Triad Election

[June 13th, 2007] [SHORT RUN] Hong Kong director Johnny To loves a slow burn, and Triad Election sizzles with increasing fervor until the eventual explosion. The movie is a live wire—a shadowy neo-noir bloodbath that burns to the very core. Like other directors of the so-called Asia Extreme genre—Takashi Miike, Chan-wook Park and others—To paints his ultraviolent Hong Kong landscape with a master's eye, prying deep into the grimy gutters of his scenery and his characters' hearts. They're some pretty dark places.

Triad Election, the follow-up to his 2005 film Election, is a gangster epic where To wears his inspirations proudly on his sleeve—Francis Ford Coppola, Nicholas Ray, John Woo, Quentin Tarantino and others have an obvious influence, not only on the bloodletting, but on the way the complex story and characters unfold. To fuses contrasting elements into a dark and seedy world, meditating on corruption of the human spirit in the process.

Hong Kong's top gangsters hold a biannual vote to elect a godfather to reign over the feuding gangs. The tradition states that no man can be re-elected, and this tradition has kept a sense of democracy and hope among the underground thugs and mass murderers posing as businessmen. But behind all the long-winded meetings, a true menace lurks and any peace can quickly be disrupted with the swing of a meat cleaver. Current godfather Lok (fiery Simon Yam) wishes to abolish the tradition and campaigns for reelection. When hot-shit young businessman Jimmy (Louis Loo) makes a bid, a bitter war erupts, leaving loyalties and bodies in pieces all over Hong Kong.

But this isn't your average exploitative Hong Kong killfest. To gives his characters a lot of room to expand beyond their initial, generic gangster-movie stereotypes. Yam's Lok is a coiled snake, and from the onset it's easy to see he'll stop at nothing to remain on his throne. Jimmy, on the other hand, spends his days attempting international business, and his nights dirtying his hands secretly. His façade of international diplomacy is fractured as loyalties are broken and a war between the gangs erupts, revealing Jimmy to be every bit as cruel as Lok.

When hell breaks loose—and damn, does it break loose—even strong-stomached fans of hardboiled cinema will cringe. At a press screening, several audience members left during an extended scene involving sledgehammers, German Shepherds, a butcher knife and a meat grinder. A chase scene involving a man nailed into a coffin is equally jarring, pairing battle-zone bruising with intense claustrophobia.

Johnny To pushes to shock and awe fans of a genre built on excess. The difference between him and his peers is that he makes an art of it, taking Triad Election past simple exploitation action and offering an enthralling story that cuts as deep as his villains' blades.