Election 2 (2006)

In some ways this is an amazing sequel. It builds on top of the original movie, playing with its themes, but not feeling repetitive or unoriginal. It has its own unique thing going on, yet it couldn't exist without the first one to provide background and the setting. So it's at the same time an enjoyable experience on its own, but the fans of the original get exactly what they were hoping for. Kind of.Because I still don't like this one as much as the original. The main reasons for this are the technical details. The film just isn't as well-made as the original. In the first movie one really understood both of the competitors, their motives and feelings, their overall goals and the reason why they acted as they did. In this movie you really understood Jimmy's (Lois Koo Tin-Lok) character. He's just an ordinary businessman with triad ties, who tries to set his family free. But he cannot, not without going through the ultimate ordeal. But it's the character of Lok (Simon Yam Tat-Wah) that I don't get. In the first movie he was a calm, collected leader, able to make tough choices, but preferring to avoid rattling the cages. He was a traditionalist. Not so much in this film. I guess that in some ways this sudden change serves to portray the themes of power corrupting without a doubt, but it still felt somewhat wrong to me. It didn't feel like Lok at all, not the Lok I had gotten to know in the first movie.Plus the action scenes, while good by the most standards, didn't hold that awe-factor from the first film, there was still way too many characters, who were rarely referred to, the plot had some bizarre twists and while the ending solution was a good one, I was somewhat disappointed by it.Still, this is a good movie, no doubt about that. If action movies are your thing, this is definitely worth checking out. I personally liked the first one better, but there are a lot of people, who disagree with me on this, so you might be pleasantly surprised.

In the Chinese crime drama, "Triad Election," Louis Koo stars as Jimmy Lee, a Hong Kong "businessman" who's made a small fortune selling pornographic DVDs on the black market. Now Jimmy wants to come in from the cold and become "legit" in the eyes of the law, but he discovers that - irony of ironies - the only way that that can happen is if he gets himself elected "Chairman" of a crime syndicate of which he is already a member - a position of such power and prestige that even the long arm of the law will be unable to touch him. This sets up a bloody battle royale between Jimmy and the other gangsters vying for the title."Triad Election" has a few flashes of grit and style, but it's a fairly lackluster affair overall, undramatic, talky and with an undertone of sadism and nastiness that spoils much of the fun of the film. There's a certain poignancy to the final scenes, as Jimmy realizes that he can never leave the gangster lifestyle now that he is so deeply embedded in it, but it is a revelation that comes too late in the movie to register much of an impact. Thus, despite its various virtues - and a nicely melancholic score played mainly on strings - the movie is a pretty so-what affair in toto.

It's always nice to fallow the evolution of some characters through the years from films to films. You have the impression to see old friends again after a long separation. But in the triad world of "Election 2", this friends are rather bad and dangerous, and the two years that separate this second opus from the first haven't really improve, nor their friendship, nor the situation. If the first "Election" already was a death fight in order to elect the boss of a important HK triad, this one, setting two years after, is more a complete blood bath, where the most barbarian acts are tolerated. The old triad traditions, that manage to contain the savagery of the characters in the first movie, don't belong to the modern world anymore, for the opening of the Chinese market to the Triads in 1997 completely changes its face.The characters who manage to survive to the first movie are now about to face a new election, which opposes this time Lok, who wants to be reelected and the young Jimmy, who's quite reluctant to become the new boos, but has to win the election, in order to become a traditional business man in two years. In this second movie, the characters have much more elaborated than in the first one, for they're acting in a tragedy play, with much more powerful actors than them. Lok isn't the calm and self-control man he once was, he's now obsessed with power and greed. And Jimmy is the classical tragic Corleone character of a gangster movie, who wants to go straight, but only goes deeper and deeper in the evil world of the Triad.As well as the characters, the political aspect of the movie is also well develops. If the first film mostly deals with ancestral Trial rituals, the second one brings a contemporary point of view on this, and lights the links between HK Triads and Chinese government, which really control them since 1997. This movie is also more violent than the first, guns appear (whereas they were inexistent in "Election 1"), and a magisterially gore torture scene (with dog and human food...) greatly increase the emotional impact of the movie and underlines the abominations man is able to do in order to archive his need of power.All this elements makes "Election 2" a entertaining and interesting movie, and elects Jhonny To as one of the most interesting filmmaker of Hong-Kong. But his very classical direction (the movie always looks like a classical 90's HK polar), and storyline (the story of Jimmy is very similar to the Michael Corleone one, with some Melvillle elements, and a soundtrack very similar to the one you can find in Corean Thrillers) makes him a lot less original, than directors like Wong Kar-Wai or Hark Tsui, who is always the godfather of HK cinema.

It may seem odd for the selective New York Film Festival to include what in many ways is a fairly standard Hong Kong crime movie, working in the familiar genre of Triad gang stories. What is new here, perhaps, if it is really new, is that not only does the main character make his choices in order to create new relationships with the Chinese mainland, but he also dreams of becoming a pure businessman, and wants his son not to be a successful gang leader like him but an attorney. If we didn't see the original film of which this is the follow-up, we soon learn that the Wo Shing Society undergoes leadership changes every two years by a vote of its key members, and current leader Lok (Simon Yam) is about to finish his term. As the time comes though, Lok wants to hold onto his power, which leads to a personality change. He turns very nasty. But Jimmy turns even nastier.Lok has to select a potential candidate amongst his 5 godsons, and Jimmy (Louis Koo) already rich from pirated porn sales, seems the best qualified to bring in new business for the Society. However, his interest is only in making money, initially that is, until he's seduced by the fact that with power, the mainland Chinese will give him more respect, and with that, the potential for more business. In fact a key mainland player tells him he cannot come back to deal with them unless he is president of the society. It is only in the hopes of becoming more a businessman that Jimmy accepts the idea of a two-year term as Wo Shing leader. But he must fight for that, because of Lok's change of heart.The irony is that after Jimmy succeeds, he finds he has fallen into a trap.To what extent this has anything to do with actual events, or is a reference to the new relationships since 1997's changeover to mainland control of Hong Kong, is uncertain. But the kernel idea of the film according to To was a police commissioner's remark to him that the criminal class would be important to the stability of the new Hong Kong. To feels that the Triad system is dying, perhaps also as some Italians feel the Mafia's glory days are over. But as an old Arab proverb says, "Evil is ancient." And in keeping with this notion is director To's notion of the role played by destiny in life, which relates to Jimmy. Jimmy's destiny comes from his birth. His father was a criminal, and he is a criminal. His plan of eventually becoming merely a successful businessman is therefore doomed, because it is not his destiny, nor will it, most likely, be his son's.This film was entitled Triad Election as presented, but the international title Election II is more accurate, given that this is a sequel, with the same main characters, to Election. Apparently this newer film was issued in a "sanitized version" which dwelt more on the political machinations than on the usual violence. In the version shown at the NYFF the violence was restored, and it is some of the most horrific imaginable, including as it does men chained to mad dogs (was Abu Ghraib an inspiration?) and a man who is beaten to a pulp with mallets and then dismembered with knives, his severed limbs run through a meat grinder and fed to the dogs. There is a scene in the new Scorsese The Departed where Jack Nicholson smashes Leonardo DiCapro's already broken hand, and another when he appears with his shirt disheveled and covered with splattered blood. But that's nothing compared to these Hong Kong Triad tortures, which are shown in vivid detail. Unlike the showy acting in The Departed the characters in Triad Election tend to speak in quick monosyllables. Then of course, Chinese is a monosyllabic language. But there are no caressing poetic effusions, no love scenes, only politics, a few hugs, and the nihilistic isolation of ultra-cruelty. Even the gang lords' wealth is shown only by their riding in big dark expensive cars.The film begins boringly, as such films often do, with a meeting outdoors between syndicate members and officials. It is only as time goes on that the violence begins and we get the juice and momentum of a real crime movie. That also includes throwing an old man down many flights of stairs to kill him. All this is elegantly filmed; the often chiaroscuro wide-screen cinematography is impeccable, and Louis Ko as Jimmy is as handsome as the young Alain Delon. The acting is of uniformly high quality, as are the other aspects. But despite that the experience the film provides is rather routine. Godfather-esquire moments notwithstanding, there is here none of the powerful characterization, the moral content, and the fierce forward momentum of John Woo. What we have here is an homage to the peak performance of a genre artist – except that by reports Election, the first film, is superior. It's not likely that this film will make many new converts to the genre or the director.