General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

The Election (选战)

The Election (選戰; formerly titled 風雲) is a 2014 Hong Kong political television drama produced by Hong Kong Television Network (HKTV) and broadcast on its internet streaming service. It was the station's launch drama, chosen by public online vote, and depicts a fictional Hong Kong chief executive election in which the public votes for the territory's leader.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Original title	選戰 (The Election); earlier working title 風雲²
Production	Hong Kong Television Network; directed by Wong Kwok-keung (黃國強)¹
Cast	Angelica Lee Sinje (李心潔), Liu Kai-chi (廖啟智), Gregory Wong (王宗堯), Kwok Fung (郭鋒), Lee Ying (李影)¹
Launch vote	Won HKTV's online poll to select the launch drama with 100,250 votes, announced 10 November 2014²
Broadcast	15 episodes, 19 November 2014 to 21 February 2015, Saturdays 21:00²
Setting	A hypothetical 2022 chief executive election, following a 2017 election won by the heroine's husband³

Spoilers

Premise and characters

The story is a social-realist drama set against a fictional future of Hong Kong elections. Yip Ching (葉晴), played by Angelica Lee, is the widow of Wai Man-hin (韋文軒, played by Poon Chan-leung), who won the 2017 chief executive election and died in a car crash on the night of his victory. Years later, urged on by Cheung Kui-lung (張癸龍, played by Gregory Wong), she enters the 2022 chief executive race, carrying her husband's mission and an ideal of fairness, while investigating the truth of his death. Her main opponent is Sung Man-shan (宋漫山), played by Liu Kai-chi, chairman of the pro-establishment Chun Man Party (振民黨).³^•²

The supporting cast includes Kwok Fung as Ho Sung-pak (何松柏), chairman of the Democratic Self-Government Party (民自黨); Lee Ying as media group chairwoman Shang Suet-lai (岑雪麗); Kung Mei-yam as Sung Man-shan's wife, a lawyer; and Shiu Sau-hung as a lawyer who secretly loves her.⁴

Production background

Director Wong Kwok-keung said the concept was inspired by the 2012 Hong Kong chief executive election, whose contest between Leung Chun-ying and Henry Tang he found highly dramatic, and noted that no Chinese-language television drama had taken an election as its subject.⁵ The series was conceived from around 2012 and survived repeated setbacks at HKTV, including the government's rejection of the company's free-to-air license application, layoffs, production stoppages, and a failed mobile television launch.⁴ HKTV boss Ricky Wong Wai-kay had bid for a free-to-air license and saw the application rejected while established pay-television operators received channels; the company instead began broadcasting online on 19 November 2014, the day of TVB's 47th anniversary.⁶

The launch vote

HKTV let the public choose its first drama. In an online poll, The Election finished first with 100,250 votes, far ahead of the police drama The Borderland (警界線), which received over 30,000 votes and became the second launch drama.²^•⁷ The premiere went out at 6 a.m. on 19 November 2014, with subsequent episodes airing on Saturdays at 21:00 through 21 February 2015.¹^•²

Reception and significance

A taboo broken. Politics had been absent from Hong Kong television drama. Producer Saville Chan, known for the film The Way We Dance, told the South China Morning Post that although political shows are common in American and Japanese television, politics had been a taboo in Hong Kong's television entertainment.⁸ The series premiered while the Umbrella Movement protests were still under way, and reviewers noted that the timing gave the drama added resonance with the city's live debate over universal suffrage.³^•⁷

Critics praised the writing and its depiction of political darkness. A review in Independent Media (獨立媒體) highlighted the first episode's dock strike storyline, in which the company concedes to workers not because of the labor action but because of a political deal made behind the scenes, and noted that the moving interview that inspires Yip Ching to run is revealed to be fabricated.³ The same review observed echoes of the American series House of Cards and the Japanese drama Change, but with substantial local elements, and noted that many plot points drew on recent Hong Kong political news, including the dock strike and the Henry Tang scandal.³ Reviewers also read the characters as allusions to real politicians, with Sung Man-shan seen as a reference to Jasper Tsang and his party to the DAB.³

The South China Morning Post reported that the series was winning the hearts of critics and young viewers, and described its scenarios, such as a chief executive killed on election night and a pro-Beijing party leader manipulating his way to victory, as familiar-sounding but existing only in the drama.⁸ A commentator writing after HKTV's first week compared the show to House of Cards.⁹

What set it apart. Commentators attributed the drama's reputation to three factors: the novelty of its subject in a market where one dominant station had never produced a political drama; the political moment, as Hong Kong residents followed the 2017 universal suffrage dispute closely; and dialogue that engaged current public sentiment, including lines about parties that use the word democracy as political capital.⁷ Unlike typical station dramas, it kept story ahead of romance, with reviewers noting the absence of the love plots that usually take over Hong Kong serials.⁷

Aftermath

Liu Kai-chi, the drama's male lead, returned to TVB in 2015 to appear in the legal drama Law Dis-Order (律政強人).¹

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › International serial drama and telenovelas › East Asian drama series › Hong Kong and Taiwanese serial drama

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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