“Election” – Entertaining Gangster Flick
“Godfather” meets “Goodfellas” in this immensely entertaining Hong Kong gangster epic from director Johnny To. The rules, traditions, and honor that govern the Triads are reminiscent of the familial structures of the Italian mafia as portrayed in Francis Coppola’s “The Godfather”. Add to that mixture a healthy dose of raw violence, evidently inspired Scorsese’s street films. Strong on character and style, “Election” is worth watching even though it’s material is a tad predictable.
Comparable to Ramgopal Varma’s gangster films, “Election’s” plot is a healthy mixture of several cult films. The film scores because of its briskly paced narrative, and the freshness of its characters, along with an exploration of the origin of Chinese Triads.
As one of the Triads vote for their new chairman, two rival frontrunners for the post do all in their power to ensure the votes of the elders. When Lok wins, his hot-headed, impatient rival Big D decides to take matters into his own hands, eliminating those who voted against him, and more significantly, tracking down the previous chairman who holds the symbolic Baton of power. When Lok learns of this, he sends his men to retrieve the Baton.
Stylishly shot and well cut, “Election” also has its share of flaws. Certain shots are unintentionally out of focus (I thought we only saw that in Indian films), and the sound design is very amateurish. Ambient sounds change drastically, and jarringly within the same scene. Constant alternating between dubbed dialog and sync sound is also quite distracting.
Yet, the film holds its own, and makes for a fun watch. Tonight I am watching “Triad Election” which is the sequel to this film. I will write something up on it tomorrow morning.
Tags: Chinese
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Whatever you say man. Election is easily The Godfather of asian cinema.