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.

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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.
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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.
(ST)

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.

(ST)