Excellent adaptation.

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

I can't say that I thought too much about this movie, though I have since found out that it is the prequel (as opposed to a sequel, which most movies ending in a 2 are). While there were action scenes, and a lot of shooting, it did seem hard to follow with no real continuity between the scenes. What I gathered was that this movie begins in 1993 and leads up to the hand over of Hong Kong to the Chinese (where it ends) though this event is only in the background.This movie follows the story of a police officer whose goal is to bring down the triad family, the Ngai, before the handover of power, but in doing so sees many of his colleges killed. However, within the Ngai family, the patriarch has died, which has left the family in a vacuum, and the various sons are all wrestling for control. While this is happening, one of the sons is expelled from the police force due to his family connections, but is then recruited by another officer to infiltrate the family and collect evidence, and his reward is a position as a police officer.As mentioned, this movie was quite confusing, difficult to follow, and seemed to have too much going on at once with too many characters. While things do become clear as one gets to the end of the film, the movie does drag on quite a bit, and once the end arrives, you feel glad that it has.

Although this is the second film in the trilogy it is not necessary to have seen the first instalment to enjoy this, as it is a prequel. Set in the years leading up to the handover of Hong Kong from Britain to China we are shown how each of the protagonists from the first film got to where they were in that film. Of course this means we know that everything will work out for them; it doesn't mean this film is without its tense moments though as there are plenty of new characters; not all of whom survive. While the two main characters from the earlier film feature prominently it is their bosses who are the protagonists this time. We see how Triad member Sam rises to the top while most of his contemporaries and seniors end up dead and policeman Inspector Wong Chi Shing manages to advance despite being implicated in a murder several years previously.While this film missed the two main stars of the first film it was still well acted and the characters were just as believable. I had been worried that it would suffer from the problem that all prequels face; namely that anybody who has seen the first film will know who will survive, amazingly this managed to convince me that at least one character who I knew should have survived died; I assumed I'd been confused about who was who till we later learnt what had happened. There is plenty of action and anybody who enjoyed the first film is likely to like this too; I'd certainly recommend it to fans of action films in general and Hong Kong films in particular.

Like A Better Tomorrow 3 this is actually a prequel to Infernal Affairs 1. This confusing development in film needs to be fine tuned before it gets out of control and logical sequels start going backwards.I can't wait for Stallone's next film Rambo -1, when he goes forward in time to fight cavemen in a spaceship before he is even born as an old man! Infernal Affairs became better know as "the film they turned into The Departed so white people could like it" a few years back. In my recent review I pointed out that they are so similar that you could watch either and have a good handle on the other without seeing it.I'd love to see how Hollywood would rip this, as for a period of time it is so confusing and intricately plotted that I couldn't tell who was selling who out and who exactly was being screwed over.(I am a big advocate of subtitles instead of dubbing, but reading and seeing who is saying the lines can be hard when there are heaps of characters on screen and a lot of dialogue. That was the case here, sometimes I had to rewind the thing a few seconds to see who was saying the line before I could even try to guess why they were saying it. Not the filmmakers fault I don't speak Chinese, just the facts though.) We enter the story in 1991. The bad guy from I.A. 1 (This will be stupid, I can see it already), Sam is at this stage a henchman to the crime boss Ngai, who runs a friendly family crime operation. Sam has a girlfriend Mary, she is ruthless and calculating, (though never when Sam is around), and will do anything to help Sam and further their position, including ordering jobs on the side.Sam also happens to be good buddies with Inspector Wong, who you will rightfully guess is a police representative. Inspector Wong has a blurred idea of right and wrong at times, he tends to side with who will provide him with the most benefit at the time. This is complicated when his 2IC and another good friend, becomes very close to uncovering his dark secrets through the film. Inspector Wong basically is a good cop as long as he doesn't have to bust anyone that greases his palms along the way.There is the usual lies, deceit and betrayal (why can't crime lords just get along?), as several of Ngai's "colleagues" express displeasure at how he is running the show and refuse to put in, leading to a clever exchange with Ngai simultaneously working all four of them to get his way, while Same sits at the same table eating noodles.Now being a pre-sequel to Infernal Affairs there are duplicitous gents with feet in both camps. The new good-rat is Yau, who happens to be Ngai's half-brother (again like A Better Tomorrow), and the naughty-rat is Yan, who is in close with: and lusts after; Mary.Fast forward to 1995. Ngai tells all around him he wants out. He plans to retire back to mainland China before the handover of Hong Kong in 1997 (do your history kids). He tells Sam first that the future of crime is in drugs, specifically cocaine, and he sends Sam to Thailand for a reconnoiter.All the while Yau (Ngai's half bro remember? And a cop.) has decided that Ngai's is a pretty good bloke for a vicious crime lord and can't bring himself to bust him.Much to his surprise (and to anyone who hasn't watched a movie before, I thought it was obvious), Ngai switches up the pace and bumps off all his major threats, including the sub-bosses who all thought they were going to move into the hot seat once he retired. In another twist he also tries to put an end to Sam. Smart move, basically the primary threat to a retired crim are other crims who know his secrets.____________________________________________________________ As things start to fall apart the cops are forced to take action, and take Ngai into custody, along with almost everyone he knows, including the two rats, both of whom are perilously close to being identified and erased.As sh*t crumbles around them, Inspector Wong, Yau, Yan, Mary and Sam each must question where their loyalties lie, and Ngai and the police frantically try to work out who is loyal and who is a threat.Infernal Affairs isn't your standard crime thriller, no-one is all bad or all good. Even Ngai as the kingpin of the whole operation is quite smooth and likable… mostly. Also, as alliegances switch through the film and everyone sells out everyone else it is hard to keep track.The easiest way I found was to think of who ended up in the first film, that gives you an unfair advantage in guessing who will survive the prequel.Although confusing, the ending to Infernal Affairs 2 is really well done as everything is almost wrapped up neatly. I found that in the first half the sheer number of characters and convoluted situations became a little too complicated, but the finale made it all worthwhile.Final Rating – 7.5 / 10. A worthy sequel/prequel to a solid first film. Well worth a look.If you liked this review (or even if you didn't) check out oneguyrambling.com

If you get that funny feeling when watching this film that you've seen too many HK action thrillers and that you've seen this one before, it's probably true. However, you may have seen Infernal Affairs (I).Unlike many sequels which are incomprehensible unless you see all the episodes and in sequence, IF (II) does not make that assumption. Fully half or more of the film repeats IF (I) - it felt like someone took the outtakes of the earlier film and strung it together to make another film, but clearly it wasn't. IF (II) is too well made and makes sense and has continuity. It's just that if you see I or II, you needn't see the other. It's like a film school exercise - take a story and shoot it two different ways or edit it two different ways.Actually, this is much better than a sequel. It's an equal.