PLOT: Infernal Affairs is all about secret identity: A gang member is actually an undercover cop, a higher-up in the detective squad is actually on the triad payroll. The two "moles" race to find each other, and plenty of bloodshed ensues.

Infernal Affairs is a Hong Kong crime thriller of the heavily hard-boiled variety. The film, which is being remade for western audiences, stars Andy Lau and Tony Leung as police officers who follow very different paths.

Yan (Leung) plays a brilliant cop who has been 10 long years undercover. According to his police superior, Yan has spent so long in the company of gang leader Sam (Eric Tsang) and his thugs that he has begun to look and act like a real criminal. After all this time, there's only one man left on the force who knows Yan is a police officer.

Meanwhile, even as Yan works secretly for the police, somebody at headquarters works secretly for the gang leader, Sam. Infernal Affairs starts with Sam sending some of his young triad hoodlums off to become part of the police force -- where they can work for him on the inside.

A decade later, his man Ming (Andy Lau), is now a "crime fighter" in the organized crime unit.

The existence of the police mole and the gang mole comes to light during a drug deal that goes wrong; thereafter, each man is determined to find the other, and fast, before his own masquerade can be revealed.

Infernal Affairs looks the seamy part of a noirish crime thriller -- it's terrific to look at, and the cast includes Anthony Wong, Sammi Cheng, Kelly Chen, Chapman To and just about every other big star in Hong Kong. The performances are very interesting, as each of the lead actors pretends to be something he is not, and as such is playing a role within a role. The storytelling underlines all the things the two men have in common, and how each is lonely, isolated, increasingly unhappy with his role and desperate for change. Change comes.

Infernal Affairs is a great cop yarn. Last word on the U.S. remake had Martin Scorsese directing and Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio as the leads. Stay tuned.

(This film is rated PG)

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