Infernal Affairs Iii [verified] Review

Andy Lau’s Ming is the trilogy’s true protagonist—not Chan, the martyr; not Sam, the gangster; not Yeung, the saint. Ming is us. He is the flawed creature who wants to be good, who has every opportunity to be good, and who chooses, every single day, to be a liar instead.

Infernal Affairs III forces you to stare into that mirror until the credits roll. And long after. Infernal Affairs III

They were wrong. Or rather, they were looking for the wrong thing. Andy Lau’s Ming is the trilogy’s true protagonist—not

In 2002, a seemingly modest Hong Kong crime thriller titled Infernal Affairs exploded onto the global stage. Its cat-and-mouse game between a mole in the police force and a cop undercover in the triads was so perfectly lean and brutal that it redefined the genre. A year later, Infernal Affairs II accomplished the near-impossible: a prequel of Shakespearean tragedy that elevated the original without diminishing it. Infernal Affairs III forces you to stare into

In the final shot, Ming sits at his desk. He taps his cast in Morse code. The code spells out a message we heard earlier in the film: "I want to be a good man." He taps it endlessly, a prayer for a god who isn’t listening. Dr. Lee walks in, and for a second, we think he might confess. He doesn't. He smiles his charming, empty smile. The camera holds on his face. The film ends.