Reviewed by: pjshimmer Date: 03/04/2013 Summary: Better than "Cellular" This is better than the movie it's based on (that would be the Chris Evans flick "Cellular"). Cellular was a terrible action flick with lame writing and acting. Here I found the background and characters more engaging. There's a cool car chase that makes it worth watching even if you've watched Cellular. The two movies are almost identical in plot. Reviewer Score: 6

Reviewed by: dandan Date: 04/26/2011 Summary: gonna get myself, gonna get myself, gonna get myself... bob (louis koo) is on his way to the airport, to see off his young son who he consistently lets down, when he answers his phone. on the other end of the line is grace (barbie hsu); she's been kidnapped, but managed to piece together a broken phone, dial a random number and now she's speaking to bob. bob is just about to hang up when the kidnappers, led by fok (liu ye), burst in and he hears them threaten and then kill a friend of grace's brother, who seems to be their real target. looks like bob is in this for the long haul now... well, i'd heard of 'cellular'; the american film, of which this is a remake, but i didn't know anything about it and i didn't actually know this was a remake until the end, as somehow i missed that in the opening credits. any how, i guess that's inconsequential, having watched the trailer for 'cellular' and deciding against watching it. this, however, is benny chan on a good day. and, when benny chan is having a good day, you can forgive the spots of silliness that so often creep into his work and just go along for a very entertaining ride. 'connected' is a pretty unrelentingly paced, thriller, which happily manages to mix action and drama as the plot unfolds. i like louis koo, especially when he is all nerded up and barbie hsu does a fine job as her character does her best to hold herself together in the predicament she finds herself in. liu le is a suitably evil baddie: putting on a good turn under the veil of hat, sunglasses and white hair. oh, and nick cheung, in a big cardigan, is also a welcome sight, as the (once disgraced) cop who starts to take an interest in the case. all in all it's a fun watch, with laughs, tension, drama and some pretty exciting set pieces, including a rather fantastically executed car chase along one of the many concrete river beds / storm channels, which run through various spots in hong kong: i was actually surprised that i'd never seen such use of them being made before. well, not that i can remember... a lot of fun.

Reviewed by: cal42 Date: 10/11/2010 Summary: Nowhere near as bad as you think it'll be... I have to confess right at the start of this review that I haven’t even heard of the US film on which Benny Chan’s CONNECTED is based, let alone seen it. It was called CELLULAR, apparently, and the remake quite refreshingly gives credit quite prominently for the fact. Of course, at this point, alarm bells should start ringing with frequent viewers of remakes. However, believe it or not, CONNECTED isn’t half bad... Grace Wong (Barbie Hsu) is kidnapped and held in a nailed-up shed with no contact with the outside world. Luckily, she is an electronic wizard and manages to cobble a broken phone together, and, dialling a random number, manages to contact Bob (Louis Koo), a debt collector with family issues. After convincing him that she’s not playing an elaborate hoax, and with a sceptical police force not willing to help, Bob gets embroiled in the plot and tries to help the damsel in distress. CONNECTED should be a terrible movie, with over-the-top car chases, clichéd characters galore and so much misfortune heaped upon poor Bob at one point that the film seriously looks like it’s heading into spoof territory. But taken at surface value (whatever you do, do NOT attempt to apply real-world logic to the events of this film) it is remarkably good fun. Nick Cheung is a brilliant addition to the ensemble and his character (disgraced detective busted down to traffic cop, with a stupid boss promoted over his head, etc etc, rinse and repeat) is really easy to get behind. Bob himself is never looks more than Louis Koo in oversized nerd glasses, but he does do his own stunts and some of them are particularly juicy. While some characters’ decision-making abilities will have you screaming at the screen at their supreme dumbness and while the pace can be nothing short of exhausting, CONNECTED is a fine no-brainer action thriller that should please anyone who wants to have a shot of pure adrenaline. Reviewer Score: 8

Reviewed by: mrblue Date: 01/20/2009 By all accounts, Connected should be total crap. It's a remake of 2004's Cellular, a total bomb at the box office that can't even limp on to becoming a staple of TNT or Spike's late-night lineup. We get a textbook example of over-acting from the lead, Louis Koo. Oh yeah, there's a lot of obvious and annoying product placement as well. Surprisingly though, Connected ends up being an enjoyable (if totally brain-dead) action/thriller that's worth checking out. The unfortunately named Barbie Xu (seriously, did her agent think that name would make her be taken more seriously as an actress with westerners?) stars as Grace, a software programmer is kidnapped and thrown into a room where her only link to the outside world is a broken phone. Dialing random numbers, she gets a hold of Bob (Louis Koo), a deadbeat dad on the way to the airport to try and patch things up with his son. Bob doesn't believe Grace's story at first, but after hearing someone killed on the line, he immediately jumps to her aid. Transforming from a nebbishly debt collector to a bad ass, Bob unveils a conspiracy about crooked Inetrpol agents led by Fok (Liu Ye). Powered by Pepsi Max and Motorola cell phones, Bob ends up teaming up with a disgraced cop (Nick Cheung) to save the day. A major point of how much you might enjoy Connected is the ability to turn off that part of your brain which controls logic. As in, if these awesome Motorola cell phones -- available now at local retailers at very reasonable prices -- apparently don't have call-back functionality, so Bob can't find out where Grace is calling from. But, of course, driving like a maniac and pulling a gun on random people will eventually unravel the mystery, the major piece of which could have easily been distributed via Motorola's brand new and super-fast 3G network to the authorities, and would have probably made this the shortest "blockbuster" on record. But yet Bob still struggles to get the information to the cops, probably because he likes looking lovingly at the ultra-modern styling on the Motorola MotoQ.  If you can put things like that, as well as "minor" stuff like actual characterization and plot development, aside, then Connected offers a lot of brainless fun. Nicky Li, a long-time behind-the-scenes veteran, has been making himself into being one of Hong Kong's best action directors, and does a great job here. Connected's two major action scenes, a frantic chase through Hong Kong and a shootout at its' airport, are some of the best stuff the former British colony's film industry has put out in years. It's a shame the rest of the movie can't match the originality and power of the action sequences, because we could have had a true classic on our hands here. But overall, Connected provides enough thrills during its' running time that even the most disgruntled viewer will be should be able to forgive the expository shortcomings if they're willing to put down their thinking cap for the sake of a good time. Reviewer Score: 7