Film review: Fallen Angels (1995)

We actually watched this a couple of days ago but I didn't get around to reviewing it.  It's the third film by the Taiwanese/Hong Kong director Wong Kar-Wai, and I sense a theme.  As in the other two, In the Mood for Love (2000) and Chungking Express (1994), the film is about couples who want to connect but somehow can't.  This is supposed to be a sequel to Chungking and makes several references to it, and is so similar as to be almost redundant.  Both films feature two separate storylines whose characters only tangentially interact, both involving couples.  Fallen Angels actually ends with the woman from one story connecting with the man from the other, which is more of a link than Chungking involves.  Fallen Angels also cuts back and forth between the storylines (like the film of The Two Towers) rather than telling one story complete, followed by the other as Chungking does (like the book of The Two Towers).  Jami suggested that the two films would make a good limited TV series with hour-long episodes, each of which is a separate story line, and I agree.  Neither film is really a perfect whole, which is where In the Mood for Love succeeds (and is his strongest and most mature work).  The two earlier films are more exercises in style (neon-drenched shots of Hong Kong at night in Angels and heaving throngs of daytime markets in Chungking) and whimsy (the obsessions and romantic hangups of the various failed lovers).  In brief, the first story is about a disaffected hitman and his female assistant (who scouts locations for him and washes his laundry when he leaves his apartment, but also fantasizes about him to the extent of masturbating on his bed) while the second is about a strange young man who went mute as a youngster (after eating an expired can of pineapples - a clear reference to one of the characters from Chungking), lives with his father, and makes a strange kind of living breaking into various stores afterhours and opening them up to reluctant shoppers (shots of him forcibly washing the hair of/feeding icecream/selling melons to people who do not want his services).  He keeps running into a woman who is perpetually calling her intended lover Johnny on payphones (ah, the pre-cellphone 90s) and then crying on his shoulder as she finds out he is in love with Blondie (who in turn shows up in the other storyline pursuing the hitman, who is not interested in a commitment) and eventually falls for her.  But after a brief reciprocation, she abandons him.  Meanwhile, the hitman agrees to one final hit before his intention of settling down and owning a business (after being impressed by our other mute protagonist) but alas does not survive it.
Is it worth watching?  Sure - it's kinetically shot and you get a real sense of place, but it is a bit teenage-y.  Lots of emo music and general mooning around.  But you have to see In the Mood for Love (sumptuous!) and if you had to choose between Angels and Chungking, pick the latter, especially for its second story, which is genuinely charming.