- Information:
- Title: (Infernal Affairs III or Mou Gaan Dou III)
- Certificate: (15)
- Released by: (Tartan Video’s Tartan Asia Extreme label)
- Run Time: (118 minutes)
- Origin: (Hong Kong)
- Language: (Cantonese)
- Vintage: (2003)
Ten months after Yan’s (Tony Leung) death, Ming (Andy Lau) finds his career on the rocks and his marriage over. To rescue his career he begins a reckless clandestine investigation into his hotshot colleague Yeung (Leon Lai), whose meteoric rise mirrored his own prior to Yan’s death. Slowly losing his mind Ming attempts to set things right, even confusing his own identity with that of his former nemesis, the long-dead Yan.
Infernal Affairs III concludes this Gangland life masterpiece that has found favour with many a critic and film buff alike. It was directed just like the first two films by Andrew Lau and Alan Mak and stars Andy Lau and Tony Leung as Lau Kin Ming and Chen Wing Yan respectively with Leon Lai, Kelly Chen, Anthony Wong and Eric Tsang as Yeung, Dr. Lee Sum Yee, SP Wong and Boss Sam.(plot courtesy of Tartan Video’s DVD release plus major changes)
I believe that altogether Infernal affairs III was nominated for nine awards and won two of those, Best actor for Andy Lau at the Golden Horse film festival and a “film of merit” award from the Hong Kong Film critics society. Also there were 7 nominations at the 2004 Hong Kong film Awards but with no results (Rightly so).
Now as much as I like Asian and European cinema I have to say that this felt too much like a mix of Asian and Hollywood, personally I don’t think this third film was really needed and to me it smacks of Hollywood’s eternal use of the old Greek concept of Deus Ex Machina which in essence means that everything returns to how it was. While that not exactly true in this case the ending does go some way to getting things back to the way they should be according to the old nonsense of “Good Vs. Evil”, In effect Ming gets what’s coming to him and things return to normal for Hong Kong’s Police.
This to me isn’t a good thing and once you add the addition of characters we’ve never seen yet seem to have a very important role in the whole concept around the three films it turns into a farce that isn’t even funny. While the metal aspect of Ming’s remorse are interesting it’s just not the way a good trilogy is supposed to end. Infernal Affairs III, Rating (5/10).
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