Fallen Angels

When we’re gone, what do we leave behind? Cinematic ecstasy that makes up for its slightly superficial plotting. The first time I saw a Wong Kar-Wai film, I put on Fallen Angels on a red-eye flight to Hong Kong. I was flying alone, for the first time. Somewhere in between the hitman meeting his agent for the final time, and Ho Chi-mo’s final night at his father’s hotel, I dozed off for a bit, and after I woke up, even still the final shot was just as impactful as it was today. The second time I saw Fallen Angels, I saw it in theaters as a double feature with In The Mood For Love. Safe to say I found it far more captivating a second time and even preferred it to the first film of the night, which is high praise considering my lack of tolerance toward the romance genre. Both Chungking Express and Fallen Angels aren’t only that though, and the opening sequence of Chungking Express, as well as Fallen Angels' final shot of Jardine House in the foreground of the blue sky depicts a wider, more ambitious scope of two films committed to documenting a city, its people, and the moments that make up those days, and nights. On my third watch of Fallen Angels, accompanied with a first-watch of Chungking Express tonight, the film felt particularly breezy, and I immediately saw even more subtle details and thematic callbacks bouncing off the two films. On paper, the two films read very much as essentially one anthology, sharing cinematographers, actors and settings. However, stylistically, Chungking predominantly explores a more lighter (visually) style of storytelling, while Fallen Angels focuses on a somehow darker cityscape that takes on a personality of its own. Even still, the moody lighting allows for far goofier characters in the latter, and I found myself finding Fallen Angels far more consistently humorous. The vignettes are held together by the charisma of each actor, the brief moments their lives intersect (to be remembered, or with the intent not to be), and the liberal use of music. I particularly enjoy the trip-hop sounds as Doyle’s camera follows the protagonists across the labyrinthine streets and subways. Who knows how long the visuals of Chungking will be imprinted in my memory when I hear “all the leaves are brown” begin to play. I read somewhere how Wong Kar-wai may well make it so you cannot hear California Dreamin’ the same way again, and while that might be a slight exaggeration of exactly how emotionally devastating the use of the song may be, I’d be lying if it wouldn’t be accompanied by an even bigger sense of melancholy than I originally attributed to it. Many of the writers I look up to on this site are particularly admirable in their commitment to the philosophical approach, and the inter-textual dissection of films, not limited to their technical composition or the analysis of form over substance. Because quite frankly, who am I to criticise a film for the creative direction it chooses to go in, what it doesn’t do (something I’ve consistently scratched my head at towards Alex Garland’s films), and how it’s edited? At the end of the day, if I want to discuss a film I love in its totality, I will inevitably end up discussing what it isn’t, or doesn’t achieve, so I’ve come to accept that it forms a significant part of my judgement. Depending on what side you fall on you might regard this concern of mine as supremely silly, something to avoid, or both. Unfortunately, while I wish a solely philosophical deep-dive could be the case for my thoughts on these Wong Kar-wai films I’ve seen, I don’t think that day will be today. For a director whose career seems to be obsessed with change, memory, finding profundity in the most mundane aspects of the human experience, and, for a lack of a better word, sonder - WKW seems to be too eager to make significant alterations to his work within the restoration process. You can make the argument about how this corrective perfectionism is justified, and this isn’t antithetical to the focus of his films, but rather a reminder of the fragility of the past - or as Takeshi Kaneshiro’s characters refer to as an inherent “expiry date”. It’s particularly a sensitive topic for me, given my personal exposure to the locales of Wong’s films growing up in Hong Kong for a decade of my life. Wong’s films depict a city of yesteryear, a bygone era, accurate not to my lived experience completely, but rather my imagined recollection of HK fueled by nostalgia. So it’s this personal connection that perhaps frustrates me about these changes, and maybe it’s unfair of me to be so worked up by something that’s arguably insignficant. But at what point does pastiche become parody? It seems more paradoxical than justified in my eyes for WKW to deceivingly make significant alterations to the most widely available digital and physical copies in print (the newest Criterion box set). Falsely marketed as a restored edition of his films, when instead he’s entirely recut the films with different shots and alternate colour-grading altogether. Randomly replacing shots with black and white filters, then colourizing previously black and white shots, increasing green tints to really sell the fact that it’s a “Doyle-Wong” film, the equivalent of the incessant TikTok clip edits you find all over social media these days. A dilution of the style they crafted to what is effectively a nuance-less cliché. Perhaps what is most insulting is the aspect ratio pan-and-scan cropping to 2.39:1 anamorphic, from the source ratio 1.85, which absolutely bastardizes the original look of the movie enough to make it feel like you’re seeing an entirely different film, with these changes made a quarter of a decade later. You may say this is excusable, artistic intents considered, I have to respect the choices. So what’s the big deal, you may be thinking. I’m just not a fan of the forced erasure of the original edits, as they become increasingly inaccessible to the average viewer, and the lack of knowledge over the changes making it difficult to distinguish between the edits. Why is this a problem? We will have entire generations of film-goers seeing a wholly different film to what was originally released in theaters, then the first-run of discs. In fact, all of this is discussed in an article I came across on Reddit wherein the author suggests more deliberate cultural erasure allegations on WKW’s part. If you’re even slightly considerate over film preservation you’d be more than a little concerned over Wong’s eagerness to replace and discard access to the original film for these revised versions he considers definitive. So, I guess what I’m saying is, unlike the legacy of Ho Chi-mo’s father, the subject of Ho’s home videos, an authentic record of his remembered identity - the same cannot be said for Wong’s films. But just like Ho can’t taste his father’s steaks again, the original copies of Chungking Express, Fallen Angels and In The Mood For Love will likely fade from WKW fans’ memories, like the cans of expired pineapple, boxed, to be discarded. It’s up to you to sift through it to make sure it won’t go to waste. Ultimately, Fallen Angels is still an effective coda to Chungking Express, with its opening and final shot encapsulating a film that visually surpasses its predecessor. But unfortunately as effective and optimistic as that shot of the motorcyclists coming out of a tunnel, accompanied by the rise of the skyline, I can’t help but look past what’s become of these films. If only Wong would have instead chosen to end with an after-credits scene of [](https://youtu.be/2oDqKaoEFYc?si=1g1j-i03shZJXQem)this beautifully shot sequence[](https://youtu.be/2oDqKaoEFYc?si=1g1j-i03shZJXQem) instead (not advocating for it to be replacing the existing ending obviously), he could have probably have dealt with a little less scrutiny from me and 5 other people I suppose.