So Close

So Close was the first Hong Kong movie that I’ve seen. As I haven’t watched this for a very long time, I thought I’d go revisit it. This movie is about assassins and a rookie cop whose worlds cross when the cop investigates a death in a company.

This movie was all over the place. While the writer deemed it that the three women play equal parts, none of them get ample character development, but they do have a lot of action scenes. Each of the characters have a different story arc, but only one character’s arc is really fleshed out; everyone else seems to be playing their story by ear. Even the plot was messy; while enough information is given regarding how they all got into the mess, the way it was presented made the movie broken, or lacking. 

The women each get good screen time, each showing their martial arts moves. The movie also revolves around technology, and the tech used made this movie dated, not to mention the special effects that were on play here. Taking the dramatic parts aside, this makes a good action flick. It’s the dramatic parts that weigh the narrative down, and it doesn’t contribute to the entirety of the movie. Only Karen Mok was fairly good in her dramatic parts. I had a hard time buying Shi Qi’s romantic arc with Song Seung-heon, as they don’t look like they have chemistry. Zhao Wei’s character is a bit over the place – she’s boastful and proud at first, then humble and cheerful in the next. She only manages to shine at the last thirty minutes of the movie. 

This aged quite a bit. While the action parts were entertaining, I could do without some of the arcs, or have their personal stories be strong and help the characters develop rather than a flimsy backstory.