In 1994, cult film director Wong Kar-wai made
a movie about loneliness and alienation in urban Hong Kong.
Named Fallen Angels, it was intended to be a sequel
to his previous work, Chungking Express, but is now
regarded as a standalone film because of its singular tone and
quirkiness. Wong has since made other critically lauded films
such as In the Mood for Love and 2047, but
Fallen Angels remains one of his lesser-seen works.
Fallen Angels depicts several loosely
connected narratives. The main story focuses on a contract killer
named Wong Chi-Ming (Canto-pop singer Leon Lai) and his agent
(Michelle Reis). Chi-Ming is a self-professed “lazy”
man, who relies on his agent to orchestrate and clean up after
his hits. Despite what he says, though, Chi-Ming isn’t
simply lazy; he’s disenchanted with his lifestyle, and
intends to renounce it after one last hit. The matter is complicated
by the fact that he and the agent are attracted to each other;
however, Chi-Ming feels it’s inappropriate to get romantically
involved.
The second plot line centres on He Zhiwu (Takeshi
Kaneshiro), who lives with his father in a low-rent hotel (his
father is also the hotel manager). Zhiwu lost his voice after
eating an expired tin of pineapples, so the viewer hears his
thoughts through voice-overs. Zhiwu passes time by breaking
into shops at night and trying to coax uninterested passersby
to pay for merchandise or services. Though he rarely has a willing
customer, he remains optimistic and happy.
The entire film is set at night, which, as Zhiwu
notes, “is full of weirdos.” One such weirdo is
Charlie (Charlie Yeung), a woman pining for her ex-boyfriend.
Her sole aim is to find “Blondie,” her ex’s
current love interest. Zhiwu and Charlie roam the streets of
Hong Kong to locate the other woman, causing mischief wherever
they go. At the same time, Chi-Ming begins an affair with a
mysterious woman named Blondie (Karen Mok), despite his unresolved
feelings for his agent.
Kaneshiro’s role is silent, yet he turns
Zhiwu into the film’s most expressive and appealing character.
Though their conversations are one-sided, Zhiwu’s relationship
with his father is one of the funniest and sweetest ones I’ve
seen on film; it’s the warm spot in an otherwise emotionally
detached movie. This remoteness isn’t a deficiency in
Wong’s direction; indeed, it’s characteristic of
his coolly romantic aesthetic.
Unlike most of Wong’s other films, Fallen
Angels is subtly surreal as well as romantic. Characters
interact against typical urban settings, often with bizarre
twists: Chi-Ming has a late meal in an enormous yet deserted
McDonald’s, while Charlie inadvertently causes a table-clearing
brawl at a late-night dim sum restaurant. One of the film’s
most memorable scenes has Zhiwu wheedling a family into riding
across the city in his stolen ice cream truck. The rumble of
Hong Kong’s light-rail system often sounds in the background.
As a result, the city itself becomes a major character in the
movie.
Fallen Angels has many shades of meaning
and thus can be enjoyed on multiple levels. On the surface,
it’s about the misadventures and chance encounters among
directionless twenty-somethings. The film also delves into the
seediness and disillusionment lurking beneath Hong Kong’s
cosmopolitan nightlife. In a sense, Fallen Angels might
be a mirror of Hong Kong’s culture in the 1990s in general.
The characters’ alienation and aimlessness are similar
to the territory’s anxieties in its final years as a British
colony. It asks, where do we belong, and where are we going?
