Delusional Love in Fallen Angels

While Fallen Angels bears a remarkable similarity to Wong Kar-Wai’s Chungking Express, the relationship between the characters Ho Chi Moo and Charlie stand out as one of the more unique storylines. Due to Ho Chi Moo’s inability to speak, their relationship takes on a different level of understanding and intimacy, especially during the scenes in which we see Ho Chi Moo observing Charlie without her knowing. They create comic relief within the plot, but also add to the ideas and motifs that run throughout the movie, such as despair, revenge and heartache. Ho Chi Moo’s inability to speak also contributes to the idea of invisibility, which he carries with him throughout his entire presence as a character, even in the scenes without Charlie. While their unique relationship informs the viewers on the characters themselves, they also inform the audience on other relationships within the story and act as mirrors for the other characters. While the audience is not given as much introspection from Charlie and we never get to see the world through her lens, she sometimes acts as a translator between Ho Chi Moo and the audience. Their relationship speaks to the film’s larger themes of love and loss, entering an introspective space in which silence and image replace speech as the main forms of communication.

Ho Chi Moo’s initial annoyance with Charlie and their consistent chance encounters give their relationship the initial fantastical element that they carry as characters. The moonlight excursions of Ho Chi Moo and his interactions with his “customers” give him an absurdist feel, which pairs nicely with the emotional instability of Charlie. Their experiences are parallel in the sense that Ho Chi Moo re-creates the experience of owning a...

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...mes unwillingly. Most notably, Ho Chi Moo is invisible to Charlie throughout the majority of their relationship as she is still mourning over the loss of Johnnie and then more literally, he is invisible to her at the end of the film since he has already played out his value as a comforter. Charlie highlights Ho Chi Moo’s invisibility, but it is also present in the scene with his father in which he is filming him, thereby making himself the invisible camera man, giving perspective on the world, but not being recognized as he is behind the camera. Ho Chi Moo’s desire for visibility plays into his strange interactions with his “customers” in which he wishes to play a part that no one will grant him. His relationship with Charlie grants viewers the insight in order to see how easily Ho Chi Moo is ignored by Charlie, and subsequently, by many other characters in the film.