Dubbed the first Chinese remake of a Hollywood blockbuster, Connected (保持通話) takes its story from David R. Ellis’ Cellular, and was shot by Hong Kong’s foremost action flick director, Benny Chan (陳木勝).
With a top-notch cast led by Nick Cheung (張家輝), Louis Koo (古天樂) and Liu Ye (劉燁), Chan proves that movies translated from West to East can be attractive to local audiences brought up on the fine tradition of Hong Kong action cinema.
Fast-paced and dynamic, the film wastes no time in introducing its female protagonist Grace (played by Taiwan’s Barbie Hsu, 徐熙媛). A widowed electronic engineer, and mother to a daughter, Grace finds herself in a car crash, then kidnapped by some gangsters involved in a murder that her younger brother had witnessed and recorded on camera, and locked up in a hut.
Cut to Bob (played by Louis Koo, 古天樂), a single dad who works a dead-end job as a debt collector and can barely keep his family together. On his way to see his son off at the airport, Bob receives a phone call from Grace, who drew on her engineering know-how managed to put a smashed phone back together but could only dial a random number.
Believing Grace and her family are in mortal danger, Bob takes the information to the police only to be told the call was as a phone prank. He then takes matters into his own hands.
Enter detective Fai (played by Cheung), a former rising star of the force who fell from grace and was demoted, who launches a one-man investigation.
The Hollywood transplant has been renovated in a quintessentially Hong Kong style. The elements are all there: well-executed fight choreography; adrenalin-stimulating car chase sequences; the timeworn plot of good guys versus corrupt cops; and of course, a dash of Hong Kong-esque humor. The film’s production values are unquestionably high and slick, exemplified in the scene where a crane shot swoops down on Koo who is trapped in a car that dangles on the edge of a cliff.
Though not without a few far-fetched plot devices, the action thriller coaxes viewers to suspend disbelief with a bevy of characters that have well-developed motivations and personalities. Liu makes a charming and slightly psychotic villain. Cheung, a favorite supporting actor in Hong Kong, shines as a family-man police officer who clings to virtues that no longer apply to the contemporary world. Koo turns in a convincing performance as an unlikely hero who struggles to be a good father and helps to soften the film’s hard edge with a father-and-son subplot drama.
As with most action movies in which the female lead serves as an eye-pleasing prop, Hsu is easily overlooked amid the strong male cast. Apparently, the star needed more practice and training to master her craft than her costars. Perhaps she should seriously consider shedding the pretty-faced pop idol look next time she plays a character who is kidnapped and tortured.
From censoring “poisonous books” to banning “poisonous languages,” the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) tried hard to stamp out anything that might conflict with its agenda during its almost 40 years of martial law. To mark 228 Peace Memorial Day, which commemorates the anti-government uprising in 1947, which was violently suppressed, I visited two exhibitions detailing censorship in Taiwan: “Silenced Pages” (禁書時代) at the National 228 Memorial Museum and “Mandarin Monopoly?!” (請說國語) at the National Human Rights Museum. In both cases, the authorities framed their targets as “evils that would threaten social mores, national stability and their anti-communist cause, justifying their actions
On the final approach to Lanshan Workstation (嵐山工作站), logging trains crossed one last gully over a dramatic double bridge, taking the left line to enter the locomotive shed or the right line to continue straight through, heading deeper into the Central Mountains. Today, hikers have to scramble down a steep slope into this gully and pass underneath the rails, still hanging eerily in the air even after the bridge’s supports collapsed long ago. It is the final — but not the most dangerous — challenge of a tough two-day hike in. Back when logging was still underway, it was a quick,
There is a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) plot to put millions at the mercy of the CCP using just released AI technology. This isn’t being overly dramatic. The speed at which AI is improving is exponential as AI improves itself, and we are unprepared for this because we have never experienced anything like this before. For example, a few months ago music videos made on home computers began appearing with AI-generated people and scenes in them that were pretty impressive, but the people would sprout extra arms and fingers, food would inexplicably fly off plates into mouths and text on
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislative caucus convener Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) and some in the deep blue camp seem determined to ensure many of the recall campaigns against their lawmakers succeed. Widely known as the “King of Hualien,” Fu also appears to have become the king of the KMT. In theory, Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) outranks him, but Han is supposed to be even-handed in negotiations between party caucuses — the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) says he is not — and Fu has been outright ignoring Han. Party Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) isn’t taking the lead on anything while Fu
RSS