3.03- SO CLOSE

DVD review: SO CLOSE

by David Blackwell

starring Shu Qi, Zhao Wei, and Karen Mok

written by Jeff Lau, directed by Corey Yuen

SO CLOSE is a stylish action movie that sometimes is tedious because it can't decide to be a chick flick, a cop buddy movie, or an action flick. Also the bad music score gets on one nerves when the movie turns into chick flick for a few minutes before it gets back to being an action flick. Given the movies that have women headlining the movie, I can say without a doubt that SO CLOSE is a hundred times better than the medicore CHARLIE'S ANGELS movies because the characters in SO CLOSE aren't trying to be hip every single minute (and each of the very beautiful Hong Kong actresses in SO CLOSE act better) and there are action sequences that are better than both CHARLIE'S ANGELS movies combined.

The movie is about two sisters, Sue (Zhao Wai) and Lynn (Shu Qi), who are become a team that does assassinations. One uses the computer (using their father's invention- The World Panorama computer program) while the other one does the killing. Hot on their trail is Kong Yat Hong (Karen Mok), a cop, and the people who the sisters did the job for because their employers plan to get rid of them after they do one more job. Sue and Lynn ended up at this point because their parents were killed by assassins working for corrupt businessmen who wanted their father's program.

The movie has great action sequences involving the three female leads. At the beginning of the film, Lynn comes to the place where a corporation had a problem with a Computer virus that gor cleaned by Computer Angel. The company wants to meet Computer Angel, and thus we are soon at a very awesome action scenes as Sue helps her with the computers.

Soon after Lynn does that job, she bumps into a man she hasn't seen in years and they are still in love with each other. There is another assassination lined up, and lynn wants Sue to call the job off because Lynn wants to quite killing and get married. Sue decides to be stubborn and tries to do the job herself.

The big problem with this movie is in the execution of the Lynn's love story to god awful music, and the movie just stops when a scene focuses on the love sub plot and leaves me wanting the director to get on with the main story that is full of great action sequences including a car chase from the cops (and that is only part of that one sequence). Fortunately, the love story is dropped in the second half of the movie in favor of some good action sequences. It is valid that the script could have been worked on some more, but I think many will pay more attention to the action over the script. Corey Yuen directs the action sequences and everything except any scene featuring the love story with great flair (and thankfully not in the MTV style of filmmaking in many USA movies). Karen Mok even sings a couple of the songs featured in the movie!

SO CLOSE has many CGI effects from CGI sets to CGI glass whenever glass breaks. THe 1.85:1 transfer looks great on the DVD and the sound is clear, but sometimes the music is mixed a little louder than the dialogue.

SO CLOSE can be viewed in two different dialects of Chinese (Cantonese and Mandarin), English, and French with subtitle options in seven different languauges: English, Chinese, French, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, and Thai. Yet it doesn't matter much whether you watch it in English or Chinese with English subtitles because you will be paying attention to the action sequences.

There are eight trailers on the DVD: DOUBLE VISION, RETURNER, both CHARLIE'S ANGELS movies, SO CLOSE, "CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON", BIG SHOT'S FUNERAL, and BLACK MASK 2: CITY OF MASKS.

This movie should be watched if you want to see some great action sequences of if you're a Hong Kong/Asian action movie fan. Also I would recommend it to people who loved or hated the CHARLIE'S ANGELS movies because the action sequences in SO CLOSE just are better directed and far more impressive than anything done in the CHARLIE'S ANGELS movies.

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