Connected

Hong Kong moviemaking may be down in the doldrums these days, but you wouldn’t know it from a confident, expensive thrill ride like Benny Chan’s Connected. Unleashed after lacklustre summertime cinema schedules in its hometown, Chan’s nifty popcorn picture plays as a grand diversion on the big screen, with car chases and tense set pieces aplenty in a snazzy commercial package. The plot comes courtesy of the 2004 Hollywood film Cellular, here juiced up for the Hong Kong setting replete with fun interludes of Cantonese comedy amid its mounting action mayhem.

Louis Koo stars as Bob, a meek debt-collecting flunky who takes a frantic phone call from mystery woman Grace (Barbie Hsu). She’s been kidnapped and has hot-wired the smashed phone in her captors’ hideout-why she’s being held, she doesn’t know. An attempt to drag in traffic cop Fai (Nick Cheung) to help fails, and soon it’s clear Bob must stay on the line, first as he tries to save Grace’s daughter from the bad guys’ clutches, then as he sets out to protect another of Grace’s relatives as well. And all this as Bob is fielding incoming calls from his son, who’ll be waiting for his dad to see him off at the airport within the hour. Will he let down his little boy again? Just who is he up against? And will his mobile phone’s battery hold up?

Benny Chan and co. set the mood early in the piece with Grace’s kidnapping and don’t let up for much of the running time. Half an hour in, there’s already a demolition-derby car chase sequence that in another film would be worthy of an outrageous final act. Stunt director Li Chung-chi’s handiwork is exemplary, whether on the streets, in close quarters or at Hong Kong’s airport, and Chan keeps a lock on the pacing as throws in local comedy and just enough touches of domestic drama. The usual high-tech mumbo jumbo that infects high-end Hong Kong thrillers is ditched, instead resting the attractions plainly on the action, performances and accessible undercurrents of personal redemption. The end result is sleek and unashamedly crowd-pleasing, from plentiful aerial footage to over-the-top product placement to frivolous plot twists, all anchored by its flustered antihero.

In the lead role, Louis Koo drops his suave public image to delightful effect. Sweating, panting, shrieking and blubbering as he goes from thrill to spill, Koo plays the unlikely do-gooder up to the hilt. Barbie Hsu’s first Hong Kong role proves an agreeable one and Nick Cheung, as the demoted cop who decides to go it alone with investigations, scores yet another entertaining performance. Mainland star Liu Ye, as the principal bad guy, meanwhile gets into the lighthearted swing of things with a wild-eyed, sneering performance every bit the maniacal bad guy in keeping with Connected’s spirit of excess.