Fallen Angels Reviews

Crackling with inspiration and bursting with ideas, Wong Kar-wai's dazzling follow-up to CHUNGKING EXPRESS is one of those rare films that manages to feel as fresh and exciting as anything that's come before it. In the garishly lit late-night world of Hong Kong, the lives of four lonely people briefly intersect: Wong Chi-Ming (Leon Lai), a jaded hit man who wants out of his dangerous, solitary business but is leery of emotional involvement; the Agent (Michele Reis), the beautiful partner-in-crime he's never met (like everyone else in the film, they communicate primarily by phone), but who's fallen in love with Chi-Ming anyway; Baby (Karen Mok), a bleach-blonde, night-crawling cookie who's looking for love but will settle for being remembered (Baby and Chi-Ming have met before, but he's forgotten); and He Zhiwu (Takeshi Kaneshiro), a mute, overgrown child who, in the wee hours, breaks into closed-up shops, opens them for business and forces customers to shop against their will. Set in a world where human contact is best measured by degrees of separation, Wong's characters brush against one other but remain profoundly alone: Masturbation joins the voice-over as a powerful indicator of isolation here. Originally conceived as part of the more comedic CHUNGKING EXPRESS, the action takes place in and around the same locale -- Hong Kong's sprawling Chungking Mansions housing complex -- and references to the earlier film abound: Tins of pineapple and flight attendants recall parallel lives that are at once so close but faraway. Wong's sense of humor remains sharp and endearing, but the tone has darkened considerably: Loneliness has become more desperate, happiness less permanent and disappointment now seems inevitable. Even Wong's detractors, who consider him more stylist than auteur, will have a tough time dismissing the extraordinary emotional depth he achieves here. This beautifully sad nocturne is simply one of the most fully realized cinematic visions of the way we live now.