[xar]

Wow, it seems like The Departed is getting early superlatively rave reviews so far. Many critics even said that this is the BEST Scorsese's noir/crime film ever, besting Goodfellas!

I'm a tremendous fan of the original Infernal Affairs trilogy, so I was hoping that The Departed would be good. Thank god it is

Like many other Asian cinema fans, I am still a bit unhappy of Hollywood's habit of taking every good foreign film and 'remaking' them. Hey, I have no problems watching the originals, with subtitles, for The Ring (Japanese), Il Mare/The Lake House (Korean), Shall We Dance (Japanese), The Grudge (Korean), and of course, Infernal Affairs (Hong Kong). Americans should learn to do the same. There's much more to the world than the USA, you know.

Incidentally, is this an indication that Hollywood has past its creative prime? Well, I guess every era must come to an end someday.

But hey, I'm a gracious guy, and I had only goodwill for The Departed. Luckily it has been repaid.

One little qualm. Many reviews state that The Departed is just 'inspired' by Infernal Affairs, and is not a 'remake' of it. Whether this is really some kind of Hollywood arrogance in refusing to acknowlege the fact that they did not come up with the very original and intriguing plot for this film or not, I will reserve my judgement until I watch the movie. But I must say that I have my doubts on this. I would advice others to watch the original IA too to see whether the critics are wrong on this.

Incidentally, WHAT IS WITH THE F**KINGLY TERRIBLE MOVIE COVER FOR IA FROM MIRAMAX??? Which f**kwit executive decide to just slap a random Asian chick on a very horribly garish background for the movie's DVD cover? Pisses me off so much when I saw that. If the marketing idiots at Miramax couldn't even come up with a decent cover pic, maybe they should have just stuck to using the Asian version. If I didn't know anything about the original AI, and I saw that f**kingly terrible cover for AI in America, I probably wouldn't borrow it. Idiotic Miramax guys. They almost did the same thing (adding a sexy Asian chick which isn't a main part of the movie on the front cover) for Chungking Express.

*Cooling down from that rant now...*

Anyway, can't wait to catch it in the cinemas now

[aera]

Originally Posted by xar

One little qualm. Many reviews state that The Departed is just 'inspired' by Infernal Affairs, and is not a 'remake' of it. Whether this is really some kind of Hollywood arrogance in refusing to acknowlege the fact that they did not come up with the very original and intriguing plot for this film or not, I will reserve my judgement until I watch the movie. But I must say that I have my doubts on this. I would advice others to watch the original IA too to see whether the critics are wrong on this.

yea, i noticed this too. i find it hard to believe it's only "vaguely based" on infernal affairs because I saw several familiar, reenacted scenes from the trailer. =/

[xar]

Hey there aera!

Another critic's sentence that makes every IA fan's blood boil:

"The stroy of The Departed is vaguely (yeah... right...) based on the 2002 (not exactly an old film yet, is it?) brilliant Hong Kong thriller, 'Infernal Affairs', which achieved great succes in Asia before being released (briefly) in the US in 2004" - Emmanual Levy

Yeah, the trailer's what made me skeptical about TD not being a 'remake' of IA. There are quite a lot of scenes that are literally reenactments of IA. For example:

1. The cast-breaking scene
2. The falling off the building scene
3. The mobile phone scene (it was mentioned in Emmanual Levy's review)
4. The final rooftop confrontation scene
5. The psychiatrist love interest scene

The list goes on and on. I have SERIOUS doubts about it not being a remake. The only thing I can gather so far was that they expanded Sam's mobster role, and made a love triangle between Yan, Ming and the hot psychiatrist. Wow, what radical changes indeed. Of course Hollywood can claim TD as its own idea now, huh?

I also noticed that the review by Josh Tyler at cinemablend.com that TD has a 'copout ending'. I'm not suprised at all for Hollywood to take the Mainland China's alternate ending (get my drift? ). Typical and so unpoetic.

Neways, this seems to be shaping up as some kind of new masterpiece by Scorsese now. I am curious whether TD would be able to win some Oscars. If it does, for Best Picture or Best Screenplay, how is that justified, since the whole ingenious plot is not the TD crew's idea? It should correctly be attributed to Andy Lau and Alan Mak, the original Hong Kong writers/directors.

Let me know what you guys think about this.

P.S.: Yet another irritatingly erroneous credit given to Scorsese by critics, this time by Joshua Tyler:

"Exactly the sort of complexity you'd expect from a Scorsese movie"

Yeah, right. Where did Hollywood get the script from again? Do more research, critics, before giving people undue credit, will ya?

[xar]

Umm... just wondering, why isn't the post count showing correctly for this thread? It seems to be malfunctioning.

[Arnzilla]

Originally Posted by xar

The only thing I can gather so far was that they expanded Sam's mobster role, and made a love triangle between Yan, Ming and the hot psychiatrist.

I think the highest praise the film is getting has been for its risque humor and profane dialogue. There were a few comedic moments in IA, but there are supposed to be some big laughs in the remake and Monahan has apparently steeped it in Boston color. Class and race issues are brought up that the original didn't have. Damon's character was a poor kid growing up while DiCaprio's grew up with an affluent mom. Being younger characters than in IA, both are said to have more pronounced father-son relationships with their superiors. Damon's character also apparently has his eye on bigger and better things than just the police department. He appears to have them set on running for office as a state lawmaker. Institutional corruption seems to be a bigger theme, especially with the federal government's involvement with Nicholson's character. The medical profession may come off as pretty corrupt, too, in the psychiatrist character. The remake may be more nihilistic and fatalistic than IA, which had a sense of hope at the end.