Fallen Angels is a 1995 Hong Kong neo-noir crime comedy-drama film written and directed by Wong Kar-wai. It features two intertwined storylines—one tells the story of a hitman wishing to leave the criminal underworld (Leon Lai), the eccentric woman he starts a relationship with (Karen Mok), and his agent that remains unnamed throughout the movie (Michele Reis), who is infatuated with him. The other story is of a mute ex-convict on the run from the police (Takeshi Kaneshiro) and a mentally unstable woman dumped by her boyfriend (Charlie Yeung). Set in 1995 pre-Handover Hong Kong, Fallen Angels explores the characters' loneliness, their alienation from the situations around them, and yearning for connections in a hectic city.
Wong initially wrote Fallen Angels as the third story of his preceding film, Chungking Express (1994), but split them into two separate projects due to their cumulative length, and thus it acts not as a sequel but as a separate chapter. Similar to Chungking Express, Fallen Angels features a fragmented narrative that emphasises mood and atmosphere over structure. Whereas its predecessor incorporates bright daytime colours, Fallen Angels consists of scenes exclusively shot at night and using darker colours alongside bright neons. Wong considered the two movies to be complementary counterparts exploring contemporary Hong Kong. Cinematographer Christopher Doyle extensively used wide-angle lens to distort the characters' faces on the screen, conveying their isolation from the surrounding world. Doyle also creates distorted tension in scenes of extreme violence with frantic, out-of-focus visuals. The soundtrack extensively uses trip hop and pop songs to convey mood and maintain an "urban environment" that plays with popular culture.
Fallen Angels was released in September 1995. Upon release, critics commented that its styles resembled those deployed in Chungking Express; many lamented that Wong had become self-indulgent, though as time went on critics began to be more appreciative of the film. At the 15th Hong Kong Film Awards in 1996, it won three awards: Best Supporting Actress for Mok, Best Cinematography for Doyle, and Best Original Score for Roel A. Garcia and Frankie Chan. Retrospectively, critics commented that though Fallen Angels was not as groundbreaking as its predecessor, it remained one of Wong's most captivating films, cementing his trademark styles. The film's abstract, unconventional style, the context in which it was made, and its use of pastiche and intertextuality with regard to both popular culture and its predecessor Chungking Express have led to the movie being described as a postmodern film and as suggesting a postmodern reading.
Since its release, Fallen Angels has been frequently cited as one of Wong's best films and one of the greatest films of the 1990s. The film has encompassed a large cult following, and is notable for being the last film Wong fully shot in his native Hong Kong before embarking on more ambitious international productions.
Plot Hitman Wong Chi-ming talks to a woman, whom he refers to as his "partner". The story begins after Wong responds to her question on whether they are still partners.
The pair have never met despite having been business partners for nearly three years; instead they exchange plans via letters and faxes. The partner cleans the hitman's cramped apartment, buys his groceries, and sends him blueprints of assassination locations. Becoming increasingly obsessed with his mysterious nature, she visits a bar Wong frequents and daydreams about him, after which she goes to his apartment and masturbates to the thought of him.
Wong carries out a successful hit but is shot in the arm in the process. Increasingly frustrated by the monotone life of contract killing and lack of free will, he decides to quit. He sets up a meeting with his partner but no-shows. Certain that she will come looking for him at his favourite bar, he asks the bartender to suggest "Forget Him" on the jukebox when she arrives. After listening to the song, the partner returns to his apartment, where she masturbates until she breaks down crying. Meanwhile, Wong encounters an eccentric woman nicknamed "Blondie" at a McDonald's, who invites him to her apartment. She believes Wong is the ex-lover who left her for another woman.
Wong ultimately decides to meet his partner in person and informs her that he wishes to terminate their partnership. She asks him to do one more job, which he agrees. Afterwards, Wong breaks off his relationship with Blondie, leaving her heartbroken. She bites him in the arm to leave her mark on him. The hitman sets out for his final job, while the partner makes a phone call that gives him away. Wong eventually dies in the showdown, though he is pleased that he has finally been able to achieve free will by making his own decisions and dying.
The chaotic Chungking Mansions, where the hitman's partner lives, is also home to Ho Chi-mo, a mute ex-convict who lives with his father. For work, he breaks into other people's businesses at night and sells their goods and services, often forcibly to unwilling customers. He frequently runs into a woman named Charlie, who cries on his shoulder and tells him the same sob story of her ex-boyfriend Johnny leaving her for a girl named Blondie. Ho falls for her but she ultimately stands him up, after which he changes his ways, beginning a friendship and work relationship with a restaurant manager and starting to film things around him with a video camera. His father passes away, and Ho watches the video filmed to remember him. He eventually runs into Charlie while masquerading as a business owner. She is now a stewardess in a new relationship, and does not acknowledge him.
Some time later, the partner visits a restaurant, admitting that she has become more cautious and detached following Wong's death. Nearby, Ho is beaten up by a local gang. Seeing this, she realises that he is feeling the same sense of loss as her. They go for a ride on Ho's motorbike. He states that he feels a spark even though they will never be friends or confidants, while she comments that she has not been close to anyone in a while, and even though it is temporary, she enjoys the warmth he brings in the moment.
Cast Leon Lai as Wong Chi-ming, the hitman Michele Reis as the hitman's "partner" Takeshi Kaneshiro as Ho Chi-mo, the mute ex-convict (He Zhiwu in Mandarin) Charlie Yeung as Charlie, a mysterious girl that Chi-mo frequently runs into Karen Mok as Situ Hui-Ling, known as "Blondie" Chan Fai-hung as the man forced to eat ice cream Chan Man-lei as Ho Chi-mo's father Toru Saito as Sato, the Japanese restaurant owner Benz Kong as Ah-Hoi, the hitman's childhood classmate
Development and production Originally conceived by Wong as the third story for 1994's Chungking Express involving a lovesick hitman, it was cut after he decided that it was complete without it, and that the tone of the more demented content was not suited for the more light-hearted Chungking Express. Wong Kar-wai also explained that he had so much pleasure in making the first story of Chungking Express that he felt he had made the film too long, and so he decided to skip the third story in releasing Chungking Express. After the release of Chungking Express, Wong noted that the story of a lovesick hitman still interested him, and so he decided to develop it into Fallen Angels. Wong also decided to "gender-reverse" the attributes of the roles in his new film, with the gun-wielding attributes of Brigitte Lin in Chungking Express being manifested in the hitman Leon Lai would play, while the sneaking-in of Faye Wong in Chungking Express to other apartments was reversed by Takeshi Kaneshiro's character sneaking into shops and businesses in Fallen Angels.
He instead decided to develop the story further into its own feature film and borrowed elements of Chungking Express, such as themes, locations and methods of filming. Wanting to also try to differentiate it from Chungking and to try something new, Wong decided along with cinematographer Christopher Doyle to shoot 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.
Many of the plot devices are related to those deployed in its predecessor Chungking Express. The 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. Rather than relying on dialogues, the story is narrated through characters' voiceovers. The film's use of pop songs has also received extensive commentary. Fallen Angels utilizes a non-linear plot structure that alternates between two loosely connected storylines. The film frequently shifts between characters and emphasizes emotion and atmosphere over a traditional linear narrative.
There is also the use of different film stocks throughout the film and also a number of scenes where the film switches to black and white inserts covered in a grainy 'noise' effect. There is also a constant sense of Doyle's camera being present that is never disguised, with meticulous use of hand-held camera movement in the film. This 'follows' the characters as they move through a scene. The film also makes use of "claustrophobic" shots involving fast and slow camera movements in a frenetic pace interpolated within crowded, chaotic locations in Hong Kong. The film's colours are also distorted, with a distinctive green filter reminiscent of 1990s grunge aesthetics.
A particularly heavy theme of Fallen Angels is the city itself, with "bedazzling shots" of sites associated with 1990s Hong Kong such as neon-lit billboards and now-closed Kai Tak Airport, as well as the city's visual landscape and 1990s uncertainty and anxieties present in its population at the time because of the looming handover of Hong Kong to China overwhelming the mood and feel of the film. Fallen Angels as such has been described as a "time capsule" of Hong Kong's mid-to-late-20th-century cultural golden age before its handover to China in 1997. Wong himself stated that the movie's main character is the "city itself".
In an interview, Wong had this to say:
Soundtrack Typical for a Wong Kar-wai film, Fallen Angels extensively uses pop songs, featuring a largely trip hop soundtrack that appealed to the widespread popularity of trip hop in 1994–1995. Wong Kar-wai initially wished to use the music of English trip hop band Massive Attack but discovered it was too expensive, and so asked his composer in Hong Kong (Frankie Chan) to compose something similar in style. As such, one track that is played prominently throughout the film is "Because I'm Cool" by Nogabe "Robinson" Randriaharimalala. It is a re-orchestration of "Karmacoma" by Massive Attack, and samples the song.
Also featured in the Fallen Angels soundtrack is a dream pop version of "Forget Him" sung by Shirley Kwan, a reworking of the original by Teresa Teng, and one of the very few "contemporary" Cantopop songs ever used by Wong Kar-wai in his films. In the film, the song is used by the hitman to indirectly communicate the message to his assistant that he wants her to "forget him", and is also used in the scenes afterwards in the McDonald's restaurant, where it plays over the restaurant's speakers as the hitman and Blondie encounter each other, a scene juxtaposed by the misery and sadness of the assistant crying.