Fallen Angels – Do lok tin si (1995)

Directed by: Wong Kar Wai | 99 minutes | comedy, crime | Actors: Leon Lai, Michelle Reis, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Charlie Yeung, Karen Mok, Fai-Hung Chan, Man-Lei Chan, Toru Saito, To-Hoi Kong, Lee-Na Kwan, Yuhao Wu

The storyline of ‘Fallen Angels’ (1995) was originally intended for Wong Kar Wai’s fourth film ‘Chungking Express’, with which he broke through internationally in 1994. Just like in this last film, ‘Fallen Angels’ has two loosely intertwined storylines, in which we follow the so-called fallen angels and their misadventures in Hong Kong at night. Wandering souls they are, unhinged outcasts in a dingy but poetic world of deserted streets and neon lights reflected in wet shop windows.

One of the protagonists is Killer, a hit man who is very reminiscent of the protagonist of John Woo’s classic ‘The Killer’ (1989), who also, with a pistol in each hand, dealt stylishly with his opponents. Wong takes it one step further by letting Killer walk into dingy eateries and backrooms, seemingly unprepared, with a perpetual cigarette butt between his lips, and just throwing things around; each assignment degenerates into a chaotic shootout that kills everyone except Killer. The assignments he carries out have no context whatsoever and are irrelevant to the course of the film. The bottom line is that Killer is a killer, period.

Killer also has an assistant who takes care of his assignments for him and clears his hiding place behind him. Like Killer, she spends her time chain-smoking in bars and eateries. They both move in the same world, but live separate lives, because apart from a few fleeting moments they never meet. Lonely and alone, she revels in her grief for Killer, who refuses to return her love.

More palpable and therefore more interesting are the antics of the taciturn He Zhiwu, who lives with his father in a tiny apartment and wanders through the city at night. He has a habit of breaking into shops and then running them himself. The unsuspecting customers who fall for his trap undergo a runaway haircut in a barbershop or are forced to stuff themselves with whipped ice cream in an ice cream truck. These unwilling customers resist, but they also endure their torment resignedly, as if it wasn’t all that crazy after all.

Like Killer’s extreme shootings, these bizarre moments are part of a surreal landscape, populated by beautiful young eccentrics in the guise of fashion models and pop stars, whose lives take place on the fringes of society. ‘Fallen Angels’ turns this existential fear of hyper-self-aware twenty-somethings — thanks in no small part to the cinematography of resident cameraman Christopher Doyle — into a visual poem of colour, sound and movement.