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much as it pains me to say it, I must: Johnnie
To's latest, the Triad crime thriller
"Election", is painfully average. There
it is. I said it. And this is coming from a big
fan of the director, who has grace us with
hardcore gems like "The
Mission" (still the best Johnnie To
gangster film of all time) and the criminally
underrated "Throwdown"
(still the most soulful Johnnie To drama of all
time). Compared to the two just mentioned,
"Election" falls somewhere between To's
entertaining but safe collaborations with Ka-Fai
Wai and "PTU".
Which isn't to say "Election" is not
worth your time, as even an average Johnnie To
film is easily better than the current crop of
Hong Kong
teen-friendly fodder the island nation is cranking
out by the handful.
"Election" is the
rather odd, but apparently true, story of how a
Triad Society in
Hong Kong
chooses their new leader, or Chairman. Up for the
job are Lok (Simon Yam), a seemingly
mild-mannered, intelligent gangster and single
parent to a young teen, and the explosive Big D
(Tony Leung Ka Fai), who wants the job at all
costs. Bribery, bullying, and other means of
extorting votes from the elder Triads have
commenced in full as the story begins. It isn't
long before Lok is elected Chairman, but to fully
assume power and be recognized as the new
chieftain, he must first take control of a token
baton passed on from one Society chief to the next
for over 100 years. To this end, both Lok and Big
D send out their underlings and allies in search
of the baton, even as the police, led by the stout
Superintendent Hui (former kung fu star David
Chiang) clamps down.
And that really is the full
extent of "Election's" story. There are
other political intrigue and Society in-fighting,
as various Triad members make power plays against
one another or attempt to push for their
candidate. Even so, the film is relatively easy to
digest, even if To and his screenwriters go out of
their way to make things as muddled, convoluted,
and difficult to follow as possible. In
particular, there is a 30-something minute
interlude in the middle where various factions
search for, locate, and try to keep possession of
the baton that has got to be the most pointless
30-something minutes To has ever put to film.
Of course it doesn't help
that the film, running at under 90 minutes, is
crammed with secondary characters that are,
shockingly, more interesting than the main
characters. Tony Leung Ka Fai, playing a serious
character for once, delivers a colorful portrayal
of the tactless Big D, but he seems to be
overselling the role. Simon Yam is appropriately
calm and scheming, with bursts of extreme violence
that reminds you why this guy is a Triad in the
first place. But more interesting are the younger
members of the Triads, in particular the
college-educated Jimmy (Louis Koo) and the
hardcore Jet (Nick Cheung). I would have liked to
know more about these two.
The film's overabundance of
characters, each with their own personal problems
and agendas, seem to be an artificial attempt to
inflate the film's complexity, which doesn't work
because, simply put, there isn't any complexity to
be found here. There is an attempt to explore the
nature of the Triad Societies, but it's
unfortunately not very interesting. It's easy to
"get" that Triad elections are almost
identical to political elections, but is that
simple allusion really enough to sustain a whole
film?
If it sounds as if I don't
like "Election", that's not the case at
all. I suppose, more than anything,
"Election" suffers from high
expectations. I expected more out of it than it
was able to give.
The film has a number of
things going for it, including the fact that it is
incredibly unpretentious, and there is no
romanticism involved with the Triad lifestyle.
These are cruel, deadly men whose one goal is not
the brotherhood that they continually espouse, but
rather profit. Capitalism is the name of the game,
and everything else takes a back seat. We see this
belief most overtly in the elder Triads, but Lok
and Big D easily sells the idea as well. It's
underlings like Jimmy and Jet that believes there
is more to the lifestyle than money, something
that, undoubtedly, Lok and Big D might have at one
point or another believed as well, before reality
hit them in the face.
Another thing about
"Election" that makes it better than
your average
Hong Kong
movie is its maturity. It is very much a movie
made by and for adults, something 9 out of 10
Hong Kong
movies at the moment can't boast. As such, the
film deserves some goodwill from the adults in the
audience. Also, the performances are excellent,
from vets Yam to Leung (aka the other
Tony Leung), right down to pups Louis Koo and Nick
Cheung. While "Election's" conclusion
would seem to leave a lot unresolved, it's not
entirely a bad thing, as like the Triads
themselves, there's no reason why these people
will be going anywhere anytime soon, something
even Hui, the cop trying to crush them, admits
without a shred of doubt.
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