Directed by Johnnie To. Written by Nai-Hoi Yau and Tin-Shing Yip
The Triads of Hong Kong need a new leader and he’s chosen through a democratic election process, a tradition that stretches back decades and recurs every two years. Once Election is over, you’ll wonder why they put up with it, almost urging them to regress to baser means and let their new leader be whoever takes the mantle by force.
There are many electors, and they like to bicker. The bribing is incessant and ineffective. The horse-trading extensive. Even when it’s down to just two candidates, allegiances and voting blocks shift depending on who talks to whom. Once consensus is reached, the leader-elect must possess an ancient baton to legitimize his authority.
A gangster flick and civics lesson rolled into one, Johnnie To’s Election is like ancient Greece if it was a barrel of rats, a cluster of crooks squabbling over a fleeting piece of cheese. With the way they wriggle, struggle, and sneak around on one another, you’d need a genealogist’s sense of organization to keep track of who’s who and who they’re for.
Vying for the top spot: Lok (Simon Yam) and Big D (Tony Ka Kai Leung), a study of opposites. Lok’s calm and cerebral demeanor stands in contrast to Big D’s swaggering braggadocio, and while they go about their purpose in their own way, a steel spine and cynical view of the world is common to both. Both Lok and Big D must also liaise with the police, because they’re as much a stakeholder in business as their underlings, their blessing essential to keep the peace so money may flow.
Bit players in the power struggle of varying size: Jet, Big Head, Uncle Cocky, Uncle Monk, Fish Ball, Long Gun, Whistle, and I could go on. Election is quite the get-together and you almost get lost in the swelling cast of characters.
The pile of bodies and the politics contained within it is both the blessing and curse of To’s movie, the intrigue of this massive bit of machinery spinning on its axis, and as exhilarating the coming-together of all these parties can be, it also becomes an albatross. Indexing every person is one thing, but relating to them all proves harder as the movie goes on, and writers Yau and Yip even sideline Lok and Big D right in the middle, leaving the movie in the hands of its supporting cast.
Only some tension-building directing by To that even feels soulful at times saves Election from this sidestep, and the cloak-and-dagger play surrounding this fateful baton is also where much of the gangsterism enters Election and keeps it from becoming just a gangsterland civics lesson.
Fists do some of the talking too, don’t worry, and it’s here the Western influences on To becomes evident, with the sudden and seemingly senseless violence calling out to Scorsese’s great 90s gangster epics Goodfellas and Casino.
Despite the cutthroat business underpinning it all and the power struggle at its center, Election doesn’t take its own characters too seriously, and To doesn’t shy away from some black comedy at the expense of its very serious crime bosses. The Triads are not the UN, it’s not quite a kindergarten, but they take their cue from both places.
Ultimately cynical at heart, which isn’t a surprise, Election has a lot going on but To manages to harness it all and land a fairly ambitious crime thriller that stakes out a sliver of new territory within the genre, staying light on its feet and entertaining until the end. Elect Johnnie To for your Saturday nights.
Mikkel Frederiksen 