Connected

A Hong Kong thriller. A woman is abducted. She is shut in a room, her phone smashed, and all she has are the broken parts of an old wall telephone. Touching the wires together, she reaches a random number. The call lands on Bob. He works for a debt collection company, his work is going badly, and he is trying to make an appointment he promised his son. The woman shouts and he takes it for a prank at first. Then he believes her. From there the film is built on one rule: the line must not drop. Bob drives across the city, finds his way by what she tells him, and the battery is running down. The narrative uses that in detail: finding a charger, looking for signal, calling someone else while still connected, and the possibility of the line cutting present in every scene. There is a policeman too. An officer about to leave the service is the only person who believes it. What the narrative is interested in is not technology but an ordinary man: Bob is not a hero, he does not fight and he is frightened; the only thing he does is not hang up. It is a remake of an American film and keeps the plot largely intact; the chases were rebuilt for the streets of Hong Kong. Louis Koo, Barbie Hsu and Nick Cheung are in the cast. Benny Chan directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes thrillers built on a single idea. Who it is not for: anyone looking for logic; as it advances the narrative leans on coincidence and the last section falls into the genre's usual place.