Les anges déchus

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.

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.

Hong Kong: a contract killer tries to leave the business, while other side stories intersect and bond with each other.

Following Kar Wai's style, this film explores emotions and feelings, in this case, loneliness.

Among characters who want to change their lives, others stuck in memories and illusions, passing by personalities who have never created decent and beneficial human connections, there is a seductive and moving narrative that shows us that in a world of encounters and mismatches, in the end we are alone, regardless of what we do along the way.

The style of photography, where the camera is very close to the actors, distorting the proportions, leads us to be very close to the events, to easily create empathy and to experience the same as the characters. The score, as always, incredible and perfectly played.

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.

Wow. Fallen Angels really surprised me. I rarely read reviews or synopses of movies before viewing. So, I expected to see classic Hong Kong shoot 'em up gangsta film. Instead, I was intrigued and stunned by this incredible movie.

The characters are the focus as they each tell their stories. Literally, the title "Fallen Angels" gives you an idea of their plight. The film doesn't glorify the criminal lifestyle and shows aspects like isolation and loneliness. It's funny how the killer even tries to imagine how happy he'd be trying to live a "normal" life working a 9 to 5. Unfortunately, life's placed him in his predicament and must deal with the ramifications of it. Add to it his agent (played by knockout Michelle Reis) who is really enigmatic in this one. Her scene at the jukebox is one that displays the pain, agony, and confusion that she is going through. Plus, that song is like joy and torture for her at the same time!

Then, there is He. A man of few words who's story may be one of the most moving. Who could've thought a video could be so powerful and sentimental? This may be one of the most strangest, complex, yet fascinating characters I've ever onscreen. His silent nature, line of work (which is the oddest form of coercion I've ever seen!), and his struggles are really played well by Takeshi Kaneshiro, especially his scenes with his dad.

Wong Kar Wai's direction really makes the film. I really loved the dark, trippy music soundtrack which helped glaze on a slick, surreal coating. It sounds like something that would've been produced by Tricky, Massive Attack, or Portishead. While this may not have a bloody, high body count, the story told here makes this such a worthwhile movie and can be appreciated after repeated viewings.