Review of So Close (2009) by Walt H — 24 Nov 2004

This is my Foreign Film Diversity Choice for the month, edging out Dirty Pretty Things (which was British anyway, not much diversity). With cutting edge combat (pun intended) it can play with the big boys in the action sequences. They are very good, with the final showdown damned edgy. Its compared favorably to the Charlie's Angels' movies, which does So Close no favors since they are ridiculous. Come to think of it, the code for the 1st string female bandit was 'Angel'. Hong Kong has some excellent Kung Fu'in females besides Michelle Yeoh. Some sequences are not original, as T2 was shooting the bad guys in the legs before this and Die Hard's endplay was staged like So Close. What the hell, its fun to watch.

Its just too bad the story is at a lower level, otherwise I coulda given it a high 8 instead. About a 1/3 of the way through the dubbing was killing my brain so I tried subtitles, and at least hear the people onscreen talk. Its not exactly dialog heavy anyway, and it helped; the dub was making it more stupid than it was. Stupidity was not eliminated though as some of the reasoning for this or that story element was goofy. I did make a note to try the hot water bottle manuever if I ever get the hots for an Asian woman. BTW, Hong Kong keeps filming even if the main actors have cold sores on their lips. Gotta keep it on time and in budget!! Its a somewhat comforting to hear that USofA expletives, techtalk and radio codes have been adopted verbatim in HK, and thats no Shit!

The DVD is pretty basic with just some trailers. Audio/video are good though, with all my drivers getting driven, and minute epidermal flaws were detected on all those nominally pretty Asian ladies, but they just add character ;) The DVD almost an 8, but just a 7/10 since they should've let the ladies talk about what they do.