Fallen Angels

Visually stunning, with so many effects and shots - the neon lights, reflections, colors, wide angle lens, low frame rate, handheld camera, titled angles - and they all work without seeming like gimmicks, giving the film great style. I just wish the story and feelings had been as profound as the cinematography.

Some movies are tableaux observed from a fixed distance, a remnant of old theatrical ways they don't whisper so we will get up close and listen they shout out at us in our seat, their motions stopping at the edge of that figurative stage created by the camera. A Wong Kar Wai movie throws itself at you, or it stays the distance and invites you to climb the stage and take intimate looks, and none does it better from what I've seen so far than Fallen Angels. This is a movie that sends us hurling at top speed through the electric night of Hong Kong, blurred neon colors bleeding by the camera in splashes of light and shape, then it holes itself up in cheap fleabag rooms or dingy bathrooms to stare itself at the mirror or lie in bed exhausted and inert. This is stylish and cool but Wong Kar Wai is so terrific he goes the extra mile, he makes his stylish awfully poignant. And I like how he can make his films funny without breaking up the tone, without the movie making it seem like it's stopping in its tracks to relieve tension, it's all part of the journey.

As with previous films, Fallen Angels tells us a vibrant expressionist story of lonely souls aching for connection, now when the normal folks go to bed the movie's characters crawl out of their holes to call out in the dead of night to anyone who might listen, even those who won't, each character only a moment's stop in another's journey through life. It is frantic, in a constant flux and motion and search for something, as though driven by instinctive Bedouin locomotion. The movie is motioning towards a sense of destination, a warm place those characters can call home and finally rest in, but it starts and finishes before that destination can be reached, hanging in the existential middle like the blurry snapshot of something that moves. The snapshot here is not simply the memento of something come and gone, it's something to be celebrated for its own momentary fleeting beauty. They might go on to reach home or not, but a girl is riding on a motorbike with a man she doesn't know, she knows the road is not that long and that she'll be getting off soon but at that moment she feels good. Then the movie comes out of a tunnel into the break of dawn, and it would be years (maybe not until Mann's Collateral) before we'd get another movie that takes us on a ride like this through the electric night.

Movie is beautifully shot, cinematography is great, the atmosphere and colors, slow motion shots and visual effects are all great. Some parts are extremely boring but it fits the vibe of loneliness and sad lives the characters have. Film seems way longer than it actually is. I appreciate the visual side, characters are extrime but it still gets you tired from watching.

I love Chungking Express, and its "predecessor" Fallen Angels is okay, kind of like the prelude to Chungking Express. The night shots draw you into Hong Kong in a way the tourism promos don't for sure. You see Fallen Angels for the experience.

After yet another bullet wound from a tough job, Wong Chi-Ming decides it is time to quit the hit-man trade and decides to break off the business partnership with his agent, unaware that she loves him. Meeting the wild Baby offers him a chance at happiness but he soon finds that the Agent is not going to let him go so easily. Meanwhile the mute He Zhiwu makes his living re-opening closed shops overnight until he finds Charlie, who is trying to find her ex-boyfriend's new lover. Helping her sees He falling for Charlie himself and ending up hunting for her when she disappears.

Thanks to a really poor service recently from my cable TV provider, I had a poor reception on this film and that may be part of the reason that I found this difficult to really get involved in. I say this from the start because I think the film has major flaws and I suspect that newly converted fans of Kar Wai Wong will just dismiss my opinions as those of a fool (maybe they are right). With his newest film about to be one of his widest releases yet in the UK, I chose to step back for a minute and view an earlier film just to allow me to view his new film and see how he has changed (if he has) from early days, through Mood For Love up to his present state. The first thing that hits you about this film is really the thing that is the main reason for watching the film – the visual style. Kar Wai Wong is undobutably a great stylistic director and this film is beautiful to look at and features some really imaginative shots. Chris Doyle's vision of Hong Kong is excitingly fluid and works well with the direction and the film is visually consistently engaging.

The problem I had with the film was that the material didn't get anywhere near this sublime level and I found the whole thing to be rather messy and unengaging. The plot is delivered with energy but it still doesn't really hang together and it almost feels silly at times. I must admit that I gave it as much time as I could but after an hour I didn't care about the characters any more than I had before I saw the film; I still watched the film but was interested by the style a lot more than the story. Reflecting this I didn't think the cast had a great deal to do and that Wong, as he seems prone to do, stole the film from under them by becoming the reason for the film and not the deliverer of the film. Lai and Reis are good despite the material but for the most part I just didn't get into Kaneshiro or Mok at all.

Overall this is not a bad film and it is worth seeing; sadly it is worth seeing mainly because of the direction and cinematography. Outside of this we are left with characters it is hard to really ever understand or care about and a plot that is energetic and has some value but is too messy and unengaging. Wong has done better and there are examples of his films where his direction doesn't overly impact on the story – this isn't really one of them.