Monday, February 26, 2007

The Departed

The Departed won four awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Film Editing, and Best Adapted Screenplay, last night. The Oscar made a big mistake when announcing the award for Best Adapted Screenplay: the original, "Internal Affairs"(«无间道»), is a HONG KONG movie, not Japanese. In fact, the term "Departed" is almost a direct translation of the original film's Chinese name, from its Buddhism root to Catholicism. I don't know for which part the "Adapted Screenplay" award emphasizes: had it been "Screenplay", the director of the Hong Kong movie should better qualify because "The Departed" is almost a scene by scene replica of the original; had it been "Adapted", the few additional twists in "The Departed" aren't that Oscar-ish: for example, the somewhat surprising ending by the added character Sergeant Dignam (Mark Wahlberg) is such a classic American style, almost Spiderman-alike, interpretation of justice, it makes the entire movie more like a violate comic. IMHO, the original is far better, in both screen play and story line. You can judge for yourselves (nowadays most Hong Kong movies do have English subtitles).