Fallen Angels (1998)

I have seen several of the directors other films and I must admit I find them beyond boring. This film stands out as his almost singular watchable movie as it contains action and the best shots in a film set in the real world-aka-not SF- I have ever seen. The images are truly excellent, gritty, realistic, and beautiful in a strange kind of way. The story leaves much to be desired in terms of the bombastic acting style in many places, real hyper stuff that will grate on the nerves, like a lousy martial arts movie made on a budget of 20 bucks. I think this film is worth seeing just for the visuals-you know what they say- a picture is worth a thousand words, well, in this case, I would say a picture is worth a million words. I have enjoyed many other films that are Asian Cinema, I just think the directors other films are plain bad.

I've got a strange affinity with Wong Kar-wai's movies, and they seem to somehow present themselves in reverse order to me, where often I find myself visiting his earlier works backwards. Like watching 2046 first before In the Mood for Love, or right now, watching Fallen Angels before Chungking Express, where I have both movies on DVDs sitting on the shelves, but decide to pick Angels before Chungking, knowing jolly well that this one came after, and was like the film that expanded itself so much that it had to break away and stand alone on its own two feet.Deciding between Chungking Express and Fallen Angels also boiled down to pure laziness on my part to want to pop a Region Free DVD into my default player, hence the latter. And I can't help but to chuckle at how Leon Lai's killer character Wong Chi Ming paralleled this laziness of mine, in wanting things on a sliver platter, of getting the preparation work all set out for him, and he just enters the scene with his swagger as the executioner. And the woman behind him acting as his agent and cleaning lady, is played by Michelle Reis.As his agent, she gets the contracts, does the legwork to draw up plans, and with time as she hangs out at his apartment to clean it up, she nurses an aching heart, knowing that perhaps in their profession, to fall in love would spell doom. And it doesn't take one too long to identify with such longing, of being so near yet so far, and she exorcises her unrequited passion by either visiting the places he visits just to hang on to his lingering presence long after he's gone, or by pleasuring herself on his bed. Kinda kinky, don't you think?While Chungking Express dealt with the relationship issues that two cops had to experience (from my fuzzy knowledge of it anyway), Fallen Angels seemed to be its evil twin, again dealing with relations of the heart, but now from the viewpoints centered on two criminals, one in Lai's character, and here the other in Takeshi Kaneshiro (who was also in Chungking Express) with his mute He Zhiwu, who breaks into shops and plays plenty of make belief. In his story arc, his unrequited love stems from his chance encounter with Charlie Young's Charlie, who too suffers a broken heart, but goes over the bend. In fact, I would have thought that Eating Air took a huge leaf out of certain aspects of their courtship, especially with the lovers on a bike careening through Hong Kong's underground highways. And Charlie Young I thought did substantially more than the flower vase roles she's more famous for perfecting.While Zhiwu can't speak, it is perhaps this arc that has a lot to say about love in classic WKW pathos. We listen in to the thoughts of Zhiwu as he narrates them in Mandarin voiceovers, such as topics of relationships having their expiration date, and the keeping of someone's memory alive. With Chi-Ming, he consciously rejects someone who takes an extreme liking of him, to go for a random, temporary lover in the form of Karen Mok's Blondie, who again might be another throwback to a similar character back in Chungking Express. But being cautionary here, is yet again the tale of not incurring the wrath of the wrong woman, though I chose to interpret the events in his story thereafter as being one of a set up, or a fix, versus just being a case of coincidental bad luck.And you cannot get away with not talking about frequent WKW collaborator Christopher Doyle's cinematography in this film, with its obtuse angles like a fish eye twitching all around with plenty of kinetic energy, boasting of shots within shots with its use of captured mirror images. Time lapse also gets used quite frequently, giving it a sense of broad fast forwarding motion, with the devil in the details treated quite casually. With a variation of Massive Attack's Karma Coma by Roel Garcia featured in an eclectic soundtrack, it already bowled me over with its collection of songs featured, whereLove stories that don't go anywhere except to serve as personal reminders, familiar pathos as presented by WKW, a star studded cast and excellent visuals and music, easily make this film one of my firm favourites. I suppose I shouldn't waste too much time before embarking on my journey onboard the more illustrious Chungking Express.

Wong Kar-Wei is an acclaimed film director, with many incredible films to his credit, such as "Chungking Express", "In The Mood For Love" and "2046", amongst others. This story is mainly about Ming. a hired killer who tires of the game. This stylish film is set at night, and its sinister overtones are effective. Hong Kong has never looked this forbidding. That being said, to me, its not one of Kar-Wei's essential works. You are not supposed to like Ming, but you are also supposed to care about him as the main character, and I don't. By the end, I grew kind of tired with the style of the film, possibly too much of a good thing. By all means see it, but just know that there are veritable classics Mr. War-Kei has done. While good, the film doesn't reach that platitude.

Is a shame that here in Mexico city the cinemas are full of American films, i love a lot of American films but i prefer a film like Fallen Angels or Chungking express than films like The day after tomorrow or Rocky Balboa. Here is very difficult to find a film of Hong Kong in the cinemas and also is a little difficult to find it on a DVD store.But i have the luck to buy Fallen Angels and i consider myself a very lucky person because i have the chance to watch a film like this.Fallen Angels is perfect.........for my is the best of Wong Kar Wai (i haven't see all his films but by now i think that this is the best).Fallen Angels is the story of a couple: a hit-man and his girlfriend, the other character is a mute and a girl that he meets in a store and finally there's another character that is a young lady that spend some time with the hit-man.This film is about love and also about relationships.There are two stories: the one of the hit-man, that show to us that he only see his girlfriend for work and also show to us the lonely life of the two....the hit-man meets this young lady and spend some time with her but nothing serious.Finally the hit-man gets killed.The other is about the best character of the film and maybe the best character in a Wong Kar Wai film : a young mute that in the night have a lot of different jobs like sells ice cream or a work as a barber but the problem is that this aren't his business so he enter like a criminal to this places. Later he meets a girl that always is fighting with her boyfriend and the mute fells in love. He has very good times with the girl, goes to a soccer match and also his hair has become blonde because of the love. Finally the girl never come to the other soccer match because she never love him.Also show to us his relationship with his dad, and how he spend most of the time recording to is dad.......Great character and awesome played by Takeshi Kaneshiro (Chungking Express).Finally his dad die and he spend a lot of time watching the tape of his dad........finally he meets the hit-man's girlfriend and he starts to hanging around with her.Well this is a great story but i love a lot all the characters and for me that is the best part of the film.If you want to see one of the greatest love stories and one of the best films ever you must see Fallen Angels...another masterpiece of Wong Kar Wai.Also the best scene in the film is when the mute is watching the tape and remembering his father and also when he meets a boy in the barbershop and later he meets the same boy with his family in the ice cream truck.FALLEN ANGELS 10/10