Election focuses on a gritty, realistic story about organized crime, prioritizing character motivations, power dynamics, and tension over modern identity politics. The cast and roles feel authentic and true to the film's Hong Kong setting, with no noticeable shoehorning of characters based on contemporary woke checklists. Narrative integrity is well preserved.

The film portrays traditional values such as loyalty, hierarchy, and masculinity central to triad culture. Religion, family ties, and honor are explored with nuance rather than derision. While not glorifying all aspects, it doesn’t lampoon or revise tradition with a modern ideological lens, but rather investigates it with a critical, grounded approach.

Election offers a pluralistic, conflicted landscape. Various worldviews, traditional, pragmatic, and cynical, are expressed by its characters, without everyone parroting a single set of 'modern' values. There is no overt demonization or caricature of more traditional or dissenting views, maintaining room for debate within the story.