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Chicks with kicks
Two hit-woman sisters and a maverick cop take on Hong Kong's bad guys in "So Close," a fun ride if what you want in a movie is long, shapely legs kicking ass.
By JOSHUA TANZER
Offoffoff.com
(Originally reviewed at the Asian Films Are Go! festival at Anthology Film Archives in May 2003.)
Angels, your assignment today is to turn yourselves Chinese and kick some evil Hong Kong corporate mafia butt.
In "So Close," the beautiful but deadly Chen sisters have become fallen angels of a sort after the murder of their loving parents over their father's brilliant worldwide security-cam invention.
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Sue (Vicki Zhao), the techie angel, runs dad's massive computer network, guiding big sister Lynn (Shu Qi), the glamorous angel, through high-security office towers to whack people.
In case the "Charlie's Angels" parallels aren't obvious enough, authorities dub her "the Computer Angel" after a she makes a dazzling, high-energy hit on a corporate executive, eludes a dozen henchman, and, cornered on the roof, rips off her surgical white uniform and vanishes over the edge. Another job well done.
Our story would be incomplete without a third deadly beauty, and who shows up but Detective Hung (Karen Mok), the brainy angel, who has not only fists of death but also a photographic memory for bad guys' faces and the full dossiers behind them. While her male colleagues scratch their heads over the daring crime, she's quickly onto the sisters' unorthodox trail as they pursue bigger and bigger corporate prey.
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That would really be more than enough plot for what's basically a martial-arts kick-em-up with some very long, willowy legs doing the kicking. But we also have a tragically earnest romance to complicate Lynn's life, as destiny brings the one man in the world for her, the emptily handsome Yan (Seung-heon Song), back into her life. She wants to quit the hit-woman business, marry him, and live happily ever after. But as always in such situations, there's one more job to do.
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One could criticize "So Close" for its silly contrivances, Hallmark-inspired emotions and repeated infliction of the cloying Carpenters hit "Close to You," but that's beside the point. The point being: good girls, bad guys, long legs, gee-whiz technology, spectacular fistfights, swordfights, gunfights and car chases.
The climactic scene pits two of our martial maidens against a sword master in a board room conveniently appointed with tasteful artifacts that can also double as weapons, and that's a pretty good one. But the real showdown comes midway through the movie, when bad girl Shu Qi and honest cop Karen Mok go at it — with firearms, then whip-fast limbs, then with their wits as they unexpectedly find themselves handcuffed to each other. If you're going to watch a Hong Kong action movie, you couldn't ask for a much better extravaganza.
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MAY 15, 2003
OFFOFFOFF.COM • THE GUIDE TO ALTERNATIVE NEW YORK
Reader comments on So Close:
dehins from John Ian, Jan 30, 2004
amazing from boxy_2146, Aug 6, 2004
wow! from sharon, Nov 24, 2004
music from xaznkhmergirlx, Nov 24, 2004
best from tinwei, Nov 25, 2004
song from diane, Dec 1, 2004
populer from cepi wahyudin, Nov 28, 2007
hmm... from Danielle, Apr 24, 2008
Makeup from Susana, Aug 25, 2008
hi!!! from jeralyn, Feb 17, 2009
the song from Allyson Banal, Sep 1, 2009
so close from NARTEY HELEN, May 23, 2010
help!1 from jorjh, May 6, 2011
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