Nowadays, many Crime-themed Hong Kong film and television dramas revolve around the story of "undercover", and many undercover police officers are even forced and involuntary to join the "undercover" industry.
In real life, according to the relevant regulations of the Hong Kong Police Force, undercover police officers must be voluntary, cannot be only children, and have strong resilience.
These undercover officers are generally recruited in the society or cadet police, and have never seen a raw face.
And undercover has a lot of special rights, you can see the opportunity to act, fake drama really do. Wait until the completion of the work to retire and upgrade quickly, and when necessary, you can change your appearance and live abroad.
It has to be said that the nature of the undercover work is mysterious and challenging, which is very suitable for the appetite of Hong Kong film and television dramas.
The dislocation of the two identities, the struggle of the hero's fate, where does the undercover charm in the movie come from?
"Criminal Investigation Files" is a very famous police film of TVB
In fact, in the 1990s, Hong Kong's police films such as "Criminal Investigation Files", "Forensic Records" and "Sister of the Gun" all followed the route of finally arresting the murderer after layer after layer after trace.
After 2000, the "Forensic Pioneer" and "Mind Reader Detective", even the dramas such as "Gu LingJing Detective", "Pursuit of Murder in the Next World", "Shi Gongqi Case" and so on, which were released after 2000, were actually detective drama routines that did not change the soup and did not change the medicine.
There were fewer undercover TV series at that time, but the movies were already covered.
"The Marginal Man" created a three-dimensional and distinct image for the undercover police officers, and also wrote a definition of the undercover role of Hong Kong movies.
From the background of the rise of Hong Kong's local consciousness, examining the contradictory relationship between the undercover characters in the cracks between soldiers and thieves, the earliest undercover theme can be started from Zhang Guoming's "Marginal Man" (1981).
Starting from realism, the film presents the entire process of undercover police from accepting the task to ending the undercover career, and carefully portrays the psychological transformation of the undercover characters. "The Marginal Man" created a three-dimensional and distinct image for the undercover police officers, and also wrote a definition of the undercover role of Hong Kong movies.
In the 90s, a "Dragon and Tiger" was about an undercover character who was involuntary and struggling and confused.
The hair brother in the film is superficially hanging, but he is serious about righteousness. However, as a reality that loyalty and righteousness cannot be achieved, first of all, the departure of women, whether it is the departure of space or the end of life, the end is often declared banishment by death, which has to be said to be a tragedy.
Also in "Hot Hand Detective", Yuan Haoyun, played by Fa Ge, is an anti-traditional detective, preaching righteousness and being jealous and hateful. And Jiang Lang, an undercover detective played by Liang Chaowei, in order to seize the information of the arms group, ruthlessly killed uncle Hai, a gangster who was not thin to him. Subsequently, because Yuan Haoyun did not know the true identity of Jiang Lang, the two sides fought to the death, until finally knowing the true identity of Jiang Lang, the two sides joined forces to deal with the black boss Zuni Wang.
At that time, most of the undercover officers mentioned in film and television dramas were also undercover police officers mixed into the gang to help their own side solve the case.
The undercover theme is basically black and white, the identity is exposed and directly dry, and the portrayal and description of the real undercover heart is actually relatively rough.
There are ghosts inside! Terminate the transaction!
Until the appearance of "Infernal Affairs" in 2003, the theme of undercover had a richer connotation, and even increased the great idea of gangsters entering the police undercover. After all, for the gang, the police belong to the "enemy camp", but now for the undercover agents lurking in the police, there is a new term called "black police".
In the film, there are two different camps of undercover agents, black police officer Liu Jianming (Andy Lau) and undercover police officer Chen Yongren (Liang Chaowei).
Liu Jianming, he said at the beginning that he was willing to exchange identities with Chen Yongren, which shows that as an undercover agent, he was forced to be helpless, and on the rooftop, he also said that he had no choice at that time. In addition, he had a sense of justice in his heart, which also laid the groundwork for his final renegade.
As for his endless torment, it should be the following contradiction: continue to serve Han Chen & reform himself to be a good person, and the bigger point is the contest between good and evil. It wasn't until Huang Sir's death that he made up his mind to rebel.
It can be seen that Liu Jianming is not all acting for being a policeman, and he really wants to be a policeman in his heart, an upright policeman. Unfortunately, he couldn't see the light. His desire to see the light was one of the important reasons for his apostasy.
Chen Yongren, he is also a helpless choice. He has a strong sense of justice, ten years undercover has not made him waver in the slightest, he is a very competent undercover.
His endless torment lies in the hard work of acting. In ten years, there may not be a day in which he does not fantasize about restoring his identity and no longer having to be a fool. Unfortunately, he did not live to fulfill this wish.
"Infernal Affairs" begins with a point
The movie "Infernal Affairs" is played with subtitles at the end: If it is a generation, when it falls into an endless hell, it will be robbed, so as to continue and seek no time (——"Jizo Bodhisattva Original Sutra Scroll"), which expounds the contradiction and meaning of the special identity of undercover in great depth.
Undercover is the person who walks on the infernal path. On the left is the white road, which represents justice; on the right is the black road, which is the representative of righteousness, and they walk in the intersection of black and white, but they have no clear sense of belonging.
As an epoch-making classic work in the Hong Kong film industry, the "Infernal Affairs" trilogy brings us a wonderful and unique police film with a complex plot and character design, bringing us thoughts and feelings.
After that, from "Loyal Traitor" which is on the verge of the police gangster theme to the acclaimed "Apostle Walker", it can be seen that Hong Kong film and television dramas intend to carry out the undercover theme to the end.
"The Loyal Traitor" will carry the undercover theme to the end
For example, Gao Zhexing (Guo Jin'an) in "The Loyal Traitor" is a "double-sided undercover" between the police and criminals to heal his inner humility; in "Apostle Walker", he simply throws out the "undercover" early, so that the loyal fans of TVB police films start the game of "I guess I guess I guess guess" early, until the last moment, you don't know who is the real undercover.
You have me, I have you, you can exchange identities with each other, and you may also face various sudden crises at any time. This makes the word "undercover" give the screenwriter more room to imagine and play.
The undercover police may gradually grow into the big brother of the gang, and the gangster's may also become a good policeman who appears to be impartial.
Undercover agents can always guard their own bottom line, or they can "apostatize"; undercover agents can be "sentenced to capital punishment" after being discovered, or they can be awarded merit after bringing criminals to justice.
The appearance of black police will directly threaten the safety of undercover police officers, and the game between black and white is not a wonderful drama.
Throughout the Hong Kong film and television dramas after 2010, the whole plot is strung together with the concept of undercover.
From TVB's "Stealth Sniper" to "Thunder Sweeping Poison", "Sharpshooter Sniper", and then to "Defection", all of them are undercover as the main story line to narrate.
In the movie, from "Disciple", "Black and White Road", "Informant", "Same Door", or the story of the undercover police officer's wisdom to break the gang, it only adds a lot of psychological depictions of how undercover police officers face misunderstanding and temptation. At least from the perspective of the plot, the appearance of "undercover" makes the plot more gripping, and the ending has more possibilities.
To put it bluntly, the subject of undercover is not new, and what is fresh is how the theme of "undercover" can make a different taste. For example, the film and television versions of "Acts" have their own cleverness.
The film and television versions of Acts have their own cleverness
In the film version, it was revealed at the beginning that due to the presence of black police officers within the police, the identity information of the five undercover agents was also deleted, thus launching a mission to restore the identity of the undercover agent.
In the TV version, the few people who just appeared at the beginning were extraordinary, making the audience think that these people would be the undercover protagonists in the play, but they did not expect an explosion, which killed all these people, completely stupid to the audience, and also strongly aroused the curiosity of the audience.
An important reason for the attraction of this kind of undercover film is that it is a tragedy, and it has a tragic strong tension, shocking people's hearts, and what captures our hearts is the kind of worry and uneasiness that the protagonist may encounter misfortune.
In the definition of drama, tragedy originated from the ancient Greek theatrical art form. Its representative feature is the struggle of a hero against his own fate and irresistible forces, knowing that he cannot do it.
Heroes and fate fight, knowing that the fight is not enough but willing to fight, the process of this struggle, we define it as tragedy.
And this kind of knowing that it will fail and still have to fight can be described as a fatalistic tragedy.
Similarly, in most of the undercover film and television dramas, we can actually see that many of the final fates of the undercover are not the kind of results that make us feel happy.
Liang Chaowei and Andy Lau duel on stage
In "Infernal Affairs", Liang Chaowei and Andy Lau played a duel on stage.
Liang Chaowei thought that the victory was in his hands, pointed a gun at Andy Lau and said seriously: "I am a policeman"
But Andy Lau replied with an understatement, "Who knows."
Because all of Liang Chaowei's files were actually destroyed by him, Huang SIR, who really knew Liang Chaowei's identity, also died.
In the end, no one expected that Liang Chaowei was beaten to death by the lurking black police Lin Jiadong family, and he did not wear a police uniform once until his death, and he did not become a real policeman for a day, which was the biggest tragedy of his life, and it was also a certain fate of being an undercover agent.
Undercover is also a human being, and the huge pressure of losing one's life at any time and anywhere, and even the fear that the identity will harm the family after the identity is exposed, is not something that we ordinary people can bear.
As an undercover agent who has spent a long time with the brothers in the gang for a long time, he will also have feelings, and when he finally has to arrest or even shoot them with his own hands, this pressure is mixed with an indescribable sense of guilt.
When a sense of justice and feelings are mixed together, it is easy to make people unable to distinguish between themselves and directions.
And this confusion sometimes allows the audience to map to their own role switching, to be a good employee in the company, to be a good father, a good husband, a good son at home, unconsciously as the self's confusion and uneasiness about this society, and more sympathetic and concerned about the role of undercover.
In any case, the undercover in Hong Kong dramas is actually the embodiment of a variety of tragic lives, playing roles, but it may represent the audience, which is why there are so many types of undercover films in Hong Kong films.