Fallen Angels (Duoluo Tianshi) [1995]

Renowned Hong Kong director Wong Kar Wai’s sequel of sorts to his celebrated Chungking Express, Fallen Angels is a surreal, psychedelic ride through garish blaze of neon-lit avenues and by-lanes of nocturnal Hong Kong. The movie follows simultaneously the lives of three characters – a weary hit man who wants to quit his cloak-and-dagger existence, his beautiful contact who fantasizes about him in his apartment even though they haven’t ever met, and a mute drifter in desperate need of stability. Wong Kar Wai’s haunting portrayal of the disturbance, severe loneliness, and urban paranoia of his protagonists has been brilliantly juxtaposed with his long-time collaborator Christopher Doyle’s dazzling cinematography. Entertainment and art have been blended in the acclaimed auteur’s successive mesmeric effort. For the uninitiated, this movie might be a difficult ride, but once you have watched a Wong Kar-Wai movie, you don’t watch movies the same way ever again.









Director: Wong Kar-Wai
Genre: Urban Drama/Existential Drama/Romantic Drama/Crime Drama
Language: Chinese (Cantonese/Mandarin)
Country: China (Hong Kong)