"The Departed" Have Arrived

soda: you're right. there's not a dildo to be found in the original. nor do you see any ass. in fact, there isn't any sex in the original at all.

what i think (actually, i KNOW) is going to happen is that the remake will have to be dumbed down a hell of a lot for american audiences. and that's really sad. there are so many twists and turns in the original and it keeps you send guessing over and over. i sincerely do not think that scorcese can re-create that in any way.

It is true that Internal Affairs stands on its own as an excellent Asian crime movie. But the thing is people in the "biz" don't give a rats ass about that kind of stuff (disturbing the "sanctity" of a movie and letting it stand on its own). This has been done over and over again. Leone ripping off Yojimbo, Lucas ripping off Hidden Fortress and Derzu Uzala, Tarantino and his more than liberal use of borrowing from other movies, and the recently announced remakes of Oldboy and JSA. Theyre taking a great movie that nobody here has seen and using it to tell their own story. Hell, the Asian Internal Affairs was so successful (the highest grossing movie in HK for its time), they did 2 other movies, a sequel and a prequel. From a business perspective its easier than creating a story from scratch, because you dont spend that much time writing a script since there's already one waiting for you to adapt, and it could be maybe the story is so interesting that people want to put their own spin on it.

I'm not sure if it's a straight remake or a kind of readaptation of Internal Affairs. Scorsese has said somewhere that he wont watch the original before finishing his own. And hearing the story of Nicholson using a dildo and sniffing some coke off a girl's ass didnt remind me of any scenes from the original. So there's hope yet, Scorsese is in his element when doing Mafia/crime movies.

ed: you're asking a film major if she's ever seen a scorsese film? but even if i wasn't, i believe there are very few people who have NEVER seen a scorsese film. have you seen the original? have you seen any Hong Kong, or foreign films, for that matter? the point is that scorsese is remaking a film that is pretty decent on its own. unless you're into chinese crime thrillers, you wouldn't understand why i am certain (as is "glat" above) that this remake will suck. i don't get why american directors feel the need to remake awesome chinese films. it's just a complete waste (IMO).

not to mention, damon and dicaprio are no match for leung chiu wai and lau (*drool*)

why does the american movie industry keep making inferior remakes of asian films? it's an insult. and infernal affairs is one of the great ones. and dicaprio hasn't stretched as actor since gilbert grape.

prediction: this movie is gonna suck.

it would be a ny movie set in boston because the director doesn't know how to make anything else. ny is so deeply embedded in his experience of the world. the names and places would be boston, but the style and characters would be ny. it's a gangster movie, but will it be a gangster movie with characters that are authentically boston or just goodfellas with boston accents?

it matters if you want to talk about capturing what it means to be in a place and what hundreds of years of history can do to people and the way things happen. unless of course boston or any other city is just a collection of buildings and people with no history or context and it's just a backdrop like a tv show. maybe i'm asking for too much hoping for a movie with a real sense of place.

have you ever seen a scorsese movie? beyond the obvious exceptions (kundun), nearly every one is like a love letter to nyc. even the ones that aren't set there have a ny in-your-faceness visual style.

i don't think it will suck. i don't think scorsese is capable of making a movie that isn't at least interesting, although some are much better than others and he hasn't made a really good one in a while.

no prob :)

Sorry about the typo...you are indeed correct. INFERNAL, not Internal. Thanks!

bostonist: it's InFernal, not InTernal Affairs.

ed: why would it be a NY movie set in Boston? the original is set in Hong Kong. so, if you want, it would be a Chinese movie set in Boston.

i think the characters are pretty much universal, so i don't think that tying them to one particular city would matter.

but, with that said, i'm sure the remake will suck.

scorsese is such a new york city director, i'll be interested to see if he captures anything uniquely boston or if this is just a new york movie set in boston.