Mou Gaan Dou II (2003)

Mou Gaan Dou II or Infernal Affairs II is a prequel to the original Mou Gaan Dou or Infernal Affairs (2002) . Personally, I think this second one is just as good as the first one taken as whole. Which one is better? That's hard to say. What's easy to say is, the third one is the stinker and doesn't measure up to the first two in this trilogy.

This second installment has more of a Godfather looks and feels to it which is actually not a bad thing to say. The story begins with the assassination of the triad boss which sets off a chain reaction of combustible events that deal with power struggle, loyalty and betrayal. And of course, the whole movie can be seen as an allegory to the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to Beijing. Indeed it's the backdrop of the whole story. The two leading men were lessor known actors, that's relatively speaking, and they don't drip themselves with abundant charisma like Andy Lau and Tony Leung, two of the biggest names in Asian and international cinema, in the original IA sometimes do which can be a mixed blessings. On the one hand, Leung and Lau did give out some knock-out performances. On the other hand, sometimes, it's a turn-off. The two young male actors playing the younger roles played by Lau and Leung are Edison Chen and Shawn Yue. I think they are pretty well cast for the parts especially for Edison Chen, he just looks the part. There are some minor character inconsistencies between the first and the second one in my opinion. But overall, it's well written, acted and executed. And if you ignore the original IA, and ignore the character discrepancies, and see this movie on its own term then perhaps it's even a better movie than it already is.