Infernal Affairs vs. The Departed

Martin Scorsese is not a quality guarantee director, but he did marked the movie history with style such as Mean Streets(1973), Taxi Driver(1976), Raging Bull(1980) and The Aviator(2004) was a very remarkable film too with DiCaprio's great performance. From Robert De Niro to Leonardo DiCaprio, and for once he wants to union his lucky charms in the same film ... then Robert turned down the role and the unique and epic Jack Nicholson signed in with condition - More Jack in the story. He co-rewroted part of the script and put sex and drug in the film to make it more Hollywood like. Unfortunately. That might be the only big mistake they made, not to mention the shocking fake male genital on the huge wide screen. Which I think it's extremely uncomfortable for the female audiences, since almost all women and girls has pervert experiences of this kind in their unwanted memories.

Also one of the success reason of The Infernal Affairs was because the film was a real manly man story with slight touch of three wonderful actresses. Contrarily to The Departed, smart or not to concentrate the female roles in one and common shrink. And contrarily to Tony Leung, Andy Lau and Eric Tsen's excellent acting is the drama DiCaprio, the always Matt Damon's Matt Damon, and always Jack Nicholson's Jack. Anthony Wong was remarkable, Martin Sheen was o.k. plus some little fun touches with Alec Baldwin as captain and Mark Wahlberg's fast mouth. Which maybe saved the film from the total failure.

The Infernal Affairs has 1/3 of the budget (6,428,966 USD) gone for the talents which is big in HK, and I guess The Departed (90,000,000 USD) has only 1/3 of the budget left for the film with $20M for DiCaprio, $10M each for Damon, Nicholson, Wahlberg, $6M for Scorsese and that's already $56M of the $90M. (don't worry. They've already made 130M in US only since the opening, which Brad Pitt's production Plan B. and the distributor WB got what they need for the next decadent movie maybe The Infernal Affairs II & III remake? or Joli's next adoption.) The art direction in The Departed was poor, the lighting was dry and the picture was disturbing. Also they filmed partly in Boston where the story base and partly in NYC for the 15% tax credit. And maybe that was why the film missed the perspective landscape compare with HK's modern hi-rise buildings, tropical sky and harbor, clean office, fashionable bar and crowdy HK streets contrast, and of course the great photography by Christopher Doyle.

The score is below: Infernal Affairs(2002) - The Departed(2006)

Budget: 6,428,966 USD < 90,000,000 USD
Length: 101 mn. < 150 mn.
Director: Andrew Lau, Alan Mak > Martin Scorsese
Writer: Felix Chong, Alan Mak > Jack Nicholson's re-write
Undercover bad guy: Andy Lau > Matt Damon
Undercover police: Tony Leung > Leonardo DiCaprio
Special unit chef: Anthony Wong > Martin Sheen
Special unit sidekick: xxx < Mark Wahlberg
Captain: xxx < Alec Baldwin
Female role: 3 actresses > 1 shrink
Chief's death: Infernal Affairs > The Departed
Vilain's capture: Infernal Affair < The Departed

so it's 7 > 5 for Infernal Affairs !!

The Infernal Affairs' Wikipedia
The Departed's Wikipedia