|
So Close
The art
house is an odd place that follows odd rules. While no one
would have ever thought to look for last year's The Transporter
in their local hipster café/screening room, Corey Yuen's other
2002 action extravaganza So Close will be bumping out
some tea-sipping for some ass kicking simply because it carries
the Mark of Cain that is subtitles. The same picture with
a bad English redub would play to a handful of drunk 15 year
olds at a Cineplex that carded them for Cabin
Fever.
So
Close will be called the Hong Kong Charlie's Angels
by more than a few, and I might as well light a torch and
join the mob. It's a high-action piece about two sisters who
work as big-dollar hired guns, the girl cop on their trail,
and dirty corporate shenanigans. Mix in a little unrequited
love, add a stick of revenge, a pinch of gender games and
simmer for 110 mins.
After
a quick set-up, we meet Lynn (Qi Shu), an assassin who is
as cool in a negotiation as she is in a blizzard of gunfire
and shattered glass. Under the watchful eye of her computer
expert sister, Sue (Vicki Zhao), Lynn dispatches her target
and exits the building, leaving a bullet in the leg of any
lackey that gets in her way. Of course, this job isn't over,
both because her employers want to hearse her, and the new
lady detective, Kong Yat Hong (Karen Mok), has the scent.
Yuen is
definitely a master of action, but he's not exactly a great
storyteller. When the bullets are flying and the tires are
screeching things are great, but in between, things down shift
into something between bad soap opera and Sweet Valley:
CSI. Fortunately bullets fly a lot in this picture and
some gorgeous transitions more than make up for a really,
really bad musical score.
With The
Transporter, Yuen was smart enough to keep everything
in the present. We don't know anything about The Transporter's
past. Anything we need to know about the character is rolled
within the action of the plot. In So Close we are treated
to more than a few clunky flashbacks that bring things to
a halt.
The visual
flair of the picture makes up for the slow parts. When Lynn
puts a heel to the ceiling we get an x-ray cutaway shot showing
the spear-like anchor that allows her to defy gravity in a
firefight. When Kong gets in an elevator with a couple of
unseemly types, we get the best cinematic representation of
photographic memory we've ever seen.
The picture
also sets up a great world in which the criminals and the
cops are honorable but the corporations are dirty. The cop
and the bandit are perfect matches for each other. An amazing
martial arts sequence proves that, but when the kid sister
has to take over, things kick into high gear. Yuen started
in the biz as a performer and fight choreographer and boy
does it show. Even the sisterly squabbles have nice moves,
most notably in a softest of the soft core tease scene (echoing
the classic kitchen climax of Yuen's Bodyguard from Bejing)
where the two girls fight over a towel during bath time.
The entire
picture has an interesting sexual subtext, especially considering
its generally chaste approach to the subject. The romance
between Lynn and her boyfriend is the stuff of 50's etiquette
pictures, but in the subtext, Kong is the man in both her
relationship with her male partner and later with Sue. Had
Yuen dropped the flashbacks, he could have strengthened this
theme and - horrors! - increased the emotional depth.
Emotionally,
the picture does strike more than a few chords, with a burial
scene that breaks your heart while making some interesting
statements on representations and the medium in general. Likewise,
the final assault does some interesting things with the moral
problems with CGI actors and technology's short comings when
human senses are needed. For a picture where every window
shatters in a pretty sheet of pixels, it makes some clever
arguments against digital processes when reality or the illusion
of such is the goal.
As for
the translation, there are a couple of poorly-masked subtitles
in the beginning of the film, but for non-outlined white titles
things aren't too bad. The picture's title comes from the
fact that during a job, Sue jams all of the communications
devices with a faithful cover of "Close To You." That's about
the level of the translations in the picture. Similar concepts
are conveyed, but a lot of it feels more than a little off.
The picture
is flawed but a whole lot of fun. If you're already a fan
of Yuen, you've probably already bought your tickets, but
if you just dug The Transporter give this one a shot.
As far as I'm concerned, there is no cooler way to spend a
Saturday afternoon than in a half-empty art house box watching
a subtitled action picture. If enough of you agree and enough
of you go, maybe we can get more of these stateside and I
can make Hong Kong Saturday Afternoons a standing date instead
of an occasional joy.
Rating:
|
