Fallen Angels
Kino International | Release Date: January 30, 1998 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
71
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 13 Critic Reviews
Positive:
9
Mixed:
4
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
Even Wong's detractors, who consider him more stylist than auteur, will have a tough time dismissing the extraordinary emotional depth he achieves here. Read full review
90
Chicago ReaderLisa Alspector
Writer-director Wong Kar-wai makes these five self-consciously idiosyncratic types--often seen through distorting lenses in cinematographer Christopher Doyle's somber, garish Hong Kong--fully and instantly believable. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesKevin Thomas
An exhilarating rush of a movie, with all manner of go-for-broke visual bravura that expresses perfectly the free spirits of his bold young people. [22 May 1998, Pg.F9]
80
NewsweekAndrea C. Basora
Wong Kar-Wai's cinematic style is unmistakable: hip, colorful and energetic and the film's frenetic pacing and exuberant camera work make the streets of Hong Kong a neon wonderland. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleRussell Smith
If you're fed up with the stultifying, formula-driven character of today's mainstream films, give Fallen Angels a try. At the very least you'll be engaged, and if you're lucky you may just recapture some of your original wonder at the seductive power of movies. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
To describe the plot is to miss the point. Fallen Angels takes the materials of the plot -- the characters and what they do -- and assembles them like a photo montage. At the end, you have impressions, not conclusions. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleEdward Guthmann
It's hard to follow, the characters are ill-defined, and the wide-angle shots used by Wong's perennial cinematographer, Christopher Doyle, are deliberately unflattering. Read full review
75
San Francisco ExaminerG. Allen Johnson
Fallen Angels is proof that Wong will try anything, and the result is an eclectic mix of images and disjointed editing, sounds and rhythms that are at times as powerful as any piece of filmmaking likely to be seen all year. It can also, every once in awhile, be tedious and trying. Read full review
75
LarsenOnFilmJosh Larsen
Even for a Wong Kar-wai film, Fallen Angels is lavishly stylized. Read full review
60
The New York TimesStephen Holden
Fallen Angels certainly abounds in visual pizazz, clever in jokes and trendy pop references, but such things can carry a movie only so far. Read full review
60
VarietyLeonard Klady
Abetted by the piercing images of lenser Christopher Doyle, the picture has a vivid, nightmarish quality that's more inviting than repellent. But the filmmaker mutes the impact by repeatedly cutting away to other settings, as if he lacked confidence in the power of the moment. Read full review
50
New York Daily NewsDave Kehr
Dull it is not, but Wong's trademark sense of romantic melancholy fails to jell amid all the excess, and the film turns frankly silly once the mute starts imagining himself in love with a can of sardines. [21 Jan 1998, Pg.37]
40
EmpireNeil Jeffries
A colourful and stylish romp, for sure, but a feeling of restlessness sets in long before the series of false endings that finally bring it to a close. Time passes, things happen, but nobody emerges very much wiser. Read full review
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