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Synopsis
The Hong Kong crime drama was jolted to new life with the release of the Infernal Affairs trilogy, a bracing, explosively stylish critical and commercial triumph that introduced a dazzling level of narrative and thematic complexity to the genre with its gripping saga of two rival moles—played by superstars Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Andy Lau Tak-wah—who navigate slippery moral choices as they move between the intersecting territories of Hong Kong’s police force and its criminal underworld. Set during the uncertainty of the city-state’s handover from Britain to China and steeped in Buddhist philosophy, these ingeniously crafted tales of self-deception and betrayal mirror Hong Kong’s own fractured identity and the psychic schisms of life in a postcolonial purgatory.
Picture 7/10
The second dual-layer disc in Criterion’s box set The Infernal Affairs Trilogy (as expected) offers up Andrew Lau Wai-keung’s and Alan Mak’s prequel Infernal Affairs II, provided here in its original aspect ratio of 2.39:1. Like the other films in the set the 1080p/24hz high-definition presentation is sourced from a new 4K restoration performed by Media Asia and scanned by L’Immagine Ritrovata from the 35mm original camera negative.
As with the other films in the set the presentation is a real mixed bag but never all that great. There are moments that look decent enough but it’s clear that noise reduction and filtering has been applied to the image, giving it a slight waxy texture a lot of the time. Grain is always there to some degree but there are moments where it can come off looking thicker and more natural compared to other moments where it’s been scrubbed away a bit. Detail levels get heavily impacted in the process, flattening the image out at its worst. One scene that ends up sticking out is a sequence where one character is set on fire. Based on a behind-the-scenes feature it appears this effect was probably done through CGI (the actual flame in the behind-the-scenes footage ends up being substantially smaller) so it’s not going to look all that great no matter how well this presentation turned out, but the excessive filtering that has been applied makes it look absolutely flat and textureless. It looks laughably bad.
As with the first film colors look decent enough, the scheme seeming to change from scene to scene (in the commentary on this disc director Lau mentions the grading was accomplished digitally) but black levels can be a bit iffy. In general blacks are inky but shadows details can be limited in places, and banding can be an issue again, heavier here than in comparison to what we get in the first and third films.
As with the other presentations the clean-up job is impressive, no notable damage remaining, but it’s hard to get excited about that when the rest of the presentation is far from what it could potentially be.
Audio 8/10
Infernal Affairs II also comes with a lossless DTS-HD MA 5.1 surround soundtrack. It’s similar to the track for the previous film in that the mix doesn’t really stand out as anything special. Surrounds feature some ambient noise and some of the more “action packed” moments (gun shots and such), but it’s the score that ends up making the most use of the surrounds and the lower frequency, and it sounds great.
Extras 7/10
Supplements for the second film end up being limited to archival material or material produced for previous editions. There is another audio commentary that yet again features directors Lau and Mak alongside writer Felix Chong Man-keung along with actors Eric Tsang, Carina Lau, Anthony Wong, Edison Chen, Shawn Yue, Hu Jun, Francis Ng, Chapman To, and a couple of others. Criterion’s notes don’t list the actors, sadly, and there is never any indication who is speaking during the track. I suspect that, at the very least, the actors’ comments are edited in from interviews conducted at the time of the film’s release.
The track is very similar to the track for the first film as it focuses more on the development of the story and its characters. It’s here that we learn more around how the actors would work with Chong in both developing their characters and (to an extent) how to perform. I also enjoyed when both Chen and Yue would talk about playing the younger versions of Andy Lau’s and Tony Leung’s characters (respectively) while also sharing the advice they would get from their older, more seasoned costars. There is then also a lot of talk around Ng’s character, who is the primary antagonist in the film, and the filmmakers share their praise for his performance (apparently Ng was supposed to be in the first film but couldn't make it due to scheduling conflicts). There are plenty of production stories that pop up as well, the most interesting of which (especially in the age of COVID) revolves around having to make the film when there were policies and restrictions related to SARS at the time.
There’s more dead space here in comparison to the first track but it probably moves at a quicker pace since more actors are popping up to talk about their characters and performances.
The disc then features a 22-minute making-of that features more interviews with the filmmakers and cast, along with behind-the-scenes material. It’s more promotional in nature but isn’t too bad for what it is. Following that is Confidential File, which features 6-minutes’ worth of behind-the-scenes material. This one ends up being better than the one for the first film as we get to see some of the effects work, including a little bit around how they pulled off a shocking scene where one character gets hit by a car (the car also hit the camera at one point). It also features footage around an incident in the film where one character is set on fire.
The disc also includes four deleted scenes and a collection of bloopers. The deleted scenes don’t add much but are interesting to watch, with the first scene being an extension on an early birthday party scene (around 3-minutes), the second expanding on a short sequence in the film on a prison basketball court (about 1-minute), and then the third delivering a whole new scene where Lau messes with one of his supervisors (4-minutes). The fourth, just over a minute, involves an amusing conversation around how movie mob bosses are usually short, maybe in a meta-like reference to Tsang. The bloopers, running around 2-minutes, offers the expected flubs and such, but it also features an amusing additional angle around the scene where a character is hit by a car.
The disc then closes with a 3-minute trailer. Around a minute of that is made up of production logos.
Sadly, nothing new here (and no academic angle) but I was surprised by how much I did enjoy the commentary.
Closing
Another disappointing presentation with a weaker set of features compared to the previous disc. At the very least the commentary ends up being rather enjoyable.
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