Fallen Angels . Newcity Chicago . 06-22-98

Fallen Angels

DIRECTED BY: Kar-Wai Wong

REVIEWED: 06-22-98

While watching "Fallen Angels," Wong Kar-Wai's 1995 film that followed "Chungking Express," for a second time, I was less taken with it than last year's "Happy Together." But in the week since, the components that seemed provisional and merely experimental have congealed as spectacular loneliness, a vision of night as limitless gulf. There are scenes in this minimalist Hong Kong pop opera with the expected agreeable Wong shaggy-dog character, and the almost exclusive use of wide-angle lenses adds a dramatic level of disorientation. Like most of Wong's work, much of the story, drawn from leftover storylines from "Chungking Express," requires voice-over to provide any kind of cohesion to its absurd tales of a female fixer in love with her hitman she's never met, and a second strand about a mute-by-choice young man who harangues passersby in the night market and an insecure woman who stalks him. But forget story - Wong has. Relish instead the warm feeling that comes from the grimy, subtropical murk and the splendid chaos, the camera's tender caress of full red lips or embrace of a jet of cigarette smoke above a jukebox. Many great stills followed by a final shot of perfection: all has led to this transient happy moment, this coupling, this glimpse of a violently vertical city by night from the back of a motorcycle traveling at top speed.

--Ray Pride

Full Length Reviews
Fallen Angels

Other Films by Kar-Wai Wong
Chungking Express
Happy Together

Film Vault Suggested Links
The King of Masks
Children of Heaven
Taste of Cherry

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