Customer Reviews

Fallen Angels (Special Edition)

5 star:		(48)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

"We all need a partner, when will I find mine ?" seems to be the theme running through all of Wong Kar-Wai's films, as well as his other usual ingredients: Mind-bending speed, innovative camera work (by Christopher Doyle), a great soundtrack, and a gorgeous cast. He also manages to show the murky side of society while never losing touch with its humanity. We see that even a cold-blooded hit man can have a side that's endearing.

Takeshi Kaneshiro as the mute is the shining star of this film. He's brilliant and lovable. The "May 30th 1995, I fell in love" scene is one I adore. In slow motion black and white, the background moves at different speeds, fades in and out...it's a piece of pure magical art, a painting come to life.

Like "Chungking Express", it slows down during the second half, and to me, this is when it gets even better. There is so much to see in this film, I know I'll be viewing it many more times, and appreciating its inventiveness...and through the darkness, its sweet soul.

Wong Kar-Wai has become my favorite director. He's as talented as Kurasawa, Fellini, Wells, Antonioni, Bergman or Altman. My favorite of his films, maybe because it is the last one I (re)viewed is "Fallen Angels". Wong Kar-Wai has a way of expressing longing that is neither cloying nor sentimental. His films are touching in a deeply profound manner. "Fallen Angels" is the double story of a hitman and his partner and a mute man with a unique business sense. Hilarious and over the top violent at the same time, Wong Kar-Wai pulls this off without a single misstep.
Visually stunning, this film looks like no other, save perhaps "Chungking Express" (which I plan to re-watch this afternoon). It's "Chungking Express" at night. Planned originally as a third episode of "Chungking Express" this film stands alone as a masterpiece of Kar-Wai's art. There are minor illusions to "Chungking Express" which allow the viewer to feel a continuity of spirit and theme. For instance, the mute midnight shop clerk played by Takeshi Kaneshiro mentions in voice-over that he lost his ability to speak after eating a tin of expired pineapple. This will resonate with viewers who have seen "Chungking Express" and bring to mind the character he played in that film. These are blood brothers. Variations of the same love-sick, lonely man.
Kar-Wai's films remind me of Altman in the 70's. You watch his films and wonder why all other directors are so unimaginative and pedestrian. Why does he seem to be the only director doing anything new and unique while even the most celebrated directors just recycle the same old [stuff] you've seen a hundred times before? He's an original. The look, the emotional feel and the grammar of his films belongs to no one else.
Any synopsis of his storyline can only diminish their scope and complexity, so I won't even try. It is enough to know his film resonate for days after viewing. They stick in your mind like something experienced first hand. They are fizzy, giddy, forlorn and hopeful. The final scene of "Fallen Angels" brings tears to my eyes everytime I see it, even though I know what is coming. It is a testament to the complexity and honesty of his vision that an emotional response is assured in the viewer. His characters are so honestly portrayed you wish you knew them in life. You want to call them on the phone and meet for a drink in a smokey, neon lit bar found only in a Wong Kar-Wai film. You end up feeling very protective of these characters, as you would with people you know and cannot quite reach. Cannot quite assure they are alright and worth loving. Cannot assure they deserve happiness.

Three individuals whose lives intersect and parallel form the core of this stunningly photographed, moody and intense cinematic masterpiece. A hitman who is getting tired of the messiness of his job; his partner, who plans everything out for him in meticulous detail but would really like to cross the line with him between business and pleasure; a mute, who breaks into other people's businesses at night and forces unwitting passersby to purchase his wares. They rarely ever meet, but they share the same spaces, and sleep the same hours. The film alternates between: the intensely cool portrayal of a hitman with all the style of a Hollywood badboy, and all of the mellow of a Spaghetti Western antihero -- the femme fatale lonely longing that simmers with an undercurrent of anger of his partner -- and the slapstick comic silliness of the mute. The faded neon lights, the eclectic and moody music, the kinetic and flowing camera -- this is unlike anything you've seen unless you've seen a Wong Kar-Wai film and if you have you know that he doesn't ever quite repeat himself. This film shares a good deal with the atmosphere of Chungking Express, but is darker and more moody, and in many ways more intense and exciting -- I love both films but this one has an edginess that you don't find in the other -- you might say that Chungking is the day film and this is the night. One connection between the films is that the mute in this film is played by the same actor as the pineapple-eating policeman in Chungking Express. Their characters share the same name, He Xiwu, and this one lost his voice as a result of eating bad pineapple from an expired can -- but they are not exactly the same as this one never was a policeman and allegedly lost his voice at age 5. A beautiful and exciting film -- definitely one to see for lovers of the art of film.

Fallen Angels is a truly special film, but it's not for everyone. It's gritty in a stylish way, shot mostly handheld with available light. But it's not gritty in the way most American pictures are; shaky cameras with perfect lighting and snappy editing. The takes are long, and the film is often grainy.

Wong Kar-Wai explores the transitory nature of life here. It's a little confusing, and the characters are beyond weird, but they really do have heart. The frantic pace and confusion give way to brief, precious moments of poignancy. The bleakness and impermanence of the rest of the film makes these moments feel even more meaningful.

If this sounds like your style, the movie can be very rewarding. But it's definitely not everyone's style. I find Chungking Express is generally a more palatable Wong Kar-Wai picture for viewers with more mainstream tastes.

I am not sure whether an average movie viewer would like this film. But, if you are into art, foreign, independent films, or if you are a film student, this is definitely something you cannot miss. Fallen Angel's strength lies in the character development. It follows four main characters, all unique in their personalities and manners. Like, other Wong Kar-Wai's (director) film, these characters' lives are intertwined eventhough they lead their own paths. Outstanding performances come not only from the main characters but from supporting characters as well--look for amazing performances from the father, and the man who was forced to eat ice-cream.

Cinematography, film direction as well as the music soundtrack also shine. Wong Kar-Wai pays attention to details, imagery and symbolism. It's shot in a very artistic way--a sort of Hong Kong, nouveau graphic art style combined with somewhat weird soundtrack. This is one of the best movies I've seen in terms of film making.

Fallen Angels could have been so named due to its dropped origin as part of director Wong Kar Wai's previous film Chunking Express, emerging afterwards as a follow up. To hear the critics tell it, `Express' is his masterpiece, regularly making the `best movies ever made' lists along side such exalted company as your Citizens Kane's and Casablanca's. But for me Fallen Angels is, to date, the daddy of the Wong Kar Wai canon.

Fallen Angel tells of a not quite burnt-out hit man, Leon, who begins to tire of the whole `gun for hire' malarkey and decides to quit on account of his burgeoning feelings for the female operative who he has never met, but who plans his jobs for him. The female operative, Michelle, also emotes for our existential assassin but somehow they both realise that if they ever did come face to face the fantasy would evaporate. The unrequited love thing is Kar Wai's forte but here it is more a case of "As long as you don't look at it, it won't disappear." So their love continues on the basis of ensuring that it never really exists. Anxious to avoid an inevitable unprofessional encounter, our navel gazing killer goes off on an adventure into the Kowloon night where he crosses paths with a series of likable reprobates before embarking on that fatal "one last job."

This takes us not so neatly into a `mad as a hatter' subplot about a petty criminal who was rendered mute as a boy by a can of `out of date' pineapples. He goes out at night and gets up to a range of activities such as massaging a dead pig and kidnapping a family and forcing them to eat ice cream. He too falls in love, with a girl who believes she has been beaten to the altar by someone called Blondie. He helps her go in search of the usurper of her affections resulting in a hilarious beating up of a blow up doll!

Cinematographer and Kar Wai regular Christopher Doyle engages a warped and gaudy neon look throughout; something of a trade mark in Kar Wai films. This is the world from inside a Wurlitzer juke box - or, at least, through the eyes of a tranquilised goldfish and this, incidentally, is not a complaint. The other thing I like about this film is that it walks the line between the art house `heart warmers' of the best of European cinema and the `Glock Opera' pyrotechnics of John Woo and Ringo Lam.
Genre clash - it's the future.

Is Wong Kar-Wai the world's most exciting film-maker? Fallen Angels, his fifth feature and the follow-up to Chungking Express, constitutes strong evidence in his favor. With enough manic energy to fuel ten ordinary films, Wong has created a sublime, freewheeling, melancholy action-romance which switches and subverts genres in the blink of an eye. One second it's an all-guns-blazing John Woo homage, the nexts it's a goofball slapstick, the next it's a hymn to lost or hoped for love.

Plotwise the film is just as unsettled, with numerous plots and characters careening through the neon-blurred Hong Kong night. Singer Leon Lai is Killer, a gun-for-hire who has an unconsummatable crush on Agent, the partner he has never met (played by former Miss HK Michelle Reis). In the same orbit circulates ex-con Ho (Chungking's Takeshi Kanashiro), a mute who earns his living by breaking into places of business by night and forcing his services upon unwitting 'customers'. Wong sets these characters up and then cuts them loose, allowing them to be propelled through the film by the kineticism of their own thoughts, schemes and dreams.

Cinematographer Chris Doyle and editor/production designer William Chang help Wong create a film that looks, feels and moves like no other; quite literally reconfiguring cinematic time and space with spastic yet graceful narrative structure, rule-breaking, arrhythmic editing, forced perspectives and smeared action scenes. It's a dizzying, disorienting experience, shot almost entirely hand-held with a wide-angle lens and often in extreme close-up. Strip away the flash, however, and Wong's vision remains compelling; it's easy to relate to his dreamers, loners and misfits, wandering rainy streets and haunting dark bars looking for people with which they can connect and places where they can belong. Funny, stylish, sensual and ultimately very moving, Fallen Angels leaves you in no doubt that, yes, Wong Kar-Wai is the world's most exciting film-maker.

i have to admit that my concept/experience/knowledge about movies is so so little that i wouldn't dare to write a review on films like Fallen Angels. however, what's important is my feeling towards this film. whether one sees this contention as subjective or not (or even objective) is what i don't care at all.

as always, Wong Kar-Wai's film is a kind of "love it" or "hate it" type of movie. and because of the commercial implications by using Hong Kong best actors/actress and pop idols in all his movies, 'art' film critics might cynically condemn his non-independent filmmaking spirit while the mainstream would see Wong's film as 'crap' due to his use of motion, colour, plots, narratives, etc.

but for me, it is the naturalness of his characters' interaction/exchange that i really love. though, Fallen Angels is more constructed/composed in terms of continuity and narration compared to Chungking Express, Fallen Angels' visual imagery is absolutely fabulous if one is really into some kind of abstract painting by Mark Rothko or Jason Pollock; or, in terms of music, if one is into drones and abstract atmospheric music, one will find Fallen Angels lovely forever. well, what's central to Wong's films is the investigation of human relationship.

if anyone could feel or sense the isolation of living in a cosmopolitan society (i mean isolation is not a new concept), let me elaborate a bit. if one has a habit or like to talks to oneself in an imaginary public sector, then one will find Fallen Angels so heartbreaking due to its prominent use of voice-over. its use of voice-over view point reveal and investigate the human psyche and isolation which will deeply resonate any individuals' feeling of hope and lost if being an individual means isolation.

whether Wong's film is a critique of a post-colonial space is out of my interest, what's vital to me is that Fallen Angels gives me a sense of joy, resonance, isolation, sadness, happiness, reflection, narcissism and cosmopolitan myth all at the same time. because of this, what's great about Fallen Angels, unlike other 'art' films or 'good' commercial movies, is that it invokes/stimulates our personal meditation on life, particularly our everyday life. and this meditation is done through a manner in which we are just like walking on the street and 'accidentally' find ourselves mucking around with and sharing our private stories with the not so 'strange' strangers...

As the obliquely related sequel to Chungking Express, this film is not quite as good as its predecessor, but entertaining nonetheless, although I am basing my review on the Chinese-language version of the film. A dubbed version would destroy the seriousness of the film entirely. Takeshi Kaneshiro plays a very strange, yet enchanting, mute person. He harasses people into letting him sell them ice cream, he rides a dead pig, he falls in love with a woman who ultimately uses him, and he follows his father around with a camcorder. Leon Lai plays a hitman and Michelle Reis is his employer/obsessor. Confused yet? This film goes in so many directions, yet all the characters eventually cross paths. There are various areas of conflict in the movie and yet the director, Wong Kar Wai, is able to clear up enough of the mess to bring the viewer a beautifully optimistic ending. It's the kind of ending that makes you sit and reflect for a moment before saying "Wow." I recommend this film for those that want a rewarding change of pace.

This movie is a unique treat. It is so different from what we generally get from mainstream movies nowadays. Sure, there is action and a cast of famous HK actors who represent the image of the times perfectly and this helps set the tone but the director makes this movie about people. It's achingly touching, laugh out loud funny, sad and hopeful at the same time.
I loved that this movie doesn't underestimate it's audience. It doesn't S P E L L everything out like so many movies (no wonder so few people use thier imaginations these days!). IMO because of this, this movie ends up meaning something to so many more people because everyone can interpret what it means to them personally. Wong Kar Wai (director) is confident in what he is doing and never loses focus on what this movie is about. Everything from the music to the locations punctuates exactly the point he is trying to make, the atmosphere totally absorbed me. It is so well done that I felt I could understand what these people were feeling even when I am nothing like them. He captures thier emotions so perfectly, IMO this is what "Lost in translation" should have been like. If you're looking for something meaningful yet fun to watch then this is for you.