Articles by ric-meyers
Sun Dec 30, 2007 — by Ric Meyers
Leftovers/Third Helpings, by Ric Meyers
DVD Xtra #30
Ah, holidays: a time to get together with family and friends … and watch all the DVDs you missed during the year. In my case, it’s with my teen and preteen nieces, so sooner or later they get control of the remote, and they call the shots. So it was in this cozy, tinsel-lined environment that we settled in to watch the special features on two of the second sequels that so galvanized marketing types a few weeks ago.
Mon Dec 17, 2007 — by Ric Meyers
Ultimate Complete Final Cut Collection (Volume 1), by Ric Meyers
DVD Xtra #29
If you happen to have three hundred and twenty-five smackaroos lying around, you can secure a DVD-lover’s dream. Because that’s about how much it’ll cost you to give yourself -- or others -- my top DVD picks for this season’s gift-giving.
Oh sure, you could simply go back amongst my previous columns and cherry pick my favorites, but what’s the fun of that? Wouldn’t it be, oh, so much better to lay on your chosen a mass media item that they’ll never forget? Imagine the joy and confusion on your preferred holiday morning when they receive not only a mass o’discs but a handy attaché case as well?
Yes, there are not one, but two special editions available just in time for ho-ho-ho-ing that come in a super nifty briefcase. The first, and most hefty, is the long-awaited The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: The Complete Collection, available only from Time Life Video (until the autumn of ’08). Although it comes with a hefty pricetag to match ($250) it includes 41 discs, so that’s really only about six bucks each.
Let’s get one thing straight: The Man from U.N.C.L.E. is to James Bond what The Monkees are to The Beatles. But plenty people like The Monkees, myself included, so that’s okay. When the 1960’s TV networks saw how well 007 was doing, they scrambled to get a piece of the action. MGM and NBC’s answer was to go to the source: James Bond’s creator, Ian Fleming, who took a minor mobster character from Goldfinger, and turned him into Napoleon Solo, the man from the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement. Sam Rolfe, a veteran writer/producer (Twilight Zone, Have Gun Will Travel) took the idea and ran with it.
Continue reading Ultimate Complete Final Cut Collection (Volume 1), by Ric Meyers ›
Sun Dec 9, 2007 — by Ric Meyers
Bourne Potter, by Ric Meyers
DVD Xtra #28
I have a special relationship with Jason Bourne. But, before I elaborate on my entirely self-manufactured rapport, let’s establish something at the outset. Bourne (and/or 24’s Jack Bauer, for that matter) literally wouldn’t exist without James Bond. You don’t think that all their initials being “J.B.” is a coincidence, do you? In fact, the late author Robert Ludlum created the Bourne book series with the brilliantly simple and engaging high concept of “what if 007 got amnesia?”
So, perhaps I should rephrase my declaration: I have a special “bond” with Jason Bourne. Dr. No was the first “adult” film I ever saw. The Bourne Identity is the most recent movie I saw with my brother at a cinema. I saw its sequel, The Bourne Supremacy, on Christmas Eve, the last day of my first tenure as Santa Claus at the Danbury (CT) Fair Mall. Sitting alone in a dark hotel room as the snow fell outside, watching director Paul Greengrass’ frenetic, yet somehow followable, chases on a hotel’s small TV screen – prior to heading out for a Christmas celebration with my family – created an evocative memory.
Now there’s The Bourne Ultimatum, out this coming Tuesday as a single, non-special edition DVD. I originally saw the film at its New York screening, but truly appreciated seeing it again on an HDTV, since the DVD remote control allowed me to slow down the frenzied editing so I could truly enjoy the jigsaw-designed chases and hand-to-hand battles (especially a frantic fight in a cramped apartment where Bourne proves that the book is mightier than the knife).
Although it remains one of the worthiest second sequels in film history, I still found the DVD lacking for two small reasons. First, despite truly fascinating featurettes on the action sequences – “Rooftop Pursuit,” “Planning the Punches,” “Driving School,” and “New York Chase” – character building “deleted scenes,” which were excised when Greengrass decided that he was making a “violent ballet” rather than a character-driven drama, and a doc called “Man on the Move: Jason Bourne,” none (or all) of them really don’t communicate how agonizing the film’s production actually was.
Sun Dec 2, 2007 — by Ric Meyers
Superbad Tiger Gate by Ric Meyers
DVD Xtra #27
The third of my favorite summer ‘007 films, Superbad, is arriving as a “2-Disc Unrated Extended Edition” this coming Tuesday, with too many special features for its own good. The best of the many extras are the ones which share the raunchy, soft-centered, spirit of the film itself. The ones I could’ve done without are the ones which feign outrage, anger, or disgust.
This “unrated” DVD edition allowed director Greg Mottola to return the trims he originally needed to satisfy the ratings board’s “R”. So the unrated Superbad is about four minutes longer, with some gestures and expletives returned to their original positions of glory. Naturally this film -- along with the growing oeuvre of producer/writer/director Judd Apatow’s Apatow Company (The 40 Year Old Virgin, Talladega Nights, Knocked Up, Walk Hard, etc.) -- has plenty to play with, since all his movies use their garrulous scripts as a jumping off point for their casts of expert improv-ers. That allows the filmmakers to cherry pick their favorite, funniest, takes, and leave the rest for the DVD extras.
So, in addition to some deleted and extended scenes, there’s also a legitimately funny gag reel, followed by what they’re calling a “Line-O-Rama” – which shows the various, different, improvised retorts the actors used on subsequent takes of the same scene. The first of admittedly interesting, although totally superfluous, features, is “Cop Car Confessions,” where the filmmakers put a variety of guest stars (from Saturday Night Live, The Office, Live Free or Die Hard, and the Upright Citizen’s Brigade, among others) in the back seat of a police cruiser driven by Superbad’s cop characters (co-writer/producer Seth Rogan and SNL’s Bill Hader) and let everybody riff.
Sun Nov 25, 2007 — by Ric Meyers
I Know Paprika Killed Me, by Ric Meyers
DVD Xtra #26
Prurient: “Having or intended to arouse an unwholesome interest in sexual matters.”
– Encarta World English Dictionary
That’s pretty much the only word anyone needs to explain I Know Who Killed Me starring Lindsay Lohan. The words “great,” “well-made,” “engrossing,” or even “entertaining” wouldn’t suffice. “Fascinating,” however, might fit, given this car wreck of a film perfectly represented the star’s car wreck of a life at the time of its production.
The term “car wreck” is carefully and purposely chosen, however, since watching Lohan’s human accident is much like slowing down for highway rubbernecking – thanks to the “celebrity” obsessed media (who’s far more interested in such things than the public they maintain they serve seems to be).
Much in the way you can chart any actor’s state of mind by the projects they choose, this unfocussed, confused, schizo, meandering, self-absorbed-slash-self-loathing-slash-self-aggrandizing-slash-self-mutilating effort can reveal anything you ever wanted to know about Lohan’s self-sabotaging lifestyle. Her stumbles are all the more sad since, of the troika of self-immolating “celebs” the media is micro-analyzing (Britney and Paris make up the rest of the 3 Stooges), Lohan is clearly the most promising and/or talented.
That talent is only vaguely on display in this slasher psycho-drama, leaving only the body the actress and media seem to have a love/hate relationship with. Within the pretentious, muddled, fairly dull film, she plays a college student, who, after barely surviving an abduction, torture, and mutilation by a serial killer, wakes up to maintain that she’s a self-destructive stripper. This allows the film to lurch hither and yon between both girls’ lives as somebody searches for the sicko, and director Chris Sivertson tries to out DePalma Brian DePalma when it comes to pointless “are they or aren’t they?” fantasies, dream sequences, and flashbacks.
The film not only represents Lohan’s life, but it also reflects the quality of the DVD’s “special” features. The “Alternate Opening” and “Blooper Reel,” especially, are as misleading as the film. The former is simply an extended sequence with several more shots of lights reflected in water, which doesn’t change the opening’s meaning in any way (alternate means “different from,” not “slightly longer”). The latter are just a few joyless instances of actors inadvertently confusing a character’s name or not knowing their lines (blooper means that said mistake be “humorous” or even “mildly embarrassing”).
So that leaves the “Alternate Ending” and what any real fan came for: the “Extended Strip Dance Scene.” The former is less than a minute, but long enough to give the connotation that all that preceded it was a fiction from within the mind of the college student. The latter is exactly what it says: a longer version of Lohan’s PG-13 stripper act (complete with R-rated support strippers around her). No question: she’s an attractive young woman who can languidly sashay around on high heels, act pouty/dirty, and even (in the sequence’s “climax”) open her legs. Whoop-dee-do.
Sun Nov 18, 2007 — by Ric Meyers
Live Free or Hairspray Hard by Ric Meyers
DVD Xtra #25
When I was attempting to explain the joys to be found in a good kung-fu film in my Martial Arts Movie books, I suggested that the exhilaration of a great wushu battle is only really comparable to the delights of a good movie musical. Both feature operatic emotions with balletic energy. I was reminded of that comparison when watching Hairspray, one of my three favorite summer o’07 films (Ratatouille and Superbad were the others). I admired it so much I even included it in my Inside Kung-Fu magazine media column (after all, the word “kung-fu” actually means “hard work”).
Now the DVD is out, and in a two-disc “Shimmy and Shake Edition,” too. After the too-few extras on the Ratatouille and Help! DVDs, it’s nice to find a release with the reams of special features about the kung-fu I so enjoy. There’s two audio commentaries – one with star Nikki Blonsky and director/choreographer Dan Shankman, and the other with two producers (Neil Meron and Craig Zadan). The latter is a little more informative but the former is a lot more fun.
Joining them on the first disc is a “Hairspray Extensions” featurette that lives up to its title – in that it shows six musical numbers as they were built, step by step, from rehearsal to filming. For Dancing With the Stars fans, there’s also a “Step by Step Dance Instructions” featurette that carefully and completely teaches you two of the film’s signature boogie-woogies. Finally, there’s a “Jump to a Song” feature which allows you to avoid all those pesky dialog scenes.
Then there’s the second disc, which balances extensive and exhaustive “making of” docs (on the music by Marc Shaiman, who also composed the South Park movie, dancing, design, costumes and cast) with historical context featurettes on the original non-musical John Waters film, the actual Baltimore TV dance show the film was inspired by, and the Broadway musical that was adapted from Waters film. But, as they say on TV, that’s not all. Rounding out the second disc are a bunch of deleted scenes, including an evocative song that was cut from the film (probably wisely – though effective, it clearly slowed the film’s pace).
Continue reading Live Free or Hairspray Hard by Ric Meyers ›
Sun Nov 11, 2007 — by Ric Meyers
Close Encounters of the Third Help!, by Ric Meyers
DVD Xtra #24
But first a digression. I went to see American Gangster the other day (engrossing, well done, I’d give it a solid 8 outta 10), which included previews for the upcoming movies Wanted (Mr. & Mrs. Smith meets The Matrix) and Jumper (X-Men ripoff), both of which were absolutely chock full of cgi making the characters do all sorts of incredible, impossible things amid carnage which would turn normal men’s biology into strawberry jam.
As I watched dispassionately the following motto came to mind that I wish were put on billboards and t-shirts and those inspirational posters that they sell in airline mail order catalogs, to be seen in every studio, producers’ and executives’ office:
“When nothing is impossible, nothing is interesting.”
Just wanted to get that down on record. Now we return to this week’s DVD Xtra column, already in progress.
I’m a happy camper. Creeping into stores on cat feet or ninja paws this week is a movie I’ve been waiting to appear on DVD for years. It was one of my absolute favorites as a kid (in fact, through only slightly some fault of my own, it wound up being the movie I’ve seen the most through the years), and, while its predecessor (A Hard Day’s Night) got a swell special edition two-disc set via Miramax in 2002, this one has languished in limbo until now -- and, to top it off, needed the Beatles’ record company to make it a DVD reality.
It is, of course, Help!, the music-filled, Goon Showish/Monty Python-esque film farce MTV has officially credited as being its inspiration. Now, thanks to the Beatles’ Apple company (not to be confused with the like-named company on whose computer I presently type these words) and Capitol Records, Help! has now got a lovely two-disc special edition of its own.
Continue reading Close Encounters of the Third Help!, by Ric Meyers ›
Sun Nov 4, 2007 — by Ric Meyers
Spider-Rat, by Ric Meyers
DVD Xtras #23
Last week I discussed how great, illuminating, extras can turn a flawed film into a DVD must-have. This week, the worm has turned. I now aim to show that all the extras in the world can’t make a misguided movie a keeper.
Spider-Man 3 was a mess. It was especially disappointing because director Sam Raimi showed such a sure helming hand on Spideys one and two. But, perhaps because he thought number three would be his last, he apparently decided to do everything else he ever wanted to do in one go. Whatever the cause, there were too many plots, villains, love interests, moods, approaches, and concepts.
It also suffered from a severe case of co-starilitis – the same affliction which struck Superman Returns’ Lois Lane and Rise of the Silver Surfer’s Sue Storm – in that the heroine’s desire for communication and closure trump any concern for the good of the many, be it city, world, or movie audience. The result is that scenes of relative insignificance go on for what seem like forever, while important junctures are dismissed within seconds (the teaming of Sandman and Venom) or just ignored (the new Goblin’s blackmail of Mary Jane).
What also happens in a film as overstuffed, and therefore unavoidably unfocused, as this one is that the filmmakers develop tunnelvision – concentrating on the “cool” parts (like the multi-million dollar cgi Sandman intro) and ignoring what obviously doesn’t work or come together. Thus we have Spider-Man 3: Two Disc Special Edition, which has reams and reams of extras, signifying essentially nothing.
Normally such stuff as featurettes, documentaries, and audio commentaries are completed during post-production – that is, in the time between the shooting wraps and the finished film premieres -- so no talking head yet knows how the film actually fared in the big bad world. So it can be both entertaining and edifying to hear just how misguided the producers, actors, and director were (the techs are mostly invulnerable to these embarrassments, because their work is invariably exceptional and it’s not their fault that the core staff bit off more than they could eschew).
Sun Oct 28, 2007 — by Ric Meyers
The Super Powers Myth, by Ric Meyers
DVD Xtra #22
The last time I’ve spoke to Jackie Chan he said to me: “I’ve done everything three times” – meaning that he’s finding less and less ways, and reasons, to top himself. Unfortunately that also results in schizo, ultimately unsatisfying, films, further hampered by his unwillingness to mature his screen persona. Even so, he keeps looking for ways to challenge himself and keep busy, despite the repetition of his movie and charity work.
But Jackie’s last great film was Legend of Drunken Master (HK: Drunken Master 2) in 1994. He’s made two dozen movies since then – all which included some exceptional sequences, but none which held together anywhere close to his classics of the mid-1980s. Clearly his best films are the ones which showcase his kung-fu, but as he grows older, he keeps trying to avoid that by dwelling on vehicular stunts or repeated attempts to balance his physicality with cgi.
Even so, Sony Entertainment has taken on the task of selling his most recent productions to the American DVD market. Their latest release, and one of Chan’s most creatively bold conceptions, is The Myth, hitting stores on October 30th. It’s also one of the most expensive films in Hong Kong history, and is, if nothing else, a visually splendid treat. Sadly, the film’s central flaw is showcased by Jackie’s admonition that he wasn’t brave enough to make what his director/co-writer Stanley Tong originally wanted: an entire film about a Qin Dynasty general.
Sun Oct 21, 2007 — by Ric Meyers
Acting Ric-less
The reign in Spain
DVD Xtra columnist Ric Meyers is in Europe, enjoying the hell out of the environs. He'll be back here next week, same Bat-time, same Bat-station.
Sun Oct 14, 2007 — by Ric Meyers
Hostel II Hostel, by Ric Meyers
DVD Xtra #21
As author of For One Week Only: The World of Exploitation Films (as featured in People magazine and the National Enquirer [when the National Enquirer was the National Enquirer]) and the original head writer for Fangoria magazine, don’t get me wrong: I love horror films. Of course what I’m dealing with in this installment are not horror films, no matter how often the filmmakers and actors refer to them as such. Horror is fear of the unknown. These are terror flix, involving the fear of the known.
But I dabble in semantics, which is only fitting because semantics are crawling all over the ample special features on the DVDs for the two-disc Hostel: Director’s Cut, and the single disc Hostel Part II: Unrated Director’s Cut – both of which are dragging their tortured carcasses into stores October 23rd.
First things first. If you loved Hostel, the overkill (all puns intended) of the Director’s Cut edition will leave you writhing in bloody delight. To give you an idea just how much you need to love it, there are four, count ‘em, four, audio commentaries – every single one with director/producer/writer Eli Roth, each supplemented with different friends; from “Presenter” Quentin Tarantino to aintitcoolnews.com honcho Harry Knowles. Yes, they expect you to watch the movie four times as Roth brings in producers, executive producers, and others to tell you what they did and how much they liked it.
Tue Oct 9, 2007 — by Ric Meyers
RIC MEYERS: Fantastic Up Creature – Rise of the Surf’s Comforts
DVD Xtra #20
There were rumors to the effect that the first Fox Fantastic Four movie was the victim of studio interference that somehow moved a mid-film confrontation to the climax. But given its success, FF2 would be the full, unadulterated vision of director Tim Story. Right?
Well, with the “Power Cosmic 2-Disc Edition” DVD release of Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, it appears those rumors were merely wishful thinking. If you liked #1, you’ll probably be fine with #2, but if, like me, you felt #1 was lacking, you, like me, may find #2 essentially insupportable in terms of comedy, drama, action, and/or romance.
On the one hand, Sue Storm -- a.k.a. Invisible Girl a.k.a. Jessica Alba -- is given a nice wardrobe, especially her pre-wedding robe. On the other hand, she’s given Cleopatra’s make-up and has gotten the same disease as Lois Lane in Superman Returns and Mary Jane Watson in Spider-Man 3 – that is, the safety of the world is nothing compared with her bee-otchy, selfish, superficial ego needs.
But what of the special features, which, nominally, this column’s about? If you’ll remember last time, the first film’s DVD was saved by some above average history of comics and the graphic FF. This time just about the only thing that buoys the effort is the “Sentinel of the Spaceways: Comic Book Origins of the Silver Surfer Documentary.” There’s also some interest inspired by the “Character Design with Spectral Motion Featurette,” but the rest of the many, many extras are self-congratulatory ego-boo fests for a job mediocrely done.
Continue reading RIC MEYERS: Fantastic Up Creature – Rise of the Surf’s Comforts ›
Sun Sep 30, 2007 — by Ric Meyers
RIC MEYERS: Bram Stoker’s Ninja
DVD Xtra #19
I’m sure you’ve noticed that the holidays are getting earlier every year. As an ex-mall Santa, I know that I had to report earlier and earlier every season, to the point I was in my big red throne practically the day after Halloween.
And speaking of Halloween, Rob Zombie’s needless remake of John Carpenter’s movie of that name showed up in theaters more than a month before the holiday arrived this year. So is it any wonder that it’s not even close to all hallow’s eve and the horror DVDs are already beginning to haunt shelves?
Thankfully, one of my favorites so far is the two-disc Collector’s Edition of Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula – a very cool package for the very theatrical 1992 movie. One of the reasons so many people liked it (and so many other people didn’t) is encapsulated by one of the very first things the famed director says in the first of four new behind-the-scenes docs. It also stands as one of cinema’s great Freudian slips.
“The whole question of ego…I mean, evil…,” Coppola says, trying to explain the attraction of the much-adapted, much filmed bloodsucker. That sets the stage for the whole ego-driven enterprise, which can be really enjoyed in retrospect once you see how many ideas and creativity they bathed it in. Following the half-hour “making of,” there’s fun ‘n’ interesting docs on Eiko Ishioka’s bold costumes, Roman Coppola’s imaginative special effects, and the entire production’s striking visual approach. You ever notice that the best Dracula movies have the strongest Van Helsings (my favorite’s being Hammer’s Peter Cushing and the BBC’s Frank Finlay)?
But I digress. Anyway, the real revelation for me were the more than half-hour of extended and deleted scenes, which I think improved the film mightily, especially the alternate opening, closing, and excised travails of the abundantly criticized Keanu Reeves. Although his limited acting is the film’s soft core – in a great cast which included Gary Oldman, Anthony Hopkins, Cary Elwes, Winona Ryder, Bill Campbell, Richard E. Grant, Tom Waits, and Sadie Frost – his character’s struggles add an important weight to the tale.
The other major criticism at the time of the film’s release was that Bram Stoker’s Dracula clearly wasn’t, as Coppola and company folded in all sorts of other influences, not to mention his historical inspiration, Vlad the Impaler. Virtually every member of the cast and crew tries to rationalize the title, while, within minutes, admitting how many other sources they were cribbing from.
Finally, Coppola himself puts it to rest with a neat variation on the audio commentary the DVD calls: “Watch Bram Stoker’s Dracula with Francis Coppola.” He simply states that he liked putting the original author’s name above the title, no matter what he wound up doing with the script. That’s part of his filmed intro, which leads seamlessly into his entertaining and informative commentary that weaves Hollywood history, world history, and his encyclopedic knowledge of filmmaking.
Sun Sep 23, 2007 — by Ric Meyers
RIC MEYERS: Seven Proof
DVD Xtra #18
Here’s the story – apocryphal, unsubstantiated, and questionable as it is.
Quentin Tarantino announces he’s going to make the ultimate exploitation flick – a quintessential slasher movie (i.e., with a gruesome death every seven minutes), only with cars instead of knives. Not only that, but he’s going to return Kurt Russell to the pantheon of screen badasses in the process.
However, somewhere along the way, someone supposedly turned down the vaunted director/writer’s advances with a statement along the lines of: “No way. I can see by your movies that you have no sensitivity towards, nor understand, women.”
Tarantino’s rumored reaction is the new, “improved” vision of his loving exploitation “homage” – Death Proof, which was his anchor of Grindhouse – the anthology film buoyed by Robert Rodriquez’s far more spirited contribution, Planet of Terror. But the woeful box office receipts necessitated a rethink, so only Death Proof came out this week as an “Extended and Unrated” DVD Special Edition.
Having been shocked and amazed by the original butt-numbing theatrical version, I approached this DVD with extreme caution – hoping that I would be pleasantly surprised, but fairly certain that my worst fears would be realized. For you see, Death Proof was, and, it turns out, still is, two films in one. A half hour kick-ass revenge thriller, and, in its original theatrical form, a one hour off-Broadway play which could’ve been called Four Chicks Sitting ‘Round Yakkin’ ‘Bout Nothin’.
Now, you’ll be relieved to note, the DVD is still two films in one – a half hour kick-ass revenge thriller, an integral, ten minute lap dance sequence inexplicably omitted from the original film, and, an off-Broadway play called Four Chicks Sitting ‘Round Yakkin’ ‘Bout Nothin’ for a Full 80 Minutes!
Yes, rather than be true to his pre-release publicity, Tarantino has added not more slasher car scenes, not more badass Russell sequences, but more talking … about nothing … that has no relation to the stated purposes of a film called Grindhouse other than showing the rumored rejector that boy, Tarantino sure understands and appreciates women in spades!
As author of the book For One Week Only: The World of Exploitation Films, I was a bit, shall we say, miffed by the writer/director’s cavalier treatment of the genre, although I certainly appreciated his half-hour of valid homage, despite the labored way he set up the situations. It was all the more annoying since he had the makings of a sweet stuntman vs. stuntman thriller in there, but it, like almost anything else legitimately entertaining, was swept away in his desire to show anyone who’d deny him that he adores every word he can put in any woman’s mouth.
Sun Sep 16, 2007 — by Ric Meyers
RIC MEYERS: Triad Tekkonkinkreet
DVD Xtra #17
“Sh*t runs d*wnhill.” Those words of wisdom/warning were first spoken to me back in the mid-1980s, at lunch on the first day I started consulting for CBS-TV in California. The statement came back to me several times while watching this week’s offerings (as well as many, many times over the decades as I watched businesses run by productive people flourish, and companies run by “flawed” folk perish).
In order of release, there’s Triad Election, which arrived in stores last Tuesday. It’s directed and co-produced by Johnnie To, today’s greatest Hong Kong filmmaker, whose eclectic, exceptional ability at a variety of genres has given the international film community some of the greatest movies of the last two decades, including Heroic Trio (superheroes), Lifeline (firefighters), Running Out of Time (cops ‘n’ robbers), The Mission (bodyguards), Fulltime Killer (assassins), Love on a Diet (romantic comedy), Running on Karma (existential mystery), Breaking News (media wars) and Throwdown (judo comedy/drama).
The last few years he’s joined the ranks of Coppola, Scorcese, and Chase (sounds like a law firm, doesn’t it?) by filling cinemas with multiple award-winning Chinese gangster sagas. Election (2005) played like a Hong Kong big-screen version of The Sopranos minus the final scene black-out. Election 2: Harmony is a Virtue (2006) was something else again. To paraphrase To (sic) from “The Making Of” doc: Election was the set-up. Election 2 is the pay-off.
So Tartan Asia Extreme Video made a tough decision. Many people who liked Election might see Election 2. But everybody who loved Election 2 would definitely go back to check out Election. So rather than release the two movies in order, they decided to retitle Election 2 “Triad Election,” release it first, and then label Election its “prequel.”* For what it’s worth, I, personally, think they made the right call … although I might have gone a step or two forward in clarifying the issue.
The movie is great – not just for its stylish violence, psychological insight, and filmmaking prowess, but because of the aforementioned pay-off, which seems to be: China’s impersonal desire for order might be more cruel than Triad carnage. This was a bold, brave statement for To to (sic) make, but, as he also says during “The Making Of” featurette, he wanted to acknowledge the dismissive changes made since China’s takeover of Hong Kong’s lease. The city was like a seduced beauty that the government seemed to forget about as soon as its seduction was complete. All signs point to Shanghai now becoming the favored mistress, with Hong Kong the forgotten wife.
