the m0vie blog

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users.

This time, Alan Mak and Andrew Lou’s Mou Gaan Dou.

Trouble is brewing in Hong Kong. Crime boss Hon Sam has managed to evade the clutches of Superintendent Wong Chi-shing once too often. There can only be one explanation: Sam has a mole buried within the police department. However, as the police close in around him, Sam becomes convinced that Wong has is own embedded operative. What follows is a tense game of cat-and-mouse as the lines between cop and criminal – and self and other – blur

At time of recording, it was not ranked on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

Show notes:

• Recorded 15th March 2020.
• Note: Due to the COVID-19 situation, this is likely to be the last episode of The 250 recorded in-person for a while. So it’s just Darren and Andrew.
• Infernal Affairs at The Internet Movie Database.
• Naomi Xu Elegant at Fortune on the challenges of Hollywood adapting to China, October 2019.
• Paul Bond at The Hollywood Reporter on China’s status as the future of the film industry, June 2019.
• Karen Chu at The Hollywood Reporter offers a brief timeline of Hong Kong cinema, March 2009.
• Phil Hoad at The Guardian offers a brief history of the rise and fall of Hong Kong cinema, September 2011.
• Hana Davis at The South China Morning Post on the decline of Hong Kong’s once-vibrant film industry, June 2019.
• Celine Ge at The South China Morning Post on how Chinese film production has diminished Hong Kong’s film industry, July 2017.
• Roger Garcia at The South China Morning Post explains the importance of Jackie Chan in energising the Hong Kong cinema during the seventies, December 2019.
• Andrew Salmon at Asia Times on the movement of Asian stars and directors towards Hollywood, January 2020.
• Anthony McGlynn at ScreenRant on the… complicated politics of Jackie Chan’s Irish action film, The Foreigner, October 2017.
• John Woo talks to The Hollywood Reporter about moving to Hollywood to make Hard Target, August 2018.
• Danny Leigh discusses John Woo’s relationship with Hollywood in The Guardian, November 2009.
• Writers at The Dissolve discuss the indirect impact of Asian cinema on Hollywood, December 2013.
• Deanna Isaacs at The Chicago Reader on the factors that led to the decline of the Hong Kong film industry in the late nineties, March 1999.
• Chris Evangelista at /Film on the legacy and reception of Face/Off, June 2017.
• Alan Mak talks to Hong Kong Cinemagic about his inspirations for Infernal Affairs, March 2004.
• Keith Bradsher writes about the legacy of the 1997 Asian stock market crash in The New York Times, June 2007.
• Katie Hunt at the BBC on the legacy of the 2003 SARS outbreak in Hong Kong, March 2013.
• Chris Leary at Senses of Cinema provides some sense of context for the breakout success of Infernal Affairs in the context of Hong Kong cinema, May 2003.
• Andy Lau talks to The New York Times about his complete disinterest in going to Hollywood, October 2006.
• Andy Lau criticises Hollywood’s attitude towards Hong Kong and Chinese cinema to The Los Angeles Times, April 2004.
• Manohla Dargis writes at The New York Times about the quintessentially Hong Kong themes of Infernal Affairs, October 2004.
• Erin Blakemore at National Geographic on Hong Kong’s crisis caught between Britain and China, August 2019.
• Niki J.P. Alsford at The Conversation on the contradictions of Hong Kong’s “one country, two systems” model, June 2019.
• Cheng & Tsui on the complicated relationship between Hong Kong cinema and China, November 2013.
• Alexandra Ma at Business Insider on China’s censorship of its film industry, September 2019.
• Movie-Censorship looks at the alternate ending of Infernal Affairs for the Chinese market, May 2010.
• Ilaria Maria Sala at The Guardian on tailoring Infernal Affairs for release in China, September 2016.
• The Washington Post argues that Vladimir Putin is trying to make himself President for Life, March 2020.
• Ben Noble and Nikolai Petrov at Newsweek on the delicate balance that Vladimir Putin is striking behind the scenes, March 2020.
• Yossi Verter at Haaretz on Benjamin Netanyahu’s use of his authority as an immunity shield, January 2020.
• Ryan Kilpatrick at That’s… on the real-life Infernal Affairs drama in Shanxi province, January 2015.
• Jerome Taylor at Yahoo! on the unlikely alliance between organised crime and state authority in China, July 2019.
• Derek Hawkins at The Washington Post on Vladimir Putin’s judo credibility, July 2017.
• The Telegraph reports on Vladimir Putin saving a TV crew from a Siberian tiger, August 2008.
• Josh Sens at Golf.com on Kim Jong Il’s highly unlikely round of golf, June 2016.
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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: China, existential, Hong Kong, infernal affairs, Movie, podcast, remake, The 250, the departed, triads, violence |