So far on the Infernal Affairs remake The Departed we’ve got Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon in the lead roles. Well the talk of late has been that Mark Wahlberg is in talks to be signed up. Empire bring us:
Walhberg will reportedly play a cop who is a key figure in DiCaprio’s life √¢‚Ǩ‚Äú which means he’s probably taking on the Anthony Wong role, as the only policeman who knows the undercover cop’s true identity, assuming that the plot doesn’t deviate hugely from the Hong Kong original.
John has voiced his concern about the remake in another post, and I totally agree. If you take all the Hollywood remakes and measure their success against the originals, I know exactly which way the weight would fall. Success and quality is against them historically, but we have a great Director and some excellent actors. However, Empire puts things so well:
The story will be relocated to Boston, and the Triads will be transformed into Irish gangsters. Which does present a few problems. First of all, the Buddhist concept of continuous hell, which underscored the original film, has no equivalent in Irish except possibly for “last orders”.
Very good point Empire. So we’re already struggling to stay with anything close to the original. However, that could be good, but are we now looking at an entirely different film pulling across little but the brief?