Directed by Andrew Lau Wai-keung and Alan Mak • 2003 • Hong Kong
Starring Edison Chen Koon-hei, Shawn Yue Man-lok, Anthony Wong Chau-sang
The first of two sequels to follow in the wake of the massively successful INFERNAL AFFAIRS softens the original’s furious pulp punch in favor of something more sweeping, elegiac, and overtly political. Flashing back in time, INFERNAL AFFAIRS II traces the tangled histories that bind the trilogy’s two pairs of adversaries: the young, dueling moles (here played by Edison Chen Koon-hei and Shawn Yue Man-lok), and the ascendant crime boss (Eric Tsang Chi-wai) and police inspector (Anthony Wong Chau-sang) whose respective rises reveal a shocking hidden connection. Unfolding against the political and psychological upheaval of Hong Kong’s handover from Britain to China, this elegant, character-driven crime drama powerfully connects its themes of split loyalties to the city-state’s own postcolonial identity crisis.
Up Next in 21st Century Cinema
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Infernal Affairs III
Directed by Andrew Lau Wai-keung and Alan Mak • 2003 • Hong Kong
Starring Andy Lau Tak-wah, Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Leon LaiTony Leung Chiu-wai and Andy Lau Tak-wah return for the cathartic conclusion of the INFERNAL AFFAIRS trilogy, which layers on even more deep-cover intrigue while steering the...
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The Anniversary Party
Directed by Jennifer Jason Leigh and Alan Cumming • 2001 • United States
Starring Alan Cumming, Jennifer Jason Leigh, John Benjamin HickeyFollowing a yearlong separation, a successful British novelist and his American movie-actor wife mark their sixth wedding anniversary with a gathering at the...
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Demonlover
Directed by Olivier Assayas • 2002 • France
Starring Connie Nielsen, Charles Berling, Chloë Sevigny“No one sees anything. Ever. They watch, but they don’t understand.” So observes Connie Nielsen in Olivier Assayas’s hallucinatory, globe-spanning DEMONLOVER, a postmodern neonoir thriller and med...
