words rachel mok

Benny Chan reinvents a film about a mobile phone and hisses at Hollywood

Officially adapted from 2004’s Hollywood blockbuster Cellular starring Kim Basinger and Chris Evans, Connected is the latest offering from local director Benny Chan. The story revolves around Bob (Louis Koo), a loser in both family and career, who receives a call from Grace (Barbie Hsu), a stranger claiming she has been kidnapped and begging for help. The catch is that Bob’s cellular phone must not be disconnected – if it is, Grace will die. It is a taxing premise – if Chan puts himself in Bob’s shoes, would he believe the mysterious woman, or would he treat her as just another crank call and hang up? “I wouldn’t believe that story!” laughs the director, whose recent works include Invisible Target (2007) and Rob-B-Hood (2006). “I asked myself that many times and that’s why I was stuck for a long time!”

When the film company approached him to direct Connected, his first reaction was, “Why bother with a remake when so many have seen the original already?” But he later reconsidered the offer. “Everyone who watched the film says it is good, but not everyone has seen the film, especially in China,” he says. The original intention was to tailor-make the adaptation for the Chinese market, but Chan insisted that it be filmed entirely in Hong Kong and a culture he is familiar with. “Hong Kong is a metropolis. People walk very fast, lives are stressful here,” and that, he points out, can create intensity and a feeling of suffocation. “Bob is a typical Hongkonger working hard every day to make a living, so when he gets a phone call like that, he may just say ‘Don’t fool with me’ and then hang up.” Though the director enjoyed the original film, he still finds certain scenes and assumptions unconvincing – including that someone would risk his life to save a stranger. That haunted him for a long time before he finally chose to believe it could occur because “everything happened in a spilt second. And everyone has different beliefs and not every decision is rational.”

One of the most important – and expensive – scenes will be the car chase between Bob and the group of kidnappers. The crew could only shoot in Yuen Long during weekends, and so spent five or six – and $3 million – filming it. “It’s not cheap. Even those cars we bought for crashing are not cheap now!” says the director. Though widely known as a helmer of action flicks, Chan says he always tries to put characters and plot before action. Instead of only perfecting the ‘how to fight’ part, he “may not be too good at action, but the most important thing is to incorporate the action scenes with the story”. Hence, to make the film more three dimensional, he penned Bob as a loser trying to reclaim his confidence.

Chan has thrice been nominated for the Best Director award at the Hong Kong Film Awards – for Big Bullet (1996), Heroic Duo (2003) and New Police Story (2004). Since his directorial debut, A Moment of Romance, in 1990, he has directed some 20 mostly action films, smashed countless vehicles and bloodied the noses of many of our finest stars, including Jackie Chan, Aaron Kwok and Andy Lau, for his camera. He can even lay claim to blowing up the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (in Gen-X-Cops (1999)). So just out of curiosity, I ask which Hong Kong landmark he next wants to destroy? I expect a laugh, but the usually gentle filmmaker’s answer is bitter. “A lot… like the batman [The Dark Knight] at IFC. I want the same privilege: to block the land, sea and air traffic and Queens Road Central. The same treatment will be enough.” And if he thinks Hollywood is allowed unusual privileges, its portrayal of Hong Kong is pitiful. “There are a few shots where the Hong Kong police look very weak,” he sniffs, speaking of The Dark Knight. “The one holding a gun looks like a drug addict! We have cooler people! Why do you have to see Chinese people like that?”

Chan’s time to destroy Hong Kong may yet come but before that it seems he will have to make do with launching a car at a mountain of canned soda pop, as in his latest movie. Just as we are finishing the interview, Chan’s phone rings. He picks it up, puts it on hold and, perhaps for dramatic effect, says in a loud voice in Cantonese. “Keep it connected!” I get the hint.

Connected opens on September 25.