Infernal Affairs III

Made as a co-production to facilitate distribution in the mainland, Part III disarms China's censors with a lengthy subplot starring Chen Daoming (the emperor in Hero) as a supposed arms dealer/triad kingpin from the mainland who turns out to be good guy after all. His storyline, involving the colourless Leon Lai as yet another senior cop who may or may not be a triad mole, is dull and unconvincing. It's also poorly integrated with the rest of the movie, which laboriously plugs every gap in the lean original and shows Ming (Lau) slowly cracking under the weight of his guilt. The best bits are the snazzy credit sequence, which reconfigures the climactic elevator ride from Part I as a descent into Buddhist hell, and the amusing flashbacks to Yan's sessions with his psychiatrist, charmingly played by both Leung and Kelly Chen. This 'Directors' Cut' has superseded the version first released in HK (107 min); its multiple endings generally provoke derision, but the last one (which rewinds to the start of Part I) is neat.