Fallen Angels

Even Wong's detractors, who consider him more stylist than auteur, will have a tough time dismissing the extraordinary emotional depth he achieves here.

Writer-director Wong Kar-wai makes these five self-consciously idiosyncratic types--often seen through distorting lenses in cinematographer Christopher Doyle's somber, garish Hong Kong--fully and instantly believable.

If you're fed up with the stultifying, formula-driven character of today's mainstream films, give Fallen Angels a try. At the very least you'll be engaged, and if you're lucky you may just recapture some of your original wonder at the seductive power of movies.

Fallen Angels is proof that Wong will try anything, and the result is an eclectic mix of images and disjointed editing, sounds and rhythms that are at times as powerful as any piece of filmmaking likely to be seen all year. It can also, every once in awhile, be tedious and trying.

To describe the plot is to miss the point. Fallen Angels takes the materials of the plot -- the characters and what they do -- and assembles them like a photo montage. At the end, you have impressions, not conclusions.

Fallen Angels certainly abounds in visual pizazz, clever in jokes and trendy pop references, but such things can carry a movie only so far.

A colourful and stylish romp, for sure, but a feeling of restlessness sets in long before the series of false endings that finally bring it to a close. Time passes, things happen, but nobody emerges very much wiser.

The complimentary movie to Chungking Express (1994), this is a neo-noir thriller that was shooted as a different movie because of the length of the total movie and differences between the **** in the first this one also tells two stories: of a hitman (Leon Lai Ming) that wants to detach from his activities and his partner, a woman that cleans his apartment while he is out, and have a secret love for him, while he meets another girl nicknamed blondie. The second one is from a ex-convict escaped from prison, Ho Chi-mo (Takeshi Kaneshiro) that is mute and works and lives with his father, also breaking into other works at night to sell their goods and services (here we have a meet with the Chungking Express with the first movie) and keeps finding another girl Charlie that lost his girlfriend for blondie), aside from a sequence that he meets another character from the first story in the end.While having its themes along with Chungking, it differentiates from he first one by the use of cinematographer Christopher Doyle shooting mainly at night and using extreme wide-angle lenses, keeping the camera as close to the talents as possible to give a detached effect from the world around them, giving an wide-angle distortion of images creates an effect of distance-in-proximity, conveying the characters' solitude. The visuals are frantic, out-of-focus, and neon-lit. The camera also follows the characters and segments of B&W and heldcam camera also are used.Another difference is the use of voice overs (as in thoughts) in the place of dialogues and pop songs this time mainly Cantonese versions of many musics, some of them also being ocidental (like the instrumental "Speak My Language" by American avant-garde artist Laurie Anderson and Flying Pickets version of "Only You" by member Vince Clarke, while he was still with Depeche **** me a score of 8,7 out of 10,0 / A along side with the previous one a must to watch movie of an bygone era before the delivery of the city back to China in 97.

Gran estilo, entretenida, grandes lineas, muy buen soundtracks, la iluminación es lo mejor al igual que la comedia y escenas de acción.

Such a fun watch, the cinematography keeps you so engaged and the movie is surprising funny for the genre. A great watch and feels the same each time you watch it.

There has never been a more up close, grainy, and handheld style film. Greasy and slick, lives up to its iconic poster. Loved about half of it.

The melancholic drift of lonely souls wandering through the neon-soaked night.2010 (3.0)Wandering through the neon-drenched nightscapes of Hong Kong, Fallen Angels captures the profound solitude and fleeting connections of urban outcasts. Directed by Wong Kar-wai, the film serves as a spiritual successor to Chungking Express, following a disillusioned hitman, his obsessive female partner who manages his contracts from afar, a mute ex-convict who breaks into businesses at night to run his own absurd services, and a heartbroken woman looking for her lost love. Each character drifts through life in a cloud of isolation, yearning for emotional warmth yet perpetually trapped in their own melancholic bubbles. Through wide-angle distortion, vibrant stylistic visuals, and a moody, atmospheric soundtrack, the movie paints a vivid and raw portrait of longing, heartbreak, and the quiet desperation of human existence in a dense, indifferent metropolis.