Chungking Express Continued: Fallen Angels

Apparently, Fallen Angels was supposed to be a third story in his earlier film Chungking Express but had to be shelved due to length according to Stephen Teo in his book on Wong Kar-wai. The main story concerning an assassin (Leon Lai) and his partner (Michelle Reis) was combined with a story about a mute man (Takeshi Kaneshiro) and his father (Man-Lei Chan) to form a diptych that is an outgrowth and a companion piece to Chungking Express. There many things that link Fallen Angels with Chungking Express: Kaneshiro (he himself was also in that film) becomes a mute after eating a can of pineapples with an expired use-by date; his father works at the Chungking mansion, Kaneshiro ends up working at the Midnight Express wher Charlei Young waits for her new lover in front of the shop in an air hostess uniform. The story takes places in the divided spaces between Kowloon and Hong Kong. It is a story of urban romance where peopel live clsoely together but are adrift mentally. The female agent (Reis) is in love with the hitman (Lai), but not in a conventional way and goes through his garbage and masturbates in his bed when he is away. Teo suggests that Seijun Suzuki's Branded To Kill (1967) could have been the inspiration for this story with a similar relationship between a woman and a hitman. He seems to drift through life and doesn't recognize his ex-lover Blondie (Karen Monk playing a role in similar vein as Carina Lau in Days of Being Wild). She has dyed her hair blond so that she will be remembered, however Lai is determined to forget her so she resorts to biting him to make him remember. He is fated to die a lonely death. In the other main story, He Zhiwu (Kaneshiro) lives in the Chungking Hotel with his father and breaks into shops and works at night forcing customers to buy or take his services. He stumbles upon a woman (Charlie Young) in the middle of a break up with her boyfriend and he falls in love with her, but she is still distraught over her previous lover and doesn't notice the attention. The story ends with a chance meeting between Reis and Kaneshiro and ends on an ambiguous note as they speed off on the motorcycle through the city with the beautiful Flying Picket's version of the Yaz song "Only You." It is one of the many beautiful shots that once again reflect Christopher Doyle's artistry behind the camera.