Hollywood hearts Hong Kong

You all know that that Martin Scorsese finally won an Oscar for The Departed, based on the Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs (无间道), and as they say, if it ain't broke ... so the folks in Hollywood are eying another film by the same Hong Kong crew (Andrew Lau, et. al.) — Confessions of Pain (伤城) for yet another remake.

The Hollywood version of Confessions is a Warner Bros. project and will probably see Departed screenwriter William Monahan teaming up with Leonardo Di Caprio and Scorsese. Infernal Affairs was sold to Brad Pitt's company for 1.75 million US and reports (in Chinese) suggest that if the price stays about the same the rights to Confessions will most likely go to Pitt and Co., as well. You probably hadn't heard of Brad Pitt's association with The Departed (maybe his name was in the credits, we never watched the film), but that's because at the Oscars only one producer from the producing team of any movie will get credit should the film win Best Picture.

Not surprisingly, the Andrew Lau, Alan Mak, Felix Chong team has seen their star rise as well. Andrew Lau says that he's going to direct some Hollywood action flick with some A-list stars. We wait with baited breath.

Martin Scorsese did deserve to win an Oscar once in his life, though we think that his earlier films are real milestones in the history of American cinema, and have a status in film history that The Departed probably will never attain.