Product Description

- Remastered From New HD Film Transfers
- Presented For the First Time in 5.1 Surround (Supervised by Wong Kar-Wai)

Commonly regarded as one of the most influential directors of contemporary cinema, Wong Kar-Wai (Happy Together, In the Mood for Love) has developed a signature style that employs bold, experimental uses of photography, music, and editing to capture the tension of the new millennium. Originally intended to be a third story in his now classic Chungking Express, Fallen Angels has emerged as what some critics have come to consider his (quintessential work.) Set in the neon-washed underworld of present day Hong Kong, Fallen Angels intertwines exhilarating tales of love and isolation, primarily the unconsummated love affair between a contract Killer (Leon Lai Ming) and the ravishing female Agent (Michele Reis) who books his assignments and cleans up after his jobs.

SPECIAL FEATURES:
- Three Behind-the-Scenes Featurettes
- Interview with Cinematographer Christopher Doyle
- Trailers
- Stills Gallery
- Enhanced for 16x9 TVs

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #24337 in DVD
• Released on: 2009-03-31
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Original recording remastered, Subtitled, Surround Sound, Widescreen
• Original language: Cantonese
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 96 minutes

Amazon.com
Fallen Angels was originally planned as one section of director Wong Kar-Wai's best-known film, Chungking Express, but eventually it grew into its own distinct and delirious shape. In many ways, Fallen Angels may be the better film, a dark, frantic fun-house ride through Hong Kong's nighttime world. Part of the film is a love story between two people who have barely met: a young, ultra-hip hit man (Leon Lai) and the dreamy operative (Michele Reis) who plans his jobs. Much of the movie is given over to a very strange subplot about a manic mute (Takeshi Kaneshiro) who goes on bizarre nocturnal prowls through a closed food market--like almost everything else in Wong's films, this is antic, stylish, and oddly touching, all at the same time. It must be said that, also like Wong's other films, Fallen Angels is fragmented and oblique to the point of occasional incomprehensibility…but then suddenly something wild or wonderful happens, such as the moment when the killer leaves the scene of a spectacular shooting and is promptly waylaid by a cheerful old school chum on a public bus. These coups--whether lyrical, violent, or simply "how on earth did they get that shot?"--are tossed off by Wong and cinematographer Christopher Doyle with all the cool of the hired killer, as though the movie were a cigarette dangling from a pair of oh-so-casual lips. This is exactly why so many otherwise calm critics fell all over themselves in hailing Wong Kar-Wai as one of the most exciting filmmakers of his generation. --Robert Horton

Review
An exhilarating rush of a movie. Go-for-broke visual bravura. --Kevin Thomas, The Los Angeles Times

Customer Reviews

mesmerizing
"We all need a partner, when will I find mine ?" seems to be the theme running through all of Wong Kar-Wai's films, as well as his other usual ingredients: Mind-bending speed, innovative camera work (by Christopher Doyle), a great soundtrack, and a gorgeous cast. He also manages to show the murky side of society while never losing touch with its humanity. We see that even a cold-blooded hit man can have a side that's endearing.

Takeshi Kaneshiro as the mute is the shining star of this film. He's brilliant and lovable. The "May 30th 1995, I fell in love" scene is one I adore. In slow motion black and white, the background moves at different speeds, fades in and out...it's a piece of pure magical art, a painting come to life.

Like "Chungking Express", it slows down during the second half, and to me, this is when it gets even better. There is so much to see in this film, I know I'll be viewing it many more times, and appreciating its inventiveness...and through the darkness, its sweet soul.

A Master's Best
Wong Kar-Wai has become my favorite director. He's as talented as Kurasawa, Fellini, Wells, Antonioni, Bergman or Altman. My favorite of his films, maybe because it is the last one I (re)viewed is "Fallen Angels". Wong Kar-Wai has a way of expressing longing that is neither cloying nor sentimental. His films are touching in a deeply profound manner. "Fallen Angels" is the double story of a hitman and his partner and a mute man with a unique business sense. Hilarious and over the top violent at the same time, Wong Kar-Wai pulls this off without a single misstep.
Visually stunning, this film looks like no other, save perhaps "Chungking Express" (which I plan to re-watch this afternoon). It's "Chungking Express" at night. Planned originally as a third episode of "Chungking Express" this film stands alone as a masterpiece of Kar-Wai's art. There are minor illusions to "Chungking Express" which allow the viewer to feel a continuity of spirit and theme. For instance, the mute midnight shop clerk played by Takeshi Kaneshiro mentions in voice-over that he lost his ability to speak after eating a tin of expired pineapple. This will resonate with viewers who have seen "Chungking Express" and bring to mind the character he played in that film. These are blood brothers. Variations of the same love-sick, lonely man.
Kar-Wai's films remind me of Altman in the 70's. You watch his films and wonder why all other directors are so unimaginative and pedestrian. Why does he seem to be the only director doing anything new and unique while even the most celebrated directors just recycle the same old [stuff] you've seen a hundred times before? He's an original. The look, the emotional feel and the grammar of his films belongs to no one else.
Any synopsis of his storyline can only diminish their scope and complexity, so I won't even try. It is enough to know his film resonate for days after viewing. They stick in your mind like something experienced first hand. They are fizzy, giddy, forlorn and hopeful. The final scene of "Fallen Angels" brings tears to my eyes everytime I see it, even though I know what is coming. It is a testament to the complexity and honesty of his vision that an emotional response is assured in the viewer. His characters are so honestly portrayed you wish you knew them in life. You want to call them on the phone and meet for a drink in a smokey, neon lit bar found only in a Wong Kar-Wai film. You end up feeling very protective of these characters, as you would with people you know and cannot quite reach. Cannot quite assure they are alright and worth loving. Cannot assure they deserve happiness.

Film of the Month
Is Wong Kar-Wai the world's most exciting film-maker? Fallen Angels, his fifth feature and the follow-up to Chungking Express, constitutes strong evidence in his favor. With enough manic energy to fuel ten ordinary films, Wong has created a sublime, freewheeling, melancholy action-romance which switches and subverts genres in the blink of an eye. One second it's an all-guns-blazing John Woo homage, the nexts it's a goofball slapstick, the next it's a hymn to lost or hoped for love.

Plotwise the film is just as unsettled, with numerous plots and characters careening through the neon-blurred Hong Kong night. Singer Leon Lai is Killer, a gun-for-hire who has an unconsummatable crush on Agent, the partner he has never met (played by former Miss HK Michelle Reis). In the same orbit circulates ex-con Ho (Chungking's Takeshi Kanashiro), a mute who earns his living by breaking into places of business by night and forcing his services upon unwitting 'customers'. Wong sets these characters up and then cuts them loose, allowing them to be propelled through the film by the kineticism of their own thoughts, schemes and dreams.

Cinematographer Chris Doyle and editor/production designer William Chang help Wong create a film that looks, feels and moves like no other; quite literally reconfiguring cinematic time and space with spastic yet graceful narrative structure, rule-breaking, arrhythmic editing, forced perspectives and smeared action scenes. It's a dizzying, disorienting experience, shot almost entirely hand-held with a wide-angle lens and often in extreme close-up. Strip away the flash, however, and Wong's vision remains compelling; it's easy to relate to his dreamers, loners and misfits, wandering rainy streets and haunting dark bars looking for people with which they can connect and places where they can belong. Funny, stylish, sensual and ultimately very moving, Fallen Angels leaves you in no doubt that, yes, Wong Kar-Wai is the world's most exciting film-maker.