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Andrew Lau and Alan Mak's Infernal Affairs - The Trilogy$
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Andrew Lau and Alan Mak's Infernal Affairs - The Trilogy

Gina Marchetti

Print publication date: 2007

Print ISBN-13: 9789622098015

Published to Hong Kong Scholarship Online: September 2011

DOI: 10.5790/hongkong/9789622098015.001.0001

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PRINTED FROM HONG KONG SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.hongkong.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Hong Kong University Press, 2022. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in HKSO for personal use.date: 03 July 2022

Allegories of Hell: Moral Tales and National Shadows

Allegories of Hell: Moral Tales and National Shadows

Chapter:
(p.51) 3 Allegories of Hell: Moral Tales and National Shadows
Source:
Andrew Lau and Alan Mak's Infernal Affairs - The Trilogy
Author(s):

Gina Marchetti

Publisher:
Hong Kong University Press
DOI:10.5790/hongkong/9789622098015.003.0003

Infernal Affairs presents a story that includes layers attached to traditional preoccupations with Buddhism, Confucianism, clan loyalties, and patriarchal prerogatives, to questions of colonialism/post-colonialism and the issue of “national” identity, and to postmodern preoccupations with the transnational, post-industrial economy, consumerism, and the information society. The trilogy opens up to multiple allegorical readings that co-exist within the narrative — occasionally contradicting one another, supporting one another, or canceling each other out. The moral allegory exhausts itself, and the possibility of looking at Infernal Affairs as a political allegory about the Chinese nation and the transformation of the colonial state emerges. The policing in Hong Kong are described. Looking at Infernal Affairs as an allegory about the legitimate right of the People's Republic of China (PRC) to step out of the “shadows” to participate more fully in Hong Kong affairs for the greater good of the citizenry on both sides of the border may really miss the point.

Keywords:   Infernal Affairs, Hong Kong, Buddhism, Confucianism, colonialism, national identity, consumerism, moral allegory, political allegory, People's Republic of China

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