Eason's Moving On Stage 11
Singapore Indoor Stadium
Last Saturday

King Of Karaoke Songs was one of Eason Chan's biggest hits, and he showed why he fully deserves that title with a highlight-packed concert.
For more than 2 1/2 hours, the Hong Kong singer entertained the near-capacity crowd of over 7,000 with his repertoire of Cantonese, Mandarin and English numbers, aided by memorable costumes and energetic dancing.
The showman emerged as a veiled, ruffled and twinkling mysterious presence with Red Rose and then revealed with a flourish his smart get-up of a black suit paired with sneakers.
The affable and playful Chan, sporting hair reminiscent of Krusty the Clown’s, had an easy rapport with the crowd, chatting with them in Cantonese, Mandarin and English.
He was equally versatile with his material.
He sang the jazz standard What A Wonderful World and his first English language single, Aren't You Glad, from his latest album, Don't Want To Let Go.
On the slinky and funky Love Is Suspicion, the British-educated singer even pulled off a verse or two of rap.
It was in the ballads though, that he truly shone.
In lesser hands, tracks such as Brother And Sister and An Urge To Cry would merely be above average hits, but in his rapt renditions, one could hear the sound of heartbreak.
He impressed with the majestic Under Mount Fuji though the quietly devastating Let's Not Meet worked better with the hushed, defeated delivery on the record.
Chan also showed off his moves, including on King Of Karaoke Songs, given a fresh spin with a ballroom dance remix. He tackled the waltz, the tango and the cha-cha-cha, which had his fans laughing in merriment.
On the electro-rock track Flash, he writhed around gamely with both male and female dancers. And for the finale, he burst on stage like a hip-hop pimp in a maroon tracksuit and twiddling a walking cane.
The singer, who turned 34 yesterday, was in a great mood, bolstered by the entire stadium singing him Happy Birthday.
His exuberance was endearing and during the encore, he took requests from the floor. The audience included his wife Hilary Tsui and daughter Constance; and Hong Kong celebrities such as actress Josie Ho, actor-singer Jaycee Chan and singer Edmond Leung.
One particular image of Chan stands out.
He is wearing a black cloak and a panel above his forehead, which is printed with a pair of eyes. When he stretches his arms to the side, the underside is revealed as a ruffled explosion of colour.
Chan is that rara avis in Chinese entertainment, a rare and precious songbird who delivers genuinely moving music - in the guise of karaoke hits.
(ST)

Strange Wilderness
Fred Wolf

Turkey.
The low point, or highlight, depending on your predilection, is when wildlife show host Peter Gaulke (Steve Zahn wearing out his slacker persona’s thin charm) gets his private parts stuck in a turkey’s throat.
The situation is ludicrous enough to raise a smile, but it is played out for too long.
Another contender for low point/highlight is when Gus Hayden (The X-Files’ Robert Patrick), a trekker who can supposedly lead Gaulke’s gang of misfits to Bigfoot, drops his trousers to reveal some bizarre-looking genitalia after a story about getting his testicles ravaged.
By this point, it should be clear whether this movie is for you or not.
(ST)

Gary Chaw Welcome To My World
Asia Live Tour 2008
Singapore Indoor Stadium
Last Saturday

The king cut a dashing figure in black as he crooned from his prop throne.
It was an apt seat for Gary Chaw, the newly crowned Best Male Singer at Taiwan's Golden Melody Awards. And he delivered a 21/2-hour show that kept things interesting for the most part.
The 29-year-old Malaysian shone during the ballads and he started the concert with a fan favourite, the R&B hit Superwoman.
The near-capacity crowd of 7,500 roared its approval when he fell to his knees and his voice soared on the karaoke favourite, Betrayal.
His sonorous pipes were shown to their best effect when he was accompanied by just a piano on various slow songs. He was by turns tender, aching and dramatic.
Melancholic ballads aside, Chaw was cheekily endearing. When he fumbled on the pitch, he said: 'Oops, the king of pop has gone off-key again. Everyone just pretend he didn't hear that.'
That facet of his personality worked well on the livelier numbers such as 3-7-20-1 and the retro-sounding The Wake Up Song.
Some thought had clearly gone into the staging of the songs as well.
The brooding Singular was performed against a stunning backdrop of a V-shaped sculpture entwined with fairy lights while Chaw playfully channelled gongfu superstar Bruce Lee and fought off a motley crew of baddies during Superman.
There was also an English song segment but Chaw could not quite swing the jazz standards Moon River and Smoke Gets In Your Eyes.
He got points for trying, although his rendition of My Way, which saw him switching back and forth between his lower register and his falsetto, probably had original crooner Frank Sinatra turning in his grave.
But the concert seemed to run out of steam towards the end. Perhaps it was due to the fact that Chaw has only three albums worth of material.
Four, if you count the first album that he released in Malaysia in 2001, though, he confessed frankly during the concert, 'it died a horrible death'.
Fellow Malaysian singer- songwriter Jet Yi and a shrill Genie Chuo showed up as guest stars but it was white-hot singer Aska Yang who caused the greatest stir when the crowd realised that he was in the audience.
Though Yang's version of Betrayal had previously eclipsed Chaw's in the popularity stakes, there was no question who wore the crown last Saturday night.
(ST)

Help Me Eros

This could conceivably be subtitled The Joys Of Drugs And Sex.
Ah Jie (Taiwanese actor-director Lee Kang-sheng) has lost everything in the stock market crash and dulls his pain with home-grown marijuana.
He becomes obsessed with hotline counsellor Chyi (Jane Liao) and also tumbles into a relationship with betel nut beauty Shin (Ivy Yi, right).
But Ah Jie is not the only one crying out for help as Chyi and Shin are also mired in their own predicaments.
Lee has mixed in song-and-dance sequences, acrobatic sex and sensual images of food and animals, but the film ends up being too scattered for its own good.
(ST)

Snuff
Chuck Palahniuk


Cassie Wright, an adult movie actress, is planning to go down in history by having sex with 600 men on film.
The story unfolds from the points of view of Mr 72, Mr 137, Mr 600 and Sheila, the set manager as well as the person responsible for putting the project together.
It eventually emerges that she is doing the film for the sake of her child, accidentally fathered by a fellow professional on a shoot and later given up for adoption.
There is a possibility she could die making it, hence the title of the book. That would, however, result in phenomenal sales and life insurance policy payouts, thus securing her child’s future.
Best known for the nihilistic Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk here takes the dysfunctional family drama and gives it a twist by setting it within another American institution – the porn industry.
Palahniuk also trots out the rationalisation of porn as female empowerment but it is clear from the book that the women, from Annabel Chong to Cassie Wright, are very much victims as well.
Chong is the real-life Singaporean porn star who set a record in 1995 by reportedly having sex with 251 men. Her exploit is both referenced and analysed in Snuff.
A brooding fatalism underscores much of the novel and the ever-present link between sex and death is made explicit here.
The climax, when it finally arrives, strikes a deliciously demented note. Too bad he couldn't keep it up throughout.

If you like this, read: Damage by Josephine Hart (1996, US$13.50 or S$18.41, amazon.com) Another dark aspect of sex is explored in this tale of an obsessive love between a man and his son’s fiancee.
(ST)

The Strangers
Bryan Bertino

Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman play a couple stranded in a house in the middle of nowhere. For reasons never made clear, they become the targets of three masked assailants.
Despite the generic set-up, this was a taut and effective creepy little thriller executed with some visual flair and unusual pacing.
Pity about the bland title.
(ST)