A latish entry in post-millennial cyber thrillers, Corey Yuen’s So Close (夕陽天使) finds two hit women sisters safeguarding next generation technology in keeping it out of the hands of corrupt businessmen who in fact murdered their father to get it. They claim he always intended to gift his all-powerful mass surveillance tool to the police, which either seems politically uncomfortable or incredibly naive, but have been using it themselves to earn their keep as killers for hire albeit justifying themselves in insisting on the moral bankruptcy of their targets.
In this case, that would be Chow Lui (Shek Sau) who according to “Computer Angel” made his “evil fortune” through drug smuggling. Infinitely smug, Chow thinks he has better technology but is soon proved wrong as Computer Angel admits she also sent the virus, or more accurately manifested it, to teach Chow a lesson. Yuen fills the film with 90s cyberpunk motifs, even having Computer Angel, later identified as Lynn (Shu Qi), jump off a building in a shot that is a clear homage to Ghost in the Shell while otherwise employing electronic imagery of cables and wires though the “World Panorama” system largely works through satellite.
In the opening sequence, Chow’s company is also revealed to be a global enterprise connected around a large table via the internet while futuristic systems allow him to have video calls with associates speaking Japanese and English. He suggests they simply pay the hackers to save their reputation which is apparently built on their world-class security systems though he himself perhaps remains sceptical abruptly shutting down his younger brother’s attempt to broker a deal investing in a company called Dragon. His office meanwhile has a bonsai tree in the background and his brother Nunn seems to have very close ties with a Japanese gangster hinting at a possible economic anxiety.
This fraternal conflict is eventually reflected in the fracturing relationship between the two sisters as field agent Lynn informs her sister Sue (Zhao Wei) that she wants to give up the killing trade after reuniting with an old boyfriend and deciding to get married. Techno wiz Sue has no other means of supporting herself and is resentful that Lynn always takes charge and won’t let her participate in missions, though Lynn is later vindicated when Sue’s hasty decision to take on a solo job goes just about as wrong as it can go. Meanwhile, their relationship is also strained by the presence of Hung (Karen Mok), a policewoman investigating Chow’s death who, as she later says, is strangely drawn to Sue who rollerblades around her at a record store with thinly concealed desire.
There might be something in the fact that the actresses playing Sue and Lynn are from the Mainland and Taiwan respectively each performing their scenes in Mandarin but dubbed into Cantonese for the local release. They are indeed outsiders, firstly because of their unusual profession and secondly because of their all-powerful surveillance tool that allows them to carry out their missions yet also acting as a moral authority even if as Lynn later says they kill for money not conviction. World Panorama allows them to edit surveillance footage, placing fake avatars of themselves in the digital space and allowing them to otherwise recreate reality in a way that seems in keeping with the film’s otherwise low-key special effects which have an almost tongue-in-cheek quality parodying other more serious cyber thrillers from the mid-90s.
The film’s English title comes from Yuen’s use of the Carpenters’ track (They Long to Be) Close to You, yet the Chinese is the more melancholy Sunset Angel which is most obviously refers to the film’s final scene if also perhaps calling time on the sisters’ roles of guardians of next-gen tech and avenging ghosts of the machine working out the bugs of corrupt gangster businessmen. In any case, they move through the “real” world like digital avatars performing incredible feats of human agility and not least in the high impact action scenes culminating in a lengthy katana fight in a tatami mat room which both echoes the cyberpunk aesthetics and reinforces an idea of corporatising colonialism finally blown away by the forces of female solidarity and an unlikely loves story between a soldier and a bandit.
Trailer (English subtitles)
Recent Hong Kong action cinema has not exactly been known for its hero cops. Most often, one brave and valiant officer stands up for justice when all around him are corrupt or acting in self interest rather than for the good of the people. Shock Wave (拆彈專家) sees Herman Yau reteam with veteran actor Andy Lau turning in another fine action performance at 55 years of age as a dedicated, highly skilled and righteous bomb disposal officer who becomes the target of a mad bomber after blowing his cover in an undercover operation. These are universally good cops fighting an insane terrorist whose intense desire for revenge and familial reunion is primed to reduce Hong Kong’s central infrastructure to a smoking mess.
Windows on Worlds 