REVIEW: Election
Election
Johnny To
Telling the tale of two rival candidates for chairmanship of a Hong Kong triad gang, Election is a bloody and chaotic look at gangster politics. Instead of visiting hospitals and kissing babies these candidates are more at home chopping off limbs with machetes and placing voters in boxes before throwing them off mountains. One voter is even forced to eat a ceramic spoon. If only general elections were this exciting.
When one leader wins the electoral race the other refuses to accept the result, stealing the ceremonial baton that is needed for the bizarre interpretative dance inauguration ceremony. As the old adage goes: “If at first you don’t succeed, triad, triad, triad again”.
What could have been a scathing satire on political corruption turns into a turgid t r e a s u r e h u n t for the b a t o n , w h i c h c h a n g e s h a n d s e v e r y f i v e m i n - utes between funky named gangsters such as Ice, Dead Dog, Double East and Jimmy. The big question: where was Jimmy when the cool nicknames were handed out? There is little to recommend the film. It wants to be a sprawling gangster epic à la The Godfather but is completely shallow and lacking in character.
It descends into mawkish sentimentality with a Dead Poets Society-esque “O Captain! My Captain!” pledge of allegiance to the new chairman before concluding on a nasty act of random violence. In fact, it is a skewed take on masculinity that rules over the film’s proceedings. Election really does not deserve your vote.
8th Jun 2006