Infernal Affairs III

If you loved the first two 'Internal Affairs' movie, then you'll probably find it easy to also enjoy this concluding part: if not, you may find it more difficult. Part one was a tense thriller; part two, more epic in tone, a prequel that filled in the back story, concentrating on some of the secondary characters from the first film. But it's not completely clear where there's any plot left to fill a third part. What this film does is overlay the previous stories with an additional layer of romanticism and complexity; but there's a certain lack of focus to the plot, with almost all of our favourite characters already dead by the end of the second film (although, in flashback, there's a rebirth for the great Tony Leung, absent from part two). Indeed, the film works almost entirely by encouraging us to feel differently about scenes we have already witnessed. I still liked this third story about the quiet men of violence, and it did succeed in feeling like something more than just a repeat of the earlier films. But it's not so clear how much it adds to them.