Cheap Fallen Angels (DVD) (Kar Wai Wong) Price

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Customer Reviews of Fallen Angels

I can understand a few of the dialogues but it is crucial that I get every word in this movie for the main reason that it is a Wong-Kar Wai film. I've seen most of WKW movies such as Ashes of Time, In the Mood For Love, Happy Together, Days of Being Wild, and this. And for me, this movie is the darkest one of all. Where in the world would you see a mute giving a dead pig a good massage? There were a lot of funny parts but unfortunately I wasn't able to fully appreciate the movie due to the fact that the VHS transfer was poor.

I've read the reviews on Ashes of Time, and most reviews commented about the poor video transfer on the DVD. Fallen Angels cost $$, who would like to buy a single DVD at this amount without even providing supplementary features. Add to that, we are not assured of a quality video transfer and a stereo or dolby digital surround sound. Because of this fact, I have to praise Criterion for doing a commendable DVD tranfer of In The Mood For Love, which for me is one of the best Chinese movies I've ever seen. Because of this movie, I've been looking for WKW movies, but unfortunately, none can be found in the Philippines, and if so, of poor quality.

I guess that's my only setback, otherwise, the movie is good, dark, comic and illogical. Perfect for WKW fans.

A rewarding follow up to Chungking Express
As the obliquely related sequel to Chungking Express, this film is not quite as good as its predecessor, but entertaining nonetheless, although I am basing my review on the Chinese-language version of the film. A dubbed version would destroy the seriousness of the film entirely. Takeshi Kaneshiro plays a very strange, yet enchanting, mute person. He harasses people into letting him sell them ice cream, he rides a dead pig, he falls in love with a woman who ultimately uses him, and he follows his father around with a camcorder. Leon Lai plays a hitman and Michelle Reis is his employer/obsessor. Confused yet? This film goes in so many directions, yet all the characters eventually cross paths. There are various areas of conflict in the movie and yet the director, Wong Kar Wai, is able to clear up enough of the mess to bring the viewer a beautifully optimistic ending. It's the kind of ending that makes you sit and reflect for a moment before saying "Wow." I recommend this film for those that want a rewarding change of pace.

Compulsive, Obsessive, Redemptive.
"Fallen Angels" is really the third episode of Wong's earlier two-part film "Chungking Express". It harks back to the first noirish segment of that film, after the bouncy second episode stolen by pop star Faye Wong, but is even darker and more obscure. The characters all seem in extremis, on the edge of dissolution, junkies of one sort or another -- except possibly the hitman ('assasin'), cool, detached, in control. This darkness is expressed in the chaotic home movie ambience (of course, carefully contrived); some is even shot as literal, really bad, home-video-within-a-movie.

Though there does not seem to be a direct plot link between "Chungking" and "Fallen Angels" the same way there was between the two segments of "Chungking Express" (where Cop 223 turned down a suggestion of a date with Faye only hours before she fell in love with Cop 663, and Faye and 663 make brief background appearances in segment one), there are many connections. Some locations seem to be the same, and although the fast food joint Midnight Express so central to "Chunking Express" does not play the same role here, the restaurant and its proprietor do enter near the end. The mute ex-con (prisoner #223) of Fallen Angels and Cop #223 of CKE are both played by the same actor (Takeshi Kaneshiro) and both named He Qiwu [per subtitles; IMDB has He Zhiwu, closer to the soundtrack]. He Qiwu of Fallen Angels was made mute by a can of expired pineapple, while CKE's Cop #223 was obsessed with about-to-expire pineapple cans. At one point the Mute dances briefly in Midnight Express with the same moves used by Faye, as she danced her way through her work at the restaurant in CKE. Where Faye invaded Cop #663's apartment in Chungking Express to simply be in his space, and later to bring to it light and life, the Agent's obsession is darker as she invades the hitman's anonymous rooms to sweep up and carry away her partner's detritus to her own room (in the hotel the Mute's father manages), where she examines it for clues to his personal life and habits.

As these complexities might indicate, "Fallen Angels" repays repeated viewing -- in the sense that your understanding of the film will deepen, as will its emotional impact, not in the sense of a film student obsessing with technicalities. There is just too much in the film to completely take it in on first viewing, which is not to say that the first viewing won't be a sock in the gut, a magnificent swirling collage of images, sounds and quirky characters.

WKW often makes music an integral part of his films, and the choice here is superb -- poignant and evocative, multilingual and multicontinental, each thematic piece fitting exactly mood and character -- and is perhaps what sticks most lingeringly in the mind. (I only wish it were credited, or there were a soundtrack album!)

The first time I saw "Fallen Angels" I thought it ended on a melancholy, even depressing, note. It seemed as if the characters were not about to make any transition, not even to escape, as they do in the each episode of "Chungking Express". If there is redemption here, it is in very small ways, and maybe that is what Wong is saying -- we can only hope for momentary hope, not a better tomorrow but a brief respite before tomorrow. Life goes on, maybe, a little longer, and we must find what solace we can, while we can, in someone to hold for a night or just a motorcycle ride. Several viewings later, though, the film becomes transformative, and if not optimistic, redemptive and even joyful Yes, it seems to say, that *is* all there is ... but that ain't bad.

(A note re those who had problems with the transfer or subtitles: I've been bitten by horrible transfers of other Asian films, but I viewed a recent copy of the US DVD release, and it seems just fine. An older VHS was not so good but acceptable. I don't recall any problems with the subtitles, and bad ones frequently drive me to frothing rage.)