The best director ever

Chapter 70 The Tragedy Consciousness of Infernal Affairs (This chapter is high energy! Be careful!)
Qi Zhiwen typed the first sentence in front of the computer.

"If you want to ask what is the hottest movie in China right now, there is no doubt that it is Infernal Affairs.

Director Han Qiu directly fought fiercely in the film industry after "The Tuner" and "Mao Lie", and launched two films of Infernal Affairs.The film came up against a blockbuster with a big production and top-notch special effects like Dream Love. After two weeks of its release, the box office exceeded 5000 million Hong Kong dollars. In the end, it topped the crowd with 1.2 million in Hong Kong and 8.5 million in the Mainland!

It is undeniable that Infernal Affairs has not abandoned the elements of commercial films, and it can even be said that to a large extent those commercial elements are indispensable to success.The film strongly invites the four Hong Kong Film Award winners Leung Chiu-wai, Andy Lau, Anthony Wong, and Tsang Chi-wai to perform on the same stage, which is a shot in the arm for the continued slump of Hong Kong films.

Although there are inevitable commercial elements, the film has an extremely serious ideological core.Judging from the title of the film, the so-called "Infernal Affairs" actually talks about the fate of characters and the dislocation of life. The word "Wujian" means "Infernal Hell" in Buddhism.

"Infernal Hell" is one of the eight hells in the Buddhist scriptures, which means that the punishment will never stop, and it is the most bitter one among the eight hells.The film revolves around the two identities Chen Yongren and Liu Jianming, who should not belong to each other, and are undercover police and gangsters. Many characters appear on the stage one by one, presenting a tragic epic of "Infernal Hell" to the audience.

Now, this article will analyze the true meaning of this film one by one through Wujian's several major tragedies.

[-]. Timeless—the tragedy of the times.

Director Han Banxian once said: ""Infernal Affairs" can only be filmed in such a big environment as Hong Kong, which can produce a kind of obscure despair." Xiangjiang has experienced a hundred years of vicissitudes from being ceded to returning, just like a political and cultural "exile" ", exists in an intermediate state, neither completely united with the new environment, nor completely separated from the old environment, but in a predicament of inseparability.

Therefore, when interpreting the "Infernal Affairs" series of movies, "time" is always a key word.The story spans ten years from 1991 to 2002.

If the first step of the film can only be described as a skit, then Han Banxian’s ambition in the second film is directed at the epic: "The film magnificently narrates the decline of the Ni family and the rise of Han Chen's power." To a certain extent , the decline of the Ni family symbolizes the end of Xiangjiang’s shameful colonial history, while the rise of Han Chen’s power as an emerging force symbolizes the prelude to Xiangjiang’s new history and mythology after the political return of Xiangjiang.

At the end of the second part, Police Officer Huang replaced the photo of Ni Yongxiao on the wall with Han Chen's newly promoted bandit leader, and the background of this clip is the handover ceremony of Sino-British sovereignty.The combination of these two seemingly irrelevant things by Han Banxian seemed meaningful.This adds a heavy sense of history to the film, and instantly improves the film's magnanimity, and its political allegory is self-evident.

Furthermore, there are two protagonists, Chen Yongren and Liu Jianming.We can see that each of these two roles is played by two persons, one as youth and one as middle age.And the moral here is still time!
Han Banxian played the song "The Forgotten Time" repeatedly, trying to remind the audience of the existence of time through this sad piece of "sweet high-pitched, mid-pitched, thick bass", "This is the best era", and this is also "the best time". bad times".

Liu Jianming and Chen Yongren, who didn't know each other, met for the first time in a video store. The two men who were about to draw their swords soon sat together and enjoyed the music.But in the end, what is the fate of the two people here?
As time continues to move forward, the truth behind the time gradually becomes apparent, which is often quite different from what is seen on the surface.The director uses two different actors to imply the "cruelty" of time. Time destroys everything that once had meaning and value, including human faces, beyond recognition. This is a tragedy of time passing and changing times.

[-]. Inseparable—the tragedy of characters.

If you want to talk about the real protagonist of the "Infernal Affairs" series of movies, it should be "fate". This is a movie about fate and a strong color of fatalism.In this series of movies, the roles of the main characters are relatively average, which is exactly an epic narrative method.It is impossible for us to analyze many characters one by one, but to pick out a few representative ones to talk about.

1. Liu Jianming.

Liu Jianming is the one with the most complicated personality in Infernal Affairs: he joined the gang because he was infatuated with Han Chen's woman Mary, and was later instructed by Han Chen to enter the police academy as an undercover agent.

For Liu Jianming, Mary is a unique existence.It can be said that it was Mary who dragged him into the endless hell.In the second part, Liu Jianming showed love to Mary, but was ruthlessly rejected.From love to hatred, he directly disclosed her information to the Ni family, and killed Mary at the hands of others.

But what kind of person is Liu Jianming?In the second part, he can kill Ni Kun and Mary mercilessly. He is a bad guy.But in the first film, he wanted to be a good person.

Conscience found out?
Maybe, maybe not.

Let's look at the whole theme in turn - Infernal Affairs.Why did you choose this title, and what does it mean.In fact, what is often overlooked by everyone is actually the essence.

Han Banxian explained at the beginning and end of the two parts.

Yes, those few Buddhist scriptures.

The Infernal Hell is the most terrifying hell in Buddhism, and it is almost impossible to be reborn forever.And Liu Jianming was born in the underworld. In order to provide information to the underworld, he became a policeman. During his time as a policeman, his career and love flourished, but because of the death of Police Officer Huang, he discovered his conscience and gave him the desire to be a good person.

But in the end, he still couldn't get rid of the essence of his true identity in the underworld. Between the desire of a good man and the evil past, Liu Jianming fell into an endless hell.

At the end of the first part of the film, Liu Jianming's salute in front of Chen Yongren's tombstone seemed meaningful, and the sentence "I want to change with him" is even more interesting.This shows that he and Chen Yongren are sympathetic in nature.He was not born evil, he just made an improper choice under the personality of a good guy and a villain, which is the deeper level of Liu Jianming's tragedy.

If there is a third part of Infernal Affairs, Liu Jianming's future ending must be tragic.

Those who receive the body will never die, and longevity is a catastrophe in the endless hell!
Under the alternation of the two personalities, he couldn't find his true identity.Liu Jianming's spirit was like being punished by the endless hell until he collapsed.

2. Chen Yongren.

Chen Yongren, who was originally an outstanding student of the police academy, was expelled from the police academy because he concealed the identity of the illegitimate son of the underworld boss. In fact, he was secretly assigned the undercover mission of Officer Huang.

But with the accidental death of his boss, Police Officer Huang, a new problem is before him, that is to find his own identity.

Both Chen Yongren and Liu Jianming are facing this problem: their existence is misplaced, they try to find their original identities, but they go farther and farther on the uninterrupted road. In the end, Chen Yongren died under the gun, while Liu Jianming was in danger. But life is better than death, according to "the person who receives the body will never die, and the longevity is the catastrophe in the hell." Liu Jianming's "longevity" is the highest form of suffering.

In the film "Infernal Affairs", Chen Yongren has a father-son relationship with Police Officer Huang and Han Chen, but it was Officer Huang who shot and killed his brother Ni Yongxiao, while the eldest brother Han Chen tried to test Chen Yongren again and again, making Chen Yongren almost miss several times. Died in Huangquan.

Chen Yongren's long-term double-sided allegiance has kept him in the "grey area", that is, "the endless hell".After Liu Jianming's colleagues shot Chen Yongren to death, Chen Yongren's body was stuck in the elevator entrance, and the elevator door kept opening and closing, which symbolized Chen Yongren's tragic fate.

[-]. Life and death are inseparable - the tragedy of fate.

The movie "Infernal Affairs" is full of codes, symbols, hidden buckles, and fate.The "fate" in the movie means that everything is predestined, and it can also be understood as "fate" in general, that is, "destiny".The song "The Forgotten Time" that runs through the movie, the theme melody is sad and beautiful, permeating it, as if it is a kind of existence that transcends time and space, and it also transcends right and wrong, life and death.

1. Han Chen: One will succeed and all will die!

In the movie, Han Chen kept saying one sentence repeatedly, that is, "One will succeed and ten will die."

In the first episode of the movie, Han Chen said this sentence at the beginning, but then he also stated that he did not believe this sentence, because it was "what a fortune teller said". I think I can laugh at fate, and rely on my own "free choice" to achieve the transcendence of fate.But Han Chen did not escape his fate in the end, he was accidentally shot and killed by Liu Jianming who wanted to clean up and be a good man.

And after Liu Jianming killed Han Chen, he said, "You picked it."As a mockery of Han Chen's sentence "Once you succeed, you will die, you can choose your own path", this is also the mockery of fate for Han Chen: no matter how strong the strong, there will be a time of "withering" , Either you make others "dry", or others make yourself "dry". No one can control the process of this fate, because that is actually the law of existence of the underworld.

2. Chen Yongren: Sorry, I am a policeman!
Compared with Liu Jianming's troubles of sinking in the dark and uncertain future, Chen Yongren is obviously much luckier.

If we look back at Chen Yongren's background, we can find that in fact, Chen Yongren has unique conditions to be an undercover agent.

He performed well in the police academy and has strong observation and memory.

He has the pedigree of a gangster. For him who was studying in the police academy, being an undercover agent is almost destined.But his status as a policeman has always influenced him, making him compete with the natural blood relationship of the underworld, and also making him escape into "the hell".

The words "I am a policeman" express the meaning and destiny of Chen Yongren's life.He has to sacrifice his evil background for this identity, and he has to pay his own life as a price for finding this identity.

3. Liu Jianming: I want to be a good person!
Liu Jianming is a completely desperate character.

In fact, if it is possible for Chen Yongren to choose to find the inner ghost among the police and then restore his identity as a policeman, Liu Jianming has no choice.If he chooses to surrender, he will inevitably face prison; if he chooses to kill Han Chen and others to "clean up his bottom", then he must pay the price for the people he killed.No matter from which angle you look at it, Liu Jianming is the truly inescapable soul struggling in the "Infernal Hell".

Since he promised to be Han Chen's pawn, all this is doomed!
4. Ni Yongxiao: If you come out to mess around, you will have to pay it back sooner or later!
As a rule of thumb in the film industry, the second episode of a movie is never better than the first.However, the sequel of "Infernal Affairs" did not disappoint the audience. The shooting level of the sequel has been improved and deepened from the level of the first episode.

Ni Yongxiao has a catchphrase: "Father said, if you come out to play around, you will have to pay it back sooner or later."

On the one hand, it can be seen that he deeply believes and respects his parents, and on the other hand, it can also be seen that Ni Yongxiao agrees with the sense of fate revealed in this sentence.That is to say, Ni Yongxiao knows that sooner or later the road of gangsters will lead people into accidents and they will not be able to turn back, but as an important member of the family, Ni Yongxiao cannot refuse the family business, this is his destiny.

His tragedy lies in his ending: he was shot to death because of Han Chen who escaped death, his family was also killed by Han Chen, and his career was transferred to Han Chen.So far, all the valuable things he tried to protect have been destroyed.This is Ni Yongxiao's fate as a member of the underworld family.

The entire "Infernal Affairs" movie, with Liu Jianming and Chen Yongren, two characters with inverted identities, as the main line, presents an epic story to the audience. own unique understanding.

"Infernal Affairs" also rescued Hong Kong movies from the flood of hot gun battles and superficial themes, and endowed the movies with deeper connotations and a sense of tragedy.In short, it is not an overstatement to regard it as "the first classic of Hong Kong movies in the 21st century".

The above are just some of my personal humble opinions, for your reference only.

Thanks again to Han Banxian for bringing us this epic spiritual baptism!
　Infernal Affairs is over.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)