General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

Election 2 (黑社会以和为贵)

Election 2 (黑社会以和为贵, released in some markets as Triad Election) is a 2006 Hong Kong crime film directed by Johnnie To and the sequel to his 2005 triad film Election (黑社会). Running 92 minutes, it follows the triad society Wo Luen Sheng (和联胜) as its chairman, Lok, tries to overturn the rule that forbids him from a second term, and it widens the first film's local power struggle into a story about mainland state power reaching into Hong Kong's underworld¹^•². The film screened at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival and was named Best Film by the Hong Kong Film Critics Society¹.

Key fact	Detail
Original title	黑社会以和为贵 (English titles: Election 2, Triad Election)¹^•²
Director, year, format	Johnnie To, Hong Kong, 2006, 35mm color, 92 minutes¹
Series position	Sequel to Election (黑社会, 2005), produced by the Milkyway Image company³
Principal cast	Simon Yam (Lok), Louis Koo (Jimmy), Nick Cheung (Jet), Siu-Fai Cheung (Mr. So), Suet Lam (Big Head)²
Screenwriters	Yip Tin-shing and Nai-Hoi Yau²
Festivals and awards	2006 Cannes Film Festival; Best Film, 2006 Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards¹
Critical score	96% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer from 47 reviews; 81% audience score²
US release	Theatrical rerelease April 25, 2007; US gross $54.9K²

Spoilers

Plot

Two years after Lok (Simon Yam) became "incumbent" (办事人, the society's chairman), the term limit approaches. Lok, unwilling to give up the leadership, tries to persuade the elders, notably Uncle Teng (邓伯), to amend the rule that bars a chairman from reelection¹^•⁴. The strongest potential successors are his former protégés: Jimmy (Louis Koo), who has built a legitimate business empire and wants nothing to do with the chairmanship, and the violent Dongguan-zi (Gordon Lam)⁵.

Lok moves against both rivals, inciting Dongguan-zi against Jimmy and attacking Uncle Teng¹. The decisive turn comes when Jimmy learns from a mainland public security officer that only the society's leadership, and patriotism toward Beijing, will allow his mainland business dealings to proceed¹. He turns against Lok and fights for the chairmanship, becoming steadily more ruthless along the way; the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute's synopsis notes that he wins the post, "yet a web of unwritten rules awaits"¹. The film's famous closing image follows Jimmy up a darkening hillside road after he has struck the mainland official, a gesture one Hong Kong review reads as a metaphor that the higher the position, the darker it becomes⁵.

Production and series context

The film was made by Milkyway Image, the production company To runs with producer Wai Ka-fai, and it was shot back to back with the first film, which the Hong Kong review site Cinespot credits for the sequel avoiding the usual drop in quality from original to follow-up³^•⁵. The predecessor, released in October 2005 with a budget of HK$40 million, had been a critical and commercial success and won the Hong Kong Film Awards for Best Film, Best Director, and Best Actor³^•⁶.

In interviews, To said his motive for the series was that triads were a reality every working-class Hong Kong person encountered growing up, and that examining their history could refract the changes in Hong Kong society itself⁷. He also stated that the second film's premise grew from a remark by a mainland public security chief, "黑社会也有爱国" (triads, too, can be patriotic), a statement To read as signaling that a new sovereign power would take an interest in the underworld³.

Political allegory

The film is widely read as an allegory of Hong Kong after the 1997 handover. Where the first film centered on the society's internal contest for the leadership staff (the "dragon-head baton") and its century-old electoral tradition, the sequel brings in an outside force: mainland public security officers replace the Hong Kong police as the state power negotiating with the triad leadership, and Hong Kong police are almost entirely absent¹^•⁵. The mainland official is played by the mainland actor You Yong⁵.

The Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute describes the film as showing how interference by an outside power, combined with greed, dissolves humanity and dismantles a triad electoral system built over a hundred years, and reads its contested leadership and closed-circle election as a portrait of post-1997 Hong Kong's political entrapment¹. A China Newsweek review argued that the sequel states To's concerns more completely than the first film: the new generation, embodied by Jimmy, chooses money and survival over the brotherhood codes of the old triad films, and the series is less a record of triad history than a portrait of Hong Kong people's predicament and helplessness at the time⁷.

The title itself is ironic. The film opens with a monologue on the society's centuries-old principle of "harmony is precious" (以和为贵), delivered by the character Hei Gu Ren, and then proceeds through deception, betrayal, and killing that leave none of the old codes standing⁷^•⁴.

Reception

Critical response was strongly positive. On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a 96% Tomatometer from 47 reviews, with an 81% audience score². The site's critics' consensus compares its structure to The Godfather series, and reviewers singled out its bursts of sudden violence and To's control of style; the Boston Globe's Ty Burr wrote that the violence "erupts in rare, staccato bursts, all the more horrifying for coming out of nowhere"². At the International Film Festival Rotterdam, the programmers wrote that To sets the story in the real Hong Kong, which makes the film "irresistibly convincing"⁸.

In Hong Kong, Cinespot reported that the film's reputation fell short of the first installment and its box office did not break through, though it judged the result impressive for a film so far from the mainstream⁵. Its US theatrical run was small, grossing $54.9K².

Legacy

The two Election films are regarded as landmarks of the Hong Kong triad genre, and the series has taken on a second life in political discussion, with readers returning to its imagery of term limits, closed-circle elections, and a leader who clings to power³. To has said he conceived a third film and has described why it was never made; in a 2023 BBC Chinese interview he also spoke about the narrowing of creative freedom and censorship red lines in Hong Kong, naming the Election series among the works for which he is known⁹.

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Franchise and series entries as standalone works › Action, thriller, and crime series film entries › Entries released in the 2000s › Released 2005 to 2009

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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