3: Gangster Films

The past few weeks’ discussions surrounding asian gangster films have been interesting and raised many thoughts. Despite being categorised as part of the gangster genre, I found the films we screened to be more focused on the internal struggles the characters had, rather than solely on the yakuza or the triad and the crimes or action scenes found in the film itself. Due to the stereotypical elements that are usually present in most gangster films, I found it interesting that there was quite a lot of complex character development found in both Andrew Lau and Alan Mak’s Infernal Affairs and Takeshi Kitano’s Hana-bi. When watching gangster films in the past, I tend to focus on the plot as a whole and don’t really pay much attention to the characters and the inner struggles they may face. Violence is definitely still present in both of these films, but it isn’t the driving force of the narratives.

Christopher Orr states that there is actually no violence in Infernal Affairs until the one hour mark, indicating that such action scenes are not a driving factor of the movie but rather the tension that is built by the two moles being aware of each other’s existence but not their identity. Although the plot of the film is clever and complex, Roger Ebert argues that “what makes it special is the inner turmoil caused by living a lie”. There is an emotional complexity that is present and rarely seen in crime movies, setting a lonely, ironic, and sad tone. Both Lau and Chan have spent so long pretending to become someone else that their experiences have become reality and find themselves trapped with “no choice but non stop suffering” (Li, 2004). Chan experiences great stress from his undercover work and continuously begs Inspector Wong to let him leave the triad, but he refuses for the sake of the mission. Unfortunately, Chan’s escape from that “suffering” was through death. Lau, on the other hand, prospered professionally during his time as a mole and ended up eradicating traces of his past to become a “good guy” cop.

Similarly, I think that Hana-bi was also driven by the emotional complexity present in the film. Ebert states that instead of focusing on the action, the film is about consequences and states of mind. I agree with his statement as I personally felt that Nishi’s actions always led him to more consequences. Throughout the movie, we see Nishi spending time with his wife Miyuki in various locations. Instead of seeing this as an effort to make memories with her, I felt that he was trying to escape reality and the consequences of his actions in the past, but to no avail. Taylor-Jones states that Kitano has “the desire to try and return back to an original state and yet, as he observes, this original state is no longer a possibility” and like Lau and Chan, he finds himself “trapped in this liminal space”.

 

References:

Ebert, R. (n.d.). Infernal Affairs Movie Review (2004). [online] Rogerebert.com. Available at: http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/infernal-affairs-2004.

Li, C. (2004). https://www.filmlinc.org/. [online] https://www.filmlinc.org/. Available at: https://lms.rmit.edu.au/bbcswebdav/pid-8616491-dt-content-rid-20512524_1/courses/COMM1035_1750/InfernalAff2Film%20Comment%281%29.pdf[Accessed 26 Sep. 2017].

Orr, C. (2005). The Movie Review: ‘Infernal Affairs’. [online] The Atlantic. Available at: https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2005/01/the-movie-review-infernal-affairs/69499/.

Taylor-Jones, E 2013, Rising Sun, Divided Land: Japanese and South Korean Filmmakers, Columbia University Press, New York

 

Comments:

Haylee’s blog

https://s3529895.wordpress.com/2017/09/27/gangster-film-and-transnationalism/#comment-10

Yee Nok’s blog

http://www.mediafactory.org.au/yee-nok-chan/2017/09/27/the-aesthetics-of-japanese-cinema/#comment-10