Election (2005)

Simon Yam's Lok presents calm reasonableness while Tony Leung Ka-fai's Big D makes ambition much harder to disguise. Their rivalry for leadership of a triad society turns manners, tradition and the appearance of legitimacy into tools of coercion. Election is particularly rewarding if you want villainy distributed through an organisation rather than concentrated in one colourful tyrant. Johnnie To makes the competition unnerving by showing how smoothly ordinary bargaining can admit brutality.