Fallen Angels (1995)
Two tales of crimes intertwine in present-day Hong Kong. A coolly detached hitman wants to finally escape a life of violence – much to the dismay of his partner who is secretly besotted with him. Meanwhile, a mute exconvict repeatedly encounters a girl during his nights of wreaking havoc. Fallen Angels" is the latest work from the Hong Kong wild man Wong Kar-Wai, whose films give the same effect as leafing through hip photo magazines very quickly. "They say that love can change a man. I start to find myself looking better and more charming, and suddenly I discover that I'm turning blonde."
Chungking Express
"Chungking Express" is a breezy little Hong Kong movie that has more life, energy, humanity and sheer visualizing than most other shows you'll see in a month or so. And, an hour after watching it, you may indeed be hungry for more. Not necessarily because the show is shallow or unsatisfying, or doesn't leave a strong impression, but because the spontaneity and high energy of it is what's so much fun. -- shot by its young writer-director, Wong Kar-Wai, in 23 days during a lull in the making of another picture -- has a kinetic, arousing, almost-tactile effect. Like a good rock song, it makes you want to move. It has solid hooks and terrific embellishment. What's the old cliche about Chinese food? It tastes great, but an hour later you're hungry for more? From one angle, that's not necessarily a bad quality. Why shouldn't you want to repeat an experience you enjoyed?
"Somehow everything comes with an expiry date"
Happy Together
One of the most searing romances of the 1990s, Wong Kar Wai’s emotionally raw, lushly stylized portrait of a relationship in breakdown casts Hong Kong superstars Tony Leung Chiu Wai and Leslie Cheung Kwok Wing as a couple traveling through Argentina and locked in a turbulent cycle of infatuation and destructive jealousy as they break up, make up, and fall apart again and again. The moments are infrequent, as if sleep – memory’s great consolidator, or the other petit mort – were the only constant against which to accurately measure the vicissitudes of their waning love. In sleep, they briefly enjoy the combined physical proximity and unconscious distance that, in waking life, they cannot recognise.
"Turns out that lonely people are all the same."