The Goldfinger review — a flat follow-up to Infernal Affairs
★★✩✩✩
One of the greatest cop thrillers in history has not, alas, produced one of the most dazzling follow-ups. Infernal Affairs, from 2002, was an undercover Hong Kong classic when Martin Scorsese transformed it into Oscar-winning behemoth The Departed.
Now, more than two decades since its inception, the film’s stars Tony Leung and Andy Lau have reunited with its co-writer Felix Chong for another tale of committed professionals on either side of the law who are determined to avoid each other’s clutches. In this film, which is a new story, not a sequel, the moral parameters have been flipped, and Lau, a triad spy in the police force in Infernal Affairs, plays a crusading “anticorruption” investigator, while Leung, previously a deep-cover copper, is a
