Election II (2006)

Election felt like a film that could have been great, but (as with quite a few of Johnnie To's recent films), didn't quite go anywhere - or at least not anywhere I expected it to go... the end result being a sort of "eh?" as the credits rolled.

ELECTION 2 follows a rather similar arc, as another election within the Wo Sing triads looms two years after the last, and the candidates for the leadership don't want to leave their victory to unreliable things like votes. The contenders machinate and intimidate in an attempt to stack the decks in their favour, but where you might expect this to build to a clever denouement where the pieces all converge to create a clever climax, there's a sense that many or most of the events in the film have little effect on the eventual outcome... leaving a similar somewhat unsatisfied "eh?" feeling at the end.

But, still more interesting than most HK films of 2006 - though I base this on the fact I haven't felt inclined to view many (if any?) others rather than direct experience :-/ Definitely not as rewarding as slightly-earlier To films such as The Mission... maybe he should patch up whatever differences have led to him no longer collaborating with Wai Ka-Fai?