Duo luo tian shi (1995)

Director:

Kar Wai Wong

Writer:

Kar Wai Wong (writer)

Release Date:

30 January 1998 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Crime | Drama | Romance

Plot:

A disillusioned killer embarks on his last hit but first he has to overcome his affections for his cool...

Plot Keywords:

Mute | Hong Kong | Ice Cream | Ice Cream Truck | McDonald's Restaurant

Awards:

8 wins & 6 nominations

Cast

Leon Lai	...	Wong Chi-Ming / Killer
Michelle Reis	...	The Killer's Agent (as Michele Reis)
Takeshi Kaneshiro	...	He Zhiwu
Charlie Yeung	...	Charlie / Cherry
Karen Mok	...	Punkie / Blondie / Baby
Fai-hung Chan	...	The Man Forced to Eat Icecream
Man-Lei Chan	...	He Zhiwu's father (as Chen Man Lei)
Toru Saito	...	Sato
To-hoi Kong	...	Ah-hoi
Lee-na Kwan	...	Woman Pressed to Buy Vegetables
Yuk-ho Wu	...	Man forced to have his clothes washed

Also Known As:

Fallen Angels (Hong Kong: English title) (USA)
Doh lok tin si (Hong Kong: Cantonese title)

Runtime:

90 min | France:96 min | Germany:96 min | Hong Kong:97 min

Country:

Hong Kong

Language:

Cantonese

Color:

Black and White | Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:16 | South Korea:15 | Philippines:R-18 | USA:R | Australia:MA (cable rating) | Australia:M (original rating) | Finland:K-16 | Germany:16 | Portugal:M/16 | Singapore:M18 | Sweden:15 | UK:15

Company:

Chan Ye-Cheng

Trivia:

The character He Zhiwu, who is mute but able to communicate with the audience through narration, tells us he became mute after eating a tin of pineapple with a past expiration date. A character in the earlier 'Wong Kar-wai' film, _Chong qing sen lin (1994)_, is obsessed with the expiration dates on tins of pineapple. In addition, they are both named He Zhiwu (though the character in _Chong qing sen lin (1994)_ is a cop, and the character in this film is a former criminal) and both are played by the actor Takeshi Kaneshiro.

Quotes:

The Killer's Agent: The road wasn't long, and I knew I'd be getting off soon. But at that moment, I felt such warmth.

Movie Connections:

Features Flashback (1990/I)

Soundtrack:

#2 Karma Coma

what the detractors are missing about this film

The following was excerpted from a wonderful essay by Momus, and nicely highlights the themes that this film is all about (which are totally missed by the complainers here who called it boring).

"Isolated, impulsive heroes, nocturnal locations, cool music... a violent world in which sensitive people nevertheless continue to dream romantic dreams indifferent to the surrounding carnage.

In 'Fallen Angels' this happens quite literally: Agent girl Michelle Reis moons and munches dreamily in the wideangle foreground while in the background a triad fight happens in slow motion.

It's the Walkman syndrome, a thing you notice when you visit the orient. The bigger the population, the more busy the city, the more people develop the ability to retreat into an inner isolation, the space of a snackbar, a tatami mat, a computer screen, a song playing on headphones.

In the next century we will all live like this.

Wong Kar Wei maps out a perfectly postmodern, perfectly oriental psychogeography of small, busy places which nevertheless become the spawning ground of ultra-private obsessions and infatuations. Love in his films is more likely to be expressed by someone breaking into your apartment and tidying it, or by masturbation, than a healthy clinch. It is the mindset of ultrafetish, and cinematographer Chris Doyle puts it into images: a clear plastic sheath worn over a Chinese silk dress, a mute riding the corpse of a pig in an abattoir, a blow up sex doll with its head stuck in an elevator door, being kicked insanely by a couple of ultra-romantic maniacs.

And there is the real star, the traum-city itself. Corridors, subways, neon, time lapse, travelators and low flying jets, trains, shopping arcades, Chung King Mansions stuffed to the gullets with sullen, sweating people cooled by antique electric fans, the scheming tattooed triads, outbursts of random violence, warehouses, chopping knives, video cameras, motorbikes speeding through tunnels, the multi-racial hand in hand with the super-commercial... Hong Kong insinuates itself into our imaginations as the ubertraumstadt, the place of ultimate nightmare and ultimate romance, where beauty is all the more poignant for its dark, cheap, pitiless setting and dreams are all the more necessary."