Knives Out: Johnnie To’s Election

“If I betray the trust of my sworn brothers, then I shall be killed by ten thousand knives.”

– The 36 Oaths of the Triad Initiation Ceremony

According to legend, the Wo Shing triad society of Hong Kong originated in mainland China sometime in the mid-18th century, when it’s said that five Shaolin monks who escaped the destruction of their monastery at the hands of the Qing empire formed a secret brotherhood dedicated to overthrowing their new rulers. Though the current iteration of the group was only properly established in Kowloon’s Sham Shui Po district in the 1930s, membership would soon balloon into the tens of thousands following the end of the Chinese Civil War, when migrants fleeing the ascension of the Communist Party were recruited into the clan once they reached the peninsula. With its gritty sidewalks and densely packed apartment buildings, the very same streets that birthed what is now the country’s oldest triad sect have also fittingly served as the backdrop for some of Hong Kong’s most celebrated gangster movies over the years – including those made under the direction of Johnnie To, the legendary filmmaker born in Sham Shui Po just a quarter of a century after the initial rise of the Wo Shing.

The specific intricacies of triad society have formed the backbone for many of To’s most acclaimed works since the creation of his Milkyway Image production banner, with films such as Chan sam ying hung (A Hero Never Dies, 1998) and Cheung foh (The Mission, 1999) probing the ways in which gang members juggle codes of loyalty and honour in their day-to-day duties, while others like PTU (2003) and Dai si gin (Breaking News, 2004) explore the group’s inextricably parasitic relationships with the police and the media. Premiering at Cannes in the spring of 2005, the synopsis of Hak se wui (Election, 2005) places it in the same breath as To’s other crime sagas. Another two years have passed, and it’s time for the elders of the Wo Shing to place their votes on who will be the organisation’s next chairman. A significant contingent voice their support for Lok (Simon Yam), a level-headed, ‘professional’ career criminal who would likely run the business with the discretion and finesse required to stay out of the warpath of the Hong Kong Police Force. But others in the committee make it known that they would rather have Big D (Tony Leung Ka-fai) in charge; the much more volatile but otherwise effective candidate who they believe will strike fear back into the hearts of their enemies. 

From its entrancing opening title sequence set to a recitation of the 36 oaths used in real-life Wo Shing induction ceremonies – itself a tradition passed down by the monks who vowed to resist their opposers all those centuries ago – To makes it clear that certain rules and procedures must be adhered to. There are pleasantries that need to be followed, with each contender sprucing their cases for the throne by making customary promises of wealth and control to the organisation’s senior figures, but the final verdict ultimately lies in the hands of the clan elders, just as it did with the generations before. The men’s heated arguments are paused when a pot of tea is ready to be served, and it’s in this fittingly ritualistic moment of reprieve that they finally come to a decision: Lok will be the next chairman of the Wo Shing. Big D, unhappy with the outcome of the democratic process, refuses to honour the election results (sound familiar?) and instead seeks out the ultimate symbol of authority at the film’s core – a dragonhead baton historically used to represent the chairman’s total supremacy, typically hidden out of sight to prevent tempestuous leadership struggles such as this.

For a film centred around the optics of gangland power – who gets to wield it, and more importantly, how it’s used – Election features a surprisingly more minimal amount of violence than one might expect. Absent is the effortless cool found in some of To’s other movies, such as the neon-bathed judo bouts of Yau doh lung fu bong (Throw Down, 2004) or the balletic slow-motion shootouts that would define Fong juk (Exiled, 2006) the following year. Instead, the director strips away any hints of romanticism typically found in Hong Kong crime pictures by replacing them with rapid bursts of action where bodies simply curl up, bleed out and gasp their last breaths before the dust has a chance to settle. Even the iconic use of firearms traditionally associated with the genre is swapped out for the guttural crunch of serrated-edged machetes, and by hiding some of the film’s most savage executions and beat-downs out of frame and in the shadows, To suggests that the violence we do see is almost too cruel to witness.

Power in Election is instead primarily exerted in secret meetings and clandestine discussions, where backchannels and under-the-table agreements determine who’s really in control of the Wo Shing. Nowhere is this paradigm more evident than in the dogged pursuit of the dragonhead baton, with disciples loyal to both Lok and Big D battling it out to see who can retrieve the totem for their leader first. In a cheeky bit of plotting, the ultimate symbol of power for the Hong Kong-based gang is eventually revealed to be hidden in a ramshackle hut on the Chinese mainland, and it’s in this section of the film that one of Lok’s goons – the crimson-spectacled Mr. So (Cheung Siu-fai) – absconds a sticky situation by taking advantage of a former associate within the People’s Police of China, who traded his criminal ties for a badge following the British handover in 1997. Similar moments throughout the movie add further credence to To’s position that the triad is a systemic organism with influence over every aspect of society, where strategic allegiances and connections can be just as potent a political tool as a gun or a knife. As one bumbling cop observes to his colleague when the gang’s diplomatic processes begin to break down, “you chop off one [triad] arm and a new one grows in its place” – a chilling observation that’s built upon in the film’s sequel Hak se wui: Yi woo wai kwai (Election 2, 2006) and insinuates the characters we follow, perhaps even including their offspring, are stuck in this life forever. 

The contradiction between the nobler 300-year history of the Wo Shing and the more sinister realities of its present day incarnation provides Election with its greatest tension, one that manifests in its denouement when the precise efficiency of a blade is usurped by the brutal effectiveness of a rock. Surrounded by a troop of Rhesus monkeys – a species introduced to Hong Kong some decades before the inception of the Wo Shing – an act of barbaric betrayal sees one of our (anti)heroes regress back to his primal instincts, brandishing a weapon of choice more at home in a time long before that of his ancestors. “Triad society is a world of outrageousness…[yet] they are disciplined internally by their own set of rules,” To commented in an interview before the film’s premiere. “But when things get out of hand, when people are only after power and profit, they will cross the line and become inhuman.”¹ In the end, there’s nothing a bit of violence can’t fix.

Hak se wui/Election (2005 Hong Kong 101 mins)

Prod Co: Milkyway Image, One Hundred Years of Film Prod: Dennis Law, Johnnie To Dir: Johnnie To Scr: Yau Nai-hoi, Yip Tin-shing Phot: Cheng Siu-Keung Ed: Patrick Tam Mus: Lo Ta-yu Cos Des: Stanley Cheung Art Dir: Tony Yu

Cast: Simon Yam, Tony Leung Ka-fai, Louis Koo, Nick Cheung, Gordon Lam, Cheung Siu-fai, Lam Suet, Wong Tin-lam, Tam Ping-man, Maggie Shiu, David Chiang, You Yong, Berg Ng, Raymond Wong, Kwok Fung, Law Wing-cheong

Endnotes