'The Departed' - don't compare with the original

When Martin Scorcese first announced that he was going to remake HK's Infernal Affairs, everybody was worried that this is going to be another Hollywood screw-up of Asian movies. Western viewers who have not watched the original is raving about it, whereas those who have watched the original says that 'The Departed' did not live up to the original. Of course credit should be given to Andrew Lau and Andy Mak for the great storyline and clever twists.

I guess for me, the movie was just ok, but not great. Definitely I prefer the sleek and stylish feel of Infernal Affairs. compared to the drab and mundane setting of Boston. My advice is to just watch it as it is and not make any comparisons to the original.

Matt Damon is well cast as the cool and sleek cop who is actually a mole for the mob. However I feel Leonardo DiCaprio is too 'baby-faced' to play the undercover cop. His goatee looks like it's been pasted on. Jack Nicholson, as always gives a memorable performance as the mob boss Frank Costello. I hope he gets nominated for an Oscar next year.

Now for the really, really bad news.....thanks to our local censorship board, the movie was butchered up badly especially the dialogue where every other word is a swear word. It sounded like everybody is talking through a bad phone signal where the conversation starts to break up. (For trivia buffs, the word 'f***' are said 237 time throughout the movie!) Amazingly, our censorship board considers 'cock' and 'cunt' as acceptable because they were not cut out! Some gory scenes were cut out as well, and for those who have not watched the original version, you will probably be wondering what the f*** just happened in the in the lift in the film's climax.

I urge all of you to avoid the cinemas for this one and just wait for the DVD. If you can't wait, then go and watch 'Infernal Affairs' again.