Johnny To is quite something, he knocks out a spagetti western Triad flick, Exiled, with all the bells and whistles and long pauses and utterly balletic violence which is never short of comedic and never very serious to the two part Election thriller which is smart, stunning to look at and for Johnny To very serious. Simon Yam does his thing and does it well but this time around the lens is tight on the more meditative Louis Koo, who smokes, stares, never smiles and has the best hair since Tony Leung in ‘In the Mood for Love’. A story of ambition, greed, betrayal and revenge and cleverly this time it steals a little bit from the Godfather and marries big business with the boys from the backstreets of Mongkok.

The story is held together thinly but this will always be the way with a director who wants to create atmosphere and find another cool camera shot rather than worry too much about character development. I don’t mind the flaws because the reward is the action and he sure knows how to make it bustle and bang.

This is a smouldering at times nasty yarn about how China revels in tradition but at the same time has a clear eye on the future. Louis Koo delivers something fresh and introspective, he’s about as detached as you can get especially when he decides to put a few of his enemies through the meat grinder and feed the resulting bone and flesh meal to hungry Alsations.
The backstreets of Kowloon look like they always do, dangerous and mainland China looks daunting. The Triad traditions are soaked in blood and vendettas and internal power struggles and as Louis Koos character Jimmy tries to go straight he is pulled deeper into the bloodlines and ancient ethos of masculine ritual. It’s a cool movie from a cool director who churns them out and sometimes they work and often they don’t but this, Election 2, is a well rehearsed winner.