Election (2005)

Perfectly adorable

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

Johnnie To's ELECTION has some cool music on the opening credits—and a nice opening credits' design too, a kaleidoscope of Chinese characters and those Asian mobsters solemnly taking an oath or uttering some sacred stuff; as a matter of fact the whole flick is nicely scored. I have found about To from Bishop Seraphim Sigrist and was quite eager to see a To movie. The one with which I began, ELECTION, is exciting and interesting, and only moderately violent by nowadays standards—moderately and also essentially violent; the story of an Asian godfather's scheming, it uses a puzzle play of elements, violent facts from the mobsters' lives, the race for the scepter, true details, and as with Coppola we are expected to believe that some of the morally glamorized mobsters are entitled and nice and likable. The performances are reasonably amusing and colorful.ELECTION is well made in the enjoyable, somewhat careless style of the Hong Kong fare; the ending is bitter, true, straight and will scare the kids.

This film has some great directing with its suspense theme and its few dramatic moments and also some great first class acting. Johnny To is a great and wonderful director. The cast was pretty neat too. But I found that there were major problems with the script. First of all the story doesn't seem to develop that much and isn't that interesting at all. The beginning was good and simple with them talking about the election and stuff. Then while it progressed all I saw was some people talking about how the election was going and stuff. There was no drama at all except for some scenes where they kidnapped a few members of the enemy elective party for ransom and also don't forget the shock that happened in the end which I won't reveal for spoiler reasons. The only that kept me moving in the film was some of the interesting facts they gave us about Triad street life in the movie. It's a movie I would watch once and never watch it again because it deserves some awards and recognitions for great acting and directing but should be laughed at for terrible story line.

This movie is great fun to watch if you love films of the organized crime variety. Those looking for a crime film starring a charismatic lead with dreams of taking over in a bad way may be slightly disappointed with the way this film strides.It is a fun romp through a criminal underworld however and if you aren't familiar with Hong Kong films, then you may be pleasantly surprised by this one. I was somewhat disappointed by some of the choices made story-wise but overall a good crime film. Some things did not make sense but that seems to be the norm with films of the East. People just randomly do things regardless of how their personalities were set up prior. It's a slightly annoying pattern that permeates even in this film.

I always thought this would be a long and boring Talking-Heads flick full of static interior takes, dude, I was wrong. "Election" is a highly fascinating and thoroughly captivating thriller-drama, taking a deep and realistic view behind the origins of Triads-Rituals. Characters are constantly on the move, and although as a viewer you kinda always remain an outsider, it's still possible to feel the suspense coming from certain decisions and ambitions of the characters. Furthermore Johnnie To succeeds in creating some truly opulent images due to meticulously composed lighting and atmospheric light-shadow contrasts. Although there's hardly any action, the ending is still shocking in it's ruthless depicting of brutality. Cool movie that deserves more attention, and I came to like the minimalistic acoustic guitar score quite a bit.