Just out of curiosity, are most of the people who are saying "infernal affairs" is better than "the departed" Asian?
Im Chinese by the way and i thought Departed was better. However, I think it really depends on if you grew up in an American or Chinese society.
I don't think it has anything to do with your nationality or cultural origin. I'm European and generally I love US movies. I liked the remakes of The Ring or Vanilla Sky better than the originals. But I prefer IA to The Departed.
Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one.
Stella Adler
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I'm German, I love "Infernal affairs" and would prefer it anytime. I caught only a couple of scenes of "Departed" on TV, but that was enough to know I wouldn't like it. (And it's not because I think that the original is always better; it's not.)
But it's an interesting question; let's see how your poll develops. :-)
I had friends that weren't Asian ( or Chinese) and they preferred IA. I surveyed about dozens of people who saw both and only 3 would say they liked TD better. The other rest actually preferred IA. I was actually amazed, but glad in some ways. Most of them reasoned because they felt deeper connections to the characters and they just didn't feel anything for TD. No bias, just straight forward answers.
Oh, and I grew up in American culture and loving it, but I simply preferred IA. TD was too fake and Hollywood like. IA had its problems but no where near the massive amount of plotholes of TD had.
I'm English and Infernal Affairs was so much better than The Departed. I saw IA years before TD was made and i was really unsure about TD. I did watch it in the end, and yes its a good film, but its exactly the same as IA and got an Oscar for it. All those cool things in IA were copied!!
shareI can see the brilliance in both, and Infernal Affair's flaws and inferiority (the almost comedic slo-mo and "everybody stop" scenes) are corrected by it's strengths as a more effective thriller which focused more on suspense than The Departed.
The Departed was IA on steroids. Terrific performance from the entire cast, a more gritty portrayal, a concise and hard hitting direction from Scorsese and a great script. But having watched IA first I felt little of the shock and suspense in it.
I saw TD first then IA just last night, only realising after about 10 minutes that TD was a remake of IA.
Nonetheless I found IA involving and rank it highly with a big strength being its unexpected "non-Hollywood style" ending and solid suspense all through.
However, I preferred TD (just) for a couple of reasons:-
1. No need to read subtitles
2. Solid cast and director
I rate them both as high-quality movies, each with 8.5/10.
I think The Departed is better, simply because it's got more character depth and Scorsese brought in so many details that add to the story. I've seen it 6-7 times and still find things I hadn't on previous watches. Infernal Affairs is still pretty good, but I don't think it's fair to compare both, cause in the end, they only have the same premise, not the same characters or ambitions.
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I to am pro Infernal Affairs, granted I saw IA first around 5 times before seeing TD, so its impossible for me to really judge, but I think the reason why I like IA better is because its more restrained. Its less gritty so when something major happens it has more of an impact.
With TD its gritty through out so when people die its just "Oh he's dead..."
I am British.
I love Infernal Affairs. It is nuanced, and is full of characters that I could, and did, connect with. There is real tension, action, and various moments of outstanding quality.
I don't know how anyone can say that TD was character driven, when it failed to make me care about any one of the characters. Nevermind that they claim it is better than the original. It pales by comparison.
My £0.02p.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0e3tGxnFKfE
http://tinyurl.com/LTROI-story
Character driven.. meaning the characters have more depth and arch, you don't necessarily have to "care" for them. We literally saw Matt Damon evolve in a matter of minutes from being this sullen kid from Boston to an impending troubled corrupt detective, something that was missing from IA. If we're talking about structure and character development, The Departed defeats IA all things considered. There is no comparison between the two, The Departed was clearly an improvement from the first one, Scorsese saw something in IA that he thought could be tweaked, with a boost from Monahan's script and Marty's usual directing prowess, this is one of the best american crime movies ever made which is not to say IA should be dismissed, the misery of it all is that IA nowadays is marketed as the film that inspired The Departed when it should be standing on its own. I found IA dramatically manipulative (elevator scene, Wong's death) these were forced scenes especially Wong's and this is where Scorsese shines, we did not see enough of the two in IA to warrant any strong emotions yet some did. Infernal Affairs also had its moments such as the warehouse scene at the beginning, just pure craftsmanship in the part of Lau. I just think cinematically and there should be no argument here, The Departed was unfairly the better film but since it was derive from another great film, Infernal Affairs deserve all the love it's getting. Both are great but The Departed emerges, cast, script, directing.. unbelievable, like you said to each our own, but there is a criteria for criticism and all of us needs to consider this.
shareI'd argue the opposite and agree with Jameron about nuance. Perfect example is the above - in IA, you can see Andy Lau's character is going through a crisis of conscience throughout the movie and ultimately turns on the boss because he feel's he's gone too far, and when he goes to meet Tony Leung he genuinely wants to stop living that life.
In contrast, in TD, Matt Damon's character is typical Hollywood 'all-bad' He only finally turns against Jack Nicholson when he finds out he's an FBI informant and is worried about being turned over to them.
chinese and i personally loved both. both had strong points and weak points.
the death of tony's senior boss added some tension to IA. also in the beginning of the film where tony and andy cross paths in the stereo shop was a point i think that was missing from the departed.there was a lack of development in the friendship between leo dicaprio and his gangster friend that turned out to be a cop, so really we as an audience don't give a damn when he died, unlike IA where their friendship is touched upon a bit. also the bit when the triads and the thais do the drug deal and they dispose of the cocaine is missing from departed, i understand its a different kind of deal (microchips) but this was the moment when both sides realized that they both had moles working on either side, and were present during the operation. jack nicholson turning out to be an FBI informant kind of ruined departed for me as well.IA's ending was much better than departed. americans' need for happy endings kind of ruined the ending in departed when marky mark shows up and kills matt damon. in IA, at the end of the film i really felt like andy really wanted to be a real cop, but his life was so intertwined with the triad that he could not escape, so he formulates the plan to takedown eric tsang. in departed, matt damon's reason for taking him down because he's an FBI informant just came across as petty and as he wants to cover his own ass, which made matt damon's character much less likable.
however departed did some things better than IA. the biggest one is definitely that vera farmiga was the love interest of both leo and matt. i had always felt that there needed to be a connection between kelly chen and andy lau. in IA when sammi cheng listens to the audio tape of andy's betrayal, it lacked any sort of impact on the audience simply because she was not integral to the story in any way. and tony running into his ex on the street was totally out of place and had no relevance (well it does because of the sequels but those were not even planned until IA became a big success). by combining the three women in IA into one, a fully developed character that we as an audience actually care about is created, which was done much better than IA. departed's development of jack nicholson's #2, mr. french, is also much better than IA, where almost no character development is done on eric tsang's #2. also better development is done on jack nicholson, where as we don't really care about eric tsang's character that much in IA.