``Fallen Angels'' Wong Kar-wai's depiction of sex and death during the transition period, ``Chungking Express'' sister edition

"Fallen Angels" synopsis

A man who is a killer and a woman who is an agent who arranges work for him over the phone. The two men took turns visiting a single room in the Chungking Mansions, and were supposed to work calmly without bringing their personal feelings into their work, without ever meeting face to face. However, the female agent cannot suppress her feelings for the killer. Meanwhile, the killer spends the night with a blonde woman. On the other hand, Mo, the son of the manager of Chungking Mansions, lives with his father and does business at other people's shops, which are closed at night. Mou, who is mute and unable to speak the language he wants, spends his days selling products and services violently. One day, he meets a woman who has just lost her love. Set in Hong Kong, the stories of five men and women intertwine.

`` The Chungking Express '' (1994) was director Wong Kar-wai's breakthrough work and is still considered the best work of his career. The love story, which was told in two parts, the first half and the second half, had an unwritten "third story"... The movie ``Fallen Angels'' (1995) was created based on a story that was originally conceived as an episode of `` Chungking Express ,'' so it is a sister edition of the same work.

Kar-wai once said of `` The Chungking Express '' and ``Fallen Angels'', ``For me, (the two movies together) are three-hour movies.I want them to be seen as two features.'' As the saying goes, the two movies are two sides of the same coin. I would like to take a closer look at the story gimmick set up by Kar-Wai.

Index

• light and shadow of the city
• “Chungking Express” that are reversed and connected
• Hong Kong at night, the smell of sex and death

light and shadow of the city

Let's start by looking back at `` Chungking Express '' (if you haven't seen it yet, it's best to watch `` Chungking Express '' before moving on to ``Fallen Angels''). The story of the film is set in Chungking Mansions, a huge building in the downtown area, and the first part is about a heartbroken detective, Mo (Takeshi Kaneshiro), and a female drug dealer (Bridget Lin), and the second part is about a side dish. The second part depicts police officer No. 663 (Tony Léon: The Professional), a regular customer at the Midnight Express shop, and Faye (Faye Wong), a clerk who has an unrequited love for him and sneaks into his home. For more information, please read my article , ``The atmosphere that flowed through Hong Kong in the early 1990s as captured by the masterpiece of a Chungking Express movie .''

Like `` Chungking Express '', ``Fallen Angels'' is a love drama that consists of two stories. The first is the story of a killer (Léon: The Professional Lai) and a female agent (Michelle Lee) who arranges work for him over the phone. The two men took turns visiting a single room in the Chungking Mansions, and were supposed to work calmly without bringing their personal feelings into their work, without ever meeting face to face. However, the woman cannot suppress her feelings for the man. Meanwhile, the killer spends the night with a blonde woman (Karen Mok).

“Fallen Angels” ©1995, 2008 Block 2 Pictures Inc. All Rights Reserved.

On the other hand, Mo (Takeshi Kaneshiro), the son of the manager of Chungking Mansions, lives with his father and does business at other people's shops, which are closed at night. Mou, who is mute and unable to speak the language he wants, spends his days selling products and services violently. One day, he meets a woman (Charlie Yang) who has just had a broken heart.

While `` Chungking Express '' had a two-part structure with the story clearly divided into the first half and the second half, ``Fallen Angels'' has a structure in which the two stories intertwine. In the case of `` Chungking Express ,'' the story was connected by a scene in which Mo, the detective who is the main character in the first part, visits a delicatessen shop that is the setting for the second part. Although there is no such clear connection in ``Fallen Angels'', Kar-wai connects the stories by foregrounding the landscape of Hong Kong. The two stories are sketches of young people living in the same city at the same time. For various reasons, they move around the city using various means of transportation, sometimes passing each other, and sometimes ending up in the same place.

Kar-Wai has openly stated that the city itself is the main character in both `` Chungking Express '' and ``Fallen Angels.'' ``The light and shadow of the city, this is one of the reasons I wanted to photograph ``Fallen Angels''.'' As symbolized by the keywords ``light'' and ``shadow,'' this work uses the same motifs as ``Chungking Express,'' but completely reverses them throughout the play.

“Chungking Express” that are reversed and connected