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(reviewed on 11/2/05)

墮落天使 (Fallen Angels)
year: 1995
country: Hong Kong
directed by: 王家衛 (Wong Kar Wai)

Though cinematic auteur Wong Kar Wai has created some of the most respected Hong Kong movies in modern era, his status in the local industry, perhaps to the surprise of foreign audience, is subjected to more debate and criticism than praise and approval in his homeland. Whereas Wong's (in)famous in the industry for his terribly slow progress of filming, the lack of 'movie plots' (in the traditional sense) also distances the local commercial film audience from Wong's films, which are arguably made to suit the European art film circuit instead. Video copies of some of the director's productions, including 'Fallen Angels' and 'Chungking Express', have even vanished from the local market for a long period of time; it's a bit ironical that they're made available again lately only through the import of the French-released DVD versions.

Due to its unavailability, 'Fallen Angels' remains the only Wong film that I haven't seen to date; it's no coincidence that the film is also his least successful (or may I say, worst) outing. The movies of Wong are widely known for its expertise in combining style with mood and atmosphere: for instance, 'In the Mood for Love' has indicated the peak of the director's creative impulse, while a slight decline into the excessive use of stylish production can be witnessed in the more recent film, '2046'. However, none of those could be compared to the 1995's 'Fallen Angel' in terms of style, because the latter is all about style, and nothing else.

Originally planned as the third plotline in the 1994's 'Chungking Express', 'Fallen Angels' mainly follows a killer, Wong Chi-Ming (played by pop singer 黎明 Leon Lai), and his partner (played by Miss HK 1989, 李嘉欣 Michele Reis). Besides the estranged pair, the cast is filled out by three very crazy/idiotic characters: a deranged young man (played by Japanese/Taiwanese heartthrob 金城武 Takeshi Kaneshiro) who stopped speaking at the age of five after eating an expired can of pineapple (a cheap parody on 'Chungking Express'), and who roams the street at night, threatening pedestrians to buy 'his' goods, an orange-haired woman (played by 莫文蔚 Karen Mok) who insists she's an ex-girlfriend of the killer, and a sassy young woman (played by 楊采妮 Charlie Young) who thinks she's lost her lover to a sex doll.

My wild guess is that the original plot only features the killer/partner pair and the other characters are all filled in respectively to make up the runtime of a feature film, as the ONLY interesting part of the film centres around the killer pair - the rest is all nonsense. I can imagine how good 'Chungking Express' would become if the Leon/Michele plotline were inserted into that film, as the part is absorbing and heartwrenching at the same time. The scene involving the $5 coin and the lucky number "1818", which cuts to the legendary masturbatory scene of Michele Reis (one that equals the emotional intensity of Naomi Watts' scene in 'Mulholland Dr.'), simply demonstrates the magic of cinema with its perfect combination of colour, music, atmosphere and storytelling.

As for the remaining sections of the film, I just can't find a way to properly express my disappointment - they are plain silly. The parts are mostly made up by idiotic character interactions and crude humour, both of which don't fit well into Wong's agenda. If not for the film's extremely stylish outlook (a facade only?), the screenwriting quality could be easily seen as no better than any local trash movies. 'Fallen Angels' opens with the feel of a classic and begins to go horribly wrong barely 20 minutes into the film. When it ends with two of its characters 'reuniting', as they say, I'm not sure the two have seen each other ever before in the story. But to tell you the truth, I don't really find myself care about them.

rating: 6/10