If you are a fan of director Wong Kar Wai, you will be the most idle fan in the world, as he has only made eleven films so far since he directed it. If you are a fan of director Wong Kar Wai, then you will be the hardest fan in the world, because he makes films slower than other directors make ten TV series. My favorite Wong Kar Wai movie is "Chongqing Forest", (it's also my favorite movie, no one.) And the first review about Wong Kar Wai's movie is "Fallen Angel". What I like about Wong Kar-wai's films is not the way he tells the story or the story itself, but simply the tune of this kind of film. If you are watching a Wong Kar Wai movie and trying to understand what kind of story he is telling, you are wrong. Because Wong Kar Wai never intended to tell a story well. Wong Kar-wai, who has always liked to do the opposite, in his films, the most important thing is not the story, but the characters. (It is said that Wong Kar-wai selects the actors first and then tailors the script for him.) From "The True Story of Ah Fei" to "2046", from Ah Fei to Zhou Muyun, we can all see Wong Kar-wai's distinctive portrayal of each character's character. Back to "Fallen Angels", there are a total of five distinctive characters in the movie, namely the killer Dawn, his partner Li Jiaxin, the mute Takeshi Kaneshiro, the lovelorn woman Yang Cai Ni, and the mad woman Karen Mok. Those who have a certain understanding of Wong Kar-wai's films will not be wrong. "Fallen Angels" is full of shadows of "Chongqing Forest" everywhere. Jin Chengwu's father's Chongqing Hotel, the prison number is 223, the expired pineapple cake accidentally eaten when he was five years old, the flight attendant costume that Yang Caini finally appeared in, etc. This inevitably leads us to connect the two films in the way they describe the relationship between the characters. It also describes the life of a group of people on the edge of the city, and also outlines the subtle and intricate emotional changes between people. The film begins with the story of the killer Dawn and his partner Yang Cai Ni. The two never meet each other but have a tacit understanding that is beyond ordinary people, and gradually understand everything about each other and develop feelings in cooperation time and time again. In the editing of this episode, the director used a lot of montages (Li Jiaxin stepped on the scene and the scene of Operation Dawn was handed over), wide-angle lenses (the portraits filled most of the screen), psychedelic music and shaking lenses. Almost all the techniques that should be used in literary and artistic films are used without being artificial at all, perhaps because he is Wong Kar Wai. Finally, the relationship between Killer Dawn and his partner Li Jiaxin came to an end in the 1818 song "Forget Him" (Guan Shuyi's version). The sadness has not yet fully spread, and Takeshi Kaneshiro appeared in the camera with a humorous attitude. As a mute, his greatest pleasure is to open other people's shops at will in the midnight city and be his own boss. Then, by chance, he met his first love, Yang Cai Ni. In the first series of Takeshi Kaneshiro's rambunctious shop shots, we can't help but think he's a little neurotic. But slowly getting to know him deeply, only to realize that he just doesn't want to grow up, he just wants to be a simple and optimistic child. However, after experiencing the blow of lovelorn and the death of his father, he also began to learn to behave slowly and grow up slowly. In the end, the killer Li Jiaxin and his partner Li Jiaxin met for the last time, and Li Jiaxin asked Liming to help her one last time. And like most killer movies, this "last" is also the last in Dawn's life. After Dawn died, the words he said echoed again: "The advantage of doing this business to be big is that you don't have to make decisions. Who should die, time, place, others have already decided. I am a very lazy person, I like people ( Li Jiaxin) arrange everything for me. It's been a little different recently, and I'm starting to decide something for myself. Whether it's right or wrong, this decision belongs to me." Is Li Jiaxin deliberately arranging the end of Liming's life, or Liming's own The choice, we do not know, the film did not explain. This is also some of the cleverness of the plot design of the film, there is always a place for the audience to imagine for themselves. It wasn't until after the film that we thought that Wong Kar-wai was just telling a story that was fragmented and without a theme, and then we suddenly found out that the name of the film was "Fallen Angels". It was only then that I suddenly discovered that none of the protagonists had names. The depraved life of a group of urban fringe people is full of angelic innocence. In fact, throughout the whole movie, each character is more or less neurotic. Dawn's difficult choice syndrome, Li Jiaxin's cynical expression all day long, Kaneshiro Takeshi's nonsense that he doesn't want to grow up, Yang Caini's irrational actions after falling out of love, Karen Mok crying and laughing madly. If "Chongqing Forest" shows the psychology of urbanites taking a step back towards love, then "Fallen Angel" exaggerates the nervousness in the hearts of every urbanite to the extreme. Exaggerating the neuroticism of urban fringe people with unique identities actually mirrors everyone in the city. Compared with the relationship in "Chongqing Forest" in which only Faye Wong and Takeshi Kaneshiro pass by and look at each other, the relationship between the characters in "Fallen Angel" is more complicated. Just like Jin Chengwu's lines in "Fallen Angels": "Every day, you will plug in with many people, and they may become your friends or confidants." Li Jiaxin lived in Jinchengwu's father's hotel, and Li Jiaxin went to Jinchengwu's shop in the morning. Eat sushi in (and hear "Forget Him"), Karen Mok and Cai Ni Yang meet in the tunnel, and finally Li Jiaxin gets on Liming's motorcycle. The world is not big at all. With the addition of the six-dimensional space theorem, the delicate relationship between five people in a city is overlooked in Wong Kar-wai's lens. Suddenly, after 2,000 years, (except "Blueberry Night") Wong Kar-wai's works have been concentrated in the last century. This has resulted in a strange phenomenon. The modern urban features in all of Wong Kar-wai's works so far have been concentrated in Hong Kong in the 1980s and 1990s - a city that was at the transition and change of times and full of confusion and loss. From details to framing, these films are full of old Hong Kong flavors. Perhaps, Wong Kar Wai is a nostalgic person. At this point, I have finally read all of Wong Kar-wai's works so far. And this "Fallen Angel", which is not well-known and under-rated, personally thinks it is a rare unpopular masterpiece by director Wong Kar-wai.
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I haven't written many movie reviews in recent years, especially after I became a screenwriter. On the contrary, starting last year, I began to try to be my own independent film review podcast. Slowly I found that, compared with cold words, using voice to express opinions can make opinions more warm and personal.
The purpose of this podcast is also very simple and pure, not for profit, but to generate electricity with love. I simply hope that through this podcast, I can get to know more friends who like movies and creation.
Especially in the days when we can't make our favorite movie works, chatting about movies together may be the greatest comfort to ordinary life.
Anyway, this is a podcast of "talking about movies from the creator's point of view". At the end of each issue, we will open our minds together and magically change the story of the movie. Friends who are interested in movies or in creation can pay attention.
——2022.2.26
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