Quartile rating: 8/10 · 1 rating
An indifferent hitman, his infatuated business partner and an ex-convict search for love and meaning as their lives cross paths in Hong Kong.
Wong Kar-wai's Fallen Angels is a dazzling stylistic exercise, its wide-angle, neon-soaked Hong Kong cinematography by Christopher Doyle representing some of the most distinctive visual filmmaking of the 1990s — genuinely exceptional and unmistakable. Novelty is equally high: the film's fragmented, mood-driven structure, its refusal of conventional narrative and its dreamlike emotional logic make it entirely singular, a companion piece to Chungking Express with its own irreducible identity. Acting is serviceable and committed but deliberately affectless, more about presence than range. The plot is loosely episodic rather than tightly constructed, which is a conscious artistic choice but limits its dramatic power. The ending is atmospheric but elliptical, satisfying on a feeling level without providing much closure.