Am 16. März 2010 erscheint Wong Kar-wais “Fallen Angels / Duo luo tian shi” [HK 1995, Wong Kar-wai] in den USA bei Kino on Video auf Blu-ray.

Die Pressemitteilung:

Kino International Releases Wong Kar-Wai’sFallen Angels (1997) on Blu-ray.

New York, January 21, 2010 - Kino International, a division of the newly created Kino Lorber, is proud to release the director-approved, 5.1 Stereo Surround edition of Wong Kar-Wai’sFallen Angels (1997), on Blu-ray.

This new and definitive version of one of Kino’s most popular titles will prebook on February 16, 2010, with a SRP of $29.95. The street date for Fallen Angels on Blu-ray is March 16.

Featuring some of the most spellbinding and decade-defining visuals of the 1990s, Wong Kar-Wai’s classic film was restored to optimal condition in late 2008, using high-def technology. Under the strict supervision of Wong Kar-Wai, scratches and dust spots were digitally removed and the film’s color gradings were completely reviewed in this new transfer of the film.

After this restoration was made available to the general public on DVD in early 2009, Kino International is now proud to present this film on a format that displays the final restoration work as it was meant to be seen - in high-def. As special features, this blu-ray edition of Fallen Angels bring trailers, a stills gallery, an exclusive interview with director of photography Christopher Doyle, and other behind-the-scene featurettes.

Commonly regarded as one of the most influential directors of contemporary cinema, Wong Kar-Wai (Happy Together, In the Mood for Love) has developed a signature style that employs bold, experimental uses of photography, music, and editing to capture the emotional patterns of modern life.

Born in Shanghai, in 1958, Wong Kar-Wai moved to Hong Kong with his parents at the age of five. As he adjusted to Cantonese-speaking Hong Kong - he only spoke Mandarin and Shanghainese in Mainland - Wong spent precious hours of his early life in movie theatres with his mother. He graduated from the Hong Kong Polytechnic College in graphic design in 1980 and subsequently enrolled in the Production Training Course organized by Hong Kong Television Broadcast LTD (TVB), becoming a full time screenwriter at the end of this process. Later on, in the mid-80s, he became a writer/director at The Wing Scope Co. and In-gear Film Production Company, which were owned by renowed Hong Kong actor and movie producer Alan Tang.

The development of Wong’s cinematic style started during his apprenticeship with Alan Tang, who invested in the first movie Wong directed, As Tears Go By (Kino, 1988). A crime melodrama heavily influenced by Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets (1974), Tears displays Wong’s first attempts at developing his expressionistic color palette, which until this day is considered to be the trademark of his entire body of work.

But it wasn’t until his next film Days of Being Wild (Kino, 1991), a drama about reckless youth set in the early 1960s, that Wong developed a mature and thoroughly considered aesthetic signature.

Made of a series of elliptic exchanges and plot twists, together with carefully chosen songs and perfectionist camera work, Days of Being Wild introduced a fully mature filmmaker to the international art scene; this time, it was obvious that everything in a Wong Kar-Wai film (from music to lighting and dialogue) was thoroughly orchestrated by its director.

Although Days now tops Hong Kong critics’ polls of the best local films ever made, the film was a box-office failure in 1991.

Wong went on to direct several more feature films in the 1990s produced by Jet Tone, allowing him to work at his own pace. Among these were Chungking Express (1994), which follows the lives of two love-struck cops in Hong Kong and the mysterious women they meet and fall in love with, and Fallen Angels (1995), a film originally intended to be the third act of Chungking Express.

His first major international recognition was at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival where he won the Best Director prize for Happy Together (1997). The film uses gorgeous, saturated images set to an eclectic soundtrack of tango by Argentinian maestro Astor Piazolla, Brazilian singer Caetano Veloso and Frank Zappa instrumentals to chronicle the stormy affair of a gay couple living as expatriates in Buenos Aires.

FALLEN ANGELS

Set in the neon-washed underworld of present day Hong Kong, Fallen Angels intertwines exhilarating tales of love and isolation, primarily the unconsummated love affair between a contract Killer (Leon Lai Ming) and the ravishing female Agent (Michele Reis) who books his assignments and cleans up after his jobs.

Special Features:

• Three Behind-the-scenes Featuretters
• Interview with d.p. Christopher Doyle
• Trailers
• Stills Gallery
• Presented in 5.1 Stereo Surround

1995 / Hong Kong / 96 Minutes
Color / Letterboxed (1.85:1) / Not Rated
Written, Produced and Directed by Wong Kar-Wai