Helen Birtwistle
posted 6 June 2006

It's election time for the Wo Sing Society, a faction of Hong Kong's Triads, and two of its most successful young gang-leaders are vying for the role of chair, a position democratically voted for by the 'uncles' representing the various sub-factions of Wo Sing. One, the quietly authoritative Lok, is following the traditional campaign route, visiting his 'constituents' and giving respectful nods to the group's elderly and conservative members. The other, evocatively named 'Big D', is appealing to the more visceral urges of the Triad flock - big bribes, big babes and big threats.

Opening the film is the image of an ancient Chinese script, detailing the embattled history of the Triads, a society originally set up in opposition to the Manchu Emperor of the Qing Dynasty. As in many Triad-inspired pictures, the society's mythologised beginnings are clothed in virtue. A deep, wistful voiceover describes men charged by courage, honour, and brotherhood to the sound of traditional Chinese percussion and windpipes. The picture then cuts to modern day Hong Kong, where the elders of the Wo Sing are debating the finer points of the respective candidates in a dingy restaurant.

In a period of political transition, one of the society's most respected members, Uncle Teng, has assumed moral leadership of the society. Favouring the reliable and astute Lok, Teng uses his political clout to persuade the other 'Uncles' of his candidate's superiority. Whilst many have been seduced by Big D's cash, and voice their guilty support accordingly, an austere reminder of the society's history and future wellbeing jerks the greedy and apathetic back to a more cerebral position, a consensus is reached and Lok appears set to take the mantle of power.

But, although the society has overcome the stalemate and voted, assuming leadership of Wo Sing's disparate gangs involves the ritual exchange of the ancient dragon head baton. The baton must be safely delivered to Lok from mainland China before he can become chair. Meanwhile, realising his benefaction has been in vain, Big D is furious, and vows to have his revenge. A desperate chase begins to claim the baton, with Big D violently punishing those whose allegiance he thought he had secured.

This fraught dialogue between old and new world provides the backdrop to the film, and indeed the context for the continuing existence of Triads as a powerful political and social force in East Asia. Scenes of brutal violence are interspersed with the bonhomie of community tea ceremonies, and bizarre fanaticism evoked in the name of brotherly duty. Election is, in this sense, a ruthlessly deconstructive piece; locked in by dark, grimy photography, with the occasional glimpse of a still more oppressive light, we are left with no moral ambiguity surrounding the nature of this exchange, or indeed any other.

Election's central purpose is to expose the futility and cowardice of tradition's grip, in a society whose contemporary purpose has become utterly divorced from that of its more noble roots. When old Uncle Teng describes his life as a triad member, we too are persuaded by his depiction of a society that, whilst not exactly conventional, can govern itself effectively, bound as it is by the heroics of its ancestors. But a quick glimpse at his audience of 'brothers' reminds us that this world is an imagined world, a romantic memory of what was.

Highlighting this central schism between past and present, To arranges his narrative around the remaining relics of Triad history, one being the farce of a democratically elected chair, the other being the ritual handing over of the ancient dragon's head baton. Mimicking the Triad investment in object over ideal, the fate of To's characters is decided by their relation to these objects and rituals, artefacts that are revealed to be nothing but festishised and indulgent remains of a life past. As the baton passes from hand to hand each character becomes transfixed by its inanimate power, but severed from a framework in which it has any real meaning, it becomes an empty totem, sanctioning a reality of nihilistic violence and corruption.

The two candidates for Wo Sing chair, Big D and Lok, initially set up an easy dividing line between the acceptable and unacceptable face of triad activity and its negotiation between past and present. Lok, a lone father who dines quietly with his young son of an evening and is respectful of the group's elders, is every bit the pragmatic businessman, his vision for the Wo Sing, profit and peace. Big D on the other hand, dressed like Hong Kong's version of Tony Manero, is the personification of Nietzsche's will to power, stopping at nothing to assure his political ascendancy. But, sure enough, as the film progresses these certainties of (relative) good and evil are destabilised, with Lok revealing himself to be a ruthless murderer, if need be, and Big D sometimes cutting a rather naïve and vulnerable, if murderous, figure. As first impressions peel away, the film's characters, like the objects that shape them, become synonymous. Big D and Lok are just differently packaged vessels of power's dark potential.

The question remains though of where exactly Election's message leaves us. OK, we are shown that appearances can be deceptive and characters more three dimensional than Hollywood dichotomies of good and evil allow. Similarly we are given access to the back-hand politics that rule Triad society, dismantling any romantic notion we might have of gang fair play, but so what?

As the film unfolds it becomes apparent that Johnnie To has set himself a bigger task than a minute study of a Triad election. Seeking to deglamorise depictions of Triad activity, To has been forthright about his motivation for doing so; the usual stress on heroics mask the uncomfortable fact that the Triads are inextricably linked to mainstream politics. The unwritten history of the Triads is, for To, the tale of its role reflecting the political systems it has thrived under. Armed with this proviso, Election becomes a film whose many villains are perhaps supposed to have a more universal application, the films setting in modern day Hong Kong making them not just the dark knights of Wo Sing but also of Chinese capitalism.

Be that as it may, in the end Election left me feeling rather cold. Having set his sights on critique and realism, To leaves little or no space for the viewer to engage with any of his characters. In problematising the workings of power in Wo Sing society, To reduces all the 'brothers' to automatons. Emptied of human motivation they become slaves of the Triad machine, with nothing but a rather tired looking wooden baton to explain their actions.

A number of reviewers have referred to Election as the Godfather of Hong Kong cinema, as a film that unearths the political processes of a secret society. It is not hard to see why this comparison has been drawn, but it also reveals exactly what is missing from To's film. Part of the Godfather's brilliance is its ability to transport the viewers to a contrary moral universe, one where they are able to appreciate Don Corleone's goodness alongside his brutality. In Part II they might detest Michael Corleone, but are nevertheless able to account for his becoming what he becomes, precisely because he is provided with the mixture of circumstance and choice that make up any human existence.

None of this is to say that film characters must be 'likeable' in order to retain the viewers attention, but that a degree of agency is needed to explain and describe the way that they people behave. In a bid to describe the criminal and political forces shaping the Triads in modern society To's film sacrifices animate for inanimate, people for props, the result being a rather empty experience.