Reviewed by Tim Wong

THE HOOK to Infernal Affairs (not to be confused with Internal Affairs) is its killer premise: a fated confrontation between two protagonists-antagonists with hidden agendas and loyalties, designed to keep us second-guessing until its inevitable, mano a mano climax. Set up seemingly to reinvent the bad cop/good cop proviso, the film makes a point of introducing its two yet-to-be defined characters in flashback. During police training, Yan (Tony Leung) is plucked fresh from academy to assimilate long-term into the burgeoning Hong Kong Triad society as an undercover police informer; alternatively Ming (Andy Lau) is recruited by the gangs before joining the police force, masquerading as a cop who's really a Triad informer.

Pried from the archives of Lumière's very first issue, DOMINIC AMOS wrote on Stephen Chow – the comedic mastermind behind HK's highest ever-grossing film, Shaolin Soccer, and the future surrounding its astronomic success.

MUBARAK ALI revisited the late Krzysztof Kieslowski's seminal ten-part series of hour-long films, to much amazement.

Reviewed by Tim Wong

AS AN established filmmaker backing the DV revolution, Richard Linklater has certainly put much of that advocacy into practice, particularly with 2001's Waking Life, utilising the throwaway immediacy of the digital format to initiate a wonderfully lucid brand of animated existentialism. Tape was made almost impulsively the same year, gathering a DV camera, three actors and a tailored script to a faceless motel room for 90 minutes of conversational theatrics.