Cantonese: Doh lok tin si
Mandarin: Duo luo tian shi
English: Fallen Angels

Wong Kar-wai's follow-up to CHUNGKING EXPRESS is very much in the same style and spirit as that film. Reportedly, one of the stories in this film was originally planned for its forerunner and a modicum of the footage here was also left over from that project. Some have accused Wong of simply repeating himself with FALLEN ANGELS but, more accurately, the two movies are interconnected, utilizing the same stylistic approach and recurring motifs (like the resonant use of a pop song).

Love, again, provides the main narrative linchpin, along with the fleeting bonds created by random encounters. Ming (Leon Lai Ming), a suave but lazy assassin, receives his orders from The Agent (Michelle Lee Kar-yan/Michelle Reis), a beautiful, melancholy, chain-smoking woman dressed in various provocative outfits. She is obsessed with him but he's never even met her once during the nearly three years they have been working together. The Agent lives in a building owned by the father of He Qiwu (Takeshi Kaneshiro). Mute since the age of five (when he ate a can of expired pineapple), Qiwu is a free spirit in the most uninhibited sense. "Re-opening" various stores in the middle of the night and conducting business with passersby (whether they want to or not), Qiwu exists in his own world even when spending time with his aged father. After one close call too many, Ming decides to hang up his gun. Informing The Agent in a rather unique, albeit characteristically passive manner, he encounters blonde-wigged "Baby" (Karen Mok Man-wai), who hides her loneliness beneath a berserk exterior. While making his rounds, Qiwu continually encounters Charlie (Charlie Yeung Choi-nei; image), an even more deranged girl, who is out to get revenge on someone named "Blondie" for stealing her man. Qiwu develops feelings for Charlie but she is far too single-minded and vacant to notice.

Like CHUNGKING EXPRESS, the visuals and structure are aggressively offbeat and the film is filled with a joyous, creative energy (even when the characters are brooding endlessly) that makes almost every set-up seem magical. The action unfolds at every speed and cadence imaginable, the editing and camerawork alternate freely between hyper and comatose, and the image is both over and undersaturated. Grain, glare and overt distortions are stylistic enhancements. Musical underpinning comes courtesy of Frankie Chan Fan-kei and Roel A. Garcia's très chic score, supplemented by songs from Laurie Anderson, Marianne Faithful, Shirley Kwan Suk-yee, and others. While there are resonant moments running the gamut from darkly comic (such as one poor man's misfortune to continually be one of Qiwu's "customers," culminating in he and his family being forced to consume gallons of ice cream!) to poignant (Qiwu's relationship with his understandably exasperated but loving father), FALLEN ANGELS is also filled with some marvellous asides, such as when Ming (who has just performed a hit and is trying to keep a low profile) runs into an obnoxious junior high classmate who won't leave him alone. If it takes a darker view of life and love than the unabashed romanticism of the previous film, FALLEN ANGELS still manages to end on an upbeat note, leaving one both smiling and dazzled. The film won the cinematography, music, and Best Supporting Actress (Karen Mok) prizes at the Hong Kong Film Awards.