Hong Kong's crime thrillers are renowned for their portrayal of police undercover. "The informant" is almost an education – we the audience soon learn that informant has a more tragic fate. The undercover agent is a police officer servicing with pride, and emerges a hero if he is successful in his assignment. An informant works under a business contract (filed with the government attorney office), for money alone. Both are of course dangerous and if they die, the undercover agent dies a hero while the informant dies a nobody. I suspect that even the criminals have certain respect for the undercover agent but despise the informant.
This movie takes some pain in portraying the tragic lives of an informant through story lines which are familiar to followers of Hong Kong crime movies. Some may fault it for having too many characters and stories but director Dante Lam's skillful and effective delivery of the stories renders the movie easy to follow. The action sequences will satisfy the most demanding action (and violence) junkies. The poignant blend in well. There is little humour in this generally gloomy affair but the farcical first encounter of the central pair of protagonist is rather ingenious.
Nicholas Tse, like Leonardo DiCaprio, working hard on shedding the pretty boy image, has achieved a measure of success in the movie as a recently discharged inmate recruited to be an informant. Nick Cheung, often explosive on screen, has also tried his own out-of-character thing as the police officer who recruited Tse. He has done well in deliberate underplaying, portraying an almost stoic, soft-spoken man who caught between the authorities that often sells the informant short and the informant that he comes to care about. KWAI Lunmei is yet another case of casting against type, doing quite an impressive job as a tough criminal from the mainland playing a brief interlude of Bonnie and Clyde with Tse. Acclaimed character actor LIU Kai Chi showcases his acting in a minor but impressive role as one of Cheung's informant driven to a mental breakdown.
This movie takes some pain in portraying the tragic lives of an informant through story lines which are familiar to followers of Hong Kong crime movies. Some may fault it for having too many characters and stories but director Dante Lam's skillful and effective delivery of the stories renders the movie easy to follow. The action sequences will satisfy the most demanding action (and violence) junkies. The poignant blend in well. There is little humour in this generally gloomy affair but the farcical first encounter of the central pair of protagonist is rather ingenious.
Nicholas Tse, like Leonardo DiCaprio, working hard on shedding the pretty boy image, has achieved a measure of success in the movie as a recently discharged inmate recruited to be an informant. Nick Cheung, often explosive on screen, has also tried his own out-of-character thing as the police officer who recruited Tse. He has done well in deliberate underplaying, portraying an almost stoic, soft-spoken man who caught between the authorities that often sells the informant short and the informant that he comes to care about. KWAI Lunmei is yet another case of casting against type, doing quite an impressive job as a tough criminal from the mainland playing a brief interlude of Bonnie and Clyde with Tse. Acclaimed character actor LIU Kai Chi showcases his acting in a minor but impressive role as one of Cheung's informant driven to a mental breakdown.