Speaker 1: Gid A, Peter Helly here, Welcome to you.
Speaker 2: Ain't Seen Nothing Yet the movie podcast, where I chat
Speaker 2: to a movie lover about a classic or beloved movie
Speaker 2: they haven't quite got around to watching until now.
Speaker 1: Today's guests comedian broadcaster Michael Hing.
Speaker 3: All below.
Speaker 2: I want to stay here with you.
Speaker 4: Gay to the jobble.
Speaker 3: My hate snake sucked him. Couldn't happening right, So An't
Speaker 3: seen nothing yet.
Speaker 2: In Michael Hing's word, he is in a inspiring washed
Speaker 2: up comedian. Sadly for Michael, he has a long time
Speaker 2: to wait, because right now Michael Hing is hot as
Speaker 2: he is a panel member on the Sunday Project. Despite
Speaker 2: the fact that he's worked on the project for about
Speaker 2: a year or so, this section the first time we've
Speaker 2: met he works on the Sunday Project. I worked on
Speaker 2: the weekly project on Monday to Thursdays. The Sunday Project's
Speaker 2: shot in Sydney. The weekdays he's shot in Melbourne, So
Speaker 2: our paths haven't crist but I've admired and really enjoyed
Speaker 2: what he brings to the project on a Sunday night.
Speaker 2: You might already know Michael pre the project because he
Speaker 2: you know, the project didn't discover him. He was discovered
Speaker 2: by others.
Speaker 1: Of course. He does drive on tiple Jay. He does
Speaker 1: a great job on the Jays.
Speaker 2: He's worked on the feeder over at SBS and Viceland.
Speaker 2: He studied improv at UCB in both Los Angeles and
Speaker 2: New York City. He appeared with Madow Kaine and the
Speaker 2: other Guy. The other thing you should know about Mark
Speaker 2: and only can you se him on screen. I'm listening
Speaker 2: to him on the radio, but you can see him
Speaker 2: on stage. He's a fantastic sound up comedian and his
Speaker 2: show my favorite title of this festival season, Long Live
Speaker 2: the Hing.
Speaker 1: It's worth going just to reward him for that title.
Speaker 1: From watching Michael on TV and listening to.
Speaker 2: Him on radio, you can tell that he's smart, he's funny,
Speaker 2: he's generous, he's empathetic. He definitely has his finger in
Speaker 2: many pies and on the pulse. And I'm bloody stoked
Speaker 2: to be hanging with Hingers today.
Speaker 3: Hey O, Michael Hing and my three favorite films Spider
Speaker 3: Man into the spider Verse.
Speaker 1: That's all it is, Males, a leap of faith.
Speaker 2: Today.
Speaker 3: What's up?
Speaker 4: Danger, Lie?
Speaker 3: What's up Danger? The prestige? Now you're looking for the secret,
Speaker 3: but you won't find it because of course you're not
Speaker 3: really looking.
Speaker 1: You don't really want to know.
Speaker 4: I want to be fooled and the big Lebowski twenty
Speaker 4: grand man, And of course I still get to keep
Speaker 4: the rugs from making a handle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they gave to the beeper.
Speaker 3: Also, whenever these guys call a game, oh, I told him,
Speaker 3: if it was during league play, what's turning?
Speaker 1: Lead play?
Speaker 2: Life does not stop and start at your convenience, piece
Speaker 2: of shit.
Speaker 3: And up until eleven thirty last night, I hadn't seen
Speaker 3: Infernal Affairs.
Speaker 2: The brilliantly titled Infernal Affairs has a simple but ridiculously
Speaker 2: great premise. There is a mole in the police force
Speaker 2: and a mole working within the Chinese mafia commonly known
Speaker 2: as the Triads. Yes, if Hong Kong ever felt like
Speaker 2: they needed a homegrown version of Michael Mann's Heat, this
Speaker 2: surely is it, as you follow both the cops and
Speaker 2: the crims. But this Infernal Affairs has the deliciously tantalizing
Speaker 2: angle of the moles. Detective Lao and Chan Weng Yan,
Speaker 2: played by local superstars Andy Lao and Tony Lueng, both
Speaker 2: are walking a terrifying tightrope.
Speaker 1: As both the police and triads begin to suspect they
Speaker 1: have been infiltrated.
Speaker 2: The stakes could not be higher for both Detective Lao
Speaker 2: and Chan, and when Police Captain Wog is thrown from
Speaker 2: a building to his violent death, everything goes up several notches.
Speaker 2: Of course, if this plotline sounds familiar, you may have
Speaker 2: Martin Scorsese to thank, as he remade Infernal Affairs in
Speaker 2: two thousand and eight, rebadging it that departed with one
Speaker 2: of the old time great casts, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon,
Speaker 2: Vera Famiga, Mark Wahlberg, Alec Bordwin Ray Winston, Martin Sheen.
Speaker 2: And that's not enough, Jack Nicholson. But Infernal Affairs is
Speaker 2: the og co written by Alan Mack and Felix Chong
Speaker 2: and directed by Andrew Lao and Alan Mack. It is
Speaker 2: the first in the trilogy.
Speaker 1: This movie.
Speaker 2: It twists and it turns, and it bends your mind.
Speaker 2: It is so dense and it comes home in stunning fashion.
Speaker 2: Michael King, be honest, are you a mole?
Speaker 3: I'll never tell, Pete, I'll never tell.
Speaker 2: I mean, you've done it very well, because I've reached
Speaker 2: out to you to come onto this podcast, so you work.
Speaker 1: In very mysterious ways.
Speaker 2: Michael Heat, thanks for coming on. I'm excited to talk
Speaker 2: about Infernal Affairs. I've had this as a box set.
Speaker 2: There's there's obviously three of these films and they're unwrapped,
Speaker 2: so he gave me an opportunity to unwrap them.
Speaker 1: And yeah, we'll obviously talk more about it. But why
Speaker 1: did you choose this one?
Speaker 3: Well, ever since I saw The Departed first time I
Speaker 3: saw it, I loved it. I loved it, and then
Speaker 3: I found out that this was the original film that
Speaker 3: that was based on, and growing up in a Chinese family.
Speaker 3: Sorry for people who cant see me, I am Chinese.
Speaker 3: If you didn't know the name, you know, like there
Speaker 3: was always Michael.
Speaker 1: It's a very Chinese name.
Speaker 3: But growing up there was always like my grandparents or
Speaker 3: like you know, cousins or you know, family friends would
Speaker 3: always be watching like Hong Kong films and Hong Kong cinema. Now,
Speaker 3: my family is not We all grew up in Australia,
Speaker 3: so we're not particularly Chinese. We don't speak Canto or
Speaker 3: Mandarina or anything. But just through family friends, I knew
Speaker 3: about Hong Kong Cinner and I've seen a lot of stuff,
Speaker 3: but I've never seen this film. And once I found
Speaker 3: out about it, everyone and I spoke to was like, oh,
Speaker 3: you have to see It's incredible, And then I just
Speaker 3: never got around to it. I think because I find
Speaker 3: subtitles confronting because you've got to read a lot, you know.
Speaker 3: So I've been putting it off for probably like what
Speaker 3: I think at this point, probably twenty years. It almost
Speaker 3: twenty years. So yeah, really exciting to see it, to
Speaker 3: sit down to watch it.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to chat about it. There's so much
Speaker 1: to take in.
Speaker 2: In Famal Affairs from two thousand and two, Let's talk
Speaker 2: about your three favorite films I went and saw into
Speaker 2: the Spider Verse.
Speaker 1: I like the Marvel films. You know, sometimes I'm into
Speaker 1: a more than you know other times.
Speaker 2: This one I probably wouldn't have seen if it wasn't
Speaker 2: for the constant acclaim that I kept on reading about
Speaker 2: and hearing from people.
Speaker 1: So this is in a way an unlikely film for
Speaker 1: me to go see. But I loved it. It was amazing.
Speaker 3: It's yeah, it's such a great It's probably my favorite
Speaker 3: of the Marvel It's definitely my favorite of the Marble films.
Speaker 3: It's one of my favorite films of full time.
Speaker 4: It is.
Speaker 3: People haven't seen it. It's like a it's an anime
Speaker 3: Marvel film.
Speaker 1: It's not.
Speaker 3: I don't think it's like properly linked to like the
Speaker 3: rest of the Marvel universe or whatever. But the animation
Speaker 3: is some of the most incredible I've ever seen. The
Speaker 3: storyline is great. It's like multiple universes coming together. It's
Speaker 3: like complex, it's like fun, and it also has that
Speaker 3: like I guess, I don't know. I don't want to
Speaker 3: get to like cultural theory deep early in the podcast,
Speaker 3: but I think a lot of the Marvel films, a
Speaker 3: lot of the superhero films are the twenty years we've
Speaker 3: spent watching those are basically a response culturally to like
Speaker 3: nine to eleven. No, this is a comedy podcast, and
Speaker 3: I hate to bring it up, but go for it.
Speaker 3: But like, you know how like that imagery of you know,
Speaker 3: the towers falling down and that crumbling concrete that's seen
Speaker 3: into everyone's brains, right, it was such an iconic moment
Speaker 3: in world history, and then we spent twenty years of
Speaker 3: cinema replaying that because it's so emotive. Right, Every Marvel
Speaker 3: film has a building falling down, has that exact crumbling
Speaker 3: concrete kind of imagery, which I guess living you know,
Speaker 3: where we live, hadn't seen a lot of maybe before then,
Speaker 3: you know, and you see this building demolition and it's
Speaker 3: just so iconic. And I think because this was an
Speaker 3: animated film with a lot of with similar characters and
Speaker 3: similar themes to all that, but didn't have the baggage
Speaker 3: of that imagery with it, I think it kind of was.
Speaker 3: It broke free from a lot of the constraints that
Speaker 3: the Marvel films as a whole I think had on them,
Speaker 3: from being tied to that moment in history. It's probably
Speaker 3: a bit of a long better draw, but I just
Speaker 3: I remember watching it being like, oh my goodness, this
Speaker 3: feels like a freeing A superhero film that is like
Speaker 3: a freeing one, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, certainly.
Speaker 2: That was the first Avengers film where it all basically
Speaker 2: takes place in New York. Certainly felt linked to nine
Speaker 2: to eleven. Certainly even Nolan's Dark Knight at DC felt
Speaker 2: like that was living in a post nine to eleven world.
Speaker 2: And it's interesting, you say, I hadn't really thought of
Speaker 2: it as you know, most of those films existing in
Speaker 2: that shadow.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess, like I mean, obviously like some more
Speaker 3: than others, like these, you know, like The Gutting to
Speaker 3: the Galaxy less so perhaps, but like like Iron Man
Speaker 3: and a lot of those films, it's all about like
Speaker 3: you know, it's it's an unknown threat, which is like
Speaker 3: classic Supero stuff, but it's like it's very much influenced
Speaker 3: by the politics and the culture of the time, you know.
Speaker 3: I think I think twenty years later, I think a
Speaker 3: lot of people criticize the Marvel films as being like,
Speaker 3: you know, pro American propaganda or you know, you can
Speaker 3: go down that rabbit hole.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: I don't necessarily, you know, get go into all that
Speaker 3: and stuff, but you know, I can understand at least
Speaker 3: the arguments for it.
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 3: I guess the other thing that I find not frustrating,
Speaker 3: but like I feel like I've read stuff and I
Speaker 3: kind of agree with it about like the Dialogue and
Speaker 3: Marvel films, how it's kind of like they let Robert
Speaker 3: Danny Junior kind of like improv a bit, and that
Speaker 3: just became like the cultural norm for film dialogue for
Speaker 3: action films for twenty years, you know, that kind of
Speaker 3: undermining quips that Joss Whedon sort of stuff, and I
Speaker 3: feel like this had some of that, but again, because
Speaker 3: it's animated, it's totally different vibe, and the Spider peg
Speaker 3: stuff or whatever doesn't really undermine the stakes. It just
Speaker 3: sort of like because it's a joyful animation, if.
Speaker 1: That makes sense. Yeah, it's really interesting.
Speaker 3: So I've thought a lot about the bubblesinomatic.
Speaker 2: You know, obviously, what's interesting about Spider Man is he
Speaker 2: was kind of always and my friend justin Hamilton that
Speaker 2: kind of I think drove this point. Spider Man was
Speaker 2: always quippy, like, he was always kind of like he
Speaker 2: would always more so than most of the other characters.
Speaker 2: But I think some of the depictions of Spider Man
Speaker 2: haven't been like that. I think Tom Holand has done
Speaker 2: a really good job of kind of bringing that back.
Speaker 2: Tom Holand and obviously the creators and the writers. But
Speaker 2: I feel like for some reason, I didn't I was
Speaker 2: not into at all the tape McGuire, I got nothing,
Speaker 2: he said mcgwiy but there's that trilogy or that that's
Speaker 2: Spider Man. I just was I just didn't it did
Speaker 2: not connect with me at all.
Speaker 3: Well, that was the that was sort of the start
Speaker 3: of the superho Stuffy. It was one of the first
Speaker 3: ones again yeah, yeah, that was in.
Speaker 1: Pre Iron Man. But it's not really connected.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 3: I think that they tried later on with the you know, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's always about which which film houses own which properties
Speaker 3: and how they.
Speaker 1: Which does detract a little bit when you know that,
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, this is just a deal they did.
Speaker 5: This is.
Speaker 1: Excellent.
Speaker 2: If you haven't seen into the Spider verse, it is
Speaker 2: absolutely worth it with your time. The prestige has come up,
Speaker 2: I'm sure a couple of times on this podcast as
Speaker 2: somebody his favorite films, Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale.
Speaker 1: It is not one too, isn't it. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a good one. Yeah, I've said it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: The only thing about the prestige I have is, and
Speaker 2: I'm not somebody who looks for twists, sure, but I
Speaker 2: saw this one was almost like.
Speaker 3: You saw the basement full of dead bodies, and but I.
Speaker 1: Saw like that he was and I think I've only
Speaker 1: seen it the ones.
Speaker 2: But because the idea is that is a bail he's
Speaker 2: dressed up as an old man or something, or is
Speaker 2: that there is so this is so.
Speaker 3: This is one of my favorite films because it is
Speaker 3: so complex.
Speaker 1: It is skip ahead if you haven't seen it, and
Speaker 1: that you don't want to spoilers here.
Speaker 3: But it is the unraveling of a magician's trick with science,
Speaker 3: and it is the most tragic unraveling of a trick
Speaker 3: because you think that the trick is on the audience,
Speaker 3: but the reality is the trick is on him and
Speaker 3: the suffering he has to go through in order to
Speaker 3: play for the audience. Now, I don't know, as a comedian,
Speaker 3: for some reason we relate to that. But this is
Speaker 3: a film that I have watched maybe a dozen times
Speaker 3: with my friend Ben, who yeah, my mom, not my
Speaker 3: best friends. We are obsessed with this film. We talk
Speaker 3: about all the time. We think it's so silly and
Speaker 3: so serious at the same time, and I just love
Speaker 3: everything about it. I love the I love the intricate
Speaker 3: plot work. I love the way it's complicated and kind
Speaker 3: of contradictory at times. And I think when you watch
Speaker 3: a film this many times, the performances any film, if
Speaker 3: you watch it ten times, performance has become ridiculous and
Speaker 3: they no longer are real and just like he's doing
Speaker 3: that thing he does with his eyebrows, you know. But
Speaker 3: Christian bale Is is obviously a very talented actor and
Speaker 3: a really intense guy, and it becomes comedic eventually, but
Speaker 3: basically the end of it is he is killing himself
Speaker 3: night after night in order to perform a trick for
Speaker 3: the audience, and he's drowning himself in a tank of
Speaker 3: wader and there's just a the reveal of there's just
Speaker 3: a basement full of tanks of water with dead magiction.
Speaker 3: It's like, I don't know, No, I.
Speaker 2: Must go back and watch it again because because it's
Speaker 2: quite possible that even the twist that I thought was
Speaker 2: a twist probably wasn't even a twist. There is a
Speaker 2: moment earlier in the film where he's dressed up as somebody.
Speaker 3: So there's an old magician. There's there's a magician who
Speaker 3: pretends to be old, and that's the that's so the
Speaker 3: trick is not that the old man is strong, but
Speaker 3: it's a young man pretending to be old, if that
Speaker 3: makes sense, yes, And so there's that that sets up
Speaker 3: and then it obviously that is a recurring theme through
Speaker 3: The trick is not the trick is kind of a
Speaker 3: recurring theme in the thing, and you know that sets
Speaker 3: up for the for the end again based for four
Speaker 3: of demigicians.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, playing Nikola Tesla insane really really really recommend
Speaker 4: it the Prestige. Check it out, And of course The
Speaker 4: Big Lebowski has featured here.
Speaker 3: What I mean, we've all been nineteen, you know, we've
Speaker 3: all loved this film. I feel like I should have
Speaker 3: grown out of it at some point, but every time
Speaker 3: I watch it, I'm just like, it's still really funny.
Speaker 3: It's still really really really funny. Yeah, I just I
Speaker 3: love all the like there's just so many great performances,
Speaker 3: so many great actors and people who you don't expect
Speaker 3: to be as funny as they are just crashing it
Speaker 3: in this film. Yeah, I don't know. I'm sure everyone
Speaker 3: listening to if you're listening to a film podcast, I
Speaker 3: doadly you've seen The Big Lebowski and also.
Speaker 2: The Big About Like it's it's you know, now, one
Speaker 2: of the great comedies of all time, but with somebody
Speaker 2: who's you know. Jeff Bridges is is an awesome actor,
Speaker 2: not not necessarily known for comedic roles, but just it's
Speaker 2: It's probably one of the.
Speaker 1: As far as great comedies go.
Speaker 2: Usually there is a comedy like comedic actor at the
Speaker 2: forefront of that, but this is this is one. Probably
Speaker 2: Sideways is another one, which is one of my favorite
Speaker 2: films with Jim Marty and Thomas Haden Church. Thomas aden
Speaker 2: Church is a comedic actor and gm Marty is more
Speaker 2: than capable. But yeah, usually there is a comedic actor,
Speaker 2: you know, up front, and Jeff Bridges is not known
Speaker 2: as that, but that this it's kind.
Speaker 3: Of the reverse of like the you know, Adams Adam
Speaker 3: Sandler Punch Shrunk Love kind of style film where a
Speaker 3: comedian does the series roll. In this instance, it's yeah,
Speaker 3: but yeah, no, I love The Big Labowski. You know,
Speaker 3: I think I've probably watched this one. I was like,
Speaker 3: I don't know, fifteen or sixteen or something like that,
Speaker 3: I can't remember, and just like immediately was like annoyingly
Speaker 3: quoting it to all my friends. You got to watch
Speaker 3: this films. It's it's crazy. And then obviously getting into
Speaker 3: all of the Calm Brothers and just like you know,
Speaker 3: from there, it's just like they're the best.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you own your own multiverse opened up. Okay, let's
Speaker 2: get let's get stuck into it. This is a fascinating
Speaker 2: film to talk about today. Infirmal Affairs two thousand and two,
Speaker 2: directed by Andrew Lao, not Andy Lao, who's one of
Speaker 2: the actors, different people, and Alan Mack. It is one
Speaker 2: almost all the awards in Hong Kong when it was released.
Speaker 2: All the actors are massive superstars over there. Often I
Speaker 2: think most of us singers as well, like the stars
Speaker 2: of c Pomp, Double Threats. You know, absolutely, Michael King,
Speaker 2: did you enjoy in Film Affairs?
Speaker 3: I loved it. I loved it. I think there will
Speaker 3: I mean, I mean for me, and I know this
Speaker 3: is a character flaw. Watching a non English or a
Speaker 3: foreign film will always there will always be like a
Speaker 3: cultural and linguistic barrier that like will always exist there
Speaker 3: because like you know, again acknowledge that it's a character flaw.
Speaker 3: But I was enthralled by it. I was captivated by it.
Speaker 3: I loved it.
Speaker 2: It's funny when you mentioned the subtitles, and I'm fine
Speaker 2: with subtitles, but I found the first fifteen minutes or
Speaker 2: so here I had almost whiplash because there was so
Speaker 2: much going on and you're trying to follow.
Speaker 3: I think if I hadn't seen The Departed like a
Speaker 3: dozen times, Yeah, I think I probably would have struggled
Speaker 3: to follow They're right. I think I would have struggled
Speaker 3: to follow the plot because I knew vaguely what was happening,
Speaker 3: because I was like, oh, I've seen the Western version
Speaker 3: of this film, but which again, again I say this
Speaker 3: acknowledging character flaw. But watching this, I agree with you.
Speaker 3: In the first fifteen minutes, I was a bit like
Speaker 3: a bit like, oh, this guy is the is the
Speaker 3: spy for this? This guy's you know, it was It
Speaker 3: was a lot to take in. And there was no
Speaker 3: like handholding at all, No, not at all like.
Speaker 2: This was which I admired that, but there was a
Speaker 2: point in that, you know, in that first fifteen minutes
Speaker 2: it's like this, maybe you had to hold my hand,
Speaker 2: but it's a guide my elbow or something like this
Speaker 2: just just helped me, just helped me a little bit.
Speaker 2: It was because because and this where the subtitles can
Speaker 2: be tri because it was quite fast paced. There's a lot,
Speaker 2: there's a lot going on, and so you're reading the subtitles.
Speaker 1: But it is tricky. It was trick.
Speaker 3: You missed, you miss I find personally when I watched
Speaker 3: subtitle films, especially something like this, you're focusing on reading it,
Speaker 3: and so you miss some of the faces, you miss
Speaker 3: some of the express you know it does. It does
Speaker 3: take a lot more brain activity, and that's that's in
Speaker 3: short supply with me, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I felt like you know, I've spoken sometimes
Speaker 2: when you watch a film and you feel immediately in
Speaker 2: safe hands, And like when I watched Busch, Cassidy and
Speaker 2: the Sundance skip for the first time the opening shot,
Speaker 2: I just thought, I'm gonna love this movie.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure I'm gonna love this movie. This one.
Speaker 2: I was a little bit worried until the stakeout, that
Speaker 2: first stakeout. It went from there, I was like, this
Speaker 2: is brilliant, And in my mind, I was like, I know,
Speaker 2: this is a great film. Of course people love this film.
Speaker 2: Yeah that departed, you know, so I knew it was
Speaker 2: going to get there, but I was, like I was,
Speaker 2: I was a little bit worried. And also because there
Speaker 2: are some very different kind of production techniques going on there.
Speaker 2: There are times and there are times I love this
Speaker 2: film and and but there are some things where it's
Speaker 2: it's like the editor gave the keys to his you know,
Speaker 2: his E ten nephew, who's like, there's some cross fades
Speaker 2: and some music choices.
Speaker 3: So I wasn't sure, I guess because I don't know
Speaker 3: a lot about Hong Kong cinema. I wasn't sure if
Speaker 3: that is like was and stuff in the early two thousands.
Speaker 3: That's sort of like slow there was a lot of
Speaker 3: like freeze slow mo and then like for emotional effect
Speaker 3: like flashback in black and white kind of thing, or
Speaker 3: like a yeah, like you said, cross fades like slow
Speaker 3: fades out, you know, transitions, And I was like, looking
Speaker 3: at that in twenty twenty three, like this is pretty cheesy.
Speaker 3: But I wasn't sure if that was just like the
Speaker 3: style at the time. I don't know, yeah, but certainly
Speaker 3: it feels there are techniques in it that do feel dated.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, yeah, I agree. I made reference some
Speaker 1: of the actors.
Speaker 2: Andy Lau is like one of the hardest working actors
Speaker 2: and he's also he's won like a ridiculous amount of
Speaker 2: awards over there. He's been a ridiculous amount of movies
Speaker 2: and he's also like a he sings. I think one
Speaker 2: of the songs in the in the film, so you know, huge,
Speaker 2: huge star.
Speaker 3: And the.
Speaker 2: His counterpart, he's the mole working for the tryads. He
Speaker 2: is also like a massive star as well all the
Speaker 2: women in the film. We'll get to the women, you know,
Speaker 2: because there's there's something to be said for the women
Speaker 2: in this in this movie, in the roles they're given,
Speaker 2: but lack of roles.
Speaker 1: But he's also a star.
Speaker 2: And I thought I'd love the two performances. I thought
Speaker 2: they were. I was in on them, I was I
Speaker 2: felt for both of them. I thought they were great.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel like, how can I put this again?
Speaker 3: I'm gonna keep reverencing The Departed, just because I think
Speaker 3: that's the film everyone will have seen. In The Departed,
Speaker 3: there's like a huge all star cast. If you know,
Speaker 3: ten twelve people have all won, you know, Academy Awards,
Speaker 3: will been nominated. You know, this huge it's you know,
Speaker 3: this film was about just basically two people, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean. There's a couple of other characters, but
Speaker 3: it's basically just two guys, you know, And so you
Speaker 3: really they really needed these two guys to perform, you know,
Speaker 3: and the performances they give are I don't know, I
Speaker 3: would say like seventy percent internal. Like there's quite a
Speaker 3: bit of action and stuff, but it's not like a
Speaker 3: kung fu film. It's not like a huge epic fight scenes.
Speaker 3: It's all like psychological tension, you know, it's all like
Speaker 3: doubt and stress and being able to I guess as
Speaker 3: an actor, if you had that role, it'd be like,
Speaker 3: it's quite a big calling.
Speaker 2: I think I read something, and sometimes I get a
Speaker 2: little bit suspicious of stories that come out of the
Speaker 2: production that just don't seem to quite add up. What
Speaker 2: I read was that Andy Laud took on this role
Speaker 2: he was given basically almost a fake script where he
Speaker 2: didn't have the twist at the end. So he thought
Speaker 2: he was playing like the good comp. You know, he's
Speaker 2: just playing a good comp. There's part of me that
Speaker 2: I thinks, okay, that's great. And then he was giving
Speaker 2: the proper script at the appropriate time the rooftop scene.
Speaker 2: Know that we'll get to so but as part of me,
Speaker 2: but hang on, you were what did you think the
Speaker 2: film was about? Really like, this doesn't make sense. And
Speaker 2: then and then also when the steak out is happening,
Speaker 2: he's he is kind of he's playing it so well
Speaker 2: that he's you know, he's you know, on the on
Speaker 2: the phone.
Speaker 1: You know, on the phone, he's text messaging. You know, like,
Speaker 1: what did you think was going on there?
Speaker 3: So unless they told him that it was like a
Speaker 3: double crossing situation, that he or something like that, and
Speaker 3: that he was But that's really fascinating because the whole
Speaker 3: movie the theme of who is a cop? And you know,
Speaker 3: who is the good guy or who is you know,
Speaker 3: those lines being blurred constantly throughout the film. As a director,
Speaker 3: I think that would be a really I'm not that,
Speaker 3: I'm sorry. If you were a director, I think that
Speaker 3: would be a really effect line to your actors is
Speaker 3: a really effective way of getting grateful for And sometimes
Speaker 3: you do.
Speaker 2: Hear of people maybe not being you know, given the ending,
Speaker 2: so people is being left in the day. I have
Speaker 2: heard of that technique before, but just in regards to this,
Speaker 2: I'm curious to what Andy Laud then thought the film
Speaker 2: was about or and maybe there was a you know,
Speaker 2: I read a few sentences and I'm sure the director
Speaker 2: directors had an approach if that if that was if
Speaker 2: that was right. But it's fast because it's such a
Speaker 2: brilliant performance and you're there because obviously we know he's
Speaker 2: a mole from the get go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well you're got to looking for this stuff and
Speaker 1: it's all there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I guess that's like maybe there's a
Speaker 3: whole bunch of stuff on the cutting room floor where
Speaker 3: he's like, you know, doing charity work, like helping out
Speaker 3: the local community, and he's like saving an orphan from
Speaker 3: a burning building and stuff, and that's all just cut
Speaker 3: up and he's like, wait, why did we shoot on that? Well,
Speaker 3: that's something that makes people got a good guy? Wait
Speaker 3: can we put that in?
Speaker 2: There's my eight minute monologue. I learned that word for word.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think this is a brilliant film and
Speaker 2: it deserves all the credit. If you love The Departed,
Speaker 2: you need to acknowledge this film, you know. Weirdly, Martin
Speaker 2: Scorsese said he wasn't even aware that this was The
Speaker 2: Departed was based on this film. I find that what
Speaker 2: Martin Scorsese is like the walking encyclopedia of cinema.
Speaker 3: So wait, what do you mean he just made The
Speaker 3: Departed being like ah, yeah, this is yeah, Like, I mean.
Speaker 2: Obviously he didn't write it, but surely in preparing it
Speaker 2: somebody would have mentioned even on the script. I imagine
Speaker 2: on the cover page it said based on the movie
Speaker 2: Infernal Affairs, it should have it's so funny.
Speaker 1: I don't believe that I'm calling bullshit on that. I reckon,
Speaker 1: I reckon. He this wants the kind of our own.
Speaker 3: Some of the space there's like shot for shot, there's.
Speaker 2: Shot for shot stuff going on. I just find it impossible,
Speaker 2: Like it's so funny. Yeah, oh my good knowledge.
Speaker 1: Give the credit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean who also who cares? Like you gotta
Speaker 3: ask her for it?
Speaker 2: More people, you know, possibly more people was into the
Speaker 2: part of than than well maybe not actually, oh no,
Speaker 2: I reckon they would have yeaheah, But there is. So
Speaker 2: this is a brilliant film, but there are some things
Speaker 2: like some of the production things which you know, may
Speaker 2: just be dated, maybe be more of a cultural thing
Speaker 2: of you know, that's how they because I think they
Speaker 2: do lean more into the sentimental sure in this film
Speaker 2: even even we might listen to it soon that a
Speaker 2: comparison between how Wong's death is played out. But there's
Speaker 2: some stuff in this where you kind of go, how
Speaker 2: did Like the most puzzling thing was so the women
Speaker 2: in this in this movie, you've got You've got Lao's
Speaker 2: girlfriend and she she's an author.
Speaker 1: She's an author, and it's it's a bit on the nose.
Speaker 2: She's basically writing a book and it's about she can't
Speaker 2: finish it because she doesn't know if the character's good
Speaker 2: or bad. It's it's very much on the nose. And
Speaker 2: they've done such good work. We don't need any of this.
Speaker 2: We like, we know what's going on. It's not like,
Speaker 2: you know, this explained it one more time that we
Speaker 2: didn't need it.
Speaker 3: It was, yeah, that was a bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's on the nose. And then you've got Chan
Speaker 2: who's got his psychologist.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the psychologist who he go who he's been sent to,
Speaker 3: but the police. So he's working as a as a
Speaker 3: mole in the triads and his police contact sends him
Speaker 3: to a psychologist, and he basically spends a lot of
Speaker 3: the movie refusing to talk to the psychologists and going
Speaker 3: there and just having a nap. But he has to
Speaker 3: do it because it's you know or whatever, and she's
Speaker 3: going to give it up on him just playing solitary.
Speaker 1: It's two thousand and two.
Speaker 2: Everybody, So that's and then the part of so they've
Speaker 2: got to merge those two roles. I think with Via Famiga,
Speaker 2: who's amazing. I think they the part of that's one thing.
Speaker 2: They definitely do better that role. And then there's a
Speaker 2: third in My Carriage, which is maybe the most bewildering thing.
Speaker 1: And I'm not sure. I hope I haven't seen two
Speaker 1: or three. Yeah, apparently two is a prequel, yeah, right,
Speaker 1: and then three is a bit of both.
Speaker 2: It's a bit of a seque, but it's a bit
Speaker 2: a bit prequel. So the same actors are involved. What
Speaker 2: I'm hoping is those characters they knew what they were doing,
Speaker 2: and those female characters are underwritten, sure in this one,
Speaker 2: but they have going they have bigger roles in the
Speaker 2: next one. Because there's one character, the ex girlfriend, where
Speaker 2: it's so where Chance says, I'm gonna I'm gonna got
Speaker 2: a massage. Yeah, So he goes off, but then bumps
Speaker 2: into his ex girlfriend who has a daughter. They seems
Speaker 2: to be they seem to be inferring that the daughter
Speaker 2: is his.
Speaker 3: It's his because she because in the conversation she asks
Speaker 3: how long it's been, he says seven years. He asks
Speaker 3: how the daughter is she says five years. And then
Speaker 3: as he walks away. The daughter says to the mother,
Speaker 3: I'm six years old. Like you know, it's very much
Speaker 3: like do the math and you know, and it's and
Speaker 3: you don't know. I don't even know if we know
Speaker 3: this person's name or we know anything about their backstory.
Speaker 1: There's no payoff like this.
Speaker 2: No, like because one of the happens, I thought, Okay,
Speaker 2: this is potentially is interesting, like he has he has
Speaker 2: a daughter.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but he never finds out you know, you know,
Speaker 3: I think in the well, I mean spoiler alert. I
Speaker 3: think in the funeral scene, the daughter's there. Yeah, right
Speaker 3: at the end.
Speaker 1: Maybe, but I am but still unawares. I don't think.
Speaker 1: I don't think.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think she knows. But again yeah, again,
Speaker 3: maybe they're setting stuff up for the for the other movies,
Speaker 3: but you know, I mean, we don't have ti give
Speaker 3: them the benefit of that. Who knows, it's just maybe
Speaker 3: it's just classic you know, cinematic misogony. Who knows it is?
Speaker 2: It is so bizarre. Let's have a listen. We're going
Speaker 2: to do some comparison work here. This is the way,
Speaker 2: I guess pointing out some of that sentimentality that The
Speaker 2: Infernal Affairs has maybe competed.
Speaker 1: The part of this is this is Wang sobrittinent, Wang falling.
Speaker 2: To his death in you know, pretty tragic circumstances and
Speaker 2: this just will play it out a bit and they
Speaker 2: have listened to how they handle it.
Speaker 3: Y do you know what leans to me? God?
Speaker 1: I passing? Show me about.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you got some swelling music there. I'm pretty
Speaker 2: sure there's some cross fraighting going on the flashbacks. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: black and white flashbacks, Yeah, like really leaning heavily into
Speaker 2: the sentimental.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I also when this because he dies by being
Speaker 3: thrown off a building, which the same way that Martin
Speaker 3: Sheen's characterized in that Departed And then both times it
Speaker 3: is so surprising. I didn't I totally watching this, even
Speaker 3: knowing that it happened in the department, totally forgot that
Speaker 3: it was going to happen. And then was like just
Speaker 3: a body falling off a building and just hitting a
Speaker 3: car was an impactful shot. And then to cut from
Speaker 3: that after and then there's a shootout that didn't use
Speaker 3: and then to cut from that to all this excitement
Speaker 3: and everything going on, then to like slow cross fades
Speaker 3: black and white flashbacks. It's like I was like, oh,
Speaker 3: this is a roller coaster.
Speaker 2: Because Martin School says he handles it in a pretty
Speaker 2: different way. We have you so Martin Sheen's sullivan, I
Speaker 2: think it is falls off, was pushed off, and he
Speaker 2: quite quite fell. Of course Martin School he's never seen
Speaker 2: in Federal affairs, but very similar. But actually he does
Speaker 2: handle it quite differently, so he falls. There's no there's
Speaker 2: no car. We don't see. We actually hear that that
Speaker 2: awful sound of body hitting the pavement right right in
Speaker 2: front of DiCaprio's character. And let's have a listen to
Speaker 2: the way he handles it compared to what we just heard.
Speaker 1: What the fuck?
Speaker 3: What was that?
Speaker 2: Ship?
Speaker 1: Shah? Something just kid off the building?
Speaker 4: Fuck?
Speaker 1: What do you mean? Something came off the building?
Speaker 3: Go again with that different.
Speaker 1: Shot came off the roof?
Speaker 3: Body sides.
Speaker 1: We can't get a visual.
Speaker 3: Do you want us to get out of the car.
Speaker 3: We're gonna get on foot if you want me to
Speaker 3: get up on this thing.
Speaker 1: Where the funk were you? What the fuck?
Speaker 3: Cap you're fucking wake Get in the barn.
Speaker 1: What do you mean something came off the roof? What's
Speaker 1: going on?
Speaker 2: I came on?
Speaker 3: What?
Speaker 1: Get off the bar, get in the barn.
Speaker 3: I don't know, side put like a four round men, right,
Speaker 3: I'll funk.
Speaker 5: You want us to pursue, No, do not pursue, stay
Speaker 5: in the car, no fucking pasult some information?
Speaker 1: What came off the roofe?
Speaker 3: No pursuit fu.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so Scorsese's gone with no soundtrack there it's it's
Speaker 2: it's not sentimental. And then it's it's a lot of
Speaker 2: a lot of cursing, a lot of Boston f bombs
Speaker 2: and yeah, so it's I think they then they they
Speaker 2: even't run over the body on the way out, so
Speaker 2: he is he's turned to Scorsese up to eleven. But
Speaker 2: it's it's I don't know, it's it's fascinating that the
Speaker 2: two differences. I said, I'm not sure I haven't seen
Speaker 2: enough Chinese cinema to know, particularly these kinds of films,
Speaker 2: like if this is a cultural thing that they just
Speaker 2: don't mind, you know, the sentimental stuff, because that, yeah,
Speaker 2: that was the only thing that I think for me,
Speaker 2: it occasionally got on the nose a little bit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think there is a and again I
Speaker 3: could be speaking abut to turn here, but this is
Speaker 3: my this is my amateur understanding of my culture. But
Speaker 3: I reckon that there is potentially more sentimentality, especially around
Speaker 3: the elderly in Chinese culture, And so when a senior
Speaker 3: figure like Wog dies, I think maybe, I mean, obviously
Speaker 3: every culture loves their old people, obviously, but I think
Speaker 3: there is like a because of like ancestor worship and
Speaker 3: stuff like that that has happened throughout you know, Chinese culture.
Speaker 3: It just it has something of a real impact. And
Speaker 3: so I think maybe just culturally, it's like you need
Speaker 3: to surface that with the sentiment stuff.
Speaker 2: Maybe, I think, isn't it one of the one of
Speaker 2: the they've got these lists of grave sins that if
Speaker 2: you commit these kinds of sins you will end up
Speaker 2: in like the worst level of how the VICI I
Speaker 2: think it is and so and one of the mother
Speaker 2: though is knowingly killing your father, knowingly killing your mother,
Speaker 2: or and knowingly killing somebody who is like a senior
Speaker 2: kind of you know, yeah officer.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah yeah. So And and obviously Wang is that's
Speaker 3: in your policeman is seen as kind of a father
Speaker 3: figure to both of these characters, both of these moles. Weirdly,
Speaker 3: I think that in the departed that father figure is
Speaker 3: probably more Jack Nicholson, the way he kind of takes
Speaker 3: the way that character from the very start of that
Speaker 3: film Departed takes Matt Damon in and raises him and
Speaker 3: kind of not you know, is looking out for him.
Speaker 3: I could see that link between Nicholson and Matt Damon
Speaker 3: a bit clearer than I could see between the Triad
Speaker 3: Mole in the Cops.
Speaker 2: And and yeah, yeah, yeah, I think absolutely right. And
Speaker 2: I think one thing I'll give the part of points On.
Speaker 2: I think Nicholson is far more menacing and feels even
Speaker 2: though I felt like the stakes were still high. Then
Speaker 2: of course these are the tryads, you know, so we
Speaker 2: know we hear about the people, he's about people. But
Speaker 2: I didn't find Sam as anywhere near as threatening as
Speaker 2: as Nicholson in the party.
Speaker 3: Have you heard that story about Matt Damon tells about
Speaker 3: Jack Nicholson working with him on The Departed. He basically
Speaker 3: tells this story about like how there's a scene where
Speaker 3: Jack Nicholson has to he has to execute someone and
Speaker 3: it just says like he and there was like a
Speaker 3: one line description in the script, and then Nicholson just
Speaker 3: improvises this like really fucked up monologue where he's like
Speaker 3: where with every line he is making his character more
Speaker 3: and more of a psycho, And Matt Damon's like talking
Speaker 3: about just like how watching that happen. He's like, well,
Speaker 3: this man is terrifying. This make an access in really
Speaker 3: dark places. Was that the rat monologue? You know, he's
Speaker 3: talking about the rat and it's like the bit where
Speaker 3: they execute It's like it's like the she felt funny bit.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you remember that. He's he's they
Speaker 3: have they're killing a the they're killing one of his employers,
Speaker 3: and she they shoot her and then she falls and
Speaker 3: then he goes, ah, she felt funny. And the implication
Speaker 3: there is like there is a right way someone's meant
Speaker 3: to fall, and she doesn't fall that way when we
Speaker 3: shot her in the head. So it's like very dark.
Speaker 3: It's extremely disturbing, but just like the way the genius
Speaker 3: of the monologue is the way it just implies all
Speaker 3: this backstory of complete psychopathy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I certainly, and I quite enjoyed. I said
Speaker 2: I was still there for Infernal Affairs and I felt
Speaker 2: the tension and it's interesting. It's just two very different
Speaker 2: ways of playing it. Yeah, Sam is played he's softer.
Speaker 2: You can see that he you know, he could get
Speaker 2: shited done. There's no doubt about that. So he knew
Speaker 2: if Chan got busted, he was in a world of hurt.
Speaker 2: But I remember watching it the part of and really
Speaker 2: feeling the tension that if the Capria got found out
Speaker 2: that he was properly fucked.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it wasn't.
Speaker 2: It wasn't just going to It's it's like Sam would
Speaker 2: have put a bullet in the Chan's head if.
Speaker 1: He got caught. I think Nicholson would have tortured.
Speaker 3: DiCaprio be slowly moving tones or whatever. Yeah, although like
Speaker 3: there are the scene where they're talking in the bar
Speaker 3: and this is in internal affairs, an he's saying to you,
Speaker 3: any saying to chant like I you know you're the
Speaker 3: only one I can trust. You can still see the threatening,
Speaker 3: menacing nature of it. And yeah, it's it's just I
Speaker 3: don't know, there's just so much there's just so much
Speaker 3: internal strife going on in this film. It's so much pressure,
Speaker 3: very stressful film to watch, you know, in an airport
Speaker 3: last night, which which is horribody, watches the film how
Speaker 3: the director intended for to watch it.
Speaker 1: What was did you ever read on the stereo scene.
Speaker 1: I think quite so. The stereo scene.
Speaker 3: It's just that's right at the start of the film,
Speaker 3: and that's neither of them realize that that's just their
Speaker 3: paths crossing incidentally, but neither of them knowing. So this
Speaker 3: is the police mole who works in the triads also
Speaker 3: has a second job at a stereo at like a
Speaker 3: Kenwood stereo shop or something.
Speaker 1: JB High five.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and so and the the triad
Speaker 3: mole who's working in the police he comes into buy
Speaker 3: a stereo and yeah, then there's the discussion about cables,
Speaker 3: and you know, I think it's just meant to show
Speaker 3: that they because they knew each other at the academy,
Speaker 3: but then ten years later, I think it's just so
Speaker 3: that they couldn't recognize each other maybe even though they'd met. Yeah,
Speaker 3: maybe that's what the point of it was.
Speaker 2: I was really confused by it. And it's kind of
Speaker 2: like a like a reference to it later on. I
Speaker 2: think because he because the stereo is how he is
Speaker 2: found out, that's right, yes, yeah, because he sends a CD.
Speaker 2: Oh man, remember CDs.
Speaker 3: He sends a CD with the carrier with the song
Speaker 3: that they played, yes, so he maybe he must have
Speaker 3: remembered once he so, once he realized that he was
Speaker 3: the the other guy was the mole. Sorry trying this,
Speaker 3: This is what I mean. The plot is so deep
Speaker 3: so once so so hang on, there's Chan, there's Lao, right, yeah,
Speaker 3: and is the low is the mole in the police force,
Speaker 3: and Chan is the mole with the triads. Yes, So
Speaker 3: from the start Chan is established as a character who
Speaker 3: sees everything and takes everything in. Right. There's that scene
Speaker 3: right at the start where he observes everything about this,
Speaker 3: the socks that is Sergeant's wearing or whatever, and you
Speaker 3: know all that kind of stuff. Right, He's a very
Speaker 3: observant guy. So I think what happens is when he
Speaker 3: realizes that Lao is the bad mole inside the police force,
Speaker 3: he puts it all together and realizes, oh my goodness,
Speaker 3: this is the guy I sold that fucking stereo two
Speaker 3: a year ago. He's always on the clock.
Speaker 1: We don't see him working there again, no, because I.
Speaker 3: Think he's there to enforce some sort of protection racket
Speaker 3: or something as well. And in the in the in
Speaker 3: the stereos system, in the stereoste. So then so he
Speaker 3: must then have remembered the song that they played out
Speaker 3: of the stereo to test the speakers, and he uses
Speaker 3: it and he records the first bit of that song
Speaker 3: and then mixes it with like tapes he's stolen from
Speaker 3: the Triad boss's desk because he's been taping everything Nixon style,
Speaker 3: and then sends that CD to his to to Low's
Speaker 3: house for his wife to fight.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, anyway, Yeah, there's so much.
Speaker 3: It's so complicated trying to I feel like I'm you know,
Speaker 3: here's me trying to do a plot summary of this film.
Speaker 3: It is, you know that meme of a guy just
Speaker 3: with red string on a board, that's me trying to
Speaker 3: explain this film like no because hate you the whole time.
Speaker 1: With subtitles.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's also something else going on which I was
Speaker 2: unning up about it, which which kind of is in
Speaker 2: the same way the I'm not sure you've seen the
Speaker 2: banshes of intersh and that it takes place while there's
Speaker 2: a civil war going across on the mainland. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: think there's something they're playing with the idea of this
Speaker 2: of people in Hong Kong having this almost identity crisis,
Speaker 2: almost this schizophrenia of you know, the what do you
Speaker 2: call it, the one country two system.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So this movie is released in two thousand and two.
Speaker 3: In the late nineties, Hong Kong was handed back from
Speaker 3: the British after one hundred years of rule or whatever
Speaker 3: it was, to China, and so there is a lot
Speaker 3: of like dual identity feeling going on, I think in
Speaker 3: Hong Kong at the time. My uncle, because as my
Speaker 3: uncle lives in Hong Kong, so we spent a lot
Speaker 3: of time there growing up, you know, just as tourists.
Speaker 3: Nothing nothing too intense, but just as tourists and.
Speaker 1: Didn't work at the local stereos trying to get a job.
Speaker 3: It's all right about a mathia would and so, but
Speaker 3: there was definitely over there a rising tension because you
Speaker 3: feel people felt a lot of different things, a wide
Speaker 3: variety of emotions. But the idea that like, you know,
Speaker 3: the British colonists are leaving and are handing our country
Speaker 3: or our city over to a communist government, right where
Speaker 3: basically there are falls with both systems clearly, you know,
Speaker 3: and people then begin to feel confused about exactly that
Speaker 3: the identity they have and the and then on top
Speaker 3: of that, the idea of like observation surveillance, you know,
Speaker 3: from the Chinese Communist Party spies, males informants. I think
Speaker 3: that is like a much more culturally real phenomenon in
Speaker 3: China and Hong Kong that it is potentially in our
Speaker 3: experience here at Australia, Right, So I think a lot
Speaker 3: of those themes are like much more emotionally available to
Speaker 3: people living in Hong Kong, especially obviously, you know, we've
Speaker 3: seen of the last twenty years what's happened there, and
Speaker 3: you know the way the Chinese government has like really
Speaker 3: like cracked down and stuff. But an interesting thing I
Speaker 3: read up on I haven't seen this, but apparently there
Speaker 3: is an alternative ending to this film, right I have, Yeah,
Speaker 3: I I don't know what's so. The Chinese government have
Speaker 3: a rule about cinema that like basically, if you're releasing
Speaker 3: a film in China, it's got to be like their
Speaker 3: version of morally correct, which means that you can't have
Speaker 3: like really nuanced endings or tragic endings where the villain wins.
Speaker 3: And so this film, at the end of it, the
Speaker 3: mole inside the police kind of is the victor. At
Speaker 3: the end of this film, obviously it's a very blunt
Speaker 3: way of saying it, but like you know, the Chinese
Speaker 3: government saw this, and we're like, well, that can't happen
Speaker 3: because he's a criminal. So there's apparently an alternate ending
Speaker 3: where he comes out of the final scene and then
Speaker 3: he's arrested because the cops have been sent the tapes
Speaker 3: as well, I think, which is interesting because I think
Speaker 3: that's quite a satisfying ending in some ways as well.
Speaker 1: This.
Speaker 3: I think the ending that they have now is kind
Speaker 3: of tragic and emotionally real, but it's satisfying ending to
Speaker 3: see the person who you're rooting against maybe you know,
Speaker 3: have their come up. And that's kind of what happens
Speaker 3: to the part of as well. So I thought it
Speaker 3: was kind of interesting that Martin Scorsese decided to have that.
Speaker 3: They also have that. What I'm saying is Martin Scorsese's
Speaker 3: working for the Chinese companist, buddy.
Speaker 1: That's my there's a clickbait. Thank you very much. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it it's funny.
Speaker 2: I agree that sometimes when you hear yeah, when I
Speaker 2: heard the Chinese government had an alternative ending, comment or
Speaker 2: they shot one for the you know, for those reasons
Speaker 2: you think in what way did they suck up the film?
Speaker 2: But to be honest that if they had a been yeah,
Speaker 2: it's almost like nobody wins.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, having to obviously, you know, I don't want
Speaker 3: to be on records. Off the side artistically, the Chinese community.
Speaker 2: All we're saying is that China's Communist Party has some
Speaker 2: people who know about film, but they got some you know,
Speaker 2: some cinophiles working in their midst.
Speaker 3: And then I'm curious, sense I think film sense ships
Speaker 3: are great. Idea.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, the the original ending is a perfect
Speaker 2: and it is a really it's a brilliant. It's funny
Speaker 2: because I you know, I go into this knowing I've
Speaker 2: seen it the part of a few times.
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed.
Speaker 2: I got to say, when I first watched it, I
Speaker 2: was a bit underwhelmed at the part of the each
Speaker 2: subsequent viewing, I've really enjoyed it a lot more.
Speaker 1: But watching I just completely forgot about it.
Speaker 2: And I was watching from the you know when the
Speaker 2: third act and completely forgetting the twists and turns of
Speaker 2: of what happened.
Speaker 3: I guess that's that's just how fantastic the plot is.
Speaker 3: That's just a new every ten minutes and you're like,
Speaker 3: oh my goodness, this is happening. Now. I love plot,
Speaker 3: you know, I love plot beat, I love I love
Speaker 3: new plot. I think maybe that's just my brain unable
Speaker 3: to focus on things. But I love I love twists,
Speaker 3: I love turns. I love being surprised. And at the end,
Speaker 3: when it's revealed that the cop who you think is
Speaker 3: going to arrest him has actually been aweso a mole
Speaker 3: for the triads, you're like, oh, yeah, I remember that.
Speaker 1: Yes, so when they got into the elevator, I was like, oh, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But I but what this film does, because I've
Speaker 2: been thinking about this a bit recently, is that plot's
Speaker 2: obviously really important, particularly in these kinds of films, you know,
Speaker 2: you know less so I mean, you know, we mentioned
Speaker 2: the benches in the sharing before.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's got.
Speaker 2: It's such a scant little plot ba but obviously two
Speaker 2: very different films. But what's more important, and I think
Speaker 2: in Femo Affairs does it even better, is the reaction
Speaker 2: to plot. A character's reaction to plot is actually what
Speaker 2: drives films more so than plot, and it's it's it's
Speaker 2: beautifully depicted in it's a it's a best case example.
Speaker 2: I think the Wang form of his death right in
Speaker 2: front of Channing you kind of see, like it's if
Speaker 2: he falls onto that car and nobody sees, then you
Speaker 2: know it's it's nowhere there is interesting obviously.
Speaker 3: But having the character react to that, see that that drives.
Speaker 1: The emotion of the film. That that that makes it
Speaker 1: a much bigger thing.
Speaker 2: Even though it's still tragic that somebody has been pushed
Speaker 2: to death of a roof, but for that to happen
Speaker 2: in front of chan that's that's a great example of like,
Speaker 2: it's not just a plot of him falling off a roof,
Speaker 2: it's and dying.
Speaker 1: It's actually what it means to another one of our protagonists.
Speaker 3: Totally, and like you're so right that that is like
Speaker 3: plot is just things happening, But you don't invest in
Speaker 3: that unless it's happening to people you care about. You know,
Speaker 3: it's like dreams, you know, hearing about someone's stream. I
Speaker 3: don't care unlet bad people. I know about.
Speaker 2: That rooftop scene, apparently there was no no gunfire allowed
Speaker 2: on that rooftop, so so I'm not sure if they
Speaker 2: had to tweak the script as a result, but I
Speaker 2: think it's all the better for it. I think it's
Speaker 2: such a brilliance. It's so tense, it's so tense, and
Speaker 2: maybe let's have a listen and we'll do a comparison
Speaker 2: to the departed. The difference between the way your family
Speaker 2: affairs uses that rooftop and and the moment I guess
Speaker 2: of capturing Lao.
Speaker 3: You guns it didn't know you?
Speaker 1: Okay? Are you a year.
Speaker 5: Or you ye?
Speaker 1: Come sent? Sorry? Sad? How a young?
Speaker 2: I mean, what's interesting there is is that they use
Speaker 2: that the building that the mirrored kind of windows really
Speaker 2: quite well. It's amazing that chance could creep up on
Speaker 2: like he's like, yeah, you got this, almost like a
Speaker 2: drone or a helicopter shot. Maybe it was back then
Speaker 2: of him on the rift by himself, and he's looking around.
Speaker 2: There's nobody there, and he looks into the building the reflection,
Speaker 2: there's nobody there, and then all of a sudden there's
Speaker 2: a gun in his back.
Speaker 1: It's I had it that happens. I'm not sure, but
Speaker 1: it's great. It is great. It's tense. There's a little
Speaker 1: bit of a dialogue, you know, back and forth.
Speaker 2: And it's it's it's it's it's great, it's it's and
Speaker 2: then the other other cup comes and he takes him
Speaker 2: with his gun in his back into the building, and
Speaker 2: all the elevator stuff happens. Let's have listen to how
Speaker 2: Martin Scorsese handled it, and I think you'll see a
Speaker 2: pretty stark difference.
Speaker 5: Right, put the fucking gun down. Put the gun, Put
Speaker 5: the gun down, all right. I came in, had to
Speaker 5: talk some all right, just act professional. I can get
Speaker 5: you your money. Just to say I can get you
Speaker 5: your money. You didn't come here to talk, now, you
Speaker 5: came here to get arrested. You got fucking tapes of
Speaker 5: what Costello was my informant. I was a rat.
Speaker 1: Fuck you proven he was working for me. He was
Speaker 1: my informant, not your fucking mouth.
Speaker 3: Come on, get up, well, what is this?
Speaker 1: Citizens arrest?
Speaker 2: Blow me?
Speaker 1: All right? Only one of us is a copyre bill?
Speaker 1: You want to stand that bill?
Speaker 5: No one knows when you're a fuck homicides in the
Speaker 5: Massachusetts State Police.
Speaker 3: Who the fuck are you? I arrased you?
Speaker 1: He erased me.
Speaker 3: Huh, go ahead, shoot a cop.
Speaker 1: Einstein.
Speaker 2: He could not get any more Fox into that saty.
Speaker 2: He tried, he tried. I mean, it's it almost is
Speaker 2: a great example of American cinema versus you know, you know,
Speaker 2: Johnny cinema, or even even any kind of foreign language.
Speaker 2: It's not that the the subtlety is another thing the
Speaker 2: Americans have ever really learned to.
Speaker 3: Do and by themselves. In subtlety, they're just like, here's
Speaker 3: what's happening, and it's happening as loud and as action
Speaker 3: based as possible.
Speaker 2: Which is kind of funny because there are some things,
Speaker 2: like we say, maybe they do the emotion more subtle,
Speaker 2: because we've spoken a bit in this episode about there
Speaker 2: are times when the handling of some of the sentimental
Speaker 2: stuff is a bit heavy handed in Infernal affairs, So
Speaker 2: maybe it is they do something subtle they.
Speaker 1: Do, you know, and vice versa. But yeah, yeah, it's incredible.
Speaker 1: What do you think thematically?
Speaker 2: The like this is obviously starts with the Buddhism, you know,
Speaker 2: and the emotional hell, which is a great because these
Speaker 2: both these characters are in emotional hell.
Speaker 3: They're sort of stuck in limbo. They're both trying to
Speaker 3: quit and get out of their various games, but they can't.
Speaker 3: They keep get they keep getting drawn back in. They're
Speaker 3: both looking for a way out to escape. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: felt that really clearly. One of the early rooftop scenes
Speaker 3: when Chan is talking to Wong and he says, I've
Speaker 3: been doing this for ten years, and you're like, you've
Speaker 3: been doing it for what.
Speaker 1: Tys of your life?
Speaker 3: Living undercover a constantly, you know, the thread of your
Speaker 3: life hanging by a thread. Only only two people in
Speaker 3: the world know that you're you know, it's just like
Speaker 3: the stress. And I felt like, yeah, absolutely, that is
Speaker 3: emotional hell. That is a that is an eternal hell
Speaker 3: you're stuck in.
Speaker 2: There's a great line where he says when they're on
Speaker 2: the rooftops, where he says, there all cops there, all
Speaker 2: undercover cops like rooftops.
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 2: Because as I was watching it, I was thinking exactly that.
Speaker 2: I thought, geez, the only people got to rooftops in movies,
Speaker 2: it seems, are either undercover cops or you know, a
Speaker 2: romantic scene overlooking, you know, when they've ducked out from.
Speaker 1: The from the work function.
Speaker 3: I guess because it's like, what's the word. Visually, It's
Speaker 3: like the rooftop is above everything. You know, you're rising
Speaker 3: above it all. So if you're an undercover cop, suddenly
Speaker 3: this is the moment, you're alone, you're above everything. You
Speaker 3: have perspective on stuff, right, I guess you know that's
Speaker 3: obviously film one. I want stuff, but I don't frankly effective.
Speaker 2: When he shot when it wasn't in the rift of
Speaker 2: when I almost gasped when he actually shot in the
Speaker 2: in the car park, when Laud took Sam down, I
Speaker 2: was like, oh, fuck, what happens?
Speaker 1: What happens? That I was so I was so engrossed
Speaker 1: that that that was surprising to me that he took
Speaker 1: him down. I was like, what happens now? What's yeah?
Speaker 2: And that whole the whole secrets of going into the
Speaker 2: elevator and then when and then when Chang gets taken down,
Speaker 2: you are like, fuck, what's happening?
Speaker 1: Happens now? Yeah, we're running out of characters.
Speaker 2: Oh you do forget how high that body count is
Speaker 2: in the part of them and yeah, here it's it's
Speaker 2: yeah the elevator, you know, coming out of the elevator
Speaker 2: with the idea it's yeah, great.
Speaker 3: And it's a mirror of the earlier scene when that
Speaker 3: moment where Wang is trying to escape, he has sent
Speaker 3: Chan to the window washing crane to get out of
Speaker 3: a building. They're trying to scap down the building, and.
Speaker 1: Which, by the way, I would have no idea how.
Speaker 3: It's like, I don't know. Next thing, he falls, he dies,
Speaker 3: and the whole movie is up now. And like elevator dramas,
Speaker 3: so like Wong is walking into the elevator, passed some
Speaker 3: criminals who are trying to find him and kill him,
Speaker 3: and he's pretending like he's organizing an apartment purchase or something,
Speaker 3: some sort of real estate purchase. He walks in and
Speaker 3: you think he's gone away from it, and then one
Speaker 3: of the criminal's hands just reaches into the elevator to
Speaker 3: stop it, which we've all experienced that thing of like
Speaker 3: someone putting the hand of the elevator to stop it
Speaker 3: closing or whatever. And just that moment, that sort of
Speaker 3: release back into tension. You know, you're like, oh, you know,
Speaker 3: I was like, oh so effective.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought he I thought one could have done
Speaker 2: a I don't know, like, considering all he had to
Speaker 2: do was hide, stay away from these criminals, I thought
Speaker 2: he could have done.
Speaker 1: A better job, like a bathroom, find another space.
Speaker 2: Did he put a hat on the bail or No,
Speaker 2: I don't think you put a hat on basically got
Speaker 2: on the phone.
Speaker 1: It was like he was talking to his wife about it.
Speaker 1: He had a brochure and I realized that brochure. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: he could have. You can tell you're not under cover.
Speaker 1: That's not your thing.
Speaker 3: He's an admin cop, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, mate, thank you so much.
Speaker 2: One other thing I did love It reminded me and
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if you've ever done this in Hong Kong,
Speaker 2: but I love the idea of hitting golf balls off
Speaker 2: rooftops into water.
Speaker 1: I mean, let's get Australia, whoever the development place.
Speaker 3: You can do that in Penrith in Sydney. Well, I
Speaker 3: don't know if you still could, but twenty years ago.
Speaker 3: So I went when I was in high school. I
Speaker 3: went and there's like three stories high of driving range
Speaker 3: and can just whack him into water. I think they
Speaker 3: were sort of like I collected somehow by a boat.
Speaker 3: I think. I don't know, but if you want to
Speaker 3: go to Penrith in Sydney.
Speaker 2: Because I remember when golf kind of really exploded in
Speaker 2: Asia around around this time. I might have even been like,
Speaker 2: you know, a bit earlier, like in the nineties or
Speaker 2: in late eighties, and I remember hearing about these kind
Speaker 2: of like crazy kind of things that where they would
Speaker 2: actually get golf rangers, and I was just like, that
Speaker 2: is that is amazing?
Speaker 3: Well, apparently there's a there's a tower in Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 3: Maybe that's like, you know, one of those one hundred
Speaker 3: and fifty story buildings, and Tiger Woods has gone there
Speaker 3: to whack golf balls off the top of that as well.
Speaker 3: It's like golf is a crazy sport.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And one of moment I did love was when Lao
Speaker 2: actually takes down Sam and the classic slow clap when
Speaker 2: he gets back into the office.
Speaker 1: It was great.
Speaker 2: I'm glad that exists, not just in Western cinema. The
Speaker 2: slow clap is alive, and well.
Speaker 3: It's a universal trope slow clap.
Speaker 2: He walks in, he's not sure how that's going to
Speaker 2: be handled, and then everyone's looking a bit kind of
Speaker 2: you know, a bit of side eye going on, and
Speaker 2: then it's all of a sudden. Thank you very much, mate,
Speaker 2: Thank you for watching this. This movie, this podcast comes
Speaker 2: with homework, and I'm so rap that you did it.
Speaker 3: No, thanks for having me. The plot is so complex,
Speaker 3: I had such a I had to take notes while
Speaker 3: I was watching it to remember it all. I've struggled
Speaker 3: throughout the moments of this podcast remember at all. But yeah,
Speaker 3: it was a thank you for giving me an excuse
Speaker 3: to finally watch this film pet my pleasure.
Speaker 1: Mate. Are you interested in watching them now? The sequels?
Speaker 3: I think so, Yeah, I think so. I think I'm
Speaker 3: on I'm on tour now and I think there'll be
Speaker 3: moments of emotional vulnerability where I'll need something to like
Speaker 3: sit down, sitch my brain off too. I will probably
Speaker 3: watch the sequels and prequels to this I have during
Speaker 3: those moments.
Speaker 1: Brilliant mate, Thank you so much, and yeah, we'll catch
Speaker 1: you soon.
Speaker 3: Thanks me.
Speaker 1: Hey, there we go.
Speaker 2: Michael hing Hingers is during his show Long Live the Hing.
Speaker 2: It's a great title. It's worth the ticket price just
Speaker 2: for the title alone. Long Live the Hing is playing
Speaker 2: around the nation, So if you get a chance, please
Speaker 2: catch Michael hing That's a great one.
Speaker 1: Really enjoyed that.
Speaker 2: Like I said, I've had the box set for over
Speaker 2: a decade unwrapped, so it was nice to clear the
Speaker 2: plastic on that one and have a listen have a
Speaker 2: watch of Infernal Affairs.
Speaker 1: Really enjoyed it.
Speaker 2: We'll be diving back into the sequels down the track.
Speaker 2: We may not cover it as the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure.
Speaker 2: Are they classics? Is Infernal Affairs two and three classics?
Speaker 2: I don't know, I don't know. I know I've heard
Speaker 2: of Infernal Affairs.
Speaker 1: I knew that. Yeah, maybe I'll watch them and then decide.
Speaker 2: But thank you everyone listening to the podcast really and
Speaker 2: loving doing this again, particularly when I get to watch
Speaker 2: movies that I've never seen before and I can tick
Speaker 2: off the old bucket list like Infernal. You can reach
Speaker 2: out to us at yasny podcast at gmail dot com,
Speaker 2: or you can follow the links in a page.
Speaker 1: You can jump on the old speak pipe.
Speaker 2: We call it the speak pipe, and it's like an
Speaker 2: answer machine message and you can leave a message and
Speaker 2: we'll play it.
Speaker 1: And we just love hearing your voices. We love hearing
Speaker 1: your voices.
Speaker 2: Marty Middlebrook has gone on to me at the Gmail
Speaker 2: account and he has another Annette funa Cello update. For
Speaker 2: some reason, people, we did the grease with Mark Humphrey's
Speaker 2: great episode, really fun, and I mentioned that I wasn't
Speaker 2: really sure who a net funa Cello was, and we've
Speaker 2: got more emails about that than anything else people wanted
Speaker 2: me to know that, and that Funa Cello was from
Speaker 2: the Mickey Mouse Club.
Speaker 1: She was quite a buxom woman.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's where the reference comes from, so Marty says, Hi, Peter,
Speaker 2: I love the podcast, just catching up on a few.
Speaker 2: Listen to the episode with Sushi Mango. So that one
Speaker 2: with the boys and Napoleon Dynamite and the reference to
Speaker 2: a net and jags reminded me that she gets referenced
Speaker 2: in stand by Me in a similar way. Okay, we'll
Speaker 2: have to check that out stand by Me, and these
Speaker 2: include the little meme and one of the characters is
Speaker 2: and that's tits great. Yeah, I'm not sure if that's
Speaker 2: fun at Cello or not, but go what's stand by Me?
Speaker 2: We've got to cover stand by Me well one day.
Speaker 2: What a great film. Thanks for all the laughs and
Speaker 2: great insights into cinema. Our pleasure, Marty, thanks for reaching out.
Speaker 2: I really do appreciate that. Next week on the show,
Speaker 2: we are bringing the live episode we did in Adelaide
Speaker 2: with the great hilarious Ross. No. We had so much fun.
Speaker 2: It was historic and a historical day for you ain't
Speaker 2: seen nothing yet. So the first time we've done live
Speaker 2: episodes before. But what we did beforehand we actually had
Speaker 2: through our friends at Palace Nova, Eastern Cinemas and Adelaide.
Speaker 2: They actually screened the movie that we spoke about, Live
Speaker 2: in the Garden of Unearthly the Lights, at the wonderful
Speaker 2: Adelaide Fringe Festival, and that movie is Risky Business nine
Speaker 2: to eighty three Tom Cruise Dancing in his undies Rebecca
Speaker 2: de Mornay. It's a brilliant film, the debut of Curtis Armstrong,
Speaker 2: who would go under appier in Moonlighting, and of course
Speaker 2: Booger we revengered the nerds.
Speaker 1: He's fantastic in it. It's a sex comedy movie, but
Speaker 1: it's so much more.
Speaker 2: I think it's closer to it sits in between the
Speaker 2: Graduate and Ferrish Bueler's Day Off. It's a much smarter
Speaker 2: film than since some people remember it for it's Tom Cruise,
Speaker 2: Rebecca did Risky Business. That is next week with Ross
Speaker 2: and I record Live at the Adelaide French Festival. Until then,
Speaker 2: take care and so we leave all Pete Saint Mansal
Speaker 2: and to our friends of the radio audience.
Speaker 1: We've been a pleasant over time