Anssi Vartiainen 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.

Joe This film doesn't take half measures that's for sure. It's time to elect a new chairman again amongst the triad world, and the baton by tradition has to pass on. Our lead from the original is reluctant to hand it over, and is playing off people to secure a second term. On the other hand is the initially reluctant Jimmy who claims to want to distance himself from his gangster linked past but to secure business access into the mainland, he becomes brutal and merciless to become the newly elected leader for his own "business" purposes.I enjoyed this more than the first. It's quite a difficult film to follow at times with some references to the original plus a large multitude of characters. There are various threads through the movie and if you give it time you will find it engrossing. Tense at times with violence always not far off, it doesn't let up. There are too many nods to "Infernal Affairs" with many of the same actors and some parts which seem to pay homage to it. In fairness, can't always be 100% original, and this film is not a rip at all.Acting is fine but camera work doesn't have anything special. There was scope to have some incredible filming here with some of the locations and actors, but it doesn't seem to have been a priority, which is a shame.A good film with some intriguing plot lines, and if you're into gangster films then you'll find this a good addition to the HK genre.

Siddhartha Tripathi On the surface the two Election movies are simple stories about the election of the Chairman of an organized crime syndicate in Hong Kong. The concerns of the lead characters are simple/primal - greed, power, money - all the expected elements and the predictable Hong Kong gangster cinema trademark - people sitting at a table drinking, eating and very casually suggesting that a lot of people are going to be dead by the time this flick gets over.Johnnie To's trick is to play with the dichotomy of the characters, to flush them out in such a way that you find yourself projected in them. You'll find Jimmy (the lead who's contesting the election) trying hard to read the names of Mandarin dishes in a restaurant much to the amusement of his wife and the waiter, and the current Chairman Lok's concern about the bad company his school going son keeps. Normal. Thenn the very same characters would do anything to get what they want. You will see Jimmy hacking a Lok loyalist limb by limb while Lok simply pushes Uncle Teng down the stairs and smiles. Threatening and foreboding permeates the movie mainly because ordinary people you can identify with are capable of extremities which even they weren't aware of.This is not a Tarantino flick - no one comes up with smart slang-ed retorts and refers to the Bible, you won't see blood and gore splattered on the screen and yet its more menacing, hideous and violent.

Chris Knipp 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.