SYNOPSIS:
Bob (Louis Koo) is a single father and under tremendous pressure
to be a better dad. On his way to the airport to see his son
off for further studies, Bob receives a call from a stranger,
Grace (Barbie Hsu), who claims she is being kidnapped and begs
him to save her and her daughter. The detective he tried reporting
to thought it is a prank but Bob's instincts tell him otherwise.
But can he risk everything - including his son - for someone
he has never met?
MOVIE REVIEW:
Apprehensive is the word best to describe my feeling when
I first heard of Benny Chan’s intention to remake "Cellular",
a 2004 Hollywood action thriller starring Kim Basinger, William
Macy, Jason Stratham and Chris Evans. Remakes normally give
the impression of something less stellar than expected. Besides
"The Departed", which remake in recent years actually
won the hearts of movie-goers?
Benny
Chan for the uninitiated is no stranger to action thrillers,
the man has a track record working with Jackie Chan and directed
high-octane movies liked "EU Strike Force", "Gen-X
Cops" and "Invisible Target" just to name a
few. Touted as the first remake of a Hollywood movie, Chan
and his team of writers retained the essence of the original
movie and came up with "Connected".
In
the HK version, Louis Koo plays Bob, a man working as a debt
collector who received an SOS call from a stranger, Grace
(Barbie Hsu). Grace claims she’s being kidnapped and
her six year old daughter is in danger of being kidnapped
by her abductees unless she produced the item they demand.
The only glaring weakness in this action thriller of course
is the character Bob. Who in the world will go all out of
the way to save a complete stranger? But Chan setup Bob as
a soft-heartened man who unfortunately has domestic problems
of his own. A person whom audience will greatly empathized.
Honestly without Bob, there won’t be a story to start
with in the first place.
With
the exception of a wild car chase along canal and busy streets
in the beginning and some fist fights at the end, "Connected"
succeed with its highly intense and greatly paced plotting
instead, a cat-and-mouse thriller but without the cat meeting
the mouse until right into the second half of the movie. There
is heavy emphasis on the usage of cell phones throughout the
show hence the title “Connected” and netting Motorola
as the main sponsor sure helps.
Having
mainland actor Liu Ye (The Banquet) as the villain is pretty
refreshing, Taiwanese host Barbie Hsu dubbed 'Big S' is competent
as the hapless victim so is Nick Cheung who appears as a meddling
cop with an attire of an uncle. We reserve the biggest credit
to our leading man Louis Koo who finally attempted a role
that showcases his acting ability rather than his chiseled
tan looks.
Whether
it’s the cast or the adrenalin pumping pacing, Benny
Chan’s remake of "Cellular" in a lot of ways
surpassed the original. When it comes to good old cop-and-robbers
action thriller, HK does it the best. Perhaps Chan can consider
remaking "The Chaser" next.
SPECIAL FEATURES :
This 15 minutes Making of feature
covers the usual cast and crew interview, behind the scenes
of how the car chase and fight sequences are shot and also
storyboarding. The DVD comes with the trailers
as well.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
The
audio comes off as rather weak during some of the more intense
scenes for example the car chase sequence. The video quality
is passable overall the DVD presentation averages for a new
HK release.
MOVIE RATING:
 
DVD
RATING :
Review
by Linus Tee
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