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CONNECTED

 ABOUT THE MOVIE

Genre: Action/Thriller
Starring: Louis Koo, Barbie Hsu, Nick Cheung, Liu Ye, Louis Fan, Eddie Cheung, Gong Beibi, Felix Lok, Flora Chan
Director: Benny Chan
Rating: PG (Some Violence)
Year Made: 2008

 


 SPECIAL FEATURES

- Making Of

 

 


 TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Languages: Chinese
Subtitles: English/Chinese
Aspect Ratio: -
Sound: -
Running Time: -
Region Code: 3
Distributor: Scorpio East

 

 

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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This review is made possible with the kind support from Scorpio East

 



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