The film also stars Korean actor Seoung-Heon Song, whose TV series appearances are fast making him a major star across Asia, and marks the film debut of Michael Wei.

So Close is the fast and furious action tale of two formidable sisters who become locked in a battle with a powerful computer mogul and his lethal entourage. Shu Qi and Zhao Wei play the sisters, who have breathtaking skills in both martial arts and high-tech weaponry. Karen Mok plays the resourceful police officer who’s also drawn into the deadly battle.

The picture showcases director Cory Yuen’s remarkable action choreography. Yuen is famed for directing some of Hong Kong’s most spectacular films, including many with star Jet Li such as “The Legend of Fong Sai Yuk” I and II and “Bodyguard from Beijing.” Yuen also directed Michelle Yeoh’s debut film “Yes, Madam.” As Jet Li has become an international star, he and Yuen have continued their partnership, with Yuen directing and choreographing the action sequences of Li’s U.S. features Lethal Weapon 4, Romeo Must Die, Kiss of the Dragon, and most recently Columbia Pictures/Revolution Studios’ The One, directed by James Wong.

So Close is an Eastern (HK) Film Production Co., Ltd. production. The producer is Chui Po Chu. The script was written by Jeff Lau. The director of photography is Keung Kwok Man. Production designer is Eddie Yeung. Costume consultant is Yee Chung-Man.

Columbia Pictures Film Production Asia, under the leadership of Managing Director Barbara Robinson, co-produced the multi-Oscar-winning international hit Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The company also launched director Zhang Yimou’s award-winning films Not One Less and The Road Home. Upcoming films include Big Shot's Funeral, with Ge You, Rosamund Kwan and Donald Sutherland, from director Feng Xiaogang; Double Vision, directed by Chen Kuo-Fu, starring Tony Leung Ka-Fai, Rene Liu, and David Morse; Warriors of Heaven & Earth, with Jiang Wen and Kiichi Nakai, directed by He Ping; and The Missing Gun, directed by Lu Chuan, starring Jiang Wen.

Recently she has produced such films as “The Blacksheep Affair,” directed by Allen Lam and starring Zhao Wen Zhuo and Shu Qi; “Dr. Wai in ‘The Scripture With No Words’” directed by Ching Siu Tong and starring Jet Li and Rosamund Kwan; and “Fist of Legend,” from director Gordon Chan, with Jet Li and Nakayama Shinobu.

She also served as associate producer on Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon the multiple-Oscar winning film co-produced by Columbia Pictures Film Production Asia.

Chui’s resume as producer also includes several collaborations with director Cory Yuen, including “Bodyguard from Beijing,” “The New Legend of Shaolin,” and “The Legend of Fong Sai Yuk” I and II.

Previous to working as a producer, she was production manager on such well-known Hong Kong productions as “Once Upon A Time In China,” directed by Tsui Hark, and “The Ghost Story 3” from director Ching Siu Tung.

His films as writer and director include “Treasure Hunt” with Chou Yun-Fat and Wu Chien-lien, “92 The Legendary La Rose Noire” with Tony Leung Ka-Fai, and “The Eagle Shooting Heroes” with a star-studded cast including Leslie Cheung, Tony Leung Ka-Fai and Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Brigitte Lin and Maggie Cheung.

As a writer, Lau worked before with Cory Yuen, penning 1997’s “Hero,” starring Takeshi Kaneshiro. Lau also wrote and co-directed with Cory Yuen the 1990 Stephen Chiau comedy “All for the Winner,” which critic Fonoroff described several years later as “one of the most uproarious nonsense comedies to emerge during this decade.”

Lau was producer of the 1995 film “Fallen Angels,” directed by Wong Kar-Wai (“In the Mood for Love,” “Chungking Express”) and lauded by critics worldwide as one of the most stylish films in years. Lau was one of the original founders of Wong’s production company, Jet Tone Films Ltd.

In the last few years Yuen’s action style has expanded its reach, thrilling international audiences and exerting a strong influence on Hollywood filmmaking through his work designing the action choreography of such hit films as “X-Men” and “Romeo Must Die.” Yuen also handled the martial arts choreography on last year’s Jet Li hit “Kiss of the Dragon.” Variety said that film arrived “boldly kicking ass like no ass has been kicked before” and was “loaded with fight scenes that rank with the classic rough stuff of ‘Enter the Dragon,’ ‘The Legend of Drunken Master’ and (Jet Li’s) ‘Fist of Legend.’”

Yuen was born on December 16th, 1951 in Hong Kong. He attended the famous Peking Opera academy of Yu Jim Yuen, where he learned acrobatics and martial arts, and was one of the “Seven Little Fortunes,” a performing group that included several other students who would go on to become the brightest luminaries of today’s Hong Kong film world – Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Yuen Biao and Yuen Wah.

His directing credits include such well-known Jet Li pictures as “Bodyguard from Beijing” and “My Father Is a Hero,” as well as the “Fong Sai Yuk” films. In addition, Yuen directed “Yes, Madam,” the debut film of Michelle Yeoh (“Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”), released in 1985.

As an action choreographer he designed the fight scenes in Tsui Hark’s original 1983 “Zu: Warriors of the Magic Mountain,” “High Risk” (again starring Jet Li and recently released in the U.S. on video by Columbia as “Meltdown”), and “The New Legend of Shaolin,” among many others. Yuen has also appeared as an actor in more than 30 Hong Kong films.

He first brought his skills to Hollywood as action director on the 1998 “Lethal Weapon 4.” Most recently, he collaborated again with Jet Li on Columbia Pictures/Revolution Studios The One from director James Wong.

In addition to creating action scenes that cause audiences worldwide to spontaneously break into gleeful applause, Yuen’s work has even been celebrated by leading film scholars. The University of Wisconsin’s David Bordwell, in his 2000 book “Planet Hong Kong,” commented that Yuen’s work “exudes offhand mastery,” and singled out for frame-by-frame analysis a brief section of “Righting Wrongs” (1986), saying:

“To conceive the premise—a woman subduing four men with one pair of cuffs—and then to work it out in incisive detail requires imagination, a modest sense of the absurd, and an awareness of those mechanics of forceful, legible filmmaking pointed out by Kuleshov, Pudovkin, and Eisenstein in the 1920s. The construction is all the more admirable for the fact that it was developed on the set in a single day, with the director quickly deciding on each shot as each bit of action was conceived. This twenty-four seconds of cinema puts to shame the storyboarded fights in big-budget Schwarzenegger films, where firepower substitutes for briskness and finesse.”

Zhao Wei rose to fame in the 1998 Chinese TV series “Princess Pearl.” A 1999 sequel to the series was equally popular and firmly established Zhao as one of the very top actresses in China. The series brought her China’s top TV award, the Golden Eagle, for best actress, and also gave her the nickname by which she is known to her millions of fans, “Little Swallow,” the name of the character she portrayed. On TV, Zhao Wei also appeared in the TV series “The Challenge of the Female Knight,” “Deep Feelings, Gentle Rain,” and “Adventures in Beijing,” among others.

In China, she’s appeared in the films “Valley of Girls” and “A Fate Too Beautiful for Words.” She also appears in the upcoming The Warriors of Heaven & Earth, from Columbia Pictures Film Production Asia.

Also an accomplished singer and musician, Zhao Wei has released several pop CDs, including “Spirit Across the Sky,” “The Charm of Love,” and “Last Parting.”

Zhao Wei was born March 12, 1976 in Wuhu, Anhui province, China. She attended the Beijing Film Academy, where she studied acting. Zhao Wei lives in Beijing.

Originally from Taiwan, Shu Qi quickly made a name for herself in the Hong Kong film industry in the mid-90s with her game performances in such ribald films as “Sex and Zen II.” Her career exploded, and in her six years as an actress she’s made upwards of 45 films, including “The Storm Riders,” “Portland Street Blues,” “Young and Dangerous V,” “The Blacksheep Affair,” and “Hu-Du-Men.” Shu Qi won the Hong Kong Film Awards for Best Supporting Actress and for Best Newcomer for “Viva Erotica.”

Most recently, she was seen in theaters in Ann Hui’s hit ghost-story thriller, “Visible Secret.”

Educated in England and in Italy (where she won a scholarship to study Italian literature for two years), Mok started her career in entertainment as a singer shortly after graduating from college. Since her debut album “Karen” appeared in 1993, she’s released more than 10 albums and EPs in Cantonese, Mandarin and English, as well as performing the theme songs for several films and commercials.

She began her film career in 1994’s “Family Affairs,” then appeared in director Jeff Lau’s “A Chinese Odyssey.” Wong Kar-Wai’s “Fallen Angels” followed in 1995, and she’s since appeared in an impressively wide range of films, from the outrageous comedy of Steven Chiau’s “The God of Cookery” to the thoughtful drama of director Yim Ho’s “Kitchen,” from the action spectacular “Black Mask” with star Jet Li, to the smart satire of Derek Yee’s “Viva Erotica.” Mok’s first film shot in mainland China, director Shi Runjiu’s “All the Way,” appeared in theaters last year. That film was nominated for the Tiger Award at the Rotterdam Film Festival. She also appeared in Steven Chiau’s “The King of Comedy” and Silvia Chang’s “Tempting Heart.”