Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Numerootno A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

Frances Chung Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

OrrinBob I have little new to add to earlier reviews, and I haven't seen the film for several years. I'm writing mainly so that I can vote, because I really enjoyed the film and I think it deserves a rating of at least 7. That's true despite the disappointing plot development in the last third of the film, mentioned below as a spoiler. And other undeniable weaknesses--fight sequences OK but not spectacular or innovative, pretty weak and meandering plot, and questionable acting. But the film is still very appealing as a comedy about assassin sisters' loving rivalry, just because it's cute, somewhat differently from Jackie Chan movies, which are cute masculine, while So Close is cute feminine. How? Well, the sweet song 'Close to You' is a somewhat important plot element, as well as a theme signal. The main plot driver is that the older sister wants to shield the younger, not from risky dating but from murder activities, making her tend the computers instead. One dangerous fight takes place between the two sisters in a bathroom, where the suspense is really due to the chance that one or both will slip and brain themselves on the tub. And another major fight scene, between the older sister and the female cop, is so brutal that one actress tears the lead Qi Shu's blouse--shocking despite the fact that some early soft porn films starring Qi Shu still can be found floating around the web. In all of the fights, the women mug extremely broadly after each attack. You get the impression that this crew enjoyed themselves much more than even Chan crews, where everyone is really scared that Jackie really will cripple himself during a gratuitous stunt. It also helps that Qi Shu is on at least one list I've seen as the number one most beautiful actress in the world, so having her take part in sexy fight scenes is a major advantage of the movie, possibly biasing my rating. But that leads to the final plot weakness--Spoiler, though it's spoiled on the IMDb official preview, anyway: Qi Shu's character is killed protecting her sister, well before the final epic fight sequence--of all the major characters to get killed off!

lastliberal Qi Shu (The Eye 2) appeared in six films in 2002, one of which was The Transporter. While we didn't get to see her in action in that film, we sure do in this one. She made me forget all about Jet Li with her moves. But, she wasn't the only one with moves, as her nemesis, Inspector Hong Yat Hong (Karen Mok) was equally good, and a battle they had in a parking garage really got the blood pumping as it was just about to get very interesting until the bad guys showed up and they had to join forces temporarily.Qi Shu was the Computer Angel, as assassin, who finally was betrayed and killed. At that time was born an avenging angel in the form of her sister Sue (Wei Zhao), who had equally impressive abilities, including magnificent swordsmanship.Wei Zhao and Karen Mok joined together to avenge Lynn and eliminate the bad guys. I have never seen such fantastic marital arts displayed. It was utterly amazing, mostly due to the choreography of Corey Yuen (War, Fist of Fury) and Jianyong Gao. Fortunately, we will get to see Corey Yuen's work again this year in John Woo's Red Cliff, starring Wei Zhao and Tony Leung.

pantagruella A very superior Chinese femme fatale entertainment. A great deal of progress has been made since the halycon days of the early 80s. Once Chinese action films were flawed by obligatory comedy scenes that fell flat unless you had the inside track on that species of humour. Now So Close has all the necessary ingredients of the genre without the heavy-handed slapstick of films such as Charlies Angels II and Bad Boys II.Production values are excellent, martial scenes are imaginatives, characterisation is appealing, and the villains are dourly resistant in the climax.This is the best Karen Mok film that I've seen. I discovered Qui Shu through Transporter. It's a shame she didn't get a chance to show her combatant qualities along with Jason Statham in that film.

jeffreygoad Directed by Corey Yuen (The Legend) and starring Qi Shu (The Transporter) as the deadly assassin Lynn, a.k.a. Computer Angel; Vicki Zhao (Shaolin Soccer) as Lynn's spunky younger sister Sue; Karen Mok (Shaolin Soccer) as Hong Yat Hong, the ambitious cop set on catching the two; and the oh-so-dreamy Seung-heon Song as Yen, Lynn's doe-eyed love interest.The story starts off with a beautifully shot and choreographed action sequence where Lynn gets into a crime lord's uber-command center and kicks some major butt in a flurry of glass shards as "Close To You" by The Carpenters plays in the background.At first I thought Lynn was our star, the dark assassin seeking love/redemption. Then it seemed as though Hong Yat Hong may have been our main character, the woman-cop who knows only that these two are hired killers whom she must catch. Then the story focuses on Sue and her inner-angst/possible sexuality issues. It feels like it may have been a flaw on the writer/director's side that there was no clear protagonist, which would have been better for a film like this, but it still worked well.The movie had amazing action scenes, a great sister on sister bubble bath battle, and some really fun characters. The romantic scenes between Lynn and Yen are painfully entertaining and at times the film's score sounds like it comes off of a music library CD, but even at its worst So Close is unendingly endearing.In the end it felt like a cross between Charlie's Angels (the movie) and those bad Chinese restaurant Karaoke videos. I definitely recommend this film to fans of cheesy action flicks or campy female leads.