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152 Allan Cameron and Sean Cubittthe globe, where science and magic, along with technology and tradition,may be mixed together in many new ways” (2007, p. 326). The intenselylocal modernity of Hong Kong, caught between the dying British empireand the emergent economic superpower of China, traversed by trans-Asiancultural flows, is the basis for a figuration of contemporaneity which is onthe one hand utterly particular, and on the other deeply informative aboutthe dialectics of modernity: the persistence of history, the limits of technologyand rationality, and the clash not of civilizations but of loyalties ata moment as historically significant as the arrival of Protestantism is to thedisturbed loyalties at the heart of Shakespeare’s Hamlet.The narrative centers on two young men. Ming (Andy Lau) joins thepolice as a spy for the triads and rises in the ranks, gradually acquiring theculture and values of the Hong Kong police force. Yan (Tony Leung) is acop who is sent to infiltrate the triads, and who gradually finds his loyaltieseroding under pressure of the lie he is forced to live. The structure ofpaired characters is mirrored in the supporting cast. Yan’s police contactSuperintendent Wong (Anthony Wong) is paralleled by Ming’s triad bossSam (Eric Tsang), while psychologist Dr Lee (Kelly Chen) and novelist Mary(Sammi Cheng) are romantic interests for Yan and Ming, respectively. Themirrored structure is further reinforced by the fates of the characters: Sam’sdeath follows on from Wong’s, while both women uncover their partner’strue identity only at the end of the film. Though in some respects thenarration is quite straightforward, it also proceeds according to a logic ofmirrored experiences, situations, decisions, and actions. The structure ismarked by police procedural and gangland cunning, coded messages,double crosses, and mistaken identity, rather than syntagmatic complexity.This intricate arrangement of characters and events governs, in turn,the narration’s rapid traversal and linking of physical locations. Viewersmust keep track of Yan and Ming’s subterfuge, in which each pretends tobe what he is not, while also following the complex series of coded communicationsamong these infiltrators and their respective organizations.Decrypting the City: Complexity and Terminal IdentityAs befits a film which depends on contemporary, highly technologized policeprocedures for much of its narrative, Infernal Affairs can be seen as a technothriller.By wedding its technological base to a discourse surroundingquestions of identity and subjectivity, Infernal Affairs takes up, to some extent,