After entering the twenty-first century, the ceiling of Hong Kong films is probably "Infernal Affairs", and even the old and beautiful Hollywood has to come to buy the script and go back to remake, which shows the excellent plot.
Interestingly, the "Infernal Affairs" series has made three films, each of which has a good reputation, each one is also more distinctive, "Infernal Affairs 1" is a work that opens the word of mouth, although it feels that there are some small bugs in the middle, but it does not prevent the film from becoming a classic in the classic, ranking nineteenth in the Douban TOP250.
"Infernal Affairs 2" style has changed dramatically, it is no longer like a police film, more like a gangster film, due to Wu Zhenyu's outstanding acting skills, the film is known as the Hong Kong version of "The Godfather", although the reputation is not as good as the first part, ranking 234th in the Douban TOP250, but the film also has many fans, including the author.
There are many classic bridges in "Infernal Affairs 2", the most impressive of which is the process of Ni Yongxiao twice leveling the four bosses of Tsim Sha Tsui, the first time forcing them to pay money has a strong sense of fun, Gandhi boss lost money twice, it was really tragic. The second killing has a strong artistry, and in the highlight moments of the gangster movie, Gandhi's boss is also a ghost.
In particular, the third uncle played by Liao Qizhi, after burying people, relies on the car to play the harmonica "Friendship for a Long Time", which really makes people feel a real bloody romance.
Relatively speaking, the reputation of "Infernal Affairs 3" is worse, it will stay above 8 points, and if there is no pearl jade in the first two films, this movie with intertwined time and space and a hodgepodge of characters may be difficult to get such a score.
Moreover, the most disturbing thing is that if you do not know the first two parts of "Infernal Affairs" in detail, if you go directly to "Infernal Affairs 3", you are likely to not understand it, if you have not watched the first two parts, directly watching the third part is simply torture, which is the difference between the "Infernal Affairs" trilogy and the "Eavesdropping" trilogy.
Each of the "Eavesdropping" trilogy is an independent story, and the "Infernal Affairs" trilogy is a coherent story divided into three parts, of which the first part chooses the head and legs of the story, the second part chooses the head and torso of the story, and the third part of the story puts the torso part and feet together.
I have to say that the story structure of the "Infernal Affairs" trilogy will make some viewers feel disturbed, fortunately, the film's audio and video distributors know this very well, so they launched a "Infernal Affairs" original version in the DVD product, that is, the three "Infernal Affairs" re-edited, arranged the plot in chronological order from 1991 to 2004, and recreated a magnificent Hong Kong epic blockbuster.
Of course, because it is edited by the audio-visual distributor itself, not the work of the director, so the editing of this regular version is more mechanical, the advantage is that it is strictly seamless, and it will not play the art of time and space switching like the director, and the bad part is that it is more blunt and some places are lazy.
The beginning of the original version of the film is also the opening of "Infernal Affairs 1", that is, the passage of Han Chen's speech of "One Will Succeed in Ten Thousand Bones", which is the beginning of the entire series, which occurred in 1991.
Then the film immediately cuts back to the beginning of "Infernal Affairs 2", the scene where Huang Zhicheng and Han Chen chat, there is also a classic line "Killing and setting fire to the golden belt, repairing bridges and roads without corpses".
The next is basically the content of "Infernal Affairs 2", and there is also an edit in the middle, which will be edited together in the order of the plot in which Chen Yongren was interviewed in "Infernal Affairs 1" to point out that Huang Zhicheng wore the wrong socks and was expelled, and the part in "Infernal Affairs 2" in which Chief Ye announced the dismissal of Chen Yongren and Huang Zhicheng talked to him was edited together in the order of the plot, so that the whole process is smoother.
The only regret is that the background music and dubbing have not changed, because the musical tone of the two parts is different, so it is easy to hear the difference, and the dubbing of Chief Ye is completely different, no way, the work done by the audio and video distributor is rough.
What's even rougher is that the part of "Infernal Affairs 2" ends with Liu Jianming, played by Chen Guanxi, meeting the new MRRY and showing his trademark smile, and then the plot first switches to several shots of "Infernal Affairs 1", and then converts to the part of "Infernal Affairs 3", that is, Chen Yongren followed the silly strong mix, and these few seconds of fragments fused with three "Infernal Affairs" shots, which is also considered to be interesting enough for the distributor.
This paragraph is actually very good according to the plot, not only explaining where Chen Yongren went after Ni Yongxiao's death, but also explaining how he kept up with Han Chen, after all, there is a fool in the middle.
However, the subtitles in the film are not eliminated is a big bug, because "Infernal Affairs 3" is interpolated, using subtitles to explain the time is normal operation, your original version is normal time to go, if you let a viewer who has not seen "Infernal Affairs" watch, see the subtitles will suddenly be stunned, ah, Chen Yongren will die? This is not the distributor's own spoilers, rough, really rough.
There are rough places, of course, there are fine places, after playing the undercover Shen Cheng played by Chen Daoming in "Infernal Affairs 3" and Yang Jinrong played by Li Ming, the film switches to "Infernal Affairs 1", and the place where the connection is the video store.
Chen Yongren went to the back of the speaker to get the hidden drugs, Liu Jianming went into the store to see the gall machine, and the two met. This section of the switch blends the parts of "Infernal Affairs 1" and "Infernal Affairs 3", the whole process is very smooth, smooth enough to make people wonder whether this scene was filmed in one breath when filming "Infernal Affairs 1", but only edited a part and put it in "Infernal Affairs 3".
However, this clip is the end in Infernal Affairs 3, and it is a very good ending, and it is a pity to take such a good ending as a transitional clip.
There are fine places there are superfluous places, ten days after Chen Yongren's death, there is a scene in "Infernal Affairs 3" in which Shen Cheng and Yang Jinrong meet on the rooftop to commemorate Chen Yongren, this paragraph is hard inserted into the "Infernal Affairs 1" part, although there is nothing wrong with the time, it always feels a little redundant, destroying the atmosphere and rhythm of the original "Infernal Affairs 1".
The switch of the original version, the hardest place is in the second half of the editing of "Infernal Affairs 1" and "Infernal Affairs 3", that is, Liu Jianming salutes Chen Yongren's tombstone, and then the picture suddenly turns into snowflakes, directly switching to Ten months after Chen Yongren's death, although this switch is the hardest, directly explained with subtitles, but there is an inexplicable sense of art. Of course, this switch was originally from Infernal Affairs 3, not the work of the audio-visual publisher.
On the whole, there are not many places edited by audio and video distributors in the original sequence of "Infernal Affairs", after all, the first two parts of "Infernal Affairs" are still very complete, and the most disturbing is the third "Ultimate Infinity", which will make many viewers who have not understood "Infernal Affairs 3" feel comfortable after changing to the original version.
Although some of the switches are a bit rough and some of the switches are harder, watching the entire "Infernal Affairs" original version, you will have a strong sense of epicness, which is a feeling that you do not have when watching the "Infernal Affairs" trilogy alone.
Fourteen years of life, fourteen years of family, fourteen years of Hong Kong, fourteen years of underworld and police, condensed into five hours, this sense of epicness also makes the score of the original version of "Infernal Affairs" almost the same as "Infernal Affairs 1", which is good-looking.