- A lesser cousin to Chungking Express, Fallen Angels is Wong Kar-Wai's attempt once again to depict the up-all-night loneliness that apparently runs rampant in Hong Kong. This time around, the first set of mismatched lovebirds are a lone wolf assassin (Leon Lai) and his anonymous manager (Michelle Reis) whose business arrangement requires them never to be in the same place at the same time. The second pair are a mute named He Zhiwu (Takeshi Kaneshiro) and his idee fixe Cherry (Charlie Yeung), whose boyfriend recently ditched her to marry a blonde woman. He Zhiwu lost his voice eating expired pineapple, just in case there are any lingering questions that this is a spiritual sequel to Chungking Express. Do you think the blonde woman was the criminal from that film, too?
- In the case of the assassin and the manager, the tone is entirely one of melancholy. The assassin takes up with a truly manic blonde (Karen Mok) to distract himself while his manager spends her nights dreamily rocking back and forth at a jukebox in a forlorn manner. The logical extrapolation of this process is completed every night when she returns home. It's tough to imagine how the two of them are ever going to get together, especially given the hazardous nature of their work. Until then, Massive Attack's slowly thumping basslines and Laurie Anderson's eerie lyricism are all they have to get them through the night.
- He Zhiwu's situation, on the other hand, is much more whimsical. For reasons that I won't even attempt to parse, he breaks into stores in the middle of the night to play-act at working. His aggressive salesmanship is certainly the funniest part of the film as he coerces a reluctant customer (Fai-hung Chan) into trying his haircuts and ice cream, never once taking no for an answer. Meanwhile, Cherry seems completely oblivious of his feelings for her, even though they spend all of their time together. There is some bitter truth hidden here behind all the jocularity. Maybe He Zhiwu's father (Man-Lei Chan) could offer his son some advice, but the two simply have trouble communicating.
- While Fallen Angels obviously contains some interesting ideas, the overall execution is much less satisfying than it was in Chungking Express. In at least a few instances, the film's scenes feel as though they were being held exclusively because the song wasn't over yet, which takes Wong's music video approach to filmmaking a bit too far. Likewise, even the anonymous femme fatale in Chungking Express was more likable than Fallen Angels' assassin who slaughters a family, only stopping to double-check the address after the fact. I don't know, maybe the film would be better if I had emulated its characters and watched it alone at 2 AM. Certainly it would have been better if I had just watched Chungking Express.
