Tony Leung Chiu Wai and Andy Lau in a still from Infernal Affairs, co-directed by Andrew Lau Wai Keung and Alan Mak Siu Fai.Hong Kong films had ruled the roost at the local box office until the mid-1990s, when Hollywood films started to outdo them in popularity. By the end of the millennium, Hong Kong filmmakers were feeling desperate, wondering whether the city’s film industry could survive.
The story revolves around a triad member who infiltrates the Criminal Investigation Bureau, and a police officer who simultaneously goes undercover in his triad gang. “The film fitted in with a tradition of undercover police officer and identity-switch stories which went back to films like Alex Cheung [Kwok-ming]’s 1981 film“But Internal Affair pushed harder by having multiple plants entrenched on both sides of the law, and it dropped the regular police-officer-film fights and chases in favour of intimate, character-driven drama and slow-building tension,” says Youngs.
“My responsibility in Internal Affairs is the commercial element,” a modest Andy Lau said in an interview, “while Tony is there to provide the artistic element.” Internal affairs had top stars, arrived with a huge marketing push, and maintained consistently high-quality production values that competed with Hollywood fare. It scored incredibly positive word of mouth. Catching the film became a point of Hong Kong pride,” says Youngs.
Source: News Formal (newsformal.com)
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