The Treasure Hunter

Kevin Chu

The story: A legendary treasure hidden deep in a desert attracts the attention of relic protector Qiao Fei (Jay Chou), author Lan Ting (Chiling Lin), opportunist Chop (Eric Tsang) and an archaeologist with a past, Hua Dingbang (Chen Daoming).

How does this annoy me? Let me count the ways. There is the lazy characterisation, the hammy acting and a garbled plot which has little interest in making sense.

Perhaps this is the result of having five scriptwriters attached to the project. The producers are obviously not familiar with the notion of quality, not quantity. The several strands of plot have only one thing in common – they are all half-baked.

Qiao Fei and Lan Ting were childhood sweethearts but she felt betrayed after he disappeared from her life to apparently return to the desert where he came from. The reason was possibly the fact that he is part of a tribe who are responsible for protecting the ancient tombs.

If this seems like a rather murky and convoluted explanation, it is because much is left unexplained and unaccounted for.

There is also the rivalry between Qiao Fei and the Desert Eagle, head of the guardians, as well as a rote romance between Qiao Fei and Lan Ting to further muddy the waters.

The sparks never fly as model-turned-actress Lin is stiff before the cameras and seems to be still coming to grips with the notion of acting.

Admittedly, risible lines such as “Tears can’t roll down your face when you’re looking up at the sky” would challenge the most dedicated thespian.

The best thing you could say about director Kevin Chu is that he did not play favourites in this film – he managed to bring out the worst in everyone. Tsang, spewing lines in Mandarin, Cantonese and English, is at his most irritating. And veteran China actor Chen turns in an embarrassingly amateurish performance.

Meanwhile, Chou looks vaguely ridiculous dressed in a studded leather jacket with slicked-back long hair .

Maybe this will mark the end of Chou’s collaboration with Chu. They last worked together on the basketball flick Kung Fu Dunk (2008), which at least had some idea of what to do with its star’s boyish charms.

Do not feel too sorry for Chou, though. Even without releasing a new album this year, he has once again emerged as the top money-spinner in the Taiwanese music industry. He earned NT$554 million (S$24 million) from starring in films, as well as from endorsements and royalties.

If you must contribute to his overflowing treasure chest, wait for his 10th studio album and pass on this piffle.

(ST)

Best Live Chinese Music

In::Music – Crowd Lu

Esplanade Recital Studio, Feb 7

It was a small show that took place at the beginning of the year but the indie singer- songwriter simply delivered the most moving gig in 2009 by performing with his entire being.

Crowd Lu sang with his eyes closed, feet tapping and body crouched over his guitar. He was enraptured by the songs and we were enraptured by him.

Aaron Kwok De Show Reel Live In Concert 09

Singapore Indoor Stadium, May 30

At the opposite end of the spectrum is this slick, well-oiled machine of a show whose centrepiece was a slick, well-oiled machine.

And it is not Hong Kong Heavenly King Aaron Kwok we are talking about, even though he danced, sang and flaunted his well-toned body tirelessly.

It was instead the giant revolving stage that has raised the bar for those seeking to dazzle audiences with hardware wizardry.

Mayday DNA World Tour, Singapore 2009

Singapore Indoor Stadium, Aug 28-29

The hardest-working band out there delivered two sizzling shows which busted the midnight mark. If their exhilarating concert in Taipei was any indication, the five lads once again proved that they can always be counted on for a rousing good time.

Let’s not forget their promo gig here on Jan 4, a free event which became a 21/2-hour concert. Mayday’s willingness to go that extra mile for their fans is why they have some of the most fervent supporters around.

(ST)

Keep Going

Jeanie Zhang

The debut album from China’s Jeanie Zhang begins with an in-flight announcement to secure your safety belt. Thankfully though, this ride is free of turbulence or vocal histrionics as the 23-year-old takes a more restrained approach.

Her clean, clear voice has a hint of sadness which gives the defiant title track an added layer of emotion when she sings: “Let the wind blow harder/Let the storm lash out/Feel how terrifying the world is/Actually my courage is not lonely/It has company wherever it goes.” She also gets bonus points for composing it.

Equally comfortable with ballads such as I Don’t Understand and uptempo numbers such as I’m OK, the promising newcomer wants you to know that she is in it for the long haul.

Wonfu Loves You

Won Fu

The band emits such a sunshiney, summery vibe it feels a little out of sync to listen to them during this cool, rainy season.

Still, try sitting through such goofy, cheery numbers as Summer Dusk Summer Scenery (“The sun broke the bottle of ketchup escaping/The stars and moon came out and did the cleaning”) and Motorbike (“Sitting on my motorbike/I’ll never exceed the riding capacity/Will the one I like please hurry up and tell me”) without breaking into a grin.

However, two-thirds of the way through, from way out of left field, comes a bizarre Hare Krishna chorus and the mood grows increasingly frenzied and manic. Maybe all that summer sun got to them.

D.N.A Live!

Mayday

It is easy to take Mayday for granted because they are so consistently good. Mayday deliver concert after concert and September’s 2009 Taipei Arena gig was no exception.

The recording captures the excitement of the event as well as the energy and charisma of the band with lead vocalist Ashin in fine form in all 29 tracks here.

For those who were there, this is the perfect keepsake. For those who were not, the accompanying DVD gives you a condensed, tantalising version of what went down.

The Classic

Eric Moo

Harlem Yu, Jam Hsiao, Abin Fang and now Eric Moo. Men doing cover albums of women’s songs? It’s getting old.

They are even starting to record the same songs such as Mavis Hee’s Regrets, which Fang also took on. I prefer Fang’s sparer, more emotionally naked version as Moo’s tendency to belt a song into submission is on full display here. There is nothing delicate about his forceful blasting of lines such as “Rather than let you wither in my embrace” and “Rather than let you grow haggard in my love”.

The disc ends with Too Foolish, a megahit for Moo back in the day but it may surprise you to learn that it was Mindy Quah who first sang the Moo-composed ballad in 1993. He shows some unexpected restraint here but it’s a classic case of too little too late.

(ST)

Dancing Queen

Landy Wen

There is no chance that you will forget who you are listening to. That is because Wen keeps spelling out her name L.A.N.D.Y.

In a nutshell, that spells out her problem. She is a versatile singer with a lightly husky voice but she needs more distinctive material in order to step out of the shadows of dancing divas such as Jolin Tsai, Elva Hsiao and Coco Lee.

Over nine years, Wen has moved from R&B and hip-hop to dance and is now a self-styled Dancing Queen. She dishes out attitude on Wide-Angle Beauty and D.I.S.C.O is a retro-sounding call to get your groove on.

But she can also take it slow on mid-tempo numbers such as Adia’s slinky Love Has No Right Or Wrong and Kenji Wu’s ballad I Believe It All.

Perhaps the constant shift in styles from album to album explains why it is hard to get a fix on her as a singer. The ever-changing hair and eye colours do not help either. It closes with Don’t Fall In Love With Me but somehow you get the feeling that it is the exact opposite of what Wen wants.

Love Has Always Been

Rachel Liang

Another week and yet another release by a One Million Star alum.

As they jostle for short attention spans and album sales, the ex-contestants have all had to decide how to differentiate themselves from one another.

Rachel Liang has chosen the safe-if-boring sweetie-pie route.

The second season’s runner-up titled her debut album Love Poem and her follow-up is Love Has Always Been. No prizes for guessing what she sings about.

Among the TV reality show’s female cohort, it is Lala Hsu who stands out for her willingness to try different approaches and keep things interesting.

The highlight of Liang’s romance-heavy disc is the title track for which local singer-songwriter Hagen Tan composed the memorable tune and contributed to the lyrics: “I know/My love/Has always been/Without you the tears can’t stop.”

To her credit, she mixes things up with the breezy Sixth Sense and the intriguingly titled Man-Biting Cat. And even that is about love: “My love is so troublesome/Like a man-biting cat that cannot be shaken off.”

One wonders if she would be a more interesting proposition if she shakes off that syrupy image.

review asian pop

All About Rynn

Rynn Lim

On first glance at the cover, one could be forgiven for thinking that MediaCorp rising star Dai Yangtian has branched out into singing.

It is hard to decide if this is a good or bad thing for Rynn Lim. On the one hand, the CD could turn more heads as a result of the physical resemblance.

On the other hand, is this really the way for the Malaysian singer-songwriter to get more attention after releasing three albums?

He is, after all, the winner of the Best New Artiste at the Golden Melody Awards in 2006.

All About Rynn is a retrospective of his past work including Kong Qiu Qian (Abandoned), Re-married and the novelty Malay/Mandarin duet Melodi with Sheila Majid. In the lyric sheet, Lim adds little anecdotes about the songs closest to his heart. Oddly enough, he chose to omit Working Girl, the lead single off his last album Homely Life (2008).

The collection also includes five new songs. From the lightly jaunty Within 7 Days to the ballad Gently, they are all pleasant but maybe not enough for people to start comparing Dai to him instead.

(ST)

Love Moments

Jam Hsiao

Regrets

Abin Fang

Record of Emotion

Cui Xia and Hong Shaoxuan

Forward

Jade Liu

When will these young upstarts learn to leave the inimitable Faye Wong alone?

First it was soulboy Khalil Fong remaking Red Bean and now Jam Hsiao is covering The Last Blossom.

Abin Fang, of the defunct Malaysian duo Island, takes on not one but two tracks – Chess and the Cantonese number Ambiguous.

At least Fong gives the song an R&B makeover, while Fang takes a decidedly stripped-down acoustic approach. Hsiao’s choice of song may be more adventurous but he does not do much with it arrangement-wise.

None of them, though, makes you forget for a second that Wong did it first and better. Please, just come out of your retirement already, and show these whipper-snappers how it’s done.

Actually she already did so on Decadent Sounds Of Faye (1995) in which she covered the songs of Teresa Teng with attitude and imagination.

The problem with both Hsiao and Fang’s offerings is that there is hardly any sense of surprise or discovery in the material even if the delivery is competent.

Hsiao is so confident of his vocal prowess that he chooses to cover chart hits of the recent past without bothering to tweak the songs much.

This is the third version of Rewind after Jolin Tsai and Jay Chou.

At least Tsai and Chou’s versions had the added dimension of how much one should read into the lyrics about a break-up.

Only the unexpected inclusion of the touching Minnan track Wordless Flower stands out.

The mildly interesting thing about Love Moments and Regrets is that they are packed with women’s songs.

For Sandy Lam’s It Doesn’t Matter Who I Am, the gender has been switched so Fang sings “How tragic it is if men have no one to love/Even if someone cries when they hear my song”. This is as audacious as it gets.

Compared to the commercially minded discs above, Record Of Emotion is a more curious proposition. It features home-grown xinyao singer Hong Shaoxuan and 1983 Talentime second runner-up Cui Xia as well as a mixed bag of selections.

Once you get past the opening Huangmei opera track Country Road, there is much to savour here in the beautifully pristine voices showcased in classics such as Qiu Shi Pian Pian (Deep Fall) and Sui Hua (Broken Blossoms).

The songs on Jade Liu’s EP are also an eclectic lot. In her case, it is because three of them are from TV serials, including Lonely Light Years from MediaCorp’s The Ultimatum. Because she liked the melody so much, she penned a new set of lyrics and re-recorded the song as Gift.

What is more impressive is the trick Liu pulls off on Adore You in which she channels the composer – her laid-back crooning sounds exactly like Tanya Chua.

This is the first part of a planned Growth Trilogy and this EP whets the appetite for her next disc which is exactly what a good offering should do.

But when it comes to reworking songs, here is some parting advice – just because it’s nice doesn’t mean you have to sing it twice.

(ST)

The Storm Warriors

The Pang Brothers

The story: Powerful warriors Whispering Wind (Ekin Cheng) and Striding Cloud (Aaron Kwok) have to prevent the evil Lord Godless (Simon Yam) from taking over China in this adaptation of a story from Ma Wing Shing’s comic series Fung Wan. The reclusive Lord Wicked (Kenny Wong) agrees to instruct Wind in the path of evil to boost the latter’s skills, while master pugilist Nameless (Kenny Ho) helps Cloud create a new style of sword-fighting.

It is comforting to know that in this fickle and ever-changing world, there are some things people can still count on – such as lovingly art-directed hairstyles in a Fung Wan movie.

In 1998’s The Storm Riders, Aaron Kwok sported electric blue curls while Ekin Cheng had luscious flowing locks. This time round, Kwok has ditched the dye and gone for a perm that adroitly frames his face while Cheng is still keeping to his battle- tried-and-tested coiffure.

But all that hirsute detail is not just for show – it is also an important signifier. After all, only highly- skilled martial artists can afford to devote that much time and effort to maintaining their hairdos.

Even Kenny Ho as the legendary Nameless gets to strut his stuff in front of a wind machine, tresses billowing heroically.

While the hair motif is familiar, what has improved from 11 years ago are the special effects. The Pang brothers, taking over from Andrew Lau (Infernal Affairs, 2002) at the helm, seem to have benefited from their Hollywood sojourn and their exposure to top-level computer-generated imagery (CGI).

The special effects in The Storm Riders were sometimes cheesy, particularly when seen in retrospect. Here, in addition to punching up the fight scenes and translating the look and feel of a comic book onto film, the CGI has been used to create spectacular vistas, as epic as the tale that is unfolding.

Given the fairly straightforward story, the directors do a good job with pacing and keeping the film flowing, right up to the protracted climactic battle with Cloud and Wind in which every trick from stylised freeze frames to extreme close-ups to blurred motion sequences a la Wong Kar Wai’s Ashes Of Time (1994) is thrown onscreen.

With all that technical wizardry going on, Kwok and Cheng do not have to do too much heavy- lifting in the acting department. Cheng, at least, has more to do as Wind has to pay a high price for venturing down the path of evil while the laconic Cloud lets his sword do most of the talking.

Chu Chu (Tang Yan), who is devoted to Cloud, is another character who reappears from The Storm Riders (then played by Shu Qi). But her presence here is token, like that of Second Dream’s (Charlene Choi). The women are merely foils for the grander drama played out by the men.

Some have criticised this film for being too similar stylistically to 300 (2007), Zack Snyder’s hit movie adaptation of a graphic novel about a key battle between the Spartans and the Persians.

While the two share a visual resemblance, The Storm Warriors trumps 300 in one respect: In contrast to the uber machismo and humourlessness of the Spartan flick, Warriors does not take itself too seriously.

Just check out those hairstyles.

(ST)

Adrian Mole The Prostrate Years

By Sue Townsend

Dear Diary,

Remember when we first met Adrian? The year was 1982 and we had inadvertently stumbled upon the secret diary of his 13¾-year-old self. How we laughed when we read about his futile attempts to paint his bedroom black as the Noddy wallpaper kept showing through.

We continued to faithfully follow his exploits as he went through his Growing Pains (1984), which charted the ups and downs of his relationship with one Pandora Braithwaite.

Alas, we drifted apart after that and all through the Wilderness Years (1993) and the Cappuccino Years (1999), our paths never crossed.

Running into him again after all these years brings both a deep sense of joy and a small jolt of shock to realise that he is now on the cusp of 40.

Some things have not changed. He still has literary aspirations and is now writing Plague!, a play set in the medieval countryside, for the local theatre group. But while illusions of grandeur were touching in a young boy, they seem a bit sad and pretentious in a grown man living in a converted pigsty.

Adrian may have his faults, including an inability to see the glaringly obvious, but he is also loyal, generous and kind-hearted. He continues to make friends with lonely pensioners and is unfailingly decent to those he knows, including the unapologetically rascally Bernard Hopkins, “the bookseller from hell”.

Meanwhile, he has to deal with his stubborn five-year-old daughter Gracie, unhappy wife Daisy and other assorted family drama, all the while still carrying a torch for Pandora, now an abrasive politician.

When he is diagnosed with prostate cancer, he faces the prospect of death with a poignantly turbulent mix of bravado, stoicism, fear, panic and petulance. Adrian Mole might be down, but we can never count him out.

P.S: If you like this, read: The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾ by Sue Townsend and revisit the agony and the ecstasy of Moley’s teenage years.

(ST)

Dreamer

Peter Pan

Set Meal For Three

Mi Lu Bing

Manic Pixie Dream Girl

1976

Play n Fun [1+1]

Genie Chuo

There is an understated homespun vibe to Peter Pan’s full-length debut that is really quite endearing. It could be due to the fact that the lyrics for all 10 songs are by veteran lyricist Daryl Yao, lending the album a cohesive feel.

The first plug, The Thing I Want To Do Most, is already a chart-topper here. Pan tugs gently at the heartstrings when he croons, “If thunderstorms rage in your heart, then I’ll turn into an umbrella”. Admittedly, that sounds better in Mandarin.

The One Million Star alumnus has smartly made use of his connection to the reality competition TV show as the song was composed and produced by resident judge Kay Huang.

There is no escape from the de rigueur duet but the harmonica-backed Mandarin/Minnan Happy Times with Ring Xu shows the tired format still has life in it when done with a little imagination.

Mi Lu Bing’s third album is a very different proposition but is happily also a cohesive effort, one that centres on the theme of food.

The trio wrote most of the music and kick things off with the youthful optimism of Swallow The Universe. From lines such as “Put your dreams in your left hand/Shout out loud if you’re unhappy/Use my voice to stun the planet”, it is clear that the boys are still hungry for success.

The rock stylings suit lead vocalist Nic Lee’s slightly gruff voice but a slow-burn recipe of Swallow The Universe paired with a different set of lyrics work as well.

On their sixth album, indie Taiwanese band 1976 serve up a melancholic helping of synth-pop that references the seminal British group The Smiths.

While the attempt to try something different is appreciated, the record needs greater variety in sound for tracks to stand out more. But their gutsy attitude – summed up by “There’s a youth with a defiant look/He once was me, he still is me” – is to be cheered.

Better gutsy than cutesy as Genie Chuo tries to look younger with each release. This best-of collection includes past hits Vanilla Lover and Castle Of Love along with six new songs.

There is a place for bubbly throwaway pop such as By Your Side but Chuo shows herself up on the English duet Especially For You with Leon Williams with cringeworthy enunciation.

Maybe this Genie needs to go back into the bottle.

(ST)

Couples Retreat

Peter Billingsley

A sure sign that the movie you are watching is less than engrossing is when idle thoughts begin to flit through your head.

In this case, these thoughts went along the lines of: “Wow, the resort looks great. Where did they film this? Is there actually a resort there? I wonder what the rates are.”

For the record, Couples Retreat was filmed on location on Bora Bora, a French Polynesian island in the South Pacific.

And yes, there is a five-star establishment there, the St Regis Bora Bora Resort.

In the movie, this stands in for Eden Resort, where four couples try to work out their relationship issues. Really, though, three couples would have worked just as well, maybe even two. At least the running time would have been shaved.

The sprawling cast, which includes familiar names such as Vince Vaughn, Jason Bateman, Jon Favreau, Kristen Bell and Kristin Davis, is not particularly well-served by the script co-written by Vaughn and Favreau.

Despite some funny moments, including a touchy-feely yoga session, the saggy middle and oh-so-neat ending will have you mentally whisking yourself off to the resort instead.

(ST)

Seven Days

Crowd Lu

This is one of the most eagerly anticipated releases of the year as it is the follow-up album by the worthy winner of the Best New Artiste and Best Composer accolades at this year’s Golden Melody Awards.

The good news is that Seven Days is a continuation of Crowd Lu’s previous record in terms of vibe – breezy insouciance – and a tuneful blend of folk, pop and rock.

That 100 Ways For Living was one of the best debuts in recent years is all the more impressive considering the singer-songwriter only picked up the guitar when he was hospitalised after a serious car accident in his first year at Tamkang University in 2005.

Even the song order was carefully thought out where the lyrics portray perfectly youthful confusion and indecision.

On the track 100 Ways For Living, he asks in earnest: “How is it that there are 100 ways of living that I wish to have?” The next number, Want To Splurge, has him professing: “There’s only one way of living that I want.”

After setting the bar so high, the first impression of Seven Days is that it is less immediate than its predecessor. For example, though Happy Restaurant is also a quirky ditty about food, it does not quite come close to the first album’s joyous paean to breakfast, Good Morning, Beautiful Dawn!.

But unlike many singers who are pretty much interchangeable, Lu is so strongly identified with his material that you could never mistake him for someone else. Album opener Oh Yeah!!! incorporates his favourite exuberant utterance in the title and its conversational lyrics about a burgeoning love affair will have you tapping your toes.

He has a bright, open and warm voice, and there is also something fearless about the way he sings, scaling the falsetto register and shooting for the high notes, though never showboating.

His live shows are a treat and for those who missed his performance at the Esplanade in February, look out for his upcoming gig at Dragonfly on Jan 16.

On songs such as The Loneliest Time, he shows a more vulnerable side: “This was today’s loneliest moment/Watching him hold your hand.” We get a peek into his creative process as he recycles musical motifs, or rather, develops them over time.

The sprightly bass line for Love, Exercise is the instrumental interlude PAZ from the previous album. I No, a jokey throwaway track on his College’s Blues EP (2007) turns up as the fully formed INO here. The lyrics: “So it’s decided, we want to use our smiles to face what’s ahead/Even if nightmares surround the entire earth” reflect the infectious optimism that courses through his works.

Sincere and honest are such overused words but Lu is the real deal. You feel that there is an actual person’s musings and thoughts behind the album instead of a record company’s calculated choices.

Be it Seven Days or 100 Ways, you can always count on Lu to deliver music that is heartfelt.

(ST)

Mulan

Jingle Ma

The story: For the sake of her ill father, Hua Mulan (Vicki Zhao Wei) dresses up as a man and takes his place on the battlefield to defend China against the marauding Rouran tribe in the year 450. She quickly rises up the ranks and falls in love with a fellow commander, Wentai (Chen Kun).

The story of Hua Mulan’s cross-dressing feat of filial piety is a familiar and well-loved one.
Since the appearance of the Ballad Of Mulan in the sixth century text Musical Records Of Old And New, the tale has been adapted for the screen and stage numerous times. It was even turned into a 1998 Disney animated film that incongruously featured comedian Eddie Murphy as the voice of a dragon, Mushu.
Alarm bells sound here when you recall that cinematographer-turned-director Jingle Ma’s previous update of another classic tale was the widely panned Butterfly Lovers (2008).
The sense of foreboding grows stronger when the film opens with a jarring shot of Russian pop singer Vitas singing in falsetto against the backdrop of a rugged landscape. This prominence is puzzling since he only has a small role as a prisoner of the Rouran people. Maybe there were Russian investors involved in the film.
Unfortunately, this is not an isolated example of Ma’s haphazard approach to film-making.
The subject matter offers an opportunity to examine issues such as the role of women in China’s history and the notion of bravery and heroism. Instead, we get bland platitudes about war and a distinct lack of interest in why Mulan does what she does.
Maybe it is not fair to expect this from a commercially-minded film but Ma does not deliver the goods in that respect, either.
The almost two-hour-long film suffers from poor pacing and an over-abundance of lazy whiteouts in the transitions between scenes.
Having been treated to spectacular battle scenes in Peter Chan’s The Warlords (2007) and John Woo’s Red Cliff (2008), the action sequences here have little new to offer and a sense of deja vu pervades the proceedings.
Instead of seeming gritty, the drab and dreary colour palette of dusty yellows and sombre greys merely looks tired.
Zhao Wei brings some welcome spunk to the title role, but is hampered by a script that would rather have her mired in a romantic relationship in order to pad out the story.
There is a banal point about there being no room for personal feelings on the battlefield, but Mulan is made to learn that lesson in an unconvincing plot development.
Jaycee Chan stands out in the supporting role of Fei Xiaohu, Mulan’s childhood friend – but not in a good way. His all-too-modern drawl sticks out in a sea of crisp Chinese enunciation, almost as bad as Chang Chen’s discordant diction in that polyglot of accents that was Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000).
The usually reliable Hu Jun is wasted here as the Rouran prince. He swans around as if he were in a parody of the film. Come to think of it, that is a much more inviting prospect.

(ST)

Senses Around
Yoga Lin
Cindy Yen
Cindy Yen
Diamond Candy
Elva Hsiao

Thanks to the television show One Million Star, Yoga Lin made it big and even held concerts before releasing his debut album Mystery last year.
While his continued willingness to try new things on his second record is to be lauded, his voice can sound rather affected at times.
Senses Around is a beautifully packaged and ambitious, if inconsistent, concept album, with commercial ballads such as Fairy Tale sneaking into the line-up.
The most intriguing track here is the jazzy number You Are What You Eat with Hong Kong lyricist Wyman Wong’s wicked take on (sexual) appetites. "Hey boys, why so picky, just eat what you see/Hey girls, what are you waiting for, a bad meal is better than not eating at all." Tuck right in.
For the most part, newcomer Cindy Yen plays it safe with a debut aimed squarely at the Sweet Young Thing genre, as unthreatening as the gleaming, toothy smile she displays on the album cover.
It is noteworthy that the overachiever not only composed and produced all 10 songs but also co-wrote some lyrics and played the piano and electric violin on the album. Alas, all that industry does not translate into a stellar offering.
The first single is the misfire Sand Painting, a duet with Jay Chou. The lack of chemistry is painfully apparent in the awkward music video in which they look, and sound, as if they have nothing to do with each other.
Maybe it is because Chou, co-founder of JVR Music, is her boss.
On Hot Air Balloon, lyrics such as "You’re the honey/I’m the sugar/Love is like a hot air balloon" mix metaphors with wild abandon to unintended comic effect.
Strangely enough, the more interesting tracks are buried at the end of
the album, including Dancing That Brings Threat, which at least threatens to swerve away from the middle of the road.
Diamond Candy being her 10th album, one would hope that Elva Hsiao might deign to venture off the well-trodden path, but no such luck.
She sticks to a safe mix of dance numbers and mainstream ballads, a formula established way back on her self-titled debut in 1999.
There isn’t anything that is terribly wrong with the material here, though the preponderance of thumping tracks makes it best to take this in small doses. The ballads such as No Hand In Hand are welcome breathers but they are not as catchy as, say, Impulse from 3-Faced Elva (2008) or Red Rose from the 2000 album of the same name.
The gaudily glitzy cover and lyrics such as "shining boy" and "let you shine bright" are consistent with the album title but perhaps she would do well to remember all that glitters is not gold – or diamond.
(ST)

Innocent
Mavis Fan & 100%

Night Cat
Della Ding Dang

Loneliness
Evan Yo

Welcome back, Mavis Fan.
It has been almost five years since her last album Is There Another Way?, and on her latest offering she shows up with a head of platinum blonde hair and a new band 100%.
It is hard to believe that the indie queen was once the Little Witch Of Music warbling cutesy tracks such as Health Song and Toothbrushing Song.
You wonder if the singer-songwriter is making an oblique reference to that juvenile past when she sings "A different me/Does not want to make the same mistakes" on opener Ghost Hits The Wall.
This adventurous and playful outing is stylistically diverse and includes the groovy genre-busting jazz-rock-hip-hop hybrid, Who Cares What Kind Of Music It Is.
Lyrically, Fan plays with contrasts on numbers such as Inside Outside ("Even though he’s wearing a suit on the outside/Maybe he’s thinking of surfing on the inside") and Understand ("I am very happy/Because I know what pain is").
Even on less successful tracks such as Where Do I Want To Go, you could never mistake her work for cookie-cutter pop. Mercifully, the atmospheric duet included here, Dark Is The Night, is miles away from the saccharine fare cluttering the airwaves.
While the two duets – Fireworks with Mayday’s Ashin and Suddenly Want To Love You with Wakin Chau – on Ding Dang’s third album Night Cat might be a little above-average, they also feel rather obligatory.
The standout track is the ballad Why Do You Lie, which plays to the big-voiced singer’s strengths as she belts out: "You keep asking if my heart is really here/Asking how I can lose love with no regrets/Why are my tears rolling down."
At the same time, the lace and leather gloves get-up point to a sexier and edgier sensibility and she delivers it on songs such as Night Cat, a cheesily entertaining dance number complete with Ding Dang mewing.
She might be rocking out and exploring her inner animal but Evan Yo has ditched the rock persona he adopted on his previous album.
Instead, there is a back-to-basics feel on this third album which features a memorable clutch of songs.
Still only 23, the singer-songwriter tackles a clever mix of ballads such as Blinking SMS and Eclipse and more youthful-sounding numbers such as Little Darling.
But the singer also sounds like he has done some growing up when he croons on Loneliness: "What do I do when night falls/Who is by my side when loneliness calls/My emotions are mixed up together/Thinking of her, missing her, hating her."
Maybe he can take consolation in the fact that he never had to sing kiddy ditties.
(ST)

Victor/Victoria
Zebra Crossing Productions
Esplanade Theatre

The central premise here is designed to make your head spin – a woman acting as a man who acts as a woman. It suggests a playful exploration of gender roles and a tuneful look at the slippery boundary between masculinity and femininity.
So we have Victoria Grant (jazz singer Laura Fygi), a down-and-out English singer in 1930s Paris, transforming into Count Victor Grazinski, female impersonator extraordinaire, at the suggestion of her friend, has-been actor Toddy (Matt Grey).
Things get sticky when Chicago mobster King Marchan (Jake Macapagal) falls for Victor/Victoria. Can King man up to the possibility that he has fallen for another man? Will Victoria reveal her secret and risk throwing away her resurgent career?
Unfortunately, what should have been compelling questions hardly piqued this reviewer’s interest because of major problems with casting. Physically, there was no doubt that Victor(ia) was a woman even when she was dressed in a tuxedo. There was no hint of androgyny in Fygi’s generous figure and, instead of ambiguous layers of gender role-playing, we got a straightforward portrayal of a woman in men’s clothes. It made all the floor-pacing and hand-wringing over her identity seem silly when it was so obvious that there was no Victor.
While her smoky and husky alto have won her fans in the jazz world, it was a stretch for the audience to accept her as a soprano who can hit a G flat and shatter glass. To make matters worse, there was no chemistry between her and Macapagal, who spoke with an odd affectation and sounded like lisping Tweety Bird at times. Almost A Love Song, a duet that is supposed to be moving, barely had any emotional resonance.
It was left to the supporting cast to step up and Nicole Stinton stole the show with her ballsy turn as King’s ditzy moll, Norma Cassidy, especially for the comic number Paris Makes Me Horny. Grey also impressed as the flamboyant and loyal Toddy.
The handsome sets and effective lighting helped convey not just time and place but also mood. The elaborate costumes were a visual treat and in a nifty nod to the theme, there were women in trousers and men in corsets at the nightspot Club Chez Lui.
After a rather sluggish first half, the pace picked up after the intermission. There was a competently staged set piece of slamming doors and intricately timed exits and entrances between two adjoining hotel suites as several characters tried to avoid running into each other. Still, the zip and zing of a perfect execution was not achieved.
The musical ended with an upbeat message of inclusiveness but this reviewer left with his head resolutely unspun, his funny bone tickled only occasionally and his heart largely untouched.
(ST)

Timeless
Meeia Foo

A Love Letter
Gary Yang

Heaven Walker
Eddie Chow

Joe's Singing For You
Joe Cheng

A debut solo album is an artiste's calling card to the world - this is who I am, this is what I do. Which makes Malaysian singer Meeia Foo's choice of material for Timeless both audacious and puzzling.
The runner-up of season two of Super Idol, singing contest One Million Star’s main rival, has chosen to tackle classic songs.
The good news is that she has the pipes to pull off most of the material, delivering quite a heartfelt rendition of the Minnan track Life Is An Ocean and very competent versions of English power ballads such as The Rose.
But some of the covers feel utterly pointless: Pan Yueh-yun’s compelling Am I The One You Love The Most? is still superior, while no one needs a remake of Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On.
In contrast, Gary Yang wrote all the music and most of the lyrics on his debut solo album.
He is not exactly a newcomer, though, since he was a founding member of pop group Nan Quan Mama. Which probably explains this relatively assured outing where he tackles salsa rhythms on Havana and takes a light-hearted look at romance on tracks such as Oh Why and In Love.
His good friend, superstar Jay Chou, also chimes in on the chorus of the laidback Moonlight.
Yang’s strong Taiwanese accent takes a little getting used to, though.
Like Yang, Eddie Chow also composed most of the music on his album, whose electronic elements are a welcome touch.
Unfortunately, the title track comes off like a cut-rate Jay Chou rap and only makes you appreciate Vincent Fang’s lyrical prowess all the more.
The lone Cantonese track Together suggests that, Chow, who grew up in Malaysia and is now a Singapore permanent resident, is more comfortable in Cantonese than in Mandarin.
The bigger problem, though, is his tendency to waver off-key on a few occasions.
Idol drama star Joe Cheng’s foray into music banks unabashedly on his prettyboy looks. The five-track EP comes with an accompanying DVD that is just as long. In it, we get to see Cheng acting cute as he traipses around Ishikawa prefecture in Japan, getting the locals to wave enthusiastically at the camera.
Without the background visuals, the tedious music and Cheng’s thin, bland vocals cannot bear much scrutiny or repeat listening.
As a singer, the last thing you want is to be seen and not heard.
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Vengeance

Johnnie To

The story: After his daughter’s family is wiped out in a gangland-style killing in Macau, French assassin-turned-chef Costello (Johnny Hallyday, right) shows up and vows to seek vengeance. He relies on hitman Kwai (Anthony Wong) and his partners to track down those responsible.

Hong Kong director Johnnie To is a prolific but erratic film-maker. In the last few years, he has been winning awards for his testosterone-fuelled, cops-and-crime adrenaline pumpers such as PTU – Police Tactical Unit (2003) and Election (2005).

He has ventured more recently, with mixed results, into the genres of supernatural romance with the uneven Linger (2008) and light-hearted caper with the buoyant Sparrow (2008).

With Vengeance, he is back on familiar ground. In the first scene, guns come out blazing as a scene of everyday domesticity is shattered by violence.

There are several other slickly staged set pieces, including a beautifully shot showdown in a wooded area at night, with volleys of gunfire and bursts of gunflare piercing the quiet darkness.

Costello is played by French icon Johnny Hallyday, complete with craggy face and tired eyes which have seen too much. Despite the fact that he is reliant on Kwai for help, there is not much of a connection between the two actors, although Wong is reliable as a stoic and honourable hitman.

Simon Yam steals the show with a nicely extravagant turn as the flamboyant crook George Fung.

If only the story, by To’s regular collaborator Wai Ka Fai, had been stronger.

Some of Costello’s early behaviour, including scribbling notes on Polaroid photos of people, seems eccentric until we learn that he is losing his memory due to a bullet lodged in his brain from his hitman days.

The memory loss proves to be conveniently selective. At times, this film almost feels like a rip-off of that superior thriller Memento (2000).

At one point, a hitman asks: “What does revenge mean when you’ve forgotten everything?”

But it is a red herring here, a throwaway question that is never really explored.

At the end, Costello goes after the mastermind, despite memory loss having set in. Still, there is something touching about an old man with the odds stacked against him facing down an army of bodyguards as he tries to take out his target.

The question of whether vengeance was finally wrought is one thing, but as to whether cinematic justice was served – not quite.

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My Girlfriend Is An Agent

Shin Tae Ra

The story: Lee Jae Joon (Kang Ji Hwan) breaks up with secret government agent Ahn Soo Ji (Kim Ha Neul) as he cannot tolerate her constant lies. Three years later, they meet again when both are tasked to stop the sale of a lethal biological weapon to the Russian mafia. Lee is now also an agent but their identities remain hidden from each other.

My Sassy Girl (2001), My Wife Is A Gangster (2001), My Wife Is A Superwoman (2009) and now My Girlfriend Is An Agent. Clearly, Korean women are not to be trifled with.

The template was set by Gianna Jun’s overbearing Sassy Girl. She makes her suitor jump through hoops and puts him through the emotional wringer.

Here, it is model-actress Kim Ha Neul who takes on the alpha female role, a far cry from the fragile young things she played in TV dramas such as Piano (2001). She slips easily into the tough-on-the-outside character of superspy Soo Ji, who is still in love with Jae Joon despite him walking out on her.

Kang Ji Hwan, best known for the hit TV series Be Strong, Geum Soon! (2005), is a hoot as the enthusiastic, if bumbling, neophyte agent. At the same time, he has to deal with the feelings he still has for Soo Ji.

It is a treat whenever the feuding couple show up on screen as both actors share a genuine chemistry that gives their bickering that extra kick. They also swing between mellow vulnerability and self-righteous rage with comic aplomb.

A running joke has the two agents running into each other at the most inopportune moments during their missions and ends with them getting dragged into the local police station where their squabbling rapidly escalates in front of bemused cops.

When the focus shifts to the biological weapon subplot, however, the film becomes more pedestrian.

Director Shin Tae Ra’s blend of comedy, action and romance has proven to be a winner: His version of the Hollywood hit Mr & Mrs Smith (2005) topped the domestic box office for two weeks after its April release.

But beneath the light-hearted surface, one can also read the film as a comment on how difficult it is for a person to balance her professional and personal lives. Even if one is a sassy gangster superwoman agent.

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In the Footsteps of Stamford Raffles
Nigel Barley

The loveliest surprise you get from reading this book is perhaps learning that the founder of modern Singapore was a humanist and a humanitarian.
In stark contrast to most of his Western peers, he was concerned about the well-being of the local peoples and sought to implement in South-east Asia measures – land reform, abolition of the government licence for gambling – that would benefit them.
More proof of his genuine interest in them: Raffles was fluent in Malay.
On top of his administrative work in the region, he was also a dedicated scholar. He published History Of Java in 1817, collected specimens to take back to London and gave his name to the Rafflesia parasitic flower.
Nigel Barley writes: “His pride is that of a true botanist. No one else could be as proud of being identified with such a hideous growth that stinks of rotten carrion.”
All together now: For he’s a jolly good fellow, which nobody can deny.
But as Barley finds on his travels to the places that Raffles had been to – Penang, Malacca, Jakarta, Solo, Yogyakarta, Bengkulu, Bali, Singapore – Raffles is reviled as much as he is venerated, or even largely forgotten. At times, he is simply lumped together as part of a wicked colonial past.
There is no doubt whose side the intrepid writer is on, as he draws parallels between his modern-day travels and Raffles’ 19th-century travails. His engaging and observant account is part travelogue and part detective story, tracing what remains of Raffles’ legacy at each stop.
He also makes excellent use of contemporary third-party accounts, weaving in impressions of the man by Mr Munshi Abdullah, a Malay teacher. There is also a sprinkling of passages in Raffles’ and Lady Raffles’ own words.
One wishes Barley had spent more time in Singapore and served up more of his piercing observations, which are limited to a few choice topics such as nationalistic songs and a trip to Raffles Institution.
On a separate note, more attention should have been paid to the text, which is riddled with bizarre punctuation and spelling errors.
The scholar in Raffles would not have approved.
If you like this, read: Letters And Books Of Sir Stamford Raffles And Lady Raffles by The Tang Holdings Collection and John Bastin. Learn about the man in his own words from letters he wrote to his mother, cousin and uncle from 1808 to 1826.

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Spread
David Mackenzie

Ashton Kutcher acolytes, rejoice. The star of sitcom That ’70s Show (1998-2006) seems to be better known these days for being a Twitter celebrity and being married to Demi Moore.
So this film would be seen as a treat for his fans as he preens about as a beautiful boy in Los Angeles who uses his looks and charms to get into the beds and homes of rich lonely women.
For everyone else, the film actually gets off to a decent start as the self-aware and narcissistic Nikki (Kutcher) narrates the tale of how he reeled in his latest catch, Samantha (Heche in an underwritten role).
The potential for a scathing black comedy falls apart though when Nikki has a change of heart and falls in love with a waitress, Heather (the pretty but bland Margarita Levieva).
While Kutcher is fine as a shallow Lothario, he cannot muster the acting chops needed when the script wanders off unconvincingly into romantic drama territory. A pity that Spread did not have the courage to follow through on the conviction of its initial cynicism.

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It was the most enjoyable of concerts, it was the most disappointing of concerts.
While I was exhilarated by the Taipei Arena show by Taiwanese band Mayday, I was less thrilled with Irish rock stars U2’s gig at Wembley Stadium in London.
There were several key differences between the two shows, which reinforced my sneaky suspicion that when it comes to concerts, East is East and West is West and rarely the twain shall meet.
First and foremost, there is the impact of karaoke culture where hanging out with friends to belt out the latest songs is a popular pastime in major Asian cities. The lyrics of popular hits are quickly disseminated and ingrained. It is not much of a stretch then for fans to sing along at a concert.
At Taipei Arena, the lyrics were even thoughtfully put up on two screens, turning the event into one giant karaoke session. This meant that even less familiar numbers could be followed with ease and everyone could chime in during the chorus.
A singalong session might not be everyone’s idea of a great concert but the warm, fuzzy feeling it fosters is undeniable and irresistible.
It so happens that a singalong was also the highlight of the U2 show despite a much-vaunted 360-degree Claw stage which featured a wraparound screen with several tricks up its sleeves.
The screen was stretched out, lowered, raised, though I would have been more impressed if the entire contraption, which could have passed for an alien aircraft, had actually lifted off.
Instead, it was the heartfelt rendition of I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For by 88,000 people that proved to be a near-religious experience.
Which brings me to the point that fans play a big part in how enjoyable a concert is.
At Wembley Stadium, the long, snaking lines were for food and beer. At Taipei Arena, fans were more interested in queueing for concert merchandise and buying light sticks.
Asians definitely seemed to be more dedicated concertgoers compared to Westerners.
At almost every Asian concert, for example, even the colour of the light sticks is carefully coordinated, taking the lighter-and-cellphone-waving moment to a whole new level.
For a group such as indie band sodagreen, the choice of illumination is clear. In Mayday’s case, there is a story behind the choice of blue.
In 2003, after their compulsory stints in the army, the lads held their comeback City Of The Sky concert. Their fans in Taiwan decided to give them a welcome gift. They gave out blue light sticks in exchange for those of other colours and surprised the band with a shining sea of blue.
Since then, any, um, true-blue fan would know what to do at a Mayday show. Even if you are just a casual attendee, you are likely to end up with blue light sticks as the street-side sellers of concert paraphernalia are all clued in as well.
And all this careful coordination pays off. It is a sight to behold when a darkened hall is lit by one single colour.
The night I saw them, Mayday busted the midnight mark and the venue cut off the power as lead singer Ashin was in the middle of a phrase from the Hokkien track Fool. The curfew for concerts is actually 11pm and the band was fined for exceeding it for each of the four dates they played.
Undeterred, the crowd continued to chorus along and the sea of blue undulated unwaveringly.
The band finally left the stage at five minutes past 12.
There is something to be said for the Asian work ethic when it comes to staging concerts. Asian artists regularly put on two- to three-hour performances and in the case of Mayday, it was a thoroughly satisfying four-hour odyssey.
On the other hand, U2 delivered a 90-minute set, which is probably the average for a Western act. When R&B princess Rihanna performed at the Singapore Indoor Stadium last November, she was on stage for barely an hour. Some people took longer to travel to and from the venue.
Size also matters as much as length, though bigger is definitely not better when it comes to concerts.
U2 played in front of a record-setting 88,000 fans at Wembley while 15,000 people packed the positively cosy Taipei Arena for Mayday.
While a bigger audience helps to generate a greater sense of occasion and excitement, the law of diminishing returns quickly sets in. Wembley Stadium was so huge that even the video projections of Bono and gang seemed small.
Compare this to the deceptively snug Taipei Arena which actually has a greater capacity than the Singapore Indoor Stadium, which can hold up to 12,000 spectators. The Arena struck that balance between having a sizeable crowd and not alienating a fan from the performers on stage.
So I have mixed feelings over Mayday’s attempt to gun for an audience of over 55,000 at Kaohsiung’s World Games Main Stadium come Dec 5. Well, maybe they can just do that one show for the record books.
The issue of size extends beyond the capacity of the physical venue. Perhaps U2 have simply become too big.
There is too much at stake with each mega-concert, too many interests and too much money on the line. As a result, the 360° gig felt choreographed down to the last minute, with barely any time for spontaneity or building a connection with the fans.
And really, when it comes right down to it, I go to concerts in search of that human connection with artists I like. Without it, I might as well stay at home and listen to their CDs where I can always be assured of the best of times and skip the worst.

(ST)

Ronald Cheng X William So Live 09
Max Pavilion @ Singapore Expo
Last Saturday

Whoever put Hong Kong crooners Ronald Cheng and William So together certainly has a wry sense of humour.
After all, what links the two men is the stain of scandal. They were among the top male vocalists in the late 1990s but their careers were derailed by different instances of men behaving badly. Cheng went on a drunken rampage on a flight in February 2000 while So was busted for taking the drug Ecstasy in June 2002.
They are now firmly on board the comeback train and while their voices were a little rough around the edges, particularly at the beginning of the concert, they also showed that they could still belt it out and put on an entertaining show. After trading snatches of each other’s songs in a playful start, So, 42, took the stage first.
There is a light sprinkle of jazz in his songs and it suits his mellifluous voice.
His Mandarin numbers, though, tend towards the maudlin and the mawkish, such as Men Should Not Let Women Cry. Thankfully, there is less of that cloying quality in his Cantonese hits Don’t Want To Be Happy Alone and Feeling Sadder With Each Kiss.
So also proved to be a canny performer, endearing himself to the audience of 5,500 early on by walking off the stage and into their midst. He was quickly swallowed by a throng of ardent fans and, for brief spells, could neither be seen on stage nor on screen.
Before he launched into Old Love Is Still The Most Beautiful, he was careful to say it did not reflect his current state of mind. The divorced singer is dating someone in the fashion industry.
Unlike So, Cheng fared better in the Mandarin numbers, reflecting the fact that the 37-year-old had first found success in Taiwan.
His sensitively wrought hits Don’t Say! Love You and Don’t Love Me were warmly received and the crowd sang along at peak volume. While the Cantonese number Rascal is one of his signature songs, he pointed out that far fewer people sang along to it.
It was a good thing that both singers could deliver vocally as the bare staging and ho-hum lighting afforded little distraction. The piddly, half-hearted effects – brief flowering of flares and a slight shower of paper confetti – did not help either.
The two performers also took on songs by other singers during the two-hour concert. In a rousing finale, they fired things up with a couple of fast-paced Cantonese classics such as Anita Mui’s Dream Partner and Leslie Cheung’s Stand Up.
In the end, Cheng and So proved their pairing was not a joke but a viable combination.

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Accident
Soi Cheang

The story: Brain (Louis Koo) heads a small team of hitmen who engineer their killings to look like random accidents. When an operation goes awry, he thinks that someone is out to get him and his suspicions are focused on insurance agent Fong (Richie Jen).

Perhaps the thought has crossed your mind: Is your insurance agent a diabolical master manipulator or merely someone who is just doing his job?
There is more at stake for Brain than premium payments, though. His latest staged accident is successfully carried out, then something unplanned happens. A bus careens out of control, just misses mowing him down but kills one of his accomplices.
He smells a rat when he finds a link between insurance agent Fong and the client who ordered the hit. At this point, Accident suddenly turns into a film about a one-man stakeout operation and Koo seems to be reprising the role he just played in the surveillance thriller, Overheard.
We are supposed to keep guessing whether Brain is paranoid or whether there really is someone out to get him. Despite being nominated for the prestigious Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival, director Soi Cheang’s thriller is not fully satisfying.
In order to keep the audience wondering, he has to pull off a tricky balancing act. Brain has to walk that fine line between appearing unreasonably delusional and being plausibly suspicious.
Cheang gives tantalising clues that point us in both directions.
Brain is shown as being meticulously cautious when he returns home after a job, which is understandable given what he does.
On the other hand, one of his accomplices later admonishes him for being overly wary, saying that it is all in his head. Meanwhile, Fong’s overheard conversations could be coded to sinister effect. So far so good.
A key problem is the casting of Koo, who is not subtle enough to balance on that tightrope. Yes, ultimately the character is either delusional or reasonable. But while the actor has to maintain a consistent tone, he also has to leave room for doubt.
Given the complexity, Koo chooses to give us a sombre-faced portrayal that simply sidesteps the pesky nuances. Jen has the easier role here though he falters in a major emotional confrontation scene.
As a result, the flashbacks at the end of the film never achieve the weight of revelation. Uncertainty is an elusive quality to capture on film and Accident misses its quarry.

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The Glass Room

by Simon Mawer

The Glass Room is an exercise in audacity. Instead of a conventional living room defined by walls, there is merely space and light enclosed by plates of glass.
It is the piece de resistance of a house that the German architect Rainer von Abt builds for Czech newlyweds Viktor and Liesel Landauer.
The whole-hearted embrace of modernity and the idea that one can shape one’s future seems incredibly naive, though, as the political maelstrom in 1930s Europe begins to churn.
Viktor is Jewish and Liesel Aryan, and when the Nazis sweep into power, they are forced to leave their Czech home and go into exile.
Mawer, however, is not interested in simply recounting the story of the Landauers against the backdrop of World War II. Instead, he treats the Glass Room as a central character as it passes through the hands of the Nazis to the socialist Czechs after the war.
The “cool, calm rationality” of the space is a stark contrast to the “irrationality that human beings would impose upon it”.
The clean, crisp prose here mirrors the modernist ideals of the Landauer House.
But there is nothing sterile or cold about Mawer’s writing and he conveys the emotions roiling just beneath the surface that threaten to, and sometimes do, crack the placid facade.
By setting the final, moving scene in the titular space, he imbues it with an unexpectedly tender note of benediction and grace, perhaps the most audacious qualities ascribed to a room of glass in the novel.
If you like this, read: To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. Woolf’s challenging exploration of childhood, adult relationships and the passage of time spans the period of World War I.

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Crows Zero II

Takashi Miike

Vanquishing your enemy is one thing, winning the hearts and minds of the masses is another.
Having fought his way to the top of the heap in the earlier film, Takiya Genji (Shun Oguri doing his best too-cool- for-school impression) now has to rally the students of Suzuran All-Boys High as they head into all-out war with rival Hosen Academy.
The idea that teenage life is war is not a new one. In Battle Royale (2000), students were literally forced to kill one another.
What that movie had going for it, and what Crows Zero II could certainly use more of, was a deliciously demented sense of black humour.
Without that, what you get is scene after relentless scene of teenage boys beating each other into bloody, pulpy mush.
Is it possible to escape from this cycle of violence and vengeance?
Director Takashi Miike, adapting Hiroshi Takahashi’s manga, suggests that it is. But that message is buried beneath all that boisterous brawling.

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I Love You, Beth Cooper

Chris Columbus

Graduation does strange things to people.
At his convocation, nerdy high school valedictorian Dennis Cooverman (Paul Rust, right) decides to declare his love for one Beth Cooper (Hayden Panettiere, far right), the blonde cheerleader who is not even aware of his existence.
A series of contrived events then occur for the two to bond over the course of one night. While Nick And Norah’s Infinite Playlist (2008) explored how two people make a connection in a believable manner, this film has no such aspirations.
The one moment of truth in the shenanigans occurs when Beth realises that the best days of her life are over. This moment of downbeat clarity is so at odds with the rest of the movie that director Chris Columbus (2001’s Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Stone, 1990’s Home Alone) proceeds to drown it in mawkish sentimentality.
If not for the fact that Panettiere has hit TV series Heroes on her resume, this effort would have flunked out of school and slunk straight to video.

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9

Shane Acker

This is no by-the-numbers animation. The graphics are so beautifully detailed that you can practically feel the burlap’s texture that is used to make 9.
And who or what is 9? He is a small doll made by a scientist, given the gift of life and wakes up to find himself in a world devastated by the war between man and machines. But he is not alone and both friends and foes are out there in the ruined landscape of gloomy greys and rusty reds.
The film is both an adventure yarn and a cautionary tale. To director Shane Acker’s credit, he has created characters that pique one’s curiosity.
However, there are several areas where the movie falls short. The man versus machine plot seems to be lifted from the Terminator series and the actors voicing the creatures, including Elijah Wood (the Lord Of The Rings trilogy) as 9, can be strangely emotionless and distancing. The bigger problem is that the logic for creating 9 and his brethren in the first place does not make sense.
Still, if 9 is flawed, it is at least ambitious and Acker remains a talent to watch out for.

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Aliens in the Attic

John Schultz

Faced with a cute moppet and adorable aliens, resistance is futile. When an advance team of Zirkonians lands on their vacation home, it is up to Tom, his sister Hannah and their cousins to stop them.
Luckily, Sparks the four-armed techie turns out to be a sweet thing who decides that an invasion would be wrong. The agreeably paced film has some laughs and surprises, and is not just for tykes.
When Tom and company decide to call the police after first encountering the aliens, the last thing they think of using is the old-fashioned rotary telephone, a device that might as well be from another planet.
And who can resist watching Nana (Everybody Loves Raymond’s Doris Roberts) duke it out with college jock Ricky (Robert Hoffman grinning goofily away) as they are both being manipulated like human puppets through the use of remote controls?
Just surrender to the moment.

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The Garden of Last Days
Andre Dubus III

Paging director Alejandro Inarritu. If you are looking to make a new movie, this story could be right up your alley.
The Garden Of Last Days weaves together several narrative threads – a device Inarritu used in 21 Grams (2003) and Babel (2006) – to tackles issues such as terrorism, parenthood and gender relations from the perspectives of several protagonists.
April is a protective young mother who becomes a stripper to pay the bills, Bassam an enigmatic cash-rich foreigner on a holy mission and AJ a short- tempered fellow with a large chip on his shoulder against the world.
Their paths cross in sometimes unexpected ways at the Puma Club for Men when April is forced to take her three- year-old daughter to work.
The use of short chapters and the constant shifting of viewpoints make for a compelling page-turner and suggest a ready-made cinematic sensibility.
But despite Andre Dubus III’s efforts, his characters manage to feel only slightly more sturdy than cardboard. Perhaps this is because they seem vaguely familiar, as if one has encountered them in previous books or films.
Some of the novel’s energy also dissipates towards the end and the writing starts to come across a little repetitive.
Still, this is an ambitious effort and the author’s refusal to give us neat, tidy endings and easy, comforting answers is to be lauded.
If you like this, read: House Of Sand And Fog by Andre Dubus III. The battle for ownership of a house between a young woman and an immigrant Iranian family was adapted into an Oscar-nominated film.

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Dance Flick

Damien Dante Wayans

From the makers of Scary Movie (2000) and Scary Movie 2 (2001) comes Dance Flick. Be afraid, be very afraid.
The Wayans brothers offer spoofs of movies such as dance flick Step Up (2006), vampire hit Twilight (2008) and quirky indie drama Little Miss Sunshine (2006) in a series of gags strung along with no regard for character or continuity.
If you liked their previous parodies, chances are higher that you will enjoy this latest offering.
For the rest of us, the skits might raise an occasional smile or laugh but nothing more.
No need to make a big song and dance about it, this flick pretty much lives down to expectations.

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Management

Stephen Belber

Mike (Steve Zahn) is a motel manager in Arizona and Sue (Jennifer Aniston) is a travelling saleswoman based in Maryland.
This low-key comedy asks what happens when two people meet, make a connection and have to deal with the realities of geography.
It is a relief to have Zahn scale back his usual over-the-top zaniness for a more likeable sweet goofiness, while Aniston actually manages to look a little dowdy and touchingly insecure.
Too bad writer-director Stephen Belber did not have enough trust in his actors and the initial premise.
Midway through, he willy-nilly throws in an ex-punk turned yogurt magnate (a cartoonish Woody Harrelson) who hooks up with Sue, as well as an instant sidekick and best friend (James Hiroyuki Liao) for Mike.
Or perhaps this was the result of notes from meddlesome movie management.

(ST)