [or honorable triads and craven cops]. At some point we are introduced to one or more soulless, doting, ineffectual female characters who exist only as testaments to the hero’s startling animal magnetism. There are always double and triple crosses ending in bloody showdowns. In Hong Kong action, bullets are drawn to foreheads like East Asian Mafiosi to the heroin trade.
There’s often a mystery to unravel or a game of cat and mouse. Those films lacking in mystery generally compensate with a revenge plot and absurd amounts of blood–gushing out of foreheads split in two with precise gunplay.
For better and for worse, Infernal Affairs [Hong Kong action titles also generally sound like soft core porn] finds a way to incorporate each and every on of these things into a single film.
Must…see…Infernal Affairs.