Film Review

Triad Election 2 (Johnny To/2006)

Wait a second Tartan.. if you’re advertising a film as the first Triad Election, why does it say number 2? Is that why I was so thoroughly confused throughout the entire film? Yeah, probably, but even without a frame of reference this film screamed mess from the Chinese mountaintops the protagonist wanted to build his business on. I admire To’s want to break from expository storytelling, but more often then not his attempts to convey action through images become muddled and convoluted. On the other side of the coin, when To does succeed in his purely visual storytelling moments it really works. One of the finest moments of this ‘visual storytelling’ is the nearly dialogue-less scene where Jimmy has to drown a snitch in the river. This moment is a superb tease of what To can do. Sadly the outcome is often needlessly complex and confusing in it’s execution.

A major complaint I have about the film is the performances. They lack the needed emotion to provide a punch, whether To wants his characters to remain cool or not is irrelevant when he’s throwing a rope that isn’t tied to anything. Ultimately, I blame Tartan for mis-advertising the film as an original film when you clearly need the points of reference offered by the first film to understand half of what’s going on. Even then, the blur of characters, actions and events is hard to follow and the audience is left with an inexcusably messy work. The film is also almost too subdued. On a positive side, it’s quite technically lovely.