So Close (film)

So Close
So Close
	Film poster
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	夕陽天使
Simplified Chinese	夕阳天使
Hanyu Pinyin
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyin	Xīyáng Tiānshǐ
Yue: Cantonese
Jyutping	Zik6-joeng4 Tin1-si2
Directed by	Corey Yuen
Written by	Jeffrey Lau
Produced by	Po-Chu Chui
Starring	Shu Qi; Vicki Zhao; Karen Mok; Song Seung-heon;
Cinematography	Venus Keung; Chan Chi-ying
Edited by	Cheung Ka-fai
Music by	Sam Kao; Kenjo Tan
Production; companies	Columbia Pictures Film Production Asia; Eastern Film Production (HK)
Distributed by	Columbia TriStar Film Distributors International
Release date	6 September 2002;
Running time	110 minutes
Country	Hong Kong
Language	Cantonese
Box office	HK$880,332

So Close is a 2002 Hong Kong action film directed by Corey Yuen and starring Shu Qi, Zhao Wei and Karen Mok.

The film's English title is derived from The Carpenters' song "Close to You", which has a prominent role in the film.

Plot

Lynn and her sister Sue are computer hackers, assassins and espionage specialists who use their late father's secret satellite technology to gain an advantage over their rivals and law enforcement agents. At the beginning of the film, they infiltrate a high security building and assassinate Chow Lui, the chairman of a top company in China.

After their successful mission, a police inspector named Kong Yat-hung is assigned to investigate the case and she manages to track down the assassins. In the meantime, Chow Lui's younger brother Chow Nung, who hired Lynn and Sue to kill his brother so that he can become the chairman, wants to kill the assassins to silence them. The cat-and-mouse chase becomes more complicated as both the police and the thugs are out to get Lynn and Sue.

Sue has always been playing the role of the assistant by staying on the computer and helping to disable the security systems and giving instructions on navigating the area, while Lynn, who is older and more experienced, does all the field work. Sue is jealous and thinks that Lynn refuses to let her participate more actively because she is less adept, but actually Lynn is trying to protect her sister from danger. Their relationship becomes strained when Lynn falls in love with her friend's cousin Yen and wants to give up her job and marry Yen. Sue intends to continue her career as a contract killer so that she can prove that she is as good as her sister.

Kong Yat-hung tracks down Sue in a bakery, where Sue is buying a birthday cake, and this leads to a frantic car chase. When Sue realises that she is being cornered by the police, she calls Lynn at home and asks her sister for help. At the same time, Chow Nung's assassins break into the house and kill Lynn and frame Kong Yat-hung for the murder. Sue escapes from the police and finds out the true identities of her sister's killers from the CCTVs in the house. She rescues Kong Yat-hung from custody and offers to help her clear her name, but Kong must assist her in avenging her sister. Left with no choice, Kong Yat-hung agrees to team up with Sue to hunt down and kill Chow Nung and his henchmen. Over the course of planning the counter-attack, Sue and Kong Yat-hung bond.

Sue and Kong Yat-hung succeed in defeating Chow Nung. They share a kiss, and agree that if not due to the nature of their line of work (one a police and the other a criminal), they might have become closer. With that, they part ways.

Sue visits Lynn's grave, thanking her for everything that her sister had done, and she can now take care of herself. She promises Lynn that she will tell Yen the whole ordeal, knowing that Yen is “the guy Lynn loves the most”. The film ends with a scene where Yen is still waiting for Lynn at a restaurant which they had promised to meet.

Cast

Shu Qi as Lynn
Zhao Wei as Sue
Karen Mok as Kong Yat-hung
Song Seung-heon as Yen
Michael Wai as Ma Siu-ma
Kurata Yasuaki as Master
Deric Wan as Chow Nung
Shek Sau as Chow Lui
Josephine Lam as Alice Chow
Ben Lam as Ben
Ricardo Mamood as Peter
May Kwong as May
Henry Fong as Lynn and Sue's father
Paw Hee-ching as Lynn and Sue's mother
Tats Lau as Ghost King
Kam Hing-yin as Captain
Josie Ho as Ching
Jude Poyer as murderer
Dave Taylor as murderer
David John Saunders as murderer
Leon Head as murderer
Lam Seung-mo as Lai Kai-joe
Leo Ku as man in lift
Wong So-bik as May
Ben Yuen as Mr Yeung
Huang Kaisen as Wong Fat-chi
Victy Wong as bodyguard
Wong Wai-fai as bodyguard
So Wai-nam as bodyguard
Kong Foo-keung as robber
John Cheung as cop
Keung Hak-shing as Lee Hong-fai
Adam Chan
Kenji Tanigaki
Lam Kwok-git

Reception

So Close holds an average rating of 6.7/10 based on 37 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes^[2] and an average score of 66/100 based on 18 reviews on Metacritic.^[3]

Awards and nominations

Awards
Award	Category	Name	Outcome
Central Ohio Film Critics Association	Best Foreign-Language Film		Nominated
Hong Kong Film Awards	Best Action Choreography	Corey Yuen Jianyong Gao	Nominated

References

^ ^a ^b "So Close (2002)". Hong Kong Movie Database. Retrieved 18 April 2013.
^ "So Close (2003)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 18 April 2013.
^ "So Close". Metacritic. Retrieved 18 April 2013.

External links

So Close at IMDb
So Close at AllMovie

[hkmdb-1] "So Close (2002)". Hong Kong Movie Database. Retrieved 18 April 2013.

[2] "So Close (2003)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 18 April 2013.

[3] "So Close". Metacritic. Retrieved 18 April 2013.

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