A Review of Wong Kar Wai’s Fallen Angels.

 Released a year after Wong Kar Wai’s beloved film Chungking Express, Fallen Angels actually was originally supposed to be a third story contained within the narrative of that film. Wong actually ended up cutting this out of the original Chungking Express because he found the content to be too different than the other two narratives, and because he thought Chungking Express didn’t need a third story. At the end of the day, he was very right, because both Chungking and Fallen Angels can be very distinct from each other while also borrowing elements. More on that later though. 

Let’s just dive straight into this review, shall we? 

From the very beginning scene, we can see the borrowed elements from Chungking Express. Although the extreme close up at an angle to the girl’s face is something completely new for Wong’s cinematic decisions, we get a voiceover of a male character describing his relationship to a female character. Classic. Sounds like Chungking right there, which we begin with a voiceover of the cop describing a fateful encounter, one where he meets and falls in love with a woman clearly in disguise. 

Fallen Angels, also like Chungking, is split into two different stories. Neither one of them connects except thematically; the characters don’t really intersect in any way except for Blondie and the woman who is full on in love with Wong Chi-ming, who is a hitman. Naturally, he does not love her back. They are criminals, isolated and rejected from society, but also obsessive in other ways. The second story follows Ho Chi-mo, a guy who breaks into other people’s houses for a living. He then falls in love with a girl named Charlie, leading to an entire series of events.

You aren’t supposed to walk away from a Wong Kar Wai film with definitive answers. That’s just the nature of his work—it’s supposed to scrape the surface of individual stories, but it’s deep in how it hits on philosophical and tender themes, such as what we do to keep someone in our life, or the painful nature of learning to let go and create new memories. This movie is a prime example of that, especially when adding into the fact of how it parallels with Chungking, because it takes two distantly related stories and creates a montage out of it. 

The characters and the way they interact with each other and the setting is the true story in all of this. It isn’t the crime or the quote on quote love story that never happened. It’s how about life and emotions are a complicated maze, one that can quickly turn dark on the psyche. About how one can destroy themselves if they get too deep into a particular hole, 

Cinematic Elements

This film is a time if you’re into the technical components that make up a film. Lots of strange angles and shots, shaky moments where we’re clearly just with the cameraman as he follows a character down like a hallway. Straight from the beginning we see a super close-up of Wong Chi-ming’s partner’s face as she smokes, and we’re going to see a lot more of these kinds of shots as the movie progresses onwards. 

The way we’re so close up to the characters adds to this sense of isolation throughout the film. It painfully reminds of that we are a spectator to this story, but adds even more intimacy in how we see the characters. We literally can see their pores as they navigate through the closed streets of Hong Kong, especially as we hit on the crime notes of the story. 

Music is a very, very interesting moment in this film and really adds to the atmosphere. The scenery is very gritty: lots of rundown spaces, lots of shadows and darkness crawling across the screen, and Hong Kong neon at its finest. 

Overall Thoughts

Honestly, I prefer Chungking Express and its dual story over this one, mainly because of how it’s more lighthearted. This is like the goth twin cousin that people tend to not like on the surface, and, I will admit, I am being one of those people right now. I think I need to rewatch it after a bit of time and sit with it more, so that I can approach it a bit more intelligently than I am right now. Perhaps, in the future, stay on the lookout for an updated review from me. But I say if you’re into what I mentioned throughout this review, definitely go and watch the film. I just prefer the original movie it was sourced from and think that Chungking is a movie that appeals more to the masses. I have a feeling this’ll grow on me, it’ll just take some time.