Protege – Better than Infernal Affairs ?
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I’ve been a HK film addict before the time I could tie my own shoes. All those Shaw Brothers kungfu films are as much a comfort food to me as Butter Chicken or Strawberry ice-cream is. By the time I first watched a John Woo film ie The Killer this love affair had transormed into an obsession. In a few of my previous posts I have talked about the decline of HK cinema and the emergence of Brazil and South Korea as the new cinema powerhouses of the world. And I’m not talking bout box office reciepts or even number of eyeballs gathered. My only criteria is sheer mastery over both form and content.
However to my utmost elation I can now talk about the resurrection of HK cinema, the absolution of an old hero and the birth of a new one. First however I have to talk about the old Infernal Affairs vs The Departed debate. On the imbd top 250 list, The Departed stands at #45 while Infernal Affairs is at #235. That would seem to settle the argument once and for all but actually it doesn’t. It just reinforces the fact that despite the amalgamation of cultures, the West still sees things differently than the East. In my book Infernal Affairs blows The Departed out of the water. Don’t get me wrong it’s still a pretty good film but I just think it’s a sick joke that Marty wins the Oscar for it and not for Raging Bull or Goodfellas.
The climax of the Departed along with the corny love triangle made it a lesser film than it might have been but the real reason that Infernal Affairs wins out is due to Tony Leung and Andy Lau. With all due respect to messrs Damon, Dicaprio and even Nicholson, they are not in the league of Leung and Lau. Nicholson at one time when he did 5 Easy Pieces, Cuckoo and The Last Detail was as good and probably better but for a long time he has just been playing variations of Jack Nicholson the star. Much like Al Pacino in that regard who has rarely shown the brilliance of The Godfather or Serpico ever since he won the Oscar for an excreable role in Scent of a Woman.
Infernal Affairs also scores because of the fact that evil triumphed over good and it had a wickedly bleak ending. I don’t remember the last time a big budget hollywood film had such…..wait….do I hear The Dark Knight ? The precise reason why I think TDK is such a seminal film cause as the Joker would put it “You’ve changed things…. forever”. But that’s a discussion for another day.
This past week as I had some downtime between shoots I decided to catch up on movie watching which I had neglected for a while. Some of the films i saw were bad, some good and some brilliant. I’m here to talk about the brilliant ones.
First up was the epic “Red Cliff” by my old friend John Woo and he has vindicated himself after years of bad Hollywood films. It’s a magnificient film held together by Tony Leung who is brilliant as ever. My only complaint if any was the absence of Chow-Yun Fat from the film. The last time Woo, Fat and Leung were together were for the masterful “Hard Boiled” which was Woo’s last HK film. If only he had been in the film it would have been the best case of poetic justice I have ever since. It’s an 80 million dollar film split into two halves. The concluding half comes out in Jan 2009 and I for one am holding my breath.
Another brilliant film I saw was “One Night in Mongkok” helmed by Derek Yee. I had only watched one film of Yee prior to this and that was the exceptional “Lost in Time”. If only Bollywood made romantic films with as much heart and honest emotions as “Lost in Time” PFC wouldn’t be littered with posts lamenting the state of Hindi cinema.
“One Night in Mongkok” is an extremely gripping and taut thriller set over the course of one night during christmas when a bloody gang war threatens to engulf the most densely populated colony in the world ie Mongkok. It’s a great film with a superb script, fabulous performances, effective cinematography and masterful direction by Yee. The thing I noticed bout Yee and what makes him my newest cinematic hero is he is more interested in the whydunit rather than the whodunit. As much as I love twist in the tale plotting and character reversals I probably appreciate nuanced character studies even more. I chalk that down to Alexander Dumas being my all time favorite author.
So today when I sat down to watch Yee’s Protege I was expecting a great film populated by some of fav HK actors like Andy Lau, Daniel Wu and Louis Koo. What I wasn’t expecting however was a film which forced me to ask myself this question. Is Protege even better than Infernal Affairs ? The two films share a lot in common. Andy Lau, undercover cops, themes of friendship and loyalty etc etc. Protege actually feels like an extension of the Infernal universe with Lau giving a stellar performance as an amoral and ruthless diabetic druglord who has trouble discipling his rebellious teenage daughter. Wu plays the undercover cop whom Lau is grooming as the titular Protege and who is the moral crux of the film. I wouldn’t want to explain the plot coz that’s pointless. A fair warning to those who expect Infernal Affairs type pyrotechnics and uber stylized cinematography. There is none. Infact guns are only fired once in the film and they are more comic relief than anything.
As with most films the litmus test comes at the climax and that’s where Protege stakes it claim to enter the pantheon of greatness much like Infernal Affairs. However herein lies the problem. The final 5 mins of the film could be described by some as filmy or cheesy. I however think that it’s one of the finest I have seen in a long long time. In the end that’s what I like about the films I champion and cherish. Like great poetry I need them to be open to interpretation.
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Hey Mithun, nice post.
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Damn, Protege dvd is lying with me for the past year. Never got to seeing it for some unapparent reason. Anyways, great to have another post by you.
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hey … can you recommend some good HK thriller films? i have picked up infernal affairs and a dirty carnival to watch. any others you would suggest besides the ones in your post?
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hi
where can i get hold of dvds (with eng subs)in Hyderabad/Pune/Mumbai/Chennai
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Hey Mitch
Thanks for the post …I actually had the oppurtunity to watch Protege in Thailand last year on big screen …Regrestting it…(thought it would be in Thai).
Now my question is where can I get some movies u mentioned apart from Netflix.
Thanks in advance
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@Rabindro & Saab
Thanks guys
@Ravi
I reccomend a book called Hong Kong Babylon which has been my bible for a number of years. It’s dated now coz I think it ends in the mid 90’s. For all of my viewing whether good bad or ugly you could check out my blog or there are some very cool sites dedicated to HK cinema. The problem remains that there is such a deluge of films it’s hard to keep up. If you wanna see really insanely fucked up films watch Shamo and Dog Eat Dog.
@Anon and Observer
I would try the DVD libraries in Bombay esp Sarvodya.
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Ru kidding me
without any bias the Departed is much much better and y:-
De Caprio character has more depth as in the mental trauma he faces and the way he reacts is much more believable and better explored than the HK version. Staff Sergent Dignam has single-handedly taken the Departed to another level and has won the Acedemy awards for precisely the way he has played his part
Jack nicolson (i agree with ur analysis of his acting) but the movie does explore his character in more depth the small scene with french when he says “gee she fell funny” does establish his weird and cold blooded sensibility , Mr French has sufficient screen timing to make believe the audience about the nature and brutality of their crimes. Thus u can pick any character at random in the film and see for urself that it is better exploited in the film . The HK version is more like Bollywood stuff it concentrates on the stars alone. The rat at the end of departed does signify the true status of Matt Demon.
The use of Intercut in the film is so well employed that we will have to meet in order to show u how it has been employed with great skill.
Forgive the typos and sms language, i m not a purist
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Nikhil you are of course entitled to your opinion and as I have mentioned earlier you have the majority view of imdb to back you up as well. I still maintain that IA is a much greater film for precisely the opp reasons you like in the Departed. I don’t like things to be spelt out for me in films. I’m appreciative of understatement and minimalism, both of which are lacking in Departed.
if editing is a criteria for judging a film then 3 films which released that year ie United 93, The Prestige and Children of Men are light years ahead of The Departed. I personally think it’s a travesty that Children of Men didn’t make a clean sweep at the Oscars but such provocative anti-establishment material rarely sits well with the Academy.
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I enjoyed both ‘The Departed’ and IA almost equally. I liked the romantic angle in The Departedt. It might be contrived but the chemistry between the actors makes it worth the watch. Leonardo Di Caprio is one of my favorite actors and his portrayal of the character was kickass. My problem with The Departed is the whole Nicholson being the FBI stooge angle. It made the story look ridiculous.
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Damn Children of Men….one of the greatest films ever adapted and released on the big screen. Just like LOTR, that piece came and hit us hard. Which reminds me….
http://saadnawab.blogspot.com/2007/02/last-one-to-die-please-turn-out-light.html
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@Dazed and Confused
I’m not a Leo fan and in fact the only performance of his which I’ve loved is “What’s eating Gilbert Grape”. I feel he tries too hard and the effort in it is visible. A similar example I could give you is “The Last Samurai” where Tom Cruise is trying so hard and is almost begging for an Oscar while Ken Watanabe just effortlessly steals the film away from him.
Departed is a masala film lacking much of the subtleties of the original. With all due respect to the religions involved the the Buddhist symbolism in IA works much better for me than the Christain symbolism in Departed which for a Scorsese film doesn’t have that much depth.
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