Movie Night

Who would've thought that with my non-existent energy level, I could stay up until 11.30pm watching "The Departed" after spending the whole day playing paintball? Well, after hearing all of the rave reviews it was receiving and having loved the movie "Infernal Affairs", I decided it was about time.

Having seen "Goodfellas" and "Gangs of New York", I was not surprised to see a lot of blood and violence in "The Departed". With the exception of Jack Nicholson's performance and the script's dark humour, I felt that the movie did not quite live up to my expectation. I'm sure part of the reason was that I knew how the movie would've ended. The lengthy and sometimes boring conversational scenes in the movie was supposed to provide character development for Colin Sullivan and William Costignan, played by Matt Damon and Leonardo diCaprio respectively.

However, in the end I could not feel for either characters the way I could for Chan Wing Yan and Lau Kin Ming. In the Hong Kong version, there is a much stronger sense of the bond between the two characters and their mutual ambiguities nearing the movie's end. On the other hand, everyone gets killed off in this version that it became silly and I actually heard some laughters from the audience, my friend sitting next to me included. All in all, it is an above-average movie, good enough for a night out.

Anyhow, what do I know? I'm no movie critic. Do go and watch the movie and let me know what you think.