We thought it would never happen, but oh yes, the day has finally come. You all know what we are talking about, the studios execs over at WB are remaking the deeply gripping 2004 drama, “Cellular,” into a Chinese-language movie, currently titled “Connected.” It’s just a tad ironic, when one contemplates that a massive amount of Hollywood material is usually cribbed from the Hong Kong film industry (i.e. “The Departed”).
The 2004 film starring fraboy-du-jour Chris Evans centered around a kidnapped woman (Kim Basinger) who makes a call to a random mobile phone seeking help, and has the hilarious tag line of “If the signal dies, so does she.” The movie was critically acclaimed (well, not really) for its unflinching portrait of the rampant kidnappings and cellular phone oriented rescues in today’s urban America. The ludicrous idea to remake the film even seems as though it could’ve come straight from the awkward dinner scene in Jason Segel’s comedy “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” from earlier this Spring.
The Hong Kong director, Benny Chan, described how his remake was going to trump the American version by injecting classic Chinese action sequences into the film, “In my movie, I added many elements that Hong Kong action movies do best — human combat, action, flying cars.” Flying cars? Fuck yes. One problem though, the presumably action heavy film is budgeted at a mere $5.8 million American dollars. Hope they have extra batteries.
