Michael Mann’s latest film, Blackhat, is an action-thriller that shows us that the more connected our world becomes, the more vulnerable we are. Blackhat follows furloughed convicted hacker Nicholas Hathaway (Chris Hemsworth), and his American and Chinese partners as they hunt down a dangerous global cybercrime network.

Mann known as a filmmaker that immerse himself investigating hidden worlds and the people in it, got inspired to tackle a film with this subject after talking to experts about cyberterrorism and cybertheft, on a visit to Washington DC. “It was an eye-opening experience the way we live our lives, the way we think our lives are. The way we live our lives is not really the way they are anymore. We are porous and we are vulnerable to intrusion from everywhere and we just don’t know it,” he said at a recent press conference in Los Angeles.

Not knowing much of this world, Mann recruited experts from both side of the coin to give authenticity to the story. “Michael [Mann] approached me for two things, one was for technical advise. He wanted to make it as authentic as he could. And he was also very interested in the psychology of hacking, why people do it, what is like being a hacker in prison,” said Kevin Poulson, a former hacker, who served 5 years in prison for cheating numerous radio-station phone-in contest. Also Christopher McKinlay, a mathematician who hacked into the popular dating website OKCupid, was brought in to help with the coding and keeping everything as authentic as possible. Mike Panico, a former FBI special agent in the Cybercrime division, was a consultant in regards to the goverment side of this story. “Our interaction was around the investigation of the crimes that are occurring in the movie,” said Panico at the press conference.

The film stars Chris Hemsworth, Tang Wei, Viola Davis, Ritchie Coster, Yorick Van Wageningen and Wang Leehom. Most of them agreed that getting involved and joining this project had to do with Mann himself. “I wanted to be part of anything he was directing. I think you always want to gravitate towards people who absolutely are great at what they do and go for authenticity, and cyber-terrorism was a subject that fascinated me also,” said Davis. And one thing Hemsworth learned from the experts was that “the power now is the brain.” He added, “They are the guys that are superheroes, highly intelligent, advanced, alien-type advancement that they seem to have within themselves.”

To set the stage to this global technological story, Mann shot in 74 locations in four counties, traversing 10,000 miles, with the purpose of immersing not only the actors, but the audience, in the real-world of cyberhacking. “You want places to feel evocative of what the scene’s about, that’s where it begins,” Mann added.

With all the recent cyber hacking events happening in our world, this movie couldn’t have come at a better time and be more actual. Now do yourself a favor, and change your password...

Blackhat hits theaters on January 16, 2015.