Fallen Angels

Fallen Angels

Fallen Angels

Fallen Angels

Moviecut—Fallen Angels

i really had trouble getting into this film. The camera work is all over the place in parts & the characters are hard to connect to and have any feeling for. My personal highlight of the film would have to be a pig carcass receiving a message. Great soundtrack though. A film that will divide opinions so i recommend you watch it for yourself to make up your own mind. 5/10

Spoilers herein. Fallen angels are those with extraordinary gifts of life who, through some accident, find themselves in incongruously irrational worlds. This filmmaker is extraordinary in his commitment to not just show us some events in such lives, but to bring the very experience to us. Here, we ourselves are simultaneously turned into angels by being given higher powers of observation than normal. We are thrust into an unfamiliar universe, one which sweeps us in unexpected ways. The blessing of hyperperception is where the real talent and skill is. Here we have four interweaving narratives. These are not just stories in the Andersen or Altman tradition, where we just passively observe. These are unconnected strong desires that we are roped into sharing. Each of these characters is less someone to watch than a vehicle in a thrill ride we inhabit. That this man is making films today enriches my visual imagination immensely. Welles, Kurosawa and Tarkovsky were able to largely invent. Or rather, they were reinventing theater in the new medium of film. Wong has the luxury of reinventing film, reacting to all the expectations we have when we enter the theater. So he can orchestrate cameras that linger too long, that slip off the frame, that switch color or resolution, that dice the pace in jarring ways. Cameras that go where no one expects or wants, and all this registers on us. `In the Mood for Love' exploited a single technique of the camera that couldn't stay pointed. It wandered as the characters wandered. The lack of deliberation is massively effective. In this film we have something more ambitious, a camera that slowly enters the film and becomes its own narrator. This is the most amazing of notions. Many self-referential films have been made but in this case the effect is unique because the whole project is about cameras not being where they are supposed to be. It is a camera operated by a voiceless man, someone whose `job' is to appropriate the work of others, someone who one he gets a customer it becomes his victim for excessive consumption of whatever is offered. It is, of course Wong. And this film is our birthday gift before we leave the world of obfuscation for another. I am tentatively making this a three, but may elevate it to a four on reseeing all his work. Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 4: Worth watching.

"Fallen Angels" is outwardly a jittery, nervous, ambiguous, poorly filmed artie with clumsy English subtitles which appears to be a failed attempt to make up for a lack of story with moody visual style. Mostly shot with short lenses (for fish eye type distortion) and video which is either poor quality on purpose or not (does it matter?), the film follows a quartet of lonely night people with some narrated reflections on life from one of the players, a hitman. Bulked up with lots of filler, dull stretched out moments of nothingness interspersed with sudden bouts of action, "Fallen Angels" isn't much of a movie but may have some appeal for Asian film freaks who care more about atmospherics than story. (C+)

We follow the lives of five isolated and desperately lonely people who will cling to anything that will make them Feel. One is a Hit-man (Leon Lai) who does his job in a messy but workmanlike fashion. He kills several people at once, then he switches off the light as he leaves and hops a bus to go home, just like those who work 9-5. On one of these bus rides, he is recognised by an old friend from school, whose 'normal life' reminds him of how much he hates his own. He wants to get out, but he doesn't know how to do anything else. Another is the Partner of the Hit-man (Michelle Reis), who sets up his jobs for him and cleans his flat when he's not there. They have never met but she develops an obsession with him that includes taking his garbage home and rifling through it, going to his favourite bar and sitting in his favourite seat, and masturbating on his bed, because it makes her feel close to him. He is aware of what she's doing, but doesn't know how to handle it. He arranges to met her but can't bring himself to show up. A third character is a Man-Child (Takeshi Kaneshiro) who lost his voice eating a can of rotten pineapple. He roams the streets at night, breaking into shops and imagining he is working there. He also forces goods and services on people, who as often as not give him money just to get rid of him. He lives with his father in a small and stuffy apartment in a large and run-down building that also houses Michelle Reis's character. They know each other by sight, but they never speak. The fourth main character is a Girl (Charlie Young) who finds out over the phone that the man she loves is marrying someone else. In her rage and brokenness, she latches on to the Man-Child, who then fancies himself in love with her. She is all he has. But just as quickly as she appears, she leaves. Later he sees her on the street, cleaned-up and apparently leading a better life. He tries to get her attention but she ignores him. She doesn't want to be reminded. The fifth character (Karen Mok) is a bleached blonde who is close to having a nervous breakdown. In an otherwise empty McDonalds, she insinuates herself on the Hit-man, who it turns out was once her lover. He doesn't recognise her, which seems to be the story of her life. He tells her straight out that he doesn't want anything other than a companion for the night, and in the absence of anything better, she agrees. She imagines she will woo him into changing his mind and staying with her. This film left me with an internal atmosphere I couldn't shake for days. It's claustrophobic, meandering, chaotic and at times very indulgent, but overall it's a sad, moving study of loss and emptiness, and people's inability to connect with others.

WKW strikes back again with this wonderful - and different movie. The Hong Kong director brings us a unique story about loneliness. As other movies of WKW, this movies represents a wonderful visual experience. Great directing for 3 stories: The story of an assassin, lonely and living day to day deciding weather it's really worth continuing with his profession or not; the story of his partner, a beautiful woman who relies her loneliness on her obsession with her partner; and the story of a mute guy that works at night in all the closed stores and markets, and with the different encounters with a woman and his relation with his father. All three stories are stories of loneliness, of love affairs impossible to fulfill and of the wish of each one to find a meaning to their existence. Like in all movies of WKW, all characters are solitary. This movie is another one of the directors masterpieces, trying to describe all the lonely souls in Hong Kong and the impossibility of finding a meaning to their life, their professions and a meaning to love. A bizarre and great soundtrack, such as the great photography and stylish directing makes this movie a must-see in the Chinese's director.

I watched `Fallen Angels', (Duo luo tian shi), after seeing director Kar Wai Wong's excellent `In the Mood for Love', (Fa yeung nin wa), and I was very disappointed. `Fallen Angels' had some quirky and evocative camera work and the story was of interest in the beginning but the movie went nowhere. After the first third of the movie most of the remaining action was a repeat. Scenes of bored looking people sitting in a bar and the endless cigarette smoking were tiresome. I ended up fast forwarding through many scenes and they were still too long. I wouldn't waste time watching this movie but be sure to catch `In the Mood for Love', a sensual pleasure.