So Close

This could have been awesome. And at times, it gets there. This is basically a Hong-Kong Charlie's Angels. Usually I avoid making statements like this, but it's hard not to since Charlie's Angels does seem to be a major point of reference. It is based around two young, attractive women with an expanse of gadgetry at there disposal, whose work gets in the way of their love life and who get to kick major ass. The only difference is that the women are hired assassins, rather than hired crime fighters. The film makers seem to openly acknowledge where they stole their ideas from, giving Lynn's character the codename of 'The Computer Angel'.

The plot is non-sensical, the script wooden and the characters basically huge cardboard cut-outs. But then, this is a Hong-Kong action movie after all, and the plot is really just an vague structure to link together the visually arresting action sequences. And the action sequences, on a whole, are very well executed. At times they stretch too far. They try and acheive the visual trickery of Charlie's Angels, The Matrix, Crouching Tiger et all, but, due to the smaller budget, don't always pull it off sucsessfully.

The idea of women rolling about in t-shirts and tiny shorts by day, and kicking ass by night, is either hugely empowering or deeply degrading to women everywhere, depending on which side of the fence you are on. And the plot development of the criminal and the police officer earning new respect for each other by joining forces seems to be the blueprint for all H-K action flicks.

At the end of the day, if you like your movies big, dumb and action packed, this is really good fun. It's just been done a lot better. The film does get one superlative though, gaining the title of "most blatant product placement ever".

While Shu Qi is, of course, exquisitely beautiful, her robotic acting quickly becomes boring and is not what makes So Close such a great action film. Thankfully, the film is primarily a female 'buddy' film, focussing on Shu Qi's kid sister co-bandit Vicki Zhao and Zhao's evolving relationship with policewoman Karen Mok. Zhao and Mok manage to infuse a standard HK action plot with emotion and complexity, and the film becomes "The Killer" meets "24 Hours." Great cinematography, great action, and loved the shots of Zhao biting her lip with tension and Mok mouthing words at Zhao. Could have done without two gratuitous flying scenes of Zhao near the end, though, which add a jarring CTHD note to the otherwise enjoyable action. But the final sword fight is magnificent. Zhao could become a great actress.

Despite the fact that this is a super-slick action thriller with guns, swords, cars and martial arts, So Close is a refreshing and unusual movie. It's NICE, to put it simply. Lovely girls, dressed in white much of the time, hanging around their picturesque house messing around and eating cakes and having baths. Despite all the asses they kick, they actually behave like young women and not ultra-agressive 'I-want-to-be-a-man' type female heroes, like Xena or Sarah Connor.

The action is sleek and graceful - feminine. It's also rather slow and lo-key compared to most films of this nature. The real action doesn't come until the climax, but when it does, director Corey Yuen pulls out all the stops, climaxing in a two-against-one sword fight that ranks alongside that of The Phantom Menace.

Despite how it's advertised, So Close is not a skinflick. The women are certainly not sex objects. They are sexy, but in a wholesome way. It's their natural beauty rather than their sex appeal that is most noticable.

So Close is a great movie, and should entertain any mainstream audience regardless of their farmiliarity of Asian films.

SO CLOSE (2002) is a high-tech action adventure from Hong Kong that revives the girls-guns-and-kung fu genre that once attracted fans to HK cinema from all over the world. This one is an update by director Corey Yuen of exactly the kind of films he used to make back in the day like YES, MADAM! (1985), with Michelle Yeoh and Cynthia Rothrock, RIGHTING WRONGS (1986), with Rothrock, and SHE SHOOTS STRAIGHT (1990), with Joyce Godenzi and Carina Lau.

SO CLOSE is a little more pumped-up, with more beautiful female stars, more CGI and wire work, and a high tech veneer that permeates every aspect of the characters' lives. There are three main characters--all female and all played by top Hong Kong stars--Shu Qi (THE TRANSPORTER), Vicki Zhao Wei (SHAOLIN SOCCER), Karen Mok (BLACK MASK). The first two are absolutely stunning while Karen Mok opts for a no-nonsense, scrubbed-down, ready-for-action policewoman look--which is still damned attractive. The women get a lot to do here and are seen frequently in close-up. What more can fans of these actresses ask? Well, there is more. They also create strong, confident, vulnerable, emotionally-charged characters who interact a lot with each other. Shu Qi and Vicki play sisters, Lin and Sue, who hire out as a high-tech hit team to go after high-profile corporate criminal types. Karen plays the policewoman who takes it upon herself to go after the sisters, but also bonds with them and even offers a significant helping hand at one point.

That's pretty much all the plot you need to know, although there are plenty of subplots, including a burgeoning romance between Lin and a young man she once knew who's come back into her life. There are abundant flashbacks, achieved largely through digital video home movies, showing the two sisters as young girls playing with their parents, whose brutal murders (also seen in flashback) were engineered to steal the father's invention of World Panorama, a surveillance system with unlimited capacity. These murders propel the girls into their lives of crime--and vengeance.

The high-tech aspects are particularly clever and imaginative. The sisters each carry a watch that can pretty much do everything (cell phone, surveillance camera, computer, detonator, etc.). At one point Sue is in a car chase through the streets of Hong Kong and dials Lin on her headset for help. Lin uses a surveillance satellite to track Sue and keep her away from the pursuing police cars, all while she herself is using two automatic pistols to ward off a raid on her house by a team of assassins. Later, during the final raid, the two opposing sides use different tricks to fool the other side with manipulated surveillance camera coverage.

Do the action scenes deliver? Yes, they do. Granted, the actresses are not fighters and have to rely on stunt doubles, quick cuts and wire work, but they pull it off (certainly better than the girls in the CHARLIE'S ANGELS films do). Is the action far-fetched? Yes, but it will have you smiling and cheering, not groaning. These girls are the good guys and you care about them and want them to triumph.

Kung fu fans will welcome the presence of Yasuaki Kurata as one of the villains. This Japanese star has been in Hong Kong films for over 30 years (including HEROES OF THE EAST and FIST OF LEGEND) and he's still going strong.

The film is best appreciated in its Mandarin-language version, in which you get to hear Shu Qi and Vicki speaking in sync-sound in their own voices, although if you've got the HK import DVD with both language tracks, you can toggle back to the Cantonese track for Karen Mok's scenes, so you can hear her speak in her own voice.

Lynn and Sue are sisters whose father developed a cutting edge global surveillance tool before he and his wife were murdered for it. As a result of this the sisters became hired killers, with Lynn doing the killing and Sue guiding and advising remotely. When they complete a major job it leads to two events - firstly, their employer looks to silence them by killing them, and second, a driven cop, Hong, picks up their trail and begins to hunt them down.

As many of the audience for this film likely were, I was attracted to this film by the beautiful women on the dvd cover just as much as I was by the promise of martial arts action. The plot starts out as the standard thing with hired killers and `tough cops who are out to get them but also admire/relate to them', so nothing new there. Meanwhile the action is good but it will be standard fare for HK fans (in fact, for most of the world now thanks to Hollywood embracing it's style), although, having said that it is still entertaining even if I always find the very unnatural looking wire work to be a bit offputting.

The opening scene, where Lynn expertly moves through an office block to the strains of `why do birds etc' easily marks out the style of the film (not original, but fun) and the fights are good and have a good dramatic sense to them. The plot may well be seen elsewhere but it still has good touches and twists that will come as a surprise to many despite the familiarity of the plot basics. The cast are pretty good. The two lead actresses, Qi and Zhao, both play their roles with confidence and, needless to say, they are both very easy on the eye (and then some!). Mok is pretty but looks ugly next to these two - however she has a good character and has a fun, tough attitude. The support cast are evil bad guys and comedy sidekick cops, they all do what they are supposed to do, but to be honest the focus is always going to be the main women.

Overall, this film is not anything original or special but it is still quite good fun with plenty of stylish action. The plot has just enough going for it to carry it off, while the leads' good looks and appealing characters are a draw in themselves. Fans of the genre should enjoy it even if it doesn't stand out.