FALLEN ANGELS (69)

Directed by: Wong Kar-Wei

Starring: Leon Lai, Michele Reis, Takeshi Kaneshiro

The Pitch: A job-weary hitman thinks about retirement ; a cheerful ex-con makes a living by re-opening shops closed for the night. Unrelated stories amid the dazzle of Hong Kong.

Theo Sez: "I don't know any of these people...They don't interest me, either," says our heroine - speaking (implicitly) for the film itself, which may well be why it seems to work much better than CHUNGKING EXPRESS (though it's also a question of familiarity with Wong's style - I'd certainly rate CHUNGKING a few notches higher if I saw it now). Lots in common between the two, from the trivial (out-of-date pineapple tins) to the fundamental (a song repeated, a line about "rubbing shoulders with people every day"), but the tone's more brittle here, the humour goofier, the film less given to lovelorn musings and attempts at pathos - all of which is actually a good thing. Freed from half-baked romanticism - freed, in effect, from the fiction that he gives a damn about any of his characters - this director's (and his DP's) cold imagistic brilliance gets free rein, most unforgettably in a stunning shot (b&w, slo-mo, a couple sitting quietly in a bar) that's indescribable except to say the screen itself seems to be made of water. Wong is a bit like the minor character here who communicates with his family by making video recordings of what he wants to say : he's into movies more than Life, hopelessly detached in a way, but he does want to communicate - albeit indirectly, using texture rather than emotion. We (and he) may not care too much about these characters' fates, but the loneliness and alienation (and relentless buzz) of living in a big city are unmistakably conveyed ; the final scene - taking refuge in friendship, hoping for more, to the strains of an a cappella "Only You" - is, unexpectedly, very close to touching.