Election

Election marks the 2nd trial society theme movie directed by Johnnie To.

To marvellously casted Simon Yan and Tony Leung Kar Fai as Lok and Big D, as the two trial members who were chosen as candidates for the position of chairman for Ho Sing society, a 100 year old trial society.

While Lok is a man who keeps his cool at all times, Big D is not only impatient, but also thinks that he is on top of everything. Lok was chosen as the next chairman for 2 years. To have the total control of the gang, the newly elected chairman must be passed down with a Dragon Baton, which represents power and authority. Big D was extremely unhappy with the results that he was not chosen to be the next chairman after paying a handsome figure of bribes to the council members. He ordered his man to get the Baton before it falls onto the hands of Lok.

While Big D is getting the Baton, Lok has other plans for him.

This is one of the trial society theme movies where not much bloodshed is needed. Johnnie To puts the greed of the human beings in the movie, where bloodshed is commonly used in other trial society theme movies to show how the greed of human beings can caused the death or the downfall of one. However, no single bullet is used, hardly any gangfights are involved in Election. It's the battle of the wits that makes Election stands out of the rest.

Apart from Maggie Shiu, the only actress in Election with less than 5 lines to talk in the whole movie, masculinity rules the whole movie. Louis Koo and Nick Cheung, who was seen in To's previous film, are casted as an undercover cop and a gangster who sold his life to the gang respectively. Together with some of the veteran actors making their appearance in the film and the excellent script, it makes the only HK movie to represent Cannes Fil Festival 2005.

Election has hardly failed any critics who wants an different trial society theme movie.

I always thought this would be a long and boring Talking-Heads flick full of static interior takes, dude, I was wrong. "Election" is a highly fascinating and thoroughly captivating thriller-drama, taking a deep and realistic view behind the origins of Triads-Rituals. Characters are constantly on the move, and although as a viewer you kinda always remain an outsider, it's still possible to feel the suspense coming from certain decisions and ambitions of the characters. Furthermore Johnnie To succeeds in creating some truly opulent images due to meticulously composed lighting and atmospheric light-shadow contrasts. Although there's hardly any action, the ending is still shocking in it's ruthless depicting of brutality. Cool movie that deserves more attention, and I came to like the minimalistic acoustic guitar score quite a bit.

The essential appeal of gangster films lies in the notion of the inter-linking of depravity and honour. And honour is arguably the more fictitious of the two qualities: it is said that after 'The Godfather' was made, real life mafioso started imitating Don Corleone. Even so, mafia chic has more or less been done to death, which is where (to a western audience) a Hong Kong gangster movie, like Johnny To's 'Election'; can be refreshing. Some of the guff about ancient codes may be hokum, but it's a fresh kind of hokum, and this is a tough, well made thriller, the story of the rivalry of two gangster leaders, the wild Big D. and his more thoughtful rival Lok, who (in 'Godfather'-terms) is more of a Michael Corleone figure. One thing I liked was how To makes effective use of quiet but driving background music during the more obviously thrilling parts of the movie, but lets its grim conclusion play out in silence. But overall, it's not in the same league as 'The Godfather', and the principal flaw is that there's no character sufficiently conflicted to win your sympathy. Lok may be an appealing family man in contrast to Big D., but although shocking, the ending lacks the surprise of the ending of 'The Godfather'; indeed, I personally think the 'The Godfather Part II', though a very skillful film, also suffered from the problem that the audience is unable to maintain the necessary illusions about its protagonist prior to the end. 'The Godfather' also had a plot that was not just detailed, but made exact sense, whereas the story in 'Election' is more superficial. I still enjoyed watching it; but the real Hong Kong 'Godfather' is arguably 'Infernal Affairs'.

This film really deserves more recognition than its getting. It really is a stunning and rich portrayal of blood ties, favours and allegiances within the crime world. The film is shot beautifully and delves into all you're classic crime themes such as betrayal and power. This film is a movie goers film, it requires attention and understanding and rewards fully in the end. It is the godfather of hong kong and is a welcome change rather than another wire frame fighting, martial arts epic which seems to be the major contribution to the cinema world from hong kong and china. It features an arrangement of great characters, actors and development although is fair to say I had to watch it twice just to nail what was happening with some of the characters due to their being so many interactions in the film. ALl in all 8/10 Great plot characters but there are characters that don't stand out enough and the music didn't really get me going and at times i felt it didn't sync well with the action(there is action by the way) so it loses some points for that.

This isn't as violent as I was expecting which makes the violent scenes appear all the more brutal and effective.

There are a lot of twists and turns and back stabbing and double crossing all the way through the film making it hard to know who's side a particular character is on.

The plot is pacey with some good dialogue and character development and gives an interesting view of the workings of the Triad gang it follows.

The violence when it comes is brutal, no guns or martial art scenes with special effects, this is believable in your face violence and for all the dialogue you are never allowed forget that the Triad is a violent criminal organisation.

The ending is surprising but thoroughly consistent and believable.