Rating: 4/5
Asian Cinema Challenge 2023 | 12/52 | Heroic Bloodshed
It’s like Face/Off but without all the stuff.
The worst of the Eight Hells is called "Continuous Hell." It has the meaning of Continuous Suffering. Thus, the name. — Nirvana Sutra
At a Buddhist temple, triad boss Hon Sam gives a speech to a group of young members with clean criminal records about how he started the gang and how the police killed six of his brothers while sparing his life. He sends this group to become undercover agents in the Hong Kong Police Force. They join the police training school and work their way up through the ranks. Among them is Lau Kin-ming. Lau rises through the ranks through promotion after promotion, becoming a Senior Inspector.
Meanwhile, a cadet named Chan Wing-yan receives a special briefing in which Superintendent Wong expels him from the training school. But what only he, Senior Inspector Cheung and the superintendent know is that Yan has become an undercover cop who will infiltrate Hon Sam’s gang. Over the years, Yan faces hardships as both police and gangsters beat him while he performs morally questionable actions in the name of keeping his cover.
After ten years of working undercover, Cheung dies. Wong is looking for a path to reintegrate Yan, but the numerous assaults on his criminal record are making it complicated. Still, Yan informs Wong of a drug trade between Hong San and Thai coke dealers. Lau gets some intel by impersonating a triad member’s lawyer, but intentionally keeps the guy from revealing too much. Still, the police can stop the drug deal.
Through the exchange of information during the sting, both Wong and Hon Sam realize they have spies in their organizations. Will Lau or Yan be able to escape discovery and find a place of safety?
The film explores the psychological effects of being someone you’re not for a prolonged period, drawing influence from Face/Off but aiming to make it more grounded in reality. Our two leads have crises of identity as their choices as kids force them to live the opposite lives they intended. For Yan, he cannot find that cop inside him. For Lau, he discovers that he’s pretty good at being a cop and might prefer that life to one as a triad.
The Chinese title translates to “Unceasing Path,” but could be more accurately translated as “Road of Eternal Pain.” The eternal pain these characters face is having no freedom to make choices for themselves—those who know their identity hold them in place.
We see this come through throughout the movie. One way is Lau’s wife, who is writing a novel about a man with multiple identities who wakes up and plays a different role each day, forgetting which one is the “real” him. Yan asks his psychiatrist if she thinks he’s a good guy or a bad guy, because she lets him nap during each session and doesn’t know. So, like, it isn’t subtle.
Where the movie has more to offer thematically is in how the characters’ identity crises reflect the experiences of the Hong Kong people. From 1841 to 1997, they were a British colony. Then, in 1997, the British handed over HK to Mainland China. In both cases, the HK people’s identity is not their own. Director Andrew Lau grew up hating HK, believing in his heart that he is Chinese—this has led to him directing propaganda for the People’s Republic of China and focusing his content on a Mainland China audience.
Tony Leung and Andy Lau are both powerhouse actors, giving stellar action performances here. You won’t see Leung give the subtlety he gives Wong Kar-wai or what Lau does for directors like Ann Hui, but this movie doesn’t demand it. I also really like Anthony Wong in this—I have a backlog of horror movies he’s been in that I’m looking forward to.
Overall, I think much of the movie’s thematic richness comes from discussing it more than the experience of watching it. Still, I enjoyed the intrigue and watching this cast psyche each other out. Though Scorsese won his only Oscar for remaking this as The Departed, I believe this is the superior film.