Fallen Angels (Do lok tin si)

Wednesday 23 September at 7.30pm

Wong Kar-Wai | Hong Kong | 1995 | 99 mins | M violence, offensive language & sex scenes

Neon-drenched ’90s Hong Kong nights make a vibrant, sensual yet melancholy setting, as a taciturn contract killer falls for his elusive business partner.

“Lost souls reach out for human connection amidst the glimmering night world of Hong Kong in Wong Kar Wai’s hallucinatory, neon-soaked nocturne. Originally conceived as a segment of Chungking Express only to spin off on its own woozy axis, this hyper-cool head rush plays like the dark, moody flip side to Wong’s breakout feature as it charts the subtly interlacing fates of a handful of urban loners, including a coolly detached hitman (Leon Lai) looking to go straight, his business partner (Michelle Reis) who secretly yearns for him, and a mute delinquent (Takeshi Kaneshiro) who wreaks mischief by night. Swinging between hardboiled noir and slapstick lunacy with giddy abandon, Fallen Angels is both a dizzying, dazzling city symphony and a poignant meditation on love, loss, and longing in a metropolis that never sleeps.” – Janus Films

“As stylish and audacious as Days of Being Wild and Chungking Express, Wong Kar-Wai’s film is another poignant but occasionally playful study of forlorn romance and melancholy solitude. Good-looking twenty-somethings struggle to make it through the night in the neon-lit streets, bars and diners of a Hong Kong rendered magically moody by the extreme wide-angle lens of Chris Doyle’s fluid camera. Exhilarating and, in the end, unexpectedly touching.” – Geoff Andrew, Time Out