The Departed clarification
prof_rockwell
2,867 Posts
OK, so when The Departed was first showing previews and whatnot, I heard that it was based on the Hong Kong flick Int[/b]ernal Affairs, but during the Oscars, they kept saying it was adapted from the movie Inf[/b]ernal Affairs. When I went to IMDB, they say the working title of The Departed was Infernal Affairs. Now I'm all 
What's the real deal?
What's the real deal?
Comments
and, as i just said in the oscar thread, the departed was mediocre at best.
Tough crowd.
definately check out infernal affairs. there are also 2 sequels which arent that good but decent. I heard they wanted to adapt those too for us audiences.
hmmm.
Eh...good parts, and leo d. was great.
that said, it was too long, the story was frustratingly implausible, and there were maaaany parts that had me rolling my eyes saying, 'really? am i this gullible?'
not to mention jack nicholson played the joker. god's honest truth, if he had said to someone, 'you ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?' I wouldn't have batted an eye.
as soon as i finished i called my film reviewer buddy and he said Infernal Affairs was vastly superior- at his rec, i'll check it out with y'all.
leo comes into your office, and exhibits all signs of classic desperate junkie behavior?
better fuck him and become his best friend to be sure.
jesus. i'm gonna stop, because the more i talk about this movie the madder i get.
Will be the FIRST to admit that i'm not the biggest movie guy. Didn't see a lot last year at all, so I'm not going to give a list of things i thought were better from '06, as I'm in NO WAY quallified to offer anything better.
I don't always look for realism; but plausibility? yes. I'll suspend my disbelief, but you GOTTA meet me half way. I've got a list of complaints with this movie that I'll post wayyyyyy below for those trying to avoid the spoiler alert (i'll be nice to those who are even later than me...)
1. you are the biggest mobster in boston. you have a gang with what...5 guys?
2. suddenly there is a rat in your mob. suddenly there is a new guy. but, you just start believing him? if you were as crazy as i'm supposed to believe, he'd be dead, and the movie would have been nominated for best live action short.
3. that horseshit scene when dude was shot and dying on the couch, and says, 'i know its you....ughhhhhhhhh'. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. That was when I checked out. Movie didn't, though; 45 minutes to go.
4. above about the female character.
5. the accents; i live in boston, this complaint doesn't count.
6. there are a lot of little nitpicks...(what the hell was up with that dessert scene? at some point, if they keep eating, those big towers have to fall...) but those are only an issue because of the other stuff. i'm usually quick to forgive this little stuff, but it just aggravted me in this movie which just won best picture and best editing.
Look, I'm all for putting belief on hold for the purpose of entertainment. But, this movie just...didn't do enough to meet me half way. Took too many liberties for me to take it as seriously as I was supposed to.
the actors in The Departed were great, BUT not as provokative as the Infernal casts.
They can't bring out that "neverending torture of living" & the "morality of good and bad" feelings, which imo is part of the concept of the Wu Gan Dao (the origin of the script, some ancient buddhism theory, and also the Chinese name of the Infernal Affairs)
In fact, i think The Departed made the biggest mistake out of all, the Director made it too clear who are the good and the bad guys, which is totally contrarary to the original.
argh! I don't think i have said 100% of what i'm think but my english isn't good enough to do so.
The part of the police psychcatrist in Infernal Affairs was played by this very lame canto pop star, she was just breaking into the biz and needed as much face time as possible to promote her self as a singing/dancing/acting do it all. They basicly wrote the part for her and she did it for FREE! Just to get the promo for it. Thats why the charactor is so wack and hardly says anything.
He wasn't the biggest mobster in Boston, he was a big IRISH mobster. And he added more people to his crew when he thought there was a mole so the 5 main mobsters were probably his most trusted, while he had a cast of ready recruits which didn't need to be shown in the movie.
DiCapprio's character worked for the gang for a while before they got hint that there was a rat. Conversly, the police felt that they had a rat. Should they get rid of their newest member as well? Older cops or mobsters can't be turned into informants for money or other rewards? And Nicholson's character DID test DiCapprio to see whether he was the rat or not.
Don't have a problem with this criticism although they were trying to show that the shot guy had some kind of loyalty to DiCapprio because they'd been through so much that perhaps he didn't want to rat him out.
Agree, she didn't need to be in the movie
You had a problem with a desert in a movie because it didn't fall over when they were eating it?
And for the record I thought the Departed was far superior to Infernal Affairs which I thought was a good cop movie, which I would probably recommend for people to see on DVD, while the Departed I really liked and told people to go see it at a movie theater on the big screen.
no i know where you're coming from with some of your points. i'm not talking about from '06. when someone says something is "mediocre at best" i can't help but be curious about what their idea of excellence is. what are your favorite movies of all time?
Sure there were flaws, but there was just too much fun to be had in that movie for me to let one or two inconsistencies ruin the whole thing.
Re: Infernal Affairs, you all know what a huge HK movie nerd I am.
These movies have been a huge part of my life since the late 70's.
That said I thought Departed was better than the original(s) on nearly every level.
Infernal Affairs was cool and all, but I can probably think of 50 HK joints of the same ilk that were more on point than that.
There also seems to be a knee jerk reaction / rush to bash anything outta Hollywood that either steals, borrows or in this case "adapts" (since remake is not the right word in this case) HK films.
I can understand that sentiment.
But it must be known that HK filmmakers are the absolute WORST ("best"?) when it comes to "borrowing" from other films - mostly from the west.
I'd have to start another thread to go down the list, but trust me on this one.
"Blatant rip off" is a phrase that often comes to mind when watching these movies.
And again, that's not necessarily a bad thing.
There's always been this kind of cinematic cultural exchange between east and west over the years and just in the last few, the west is starting to finally reap the benefits.
Samo Hung's "Eastern Condors" (1987) for example ripped off scenes (sometimes frame for frame) from war classics like The Dirty Dozen, Full Metal Jacket, The Wild Geese, Dogs of War and on and on. Even so, Samo managed to outdo ALL of those films in terms of sheer action/excitement and make it his own.
And that's the key.
As they say with regards to producers, it's not what record or sample you have, it's how you flip it.
Same can be said about Marty and The Departed.
He flipped it his own way and the result was
feelin like siskel and ebert here...
ahhhh....the infamous boston accent, more like accident for most actors, almost.. but....try again. this dragged on and on , i felt like i was the only one who thought this.
marky mark should have been leo.
dead on about jack.
last 10 mins is when the whole movie happens.
this is the whitey bulger movie ??
booo. brotherhood is where its at.
Who told you that?
I can't think of anything from The Brothers Bulger book that shows up in The Departed.
Nothing.
I think the extent of the Whitey Bulger connection is that it gave someone to help Jack base his character on (which apparently didn't work anyway since, as stated before, Jack comes off more as "Jack" aka The Joker than anything we know about Whitey - aside from the psychotic part of course).
Oh yeah, on that note:
Jack = extremely overrated actor.
To me, Eric Tsang was by far the best thing about Infernal Affairs.
Nothing short of amazing to think that this was the same short, little semi-retarded dufus that used to run around like an idiot in all those Lucky Stars movies.
Definitely gotten better with age.
Kenny, did you see Men Suddenly In Black?
If so, what did you think?
Hmm Eric I would put to 2nd, I put Anthony Wong to 1st, he was right on it!
Men Suddenly In Black the one with Eric and JordanChan right? hmm... I didn't take that as serious as Infernal Affairs, I thought it was ok, nothing silly or anything, but i won't have an urge to watch it over and over again.
Random thoughts here..(possible spoilers)
1. The Departed had BALLS. That's why it was a great movie. It's not Marty's most precise directing job nor a perfect script without some flaws but it had it where it counts.
2. Whenever I try and watch an original foreign movie after seeing the remake first.. it never works out. It's hard for the movie you watch second to top the one you saw first when you know what's going to happen. Sometimes the original is just worse though - I thought the original Ring was horrible. Now days I try and figure out which is best and watch that one first so as not to spoil it. I do that with the book too.. I don't want to watch a bad adaption of a movie that will spoil the book or vice versa which is less common but has happened. I'm going to check out infernal affairs though.
3. My friend in the biz told me Marty had signed on to do a sequel that would follow Marky Mark's character. I haven't checked online to verify that, perhaps afraid I'd be disappointed if it turned out to be rumor.
4. It doesn't seem to me that Scorsese has ever been overly concerned with the women's roles in his movies. I wouldn't fault him for that, just not his style. His movies are about men, see Also Kubrick and lots of other great director types. The actress in the departed had to petition Scorsese to beef up her part because it was an even more inconsequential role as originally written.
5. I can see how you could pick apart the Departed if you really want to. It was a lot like a Tarantino flick aka a B-movie plot with A-list actors.. and that's probably part of why it connected so well.
anyways
Ga***h, you took the words right out of my mouth, I almost kicked the guy in front on me after the super special surprise ending scene. This movie was a mess. I found myself saying I don't care about any of this characters, which is the hallmark of a really great cinematic experience for me. Yet, I have to admit that Leo was excellent. I also thought Damon was great.
Edith, I noticed in the movie thread that you like the foreign and more arty stuff. I am stuck that your musical tastes seems more straight ahead, less out, especially on the strut where people seem to be in a hurry to floss their latest private press turds. Any thoughts about the (supposed) difference in your movie and music likes? I clocked in my tops in the movie thread and I think it pretty much parallels my musical preferences; quality, not necessarily known, but nothing very outre or overly abstract (hate the free jazz).
I may be stating the obvious here, but wasn't it revealed later that the dying guy was a cop informant as well?
As I've said before, I thought it was a very good film (8/10 maybe). Captivating, with very good performances from the cast, and excellent story-telling. Superior to Infernal Affairs, no doubt. A couple of things I did have problems with: Nicholson's scene at the opera and, to a lesser extent, the thing with the dildo. I felt as if these ideas in particular should've been more fleshed out.
Another problem I had was with the much-touted ending scene (or image more specifically), I know it's gotta be a joke, but I just don't get it really. I'm curious if Scorsese has addressed it in interviews. Furthermore, I'm not at all sure that it's not some sort of reference to Pasolini's Mamma Roma which ends with a similar image about a church with a (presumably) golden dome.
Hahahah MSIB. Have you seen the sequal?
HA! You mean as opposed to the prosthetic one Jack whipped out?!
I haven't. In fact I haven't finished watching the first one yet. But so far it's a lot of fun.
No doubt he killed it, but I gotta honestly say, sometimes I just wanna smack that Billy Idol smirk right off of Anthony Wong's face.
Dude always comes off as the biggest asshole.
I guess there's a reason he keeps getting these roles though.
And not for nothing, but what's up with Micheal Wong*??
How the fuck is dude still working in the film industry??!
Come to think of it, he's lasted longer than his brother though, huh?
Russell shoulda moved to HK after New Jack City.
* (no relation to Anthony Wong - at least I hope not)
Men Suddenly in Black is quite decent, the scene with the container port in the background cracks me up as it tries so hard to emulate the scenes in Michael Mann's "Heat". The ending is ehh, as per usual with HKG cinema affair. Approach-wise, i think it's strikingly similar to UK TV series "Spaced", only MSIB is much more self conscious and showy in "see? I'm such a crime movie geek I'm referencing this-and-that movie".
Take that shit to aintitcool, please.
Those SWAT movie made him more of a bankable star in Hong Kong than Russell? Didn't Russell made a Cinecity movie in the 80s? I remember it something about jazz dancing, because I saw the manuscript of that movie when I was an young'un.
For real tho', Michael Wong always thought he's some gung-ho military type in real life since he flys a plane...Kenny you remember the public consultation forum with him leading those air cadets? jeez...what a show-off.
The Wong's grew up not far from here in NY and their folks still have a nice restaurant in town.
Nice people but Michael always seemed like a real herb.
Damn.
Holy shit I didn't make the connection of Eric Tsang from the Lucky Stars films at all! Mind is officially blown.
Regarding the original question, I've vented about The departed vs Infernal Affairs before but just had to say that Internal[/b] Affairs is one of probably only two Richard gere films where I didn't want to punch his head in. One of the best of the psycho-stalker range of films that came out in the nineties and the only film I can think of that made full use of the creepy slime that is Gere's on screen presence.
I didn't know this - interesting. I thought she was included so's to give Tony Leung's character something resembling a love interest, or some sort of life outside his dual role as cop/snitch. The only hint of any previous life is when he bumps into what I assume to be his ex/babymama on the street, just before his guvnor takes an involuntary swandive off the roof. It's a beautifully acted moment, and when the camera cuts to the kid, who doesn't recognise the man that's probably her father, you get a real sense of just how much he's sacrificed for the job.
I've heard a few better-informed people say that, as HK movies go, there isn't anything that extraordinary about Infernal Affairs, but I still thought it had loads more depth and detail than most similar genre movies out of the West in recent years. If I were to list my five favourite flicks of the last decade, it would definitely be in there. When me & my girl saw The Departed, she was particularly disappointed at just how little Scorsese attempted to deviate from the original, not to mention the pat ending. It's a shame because, even though he's shown no interest in movie franchises, I'd have loved to have seen his take on IA III, which I thought was almost as good as the first one. And I completely agree with Paul Nice that Eric Tsang is superb in the first one. There's a nicely understated menace to his performance that's absent from Jack's scenery-chewing turn. If I'd been aware of his comic past, I'm sure it would have had even more impact.