Shugo Tokumaru

Mosaic Music Festival, Esplanade Recital Studio, March 19

This was hands-down the most joyous gig of the year.

The Japanese musician creates shimmering tapestries of sound that used dozens of instruments for his records and yet he found a way to make that work in a live setting.

His dextrous fingerwork on the guitar was exhilarating to behold on tracks such as the devilishly fast-paced Parachute. From the exuberance of Exit (2007) to the contemplative quiet of Night Piece (2004), the emotional directness of his compositions came through even though he was singing in Japanese.

The shy, soft-spoken and bare-footed Tokumaru conjured up a performance that was simply, charmingly magical.

Amit Live First World Tour

Singapore Indoor Stadium, Jan 29

It was a Mandorock concert that threatened to blow the roof off the stadium. The Amit tour fully embraced the brash drama of rock songs such as Black Eat Black, Straightforward and the brazen Minnan number Come On If You Dare as guitar players flailed away on stage. It culminated in the spectacle of A-mei in a billowing leopard print cape belting out the Turandot aria Nessun Dorma in a stained-glass cathedral setting. Over the top? Sure. Thrilling? Absolutely.

The A-mei everyone knew and loved was not totally absent, though, and she dipped into her bag of hits to deliver power ballads such as Can I Hold You? and While It’s Still Early.

She proved that she could rock your world even when the volume was lowered.

Crowd Lu 2010 Singapore Live

Dragonfly, St James Power Station, Jan 16

The geeky-cool singer-songwriter’s gig felt more like a cosy gathering of several hundred friends as he shared his optimistic tales of school life, friendship and overcoming adversity from his two albums, Seven Days (2009) and 100 Ways Of Living (2008).

Everyone knew the words even without the aid of video projections and sang along with heartfelt gusto.

It was clear that what you see is what you get with Lu. That unvarnished honesty is a beautiful and precious thing, and we had the opportunity to appreciate it up close and personal.

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Snowman

Peggy Hsu

Now this is a winter wonderland – swirling strings, icy beats, vocals as clean as freshly fallen snow, and that is just on the opening song Punk.

It sets the tone nicely for the fall/winter counterpart to the Taiwanese singer-songwriter’s spring/summer-themed release Fine (2009). She offers a great variety of style and subject while maintaining coherence and cohesion: the tinkling ivories and coolly witty lyrics of Fly, the chill-out electronica of Downfallen Aristocrat and the stripped-down acoustic number You Love Me.

Apart from the embarrassment of riches here, the overachieving Hsu also gave us a winningly wintry gig at the Esplanade Recital Studio in February and then released the whimsical EP Le Cirque I in September. What they all had in common was the ability to warm the heart of any music lover.

Weibird Debut Album

Weibird Wei

Among a clutch of strong releases by male singer- songwriters such as Yen-J and Jaycee Chan, Weibird Wei’s soars just a little higher. There is the immediate appeal of the radio-friendly Keep Waiting, with its distinctive refrain and opener Did You Or Did You Not with its plaintive cry to “turn off the radio”.

And there is much else to savour besides. On the lilting Cloudy Day’s Sunflower, Wei’s falsetto evokes a sense of delicate beauty while A Little More Perfect captures the joys and insecurities of being in love.

He has more on his mind than affairs of the heart, though, and we also get a glimpse of a young man engaging with the world around him. He sings on Stories that “Every story has a name” and “Every name has a story”.

I look forward to the next chapter in this Taiwanese troubadour’s tale.

Aftertaste

Karen Mok

Finally, an album of covers that gets it right. After an uninspiring string of releases which saw male singers take on women’s songs, it was left to the Hong Kong singer-actress to show them how it should be done.

The choice of songs was a smart mix of obscure folk ditties such as Playing The Hand Drum, Singing A Song and more familiar oldies such as Shanghai songbird Zhou Xuan’s Blooming Flowers And The Full Moon.

Rather than simply delivering them in her distinctive vocals, Mok worked with producer Zhang Yadong and lyricist Francis Lee to breathe new life into old favourites. It was a risky venture but it worked, beautifully. One only wishes Mok had taken more of a gamble on her subsequent album of original material, Precious.

Despite the latter’s title, Aftertaste is an album to relish and cherish.

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The film title A Better To- morrow turned out to be prophetic.

Before the release of the gangster drama in 1986, director John Woo had been struggling in the scene for more than 10 years without a hit, actor Chow Yun Fat had been box office poison whose goggle-box popularity had not translated to the big screen and Ti Lung was best known for his wuxia roles at Shaw Brothers in the 1970s.

What a difference a day – or a movie – makes. A Better Tomorrow set a new record in Hong Kong with a gross of more than HK$34 million, made Chow a star and revitalised Ti Lung’s flagging career.

Not bad for a movie made on a tight budget that was a remake of a 1967 Cantonese flick, The Story Of A Discharged Prisoner. (The Chinese title, though, literally True Colours Of A Hero, remained the same.)

Woo’s version was critically acclaimed and earned the distinction of winning Best Film honours at both the Hong Kong Film Awards and the Golden Horse Awards, arguably the two most prestigious accolades in the Chinese movie industry.

The stature of A Better Tomorrow has grown over time: In 2005, it was No. 2 on the Best 100 Chinese Motion Pictures list selected for the Hong Kong Film Awards, after Spring In A Small Town (1948).

More than two decades after its release, it has inspired a Korean remake of the same name. It opens in cinemas here on Friday.

The success of the film resulted in the creation of a subgenre that was termed “heroic bloodshed” by the editor of Eastern Heroes magazine, Rick Baker, in the late 1980s. He succinctly defined it as “a Hong Kong action film that features a lot of gun play and gangsters rather than kung fu. Lots of blood. Lots of action”.

Woo transplanted the themes of brotherhood, loyalty and righteousness from the wuxia genre into a mobster setting. Then he pumped up the volume on the violence with exuberantly explosive gun battles.

Often, the drama was found in brothers, in arms and in blood, torn between conflicting loyalties as they found themselves on opposite sides of the law.

A typical John Woo-esque entry in the “gun-fu” genre is Johnnie To’s A Hero Never Dies (1998), where Leon Lai and Lau Ching Wan are on opposite sides of a gang war until they are both betrayed by their bosses.

In the streets, A Better Tomorrow inadvertently sold countless pairs of sunglasses of the kind Chow wore in the film.

Woo used the shades from French actor Alain Delon’s eponymous lifestyle brand in homage to the star’s iconic turn as a perfectionist hitman in Jean-Pierre Melville’s stylish thriller Le Samourai (1967).

When the sunglasses promptly flew off the shelves in Hong Kong after the movie came out, Delon sent Chow a personal thank-you note.

Of course, teenage boys who wanted to look cool not only put on shades, they also wore the trenchcoats worn by the swaggering gangsters. They even came to be known colloquially in Cantonese as Mark Gau lau, literally Brother Mark’s coat.

Woo’s leap from sword fights in a little-known wuxia movie such as Last Hurrah For Chivalry (1979) to gun fights was not such an unlikely one given that his mentor was Chang Cheh, the so-called godfather of Hong Kong cinema who was behind martial arts hits such as The One-Armed Swordsman (1967).

The impact of these films went beyond Hong Kong.

Hollywood film-makers such as Quentin Tarantino, who made the violent crime caper Reservoir Dogs (1992), have openly acknowledged the debt they owe to the works of Woo, To and Ringo Lam.

The cultural impact of the film has extended far and wide into the unlikeliest of places, including hip-hop and Japanese anime.

The New York City collective Wu- Tang Clan name-checked the film in their album Wu Tang-Forever (1997) and the hit TV series Cowboy Bebop (1998-1999) referenced it heavily.

There were also, inevitably, the two sequels spawned by Woo’s film, A Better Tomorrow 2 (1987) and A Better Tomorrow 3 (1989), both of which starred Chow.

In fact, no actor came to be more strongly associated with this genre than him, as A Better Tomorrow was the beginning of a fruitful collaboration between Woo and Chow.

The two teamed up on action-crime classics such as The Killer (1989) and Hard Boiled (1992) in which a rakish Chow honed his gun-toting and toothpick-chewing skills to a fine art.

Woo continued to explore similar thematic ground after he headed to the United States in 1993 in action thrillers such as Face/Off (1997), his biggest American hit with a worldwide gross of US$245 million then.

But his stylistic touches were starting to turn into cliches and the flying doves, the Mexican stand-offs and the use of slow-motion and freeze frames were threatening to descend into self-parody.

One can even argue over how well A Better Tomorrow itself has held up, but what seems clear is that it continues to excite and inspire and this, perhaps, is its most enduring legacy.

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A Better Tomorrow

Song Hae Sung

The story: Hyuk (Joo Jin Mo) makes good in the South Korean port city of Busan as a mobster after escaping from the North. But he is haunted by the fact that his younger brother Chul (Kim Kang Woo) was left behind. Hyuk eventually tracks him down but their reunion is bittersweet as Chul blames him for the death of their mother.

After a deal goes sour in Thailand, Hyuk is sentenced to three years in prison. When he gets out, he finds that his best friend and fellow gang member Young Chun (Song Seung Heon) has fallen on hard times and Chul is now a police officer.

Real men shed tears and are not afraid of showing their emotions.

At its core, A Better Tomorrow (1986) was a bromantic triangle involving triad member Ho (Ti Lung), his best buddy Mark (Chow Yun Fat) and Ho’s younger brother Kit (Leslie Cheung).

Ho was torn between his brother in arms and his brother in blood; that meant plenty of scope for drama, complete with wailing and anguished emoting.

In this Korean remake, executive produced by the original’s director John Woo, the triangle remains intact. So fully does director Song Hae Sung embrace the bromance, in fact, that he even eschews the token female presence of the Hong Kong version.

But the plot varies between the original and the update. This is unlike Martin Scorsese’s The Departed (2006) which hewed so closely to Andrew Lau and Alan Mak’s cop thriller Infernal Affairs (2002) that scenes were recreated shot for shot.

The North-South Korea context grounds the remake in a distinctively charged political context and adds another layer of friction to the relationship between the brothers Hyuk and Chul.

Joo Jin Mo, the suave leading man of films such as the comedy 200 Pounds Beauty (2006), adds stoic nobility to the role of the guilt-stricken and torn Hyuk – and cries beautifully – though Ti Lung gave a more restrained performance in the same role and won the Golden Horse Best Actor award for it.

Kim Kang Woo is more believable as the hurt and angry Chul, improving on the late Leslie Cheung’s eager-beaver cop, which came across exaggerated.

Heart-throb Song Seung Heon is best known for playing the sensitive artist in the weepie TV drama Autumn In My Heart (2000) and he has perhaps the biggest shoes to fill as Young Chun. While he swaggers coolly in shades and a trenchcoat, also the fashion statement of choice in A Better Tomorrow (1986), he does not have quite the same playful insouciance that a toothpick-chewing Chow Yun Fat brought to the role of Mark and won the Best Actor at the Hong Kong Film Awards for it.

Some decent performances notwithstanding, the Korean version is let down by slack pacing – it clocks in at two hours compared to the original’s sleeker 95 minutes – and a gaping plot hole in the final showdown.

Woo’s stylistic trademarks – the trenchcoat flapping in slow motion, the all-out gun battles, the macabre dance of death of flailing limbs amid bullet shower – are all here.

In the end, though, this Tomorrow is not better.

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She Says

JJ Lin

Next

Lizz

Return To Base

Various artists

In the poster for homeboy JJ Lin’s upcoming concert here, he is all rippling, glistening muscle. On his new album, however, the singer-songwriter shows us his softer side by covering the works of female singers.

If there is one trend I want to see come to an end, it is male singers covering women’s songs.

But in this case, there is some justification for the project as Lin had composed all of the music.

So we get Cyndi Wang’s Whenever and A-mei’s Remember sensitively handled by Lin.

It would have been nice, though, to see a greater degree of reinterpretation and rearrangement especially since he had written these numbers.

The selection here is also overwhelmingly tilted towards ballads and the absence of Lin’s catchy, urban tracks is felt.

Perhaps the inspiration for this album was sparked by a medley of women’s songs, including Tanya Chua’s Projectile and Cheer Chen’s Sun, which he did at the Golden Melody Awards in June. Somehow, sadly, the album does not quite capture the electrifying feel of that live performance.

Also included are three new songs, including the title track She Says, which has wistful lyrics by Stefanie Sun about a love that was not meant to be: “Couldn’t wait till night, the petals don’t dare to drop/Green leaves are following, releasing the taste of pain”.

Apart from Lin keeping the flag flying in a low-key year for the local music scene, there are also newer artists putting material out there.

There is Lizz, or Liang Liyi, sporting an Afro hairdo on her new EP Next and indie groups Redpoll, Elyzia and ah5ive banding together on the compilation album Return To Base.

Next has one Mandarin number and three English tracks, of which Insanity Mind and Maybe are original songs penned by her.

Insanity Mind is a pop-rock number about an abusive relationship while Maybe slows things down to contemplate a love that has ended.

The sultry I Want Your Love and the jazzy Like A Virgin – yes, originally by Madonna – are fun but the resulting EP is pulled in too many directions to make a coherent impression.

While Return To Base features three different bands, there is the same lo-fi indie aesthetic that colours the sound throughout.

Redpoll does music reminiscent of playful American lo-fi indie bands such as, say, a less twee All Girl Summer Fun Band, while the number Female Drummer was clearly inspired by Cheer Chen’s Groupies.

Elyzia’s harder-edged rock sound are paired with lyrics with some dramatic flair but the result feels familiar rather than fresh.

The musical identity of ah5ive is probably the murkiest of the lot. It goes from featuring churning guitars on Help Me to the more mainstream pop of Who Can Reach The Final Moment.

The idea of a platform to showcase local indie pop is laudable but in this instance, the raw vocals take a little getting used to and generally need more work. It would also be in the bands’ interest to develop a more distinctive sound.

Maybe they could return to base and regroup before setting off on their next musical venture.

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Gulliver's Travels

Rob Letterman

The story: Slacker mailroom clerk Lemuel Gulliver (Jack Black) blunders into an assignment which takes him to the mysterious Bermuda Triangle when he tries to ask travel editor Darcy (Amanda Peet) out on a date. He winds up in the kingdom of Lilliput and ends up being the champion of its tiny people, along the way antagonising General Edward (Chris O’Dowd), dispensing advice to Princess Mary (Emily Blunt) and finding a best friend in Horatio (Jason Segel).

Jonathan Swift’s 18th-century satirical novel about human nature gets the dumbed-down, glossed-over Hollywood treatment and the results are hardly out of this world.

There is an overlong exposition which establishes how Gulliver is so undriven that he nurses a crush for five years without doing anything about it. It is supposed to give us a better sense of the man but director Rob Letterman could have just skipped the preliminaries and shipped us off to Lilliput pronto.

Instead, what the opening firmly establishes is that this is a Jack Black film. The roly-poly actor was unexpectedly sweet and funny in School Of Rock (2003), in which he was the quirkily unorthodox teacher to a class of straight-laced kids.

Since then, he seems to be reprising the same persona – lovable loser who eventually wins the day – in film after film, including the animated feature Kung Fu Panda (2008).

It is threatening to turn into schtick.

Things improve a little once Gulliver actually travels. After all, if there is anything crying out for 3-D treatment, it would be the scenes contrasting him with the teeny-weeny Lilliputians.

There are some mildly amusing moments showing how they go about building a house, making coffee for Gulliver and even playing live foosball.

But beyond the oh-isn’t-this-cute visuals, scriptwriters Joe Stillman and Nicholas Stoller have little idea what to do with Gulliver. In fact, he comes across as something of an egotistical megalomaniac as he recreates Times Square with his likeness on all the posters and billboards.

You actually start to feel sorry for the intended villain of the piece, General Edward, played with pompous bluster by Chris O’Dowd.

There are also pop culture references galore from Star Wars (1977) to Titanic (1997) as Gulliver concocts tall tales about his life back in Manhattan but there is nothing particularly fresh or funny in the writing.

The whiff of desperation grows stronger as the film proceeds to rip off Transformers (2007) for the showdown and willy-nilly ends with a big song-and- dance number a la Slumdog Millionaire (2008) minus the charm.

It is as if Gulliver is travelling through parodies of other movies rather than having his own adventures.

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Back To The Stars

Chet Lam

On the Mandarin release My Lonely Planet (2009), Hong Kong singer-songwriter Chet Lam went around the world with tracks such as Last Exit To Brooklyn and Dublin.

And in two months’ time, he will perform at the Esplanade as part of its Huayi Chinese Festival of Arts.

But before that, he is headed for the stars and singing in English on this disc. The concept album is inspired by Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s fable of innocence and experience, The Little Prince, and the songs are written from the perspectives of different characters.

But even if you are not familiar with the classic French story, there is much to enjoy – from the gentle, guitar-driven musing on Chasing Sunsets and Thanks For Setting Me Free, to the wry wordplay on Trust: “There’s a hole in my heart, drains me from inside/As I keep wandering from love to lust.”

Just when you think the album is a fully acoustic affair, he throws you a curveball on After The Pain, with its gently throbbing beat and synth sounds. The instrumental track From Turkey, With Love serves up an unexpected duet of drums and flute.

Lam’s clear, pure voice suggests that innocence can remain even after we have acquired knowledge and experience, and have loved and lusted. To steal a line from the lyrics of his track, When He Sings: “... when he sings he can break my heart in two.”

LaMusique (CD/DVD)

George Lam

Cantopop veteran George Lam gives classic tunes such as Who Is The Most Loved easy-listening makeovers on his latest release.

As if to dispel the persistent rumours of marital trouble, he also teams up with his wife, singer-actress Sally Yeh, on duets such as 00:10 and Love Remains After Separation. Come to think of it, however, the latter title is not very auspicious.

Love ballads overwhelm this selection. Nevertheless, tracks such as With Love stands out for its different arrangement, giving Lam a chance to belt it out with gusto.

I have never been a fan of his thin upper register, though. Is it my imagination or does he sound more frail now and the notes more pinched?

On the accompanying DVD of his Made In Love gig in Hong Kong in September, one can see the physical effort it took Yeh, who is 49 to Lam’s 63 years, to squeeze out the high notes.

Strictly for fans.

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Time Traveller – The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

Masaaki Taniguchi

The story: Scientist Kazuko Yoshiyama falls into a coma after she meets with an accident. She awakes briefly to tell her daughter Akari (Riisa Naka) to travel back in time to send a message to a boy named Kazuo. Akari goes back to 1974 using a potion her mother invented, only to find that no one seems to know who Kazuo is – not even the teenage Kazuko. Meanwhile, a romance begins to blossom between Akari and Ryota (Akiyoshi Nakao), a young man making a low-budget sci-fi film.

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time was originally serialised in Japanese magazines in 1965 and 1966. It has since been adapted many times, including into a TV series in 1994 and an award-winning anime film in 2006.

While Kazuko Yoshiyama was the protagonist in the novel, the focus shifted to her niece in the anime film, and to her daughter in this third live-action film adaptation.

For all that pedigree, the latest version is not very satisfying. Riisa Naka, who voiced the heroine in the 2006 anime, and Akiyoshi Nakao, from the 2004 TV series Waterboys 2, are modestly engaging and their burgeoning relationship is rather sweet. But they cannot escape from the clutches of time-travel movie cliches and contradictions.

Anyone who has seen films such as Back To The Future (1985) would know that the No. 1 cardinal rule of time travel is: Thou shalt not change the past. But that rule is constantly being flouted by interactions between time travellers and people of that era because otherwise, there would be no movie.

Also, perhaps because this is director Masaaki Taniguchi’s feature film debut, he cannot quite decide on the tone he wants.

The time-travelling sequence is cheesy fun and even prompts a “What the heck?” from Akari. Then it turns into a mystery flick as she tries to track down the elusive Kazuo. Then it becomes a doomed romance. And in the final half-hour, it goes back to sci-fi territory.

The pacing makes this feel more like The Girl Who Leisurely Strolled Through Time.

Still, given the popularity of time travel and this story, there will certainly be another adaptation of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time somewhere down the road. And you don’t need to leap into the future to know that.

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sodagreen "Stations" Tour

Max Pavilion @ Singapore Expo

Last Saturday

There was no sign of coloured hair and the band members were dressed in black and grey. But if Taiwanese indie band sodagreen’s look was relatively subdued, their performance was anything but that.

The evening opened with three numbers from their Summer/Fever (2009) rock album: The Sound That Remains, Summer Summer and King’s Garden.

Lead vocalist Wu Ching-feng’s high-pitched voice, by turns piercingly clear and nasal, was once startling and now familiarly distinctive. He was in fine form throughout and delivered on both the moving ballads such as Incomparable Beauty as well as the energetic boppers including Fever.

As with most Mandopop concerts, the lyrics of the songs were shown on a screen to make it easy for fans to sing along. But in this case, it also made it easier to appreciate Wu’s often dazzling and thoughtful lyrics.

For example, Stopping At Each Station, from the brilliant Daylight Of Spring (2009) record, was inspired by Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi’s musings on whether he was a man dreaming he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was a man.

Despite the absence of regular guitarist He Jing-yang and keyboardist Kung Yu-chi due to national service commitments, the six-member band sounded tight.

They also served up some surprises by rocking out the folksy Daylight and adding little musical flourishes to the retro-sounding The Girl With Red Shoes.

What was rather unusual was the large number of covers that they did, from the late songbird Teresa Teng’s I Only Care About You to local singer Mavis Hee’s Moonlight In The City to the late singer-songwriter Chang Yu-sheng’s My Future Is Not A Dream.

While the band definitely left their stamp on the material, the only quibble would be that it took time away from them performing their own songs.

During the second encore, Wu asked for requests from the enthusiastic fans and then gamely sang snatches of Take Me Away and the Minnan number Chasing Chasing Chasing.

He also held court when it came to the interaction segments, entertaining one and all, including himself, with his teasing and needling of guitarist Liu Jia-kai, bassist Hsieh Hsin-yi and drummer Shi Jun-wei. The two stand-in musicians were not spared either.

The 21/2-hour-long gig ended all too soon with a rousing rendition of one of their earlier hits, Little Universe.

Liu had revealed at one point that he usually drinks beer before going on stage but the fans have no need for alcohol when they have sodagreen to get high on.

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Lesson One

Anthony Neely

This is turning out to be a pretty good year for Taiwanese male newcomers. On the heels of well-received debuts by Weibird Wei and Yen-J comes Anthony Neely’s anticipated Lesson One.

Taiwanese-American Neely, 24, had his break, like so many others these days, on the singing competition show One Million Star. His version of Damien Rice’s ballad The Blower’s Daughter wowed the judges and got a record- breaking high score. It is included here as a bonus track but, thankfully, Lesson One is not a grab bag of covers.

Neely sounds earthier than his boy-next-door looks suggest, and that dose of grittiness is perfect on rock tracks such as Happy Armageddon and Brawl. It also adds an interesting grain to more conventional love ballads such as The Last Embrace.

He also shows his versatility by contributing lyrics to the English track Sorry That I Loved You, a radio-friendly emo number that would not sound out of place on, say, a One Republic album.

While Neely’s sound comes across as being less distinctive than Wei or Yen-J’s, the overall verdict would be: Lesson One, nicely done.

Back In Control

Gary Chaw

On the nostalgia-laden opener Grandpa, Malaysian singer-songwriter Gary Chaw shows us a kinder, gentler side.

He croons: “You led me through winding alleys/Where the wind blows and leaves fall/You said child, venture forth bravely/See what the world is like.”

It is all rather sweet and heartwarming. Or it could just be damage control.

This is Chaw’s first album after a highly publicised drunken brawl with Hong Kong singer-songwriter Justin Lo last year and he wants to show that he is, well, back in control. Apparently, showing vulnerability doesn’t hurt either.

You wonder, though, if he is singing a reminder to himself on the jazzy Champagne Times: “This is just nice, no need for another glass/Don’t go beyond this slightly buzzed feeling.”

Perhaps, he could consider being the designated driver next time.

Da First Episode

Da Mouth

Taiwanese hip-hop quartet Da Mouth have sweetened their best-of compilation with an additional disc of new material that makes this release a savoury deal.

They cheekily mouth off on Impolite – “Don’t forget to put on cologne when going out/Watch your spittle when talking” – and on Big Composer: “Where can I find inspiration, please, please/I don’t want to steal it from anywhere.”

Less successful is the English track Secret Life. To clear up any confusion, “I’m addicted like an addict” does not qualify as a simile or as a good lyric.

But past hits from their last three albums, including tracks such as Rock It and The Outcome?, make it clear that they can be counted on to provide the good-time, party vibe.

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The Fourth Portrait

Chung Mong-hong

The story: After his father dies, 10-year-old Hsiao Hsiang (Pi Hsiao-hai) is left to fend for himself. His estranged mother (Hao Lei) turns up and takes him to live with her and her husband (Leon Dai). Hsiang finds his new home oppressive and also has strange dreams of the older brother he has not seen in more than six years. But life is not all grim and forbidding and he finds some joy in his friendship with a somewhat simple-minded deadbeat called “Big Gun”.

Lights, camera, act cute. It is easy to add a tyke to a film and then simply milk that adorableness for laughs. Think Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone (1990), Taiwanese child star Bin Bin in a number of 1980s comedies and the upcoming Little Fockers.

Films which genuinely look at the world from a child’s point of view are few and far between. Ponette (1996), about a little girl dealing with her mother’s death and Nobody Knows (2004), a heartbreaking and chilling story of abandoned children, come to mind.

Add to that select group writer-director Chung Mong-hong’s The Fourth Portrait. Despite his background in advertising, there is nothing slick or glib in how he paints this boy’s life.

In the early scenes when Hsiao Hsiang is left alone after his father’s death, Chung steers away from melodrama and just quietly observes the boy going about the business of living – playing alone, pilfering food and then picking up discarded goods with a surly janitor who keeps an eye out for him. A big reason why it all hangs together is Pi Hsiao-hai, 11, who was named the Best Actor at the Taipei Film Festival in July this year.

Chung draws out an unaffected and

affecting performance from the first- time actor. Hsiao Hsiang is a precocious boy who understands more than he lets on. But at the same time, he is also very much a child for whom a lot of things do not make sense. All that comes through in Pi’s portrayal.

The supporting cast is also top-notch. China actress Hao Lei won the Best Supporting Actress Golden Horse Award for her turn as the mother reconnecting with her child, though the part feels a little underwritten. Better yet, is the brooding menace actor-director Leon Dai brings to his role as the stepfather hiding a terrible secret.

The Fourth Portrait unfolds in unexpected ways and somehow manages to work in disparate elements of domestic

violence, a comic crime spree, family ties and even a ghost story. Chung ties the film together with four portraits drawn by Hsiang illustrating the different relationships in his life.

At the end of the film, Hsiang prepares to sketch his own face. It is an enigmatic moment that holds out promise and yet fraught with uncertainty as he stands on the cusp of knowledge and self-awareness. And the future remains tantalisingly undrawn.

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Started Early, Took My Dog

Kate Atkinson

Crime can pay. It certainly has for Atkinson.

The British writer’s first book, Behind The Scenes At The Museum, which delved into the family history of a middle-class Englishwoman, won her the 1995 Whitbread Book Of The Year. But it seems that she has found her true calling with detective novels, beginning with Case Histories in 2004.

Her speciality is in charmingly flawed characters who are all too real in their foibles and yet retain a deep sense of morality.

There is ex-detective Tracy Waterhouse who indulges in food to fill the emptiness. Over the years, she has attended more funerals than weddings: “Murder victims mostly. Never been to a christening. Said something about your life, didn’t it?”

Then there is Jackson Brodie, cop-turned-private detective: “It used to be that his bark was worse than his bite, now it was the other way round.”

He is snooping around on behalf of a client trying to find her birth parents.

For Tracy and Jackson, their central core of goodness sees them taking on unexpected responsibilities one fateful day.

A third key character is Tilly, an elderly actress beginning to lose her grip on reality.

Add to the mix an old murder case which continues to cast a sinister pall over events unfolding in the present.

Atkinson has framed the novel thus: The paths of all three criss-cross at the beginning of the book and again at the end. Even though they seem set on a collision course after the first momentous meetings, it is safe to say that you would not be able to see the turns the story would need to take in order for that to happen.

In contrast to the late Stieg Larsson’s exhaustively detailed plot-boilers, Atkinson’s novels use plot as a device to get under the skin of superbly drawn characters who are at once tough and vulnerable.

The ending is a teaser which indicates that Atkinson is not quite done with Jackson or Tracy just yet. Which is great news for readers since they will not be either by the time they finish the book.

If you like this, read: Case Histories by Kate Atkinson (2005, $15.27, Bookdepository.co.uk). In his first outing, investigator Jackson Brodie joins the dots among three apparently unrelated tragedies.

(ST)

The 2nd Home

Kay Tse

Long album gestation periods seem to be in vogue these days.

The 2nd Home, Hong Kong singer Kay Tse’s first full-length Mandarin album, has arrived five years after her last effort, Kay One (2005).

This is positively speedy, compared to fellow singer Denise Ho, who took nine years to release her maiden Mandarin album.

Like Ho’s recent Unnamed.Poem, Tse’s release is a considered affair, with top singer-songwriters such as Khalil Fong and LaLa Hsu contributing compositions.

The tender warmth of her voice comes across well in Mandarin, though Home seems to be a tad less adventurous compared to her last Cantonese record Slowness (2009).

On ballads such as Fong’s Frailty, Tse draws you in emotionally with lyrics such as: “What are we living for, what is love worth/So many fake moves, we are all lonely”.

Farewell, by sodagreen’s Wu Ching- feng, is another stand-out.

Wedged between the rock-flavoured I Think and the closer Ten Years, the track Orchid Fingers, which features Beijing opera artist Li Yugang, sits a little uneasily in the line-up.

But it is an overall noteworthy effort. The album title is heartening: Tse is staying in - not merely straying onto – Mandopop territory.

Wild Rose 2009 LIVE CONCERT (2CDs/DVD)

Penny Tai

To mark her decade-long stint in the music business, Malaysian singer-songwriter Penny Tai held a concert at the Taipei International Convention Centre in November last year.

Naturally, her best-known hits are all here, on this live recording, including Blessing On The Street Corner, How, The Love You Want and Crazy Love, for which she won the Golden Melody Award for Best Composer in 2006.

The accompanying DVD completes the audio-visual experience.

You get to see, for example, Tai using her body as a human drum for the concert’s opening number Blowing Beep.

She has written some lovely ballads over the years, but it seems like she has been overshadowed by the popularity of her songs. Listening to and watching her on stage, one starts to wonder “What now?” of Tai’s career.

Bii Story

Bii

If Bii did not exist, some marketing exec would have dreamed him up.

The singer-songwriter’s father is Taiwanese and his mother is Korean. Such a bicultural background allows him to perfectly straddle Mandopop and K-pop.

Accordingly, there are Mandarin and Korean versions of key tracks, such as After Turning Around and Bye Bye Bye, crooned in Bii’s smooth, clean voice. To ensure maximum exposure for this newcomer, several of the songs have been pegged to a Taiwanese idol drama.

This, together with the collection of postcards featuring Bii, packaged with the CD, suggests a plausible trajectory of TV series roles and theme songs, enroute to popularity and adulation.

But, perhaps, we are getting ahead of ourselves in this story.

(ST)

An old friend turned 30 recently and marked the occasion with a bang. The festivities took place over two nights at the Taipei Arena and more than 60 artists, from rock band Mayday to Mandopop balladeer Wakin Chau, turned up to celebrate this milestone.

Happy birthday, Rock Records.

At the second concert on Sunday, the performers’ affection for the iconic Taiwanese record label was palpable over the course of five hours. The celebrations will continue in Singapore on Jan 22 and also travel to Hong Kong, Malaysia and China.

As one familiar hit followed another and one familiar face followed another, it was a reminder of how much good music Rock Records has put out over the years.

One of the biggest pleasures was seeing stars from the past grace the stage once more.

Here were Wa Wa belting out hits in her trademark husky vocals from Heavy Rain (1991) and Alex To dancing up a storm to Saving The Earth and then stripping to a pair of shorts that advertised the word “Rock” for the rousing Take It Off.

There was Tarcy Su, as big a Mandopop star as they come in the 1990s, belting out her monster hit Lemon Tree and then unexpectedly tearing into a Minnan number, Chase Chase Chase.

When Malaysian duo Wuyin Liangpin emerged, a collective gasp went up in the stadium. Michael Wong and Victor Wong (no relation) went their solo ways in 2000 and it has been a long time since they shared a stage as a team. Too bad they performed only a single song, Palm, which was one of their earliest successes.

Then again, given the turnout, the performers had time only for a few numbers each, leaving you wanting more. And if some singer or song was not your cup of tea, you did not have to wait long for someone else to take the spotlight.

What was surprising was how little was actually new or unknown to me. Some were songs that have lain dormant and half-remembered all this time, while others boasted familiar refrains nestled in less familiar songs by less-known singers.

Even the segment which showcased Rock Records’ earliest material in the early 1980s – from the folk pop of Autumn Cicada to pop ballad Forget Who I Am – triggered a few moments of recognition.

While some singers have come and gone, others have remained closely associated with Rock Records for much of their careers.

Michelle Pan, the first singer to sign on to the label, still has a honeyed alto that is a treat to listen to. She declared: “The blood of Rock Records flows in me.”

Other stalwarts such as rocker Wu Bai and singer-songwriter Bobby Chen Sheng also rallied round for the bash. Chen teamed up with host Cao Qitai for some humorous banter as Cao milked his forgotten sole song, Show Must Be Going On, for every last bit of drama.

Still, others were conspicuous by their absence, including singer-songwriters Lo Ta-yu and Jonathan Lee, as well as Sarah Chen and Sandy Lam, who had some of Rock’s biggest albums.

Some could not make it due to conflicting schedules and even the roster of artists who performed on the two nights in Taipei differed slightly. There was some speculation on the reasons for certain no-shows but, really, it did not dampen the highlights-filled festivities one whit.

Mayday singer Ashin, whose band rocked out the Minnan number Fool, unleashed a riposte to those who say that Rock’s voice has grown softer in recent years: “Have you grown deaf?”

When the electricity was cut off at midnight halfway through Wu Bai’s Love You For 10,000 Years, due to the city’s regulations, the fervour of the fans remained undiminished. Everyone sang along with gusto and lingered on when it was over, reluctant to let the evening end.

One final song had been planned – a mass singalong of Happy Paradise, a track first recorded by Rock’s stars in 1986. Even though the stage was now off-limits and the microphones silent, the contingent of performers began singing it and slowly, people began to join in.

It was a lovely end to an unforgettable celebration of music and friendship, and a beautiful beginning for whatever is coming next.

(ST)

Taste the Atmosphere

Eason Chan

On his last EP Time Flies, Cantopop king Eason Chan (above) served up two gems: conventional ballads No Man’s Land and Tourbillon. On his latest offering, he takes a more experimental approach, including collaborations with three female singers.

The sole English track here, Welcome To The Future, features the other-worldly trills of China singer Sa Dingding over throbbing synthesizers. With Sa singing, “We ride the wings of time/To our future we will fly”, it is like the soundtrack to an unborn sci-fi film.

Chan also teams up with retired singer Rowena Cortes, popular in the late 1970s and early 1980s, for He Says She Says, a gender-based take on relationships. Fellow Hong Kong singer Karen Mok pops up incidentally on backing vocals on the track My Cup Of Tea.

Meanwhile, Ip Man In The Wind, complete with irreverent rap, is a song that offers humorous respite from the recent spate of movies about the wing chun martial arts master.

You have to hand it to Chan for going where his muse takes him, even if the end result is a record that feels a little scattered and less cohesive than previous discs.

Above the Sky, Beyond the Sea

Key Elements

Key Elements is a local a cappella group formed in 2001 and this is their first Mandarin EP. The six members – two women and four men – take turns in the vocal spotlight and the collection features a wide range of musical styles.

Highlights include the sultry slinky The Love I Can’t Have, a 1940s Shanghai Jazz number by Yao Li; the easy charm of Panda Xiong’s Above The Sky, Beyond The Sea; and evergreen oldie The Evening Bell Of Nanping, with its varying rhythms.

All of which goes to show you don’t have to go to the ends of the earth to seek out good music, because it is being made here.

Four Dimensions

Lollipop F

Taiwan’s Lollipop are right on track. Following the trajectory of other meteoric boybands before them, they have reached the stage where they start to splinter.

Now that Prince and Lil Jay have left, they are renamed Lollipop F, comprising Owodog, Fabien, William and A-wei.

The remaining four cover their bases by offering something for everyone – from the perky Today Is A Holiday to the love ballad Blank to the harder-edged Hip Hop Life.

Mostly, it’s a palatable mix. Bonus points to Lollipop F for having a hand in coming up with the material – which suggests that this confection is not yet past its shelf life.

(ST)

Confessions

Tetsuya Nakashima

The story: This Japanese drama starts out in a regular, if overly boisterous, middle school classroom. The students are drinking milk, messing around and generally paying little heed to their form teacher Yoko Moriguchi (Takako Matsu).

The only thing that strikes a slightly off-note is that Moriguchi appears cold and does not seem to care that she has lost control of the class. Then, she begins to calmly recount a chilling tale of how her four-year-old daughter was murdered and how she has plotted revenge on those responsible.

The movie then goes on to present confessions from several other points of view, including the perpetrators’.

Confessions uses the sensationalistic murder of a defenceless young child to explore notions of culpability, justice and vengeance. There is even a direct reference to Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime And Punishment, which takes on similar themes.

Issues which have caused much hand-wringing from time to time in Japan, such as bullying in schools and juvenile delinquency, are presented here in an unflinching manner.

The aim here, though, is not to delve into a study of sociological ills or provide easy solutions but to weave these dark threads into a gripping, provocative and darkly mesmerising thriller.

Based on the best-selling and award- winning debut mystery novel by Kanae Minato, the film was a hit in its native Japan where it reigned atop the box office for four weeks.

The material is a good fit for director and scriptwriter Tetsuya Nakashima, who had previously helmed the quirky musical comedy Memories Of Matsuko (2006) and Kamikaze Girls (2004), which tackled youth and identity.

His visual flair is evident here and the scenes of the students drinking milk are stylishly and lovingly portrayed. It is not just pretty images for their own sake, though, and the emphasis on this innocuous activity is to set us up for the sinister twist that is to come.

As the story spirals into ever darker territory, and loneliness, grief and anger gather into a potent mix, he maintains a slightly overwrought tone that works well for the dramatic material.

Admirably, there is no fake happy ending here but one laced with the blackest humour.

The cast of fresh-faced teenage unknowns bring a realistic immediacy to the key roles of the students but the big surprise here has to be Takako Matsu.

Known for playing the sweet young thing in hit idol dramas such as Love Generation (1997) and Hero (2001), she has grown into an increasingly assured actress. As a grieving, vengeful mother, she effectively plays against type, though diabolical is perhaps a bit too much of a stretch for her.

Regardless, these are Confessions you will want to be privy to.

(ST)

Unnamed.Poem

Denise Ho

Nine years after her Cantonese debut, charismatic singer Denise Ho (right), protege of the late Anita Mui, is finally releasing her first full-length Mandarin album.

Naturally, expectations are high.

She has certainly put in some hard work and there is no cringe-inducing mangling of Mandarin.

She has also roped in an impressive roster of collaborators, including lyricist Wyman Wong, Mayday frontman Ashin and singers Mavis Fan and Waa Wei.

Instead of sappy, generic love ballads, we get intriguing titles such as Poetry And Nonsense and Alice In Wonderland Syndrome.

Mushroom Song, for example, is a quirky number about, well, fungi: “Some mushrooms are edible, others are poisonous/Some grow together, others like to be alone/But the prettier they are, the more likely they’ll make you puke.”

But, tellingly, the strongest track here is the lone Cantonese number, How Metal Is Forged, which sounds like it could be the theme song for the Japanese anime Fullmetal Alchemist.

On the CD cover, Ho is perched on a lamp post and about to be lifted, improbably, by a solitary balloon.

But she stops short of taking flight.

Love Flower

Various artists

Before this album came along, I had no idea who Ang It-hong was. The singer-songwriter came to fame in the 1960s and was hailed as the king of Taiwan crooners.

He died from pancreatic cancer in February this year and was presented with a posthumous Special Contribution Award at the Golden Melody Awards.

The record is the brainchild of his son, arranger and producer Eric Hung, who has gathered top Mandopop stars, including Mayday’s Ashin, Crowd Lu and JJ Lin, to pay tribute.

Rather than present straightforward remakes, Hung and his line-up have breathed new life into Ang’s classic Minnan tracks by incorporating them into new songs.

These Minnan-Mandarin mash-ups, such as Old Record with girl group S.H.E, work better than one would expect and elevate this album beyond novelty status.

Hung explains in the liner notes that his original intention was to simply present new arrangements of his father’s songs. But, inspired by the works’ vitality, he has interpreted them differently, so that more people can get to know those classics anew.

There are also new tracks here, including the moving duet Father sung by Jay Chou and Chris Hung, Eric’s elder brother.

As one song blooms after another, Love Flower turns into an unexpectedly cheering celebration of one man’s life and work.

The Beginning

JYJ

TVXQ – also known as Dong Bang Shin Gi or Tohoshinki, meaning “Rising Gods of the East” – was one of the biggest boy bands around in the mid-2000s. The Korean group were popular across Asia and even scored chart-topping Japanese-language hits in Japan.

To the dismay of J- and K-pop fans everywhere, TVXQ disbanded, after members Jun Su, Yoo Chun and Jae Joong successfully sued SM Entertainment last year over their share of the earnings the group brought in.

From the ashes of TVXQ, a new abbreviation group have emerged: JYJ. They may have gone from a quintet to a trio, but their ambition has only grown larger.

With their English-language debut, JYJ aim to break into the global music market. They have cannily roped in big names, such as top American music producer and songwriter Rodney Jerkins and rap star Kanye West to beef up the cred on tracks such as Ayyy Girl and Be My Girl.

Still, one has to question the point of the album that is The Beginning. Why would one want to listen to generic-sounding R&B in mildly stilted English?

Still, while the album is unlikely to break JYJ into the highly competitive Western market, the group’s hordes of Asian fans can ensure that The Beginning will not be the end.

(ST)

Le Cirque I

Peggy Hsu

Four-fruit Ice

Crowd Lu

Famous Detective Lost To Sweetheart

Cosmos People

The EP – short for “extended play” single releases – is often thought the lesser cousin of the full- length album. In the right hands, however, it can be a legitimate form, a musical exploration and every bit as compelling as an album.

Conceptually, Taiwanese singer-songwriter Peggy Hsu’s Le Cirque I could well be a spin-off of her earlier track, In Love With The Circus Ringleader, from the album Fine (2009).

Her five-track EP’s cover illustration of a big top towed by a tiny car wearing a top hat already evokes feelings of whimsy.

The image sets you up nicely for songs such as Chocolate Kiss and If I...: “If the plane falls out of the sky, if the ships sinks to the bottom of the sea/If the car bursts into flames, remember how much I love you.”

Swim Ring keeps the quirky quotient up, and is sweet and sad at the same time: “You are my swim ring, tightly surrounding my world/When my eyes open, I wish to see, the mermaid’s face.”

The richly imagined worlds in the tracks here would put to shame some full-length records with a dearth of ideas.

The vibe of fellow singer-songwriter Crowd Lu’s (below) Four-fruit Ice is more laidback, and is reflected in the cover picture of him chill-axing and tucking into a bowl of the icy dessert.

The gem in this four-track collection is Mosquito, with its witty lyrics about the irritating insect: “Finally, you come close to me/Knew that you would be there in summer/But it’s winter, why are you here/And demanding that I accept this unreasonable love.”

There is also the tenderly nostalgic Nice To Meet You, Lu’s thank you and farewell to his school friends upon graduating from university: “Running circles round the field/Time passes year by year/I want to hold back the tears and say, so pleased to meet you/My dear, dear classmates.”

The mood on Famous Detective Lost To Sweetheart is not so much nostalgic as retro. Taiwanese group Cosmos People have gone from being a quartet to a trio and this is the follow-up to their 2009 self-titled debut.

The jazzy, bluesy arrangements hark back to an earlier time, and are paired with lyrics often wry and sometimes biting. Lost To You opens with: “Oh, Lady, Lady, why are your eyes glinting/Is it because my cash can’t win your heart/Good thing the notes are at home/Wait for me to make a bouquet for you.”

The DVD includes a 20-minute short film, but is pretty much a throwaway effort. The best bits are the individual music videos for Famous Detective, Lost To You and Sweetheart.

These days, for music artists who do not yet have an album’s worth of material to put out, the EP is the way to go.

Freed from the constraints of a formal release, they might feel more adventurous and playful in the studio. And it shows in their compositions.

(ST)

Miss Elva

Elva Hsiao

From the glitter of Diamond Candy (2009) to the punkish nu-wave neon-glow look she sports for this album, Taiwanese singer Elva Hsiao sure likes to dazzle and shine.

Maybe it’s to distract you from the fact that she is once more serving up the same calculated mix of dance tracks, remakes and ballads. Then again, it’s a formula that works – the record has topped the Taiwanese album chart for three weeks – so why mess with it?

While the track Slim is a remake, it at least has some biting lyrics about the obsession with being thin: “The tastier it is, the more sinful/Fats, please go to the one next to me” and “Treat all those shows with good food like horror flicks”.

The gospel-tinged Dream II ~ I Am Not Afraid actually offers something different but it sounds a little out of place on this collection.

Offering fans visual eye candy with each new album is all part of the game, but Hsiao should bear in mind that it’s the music that should be grabbing one’s attention.

Hao Jiu

Nicky Lee

The title is a pun on Lee’s Chinese name and also means “been so long”.

As the liner notes tell us, it has been 765 days since the Taiwan-based Korean’s last Mandarin album Imperfect (2008).

Given the long wait, you would have thought that the singer-songwriter would want to wow us right off the bat instead of serenading us with a cover of Richard Marx’s Right Here Waiting.

The album closes with yet another cover, Air Supply’s classic ballad Making Love Out Of Nothing At All, which was featured in the soundtrack to the Taiwanese gangster flick, Monga (2010).

Actually, Lee doesn’t do a half-bad job with these two overly familiar songs. There is an appealingly tender gruffness to his voice which landed him the Best Male Singer award for his second album, Baby It’s Me, at the 2007 Golden Melody Awards.

Still, one would have hoped for more original material here.

On the ballad Last Day, he brings some lovely phrasing and colour to the conventional lyrics: “The last day, the last day/Whose tears have blurred the scene/The last day, the last day/Can’t remember why we forgot to say goodbye”.

No More Cryin’, meanwhile, is a fruitful attempt at R&B and also makes for a nice change of pace.

Perhaps Lee could consider making an even bigger change the next time round and take on something apart from love songs.

(ST)

Flowers

Norihiro Koizumi

The story: The lives of six women across three generations unfold in Japan from the 1930s to the present. In 1936, Rin (Yu Aoi from Hula Girls, 2006) runs away when she is about to be married off to a man she has never met. The 1960s track the stories of her three grown daughters – Kaoru (Yuko Takeuchi from Be With You, 2004), coping with the grief of losing her husband; Midori (Rena Tanaka from First Love, 2000), who struggles with feminism and femininity; and Sato (Yukie Nakama from Gokusen: The Movie, 2009), who is willing to risk death to have a second child. In the present day, Sato’s daughters Kana (Kyoka Suzuki from Welcome Back, Mr McDonald, 1997) and Kei (Ryoko Hirosue from Departures, 2008) wrestle with expectations and major life decisions.

This will someday make for an interesting cultural studies paper: What kind of a film gets made when a coterie of top-notch actresses is assembled and what does it reveal about attitudes towards women?

There was the tepid remake of the classic about relationships, The Women (2008), from the United States, the deliciously dark and comic murder mystery 8 Women (2002) from France and a documentary-style expose Actresses (2009) from South Korea.

Now comes Flowers from Japan.

There is much to enjoy in this film with its gorgeous cinematography and attention to period detail. It goes from presenting black-and-white scenes of 1930s Japan which evoke the works of the late feted film-maker Yasujiro Ozu to lovingly recreated and colour-corrected depictions of the country in the 1960s.

It is not just the visual details but also changing social mores which are reflected, from strictly defined women’s roles in the 1930s to casual sexual harassment in the 1960s to seeming liberation today.

Director Norihiro Koizumi makes the transitions from one story to another, one era to another, seamless through the use of recurring motifs.

The film is edited in such a way that answers to questions are withheld, thus holding the viewer’s attention. What happens to Rin after she runs away? How did she end up with three daughters?

Then there are the actresses themselves, who are big enough stars in Japan that the film simply opens with beautifully composed shots of each one and her name up on the screen.

There are no dud performances as such though Rena Tanaka’s spunky Midori and Ryoko Hirosue’s ever cheerful Kei are among the more appealing. Hirosue and Kyoka Suzuki also team up for a genuinely moving scene after Kei finds a handwritten note from her mother to the two sisters.

Yet despite all this, the film falls short at the end when it suggests that a woman’s true happiness comes only when she has a child. Surely that is too limiting a message in this time and age.

(ST)

Dearest Bride

Rynn Lim

Malaysian singer-songwriter Rynn Lim is a groom-in-waiting, searching for his bride.

He looks dapper and pensive in the lyric booklet and on the lead track My Bride, he croons: “I shouldn’t treat you as my bride/How could there be a future to speak of/You’re just tired from walking/And need my shoulder to rest on, that’s all”.

By adding a gender twist, Lim gives us a different take on traditional yearning-to-be-a-bride numbers, such as Taiwanese singer Michelle Pan’s 1992 classic Matchmaker.

Speaking of different takes, he offers a cover version of the Minnan number Call My Name that is miles from the bombast of Eric Moo’s original, and still moving.

I’m not sure if this qualifies as a brand new album, though, as five tracks here were included in his previous, best-of collection: 100, Merry-go-round Of Love, 7 Days, Crime Scene and Gravity Of Love.

Though the album is bookended by more sombre tracks, Lim’s strength is actually in the playful and jaunty numbers.

Vanished is a song about the damaged environment that avoids being preachy, thanks to its light-hearted tune. The lyrics serve up an arresting image: “If we can last till we’re 60/Together, hand in hand/Build a snow globe in the desert”.

It’s enough to win you over.

Shine

Shine Huang

She’s cutesy. She’s peppy. And she’s all of 19.

True to the youthful demographic it’s targeted at, Taiwan’s Shine Huang’s debut album even includes a biodata section detailing her height (163cm), weight (42kg) and fear of flying insects: “Bugs are really disgusting!!!!!! Don’t come near me!!!!!! Including butterflies!!!!!!”

She punctuates as though she was forbidden to use exclamation marks in childhood.

Unfortunately, there is less to exclaim about when it comes to the CD’s content.

Musically, there have been some comparisons with her idol Jolin Tsai and there are a number of bouncy dance tracks here such as Electrocuted and the harder-edged Flowery World.

But Huang’s child-like vocals are too much to take song after song. After a few spins, I feel like I need a cup of strong black coffee to go with the sugar rush.

Dancing diva Tsai can rest easy, for now.

(ST)

Love Practice

Jessie Chiang

The album opens with the glossy R&B number, That Ain’t Love.

Is Taiwanese model-turned-singer Jessie Chiang’s album opener a riposte to superstar Jay Chou?

In the song, Chiang, who has been repeatedly linked to Chou, sings: “Let’s end things here, what do you say/Anyway, it’s only lies left that you can say.”

The added twist here is that the lyrics were penned by Huang Jun-lang, a frequent Chou collaborator.

Rumours of late have been about a break-up between Chiang and Chou, so perhaps Huang might be channelling some insider information.

Elsewhere, is the doe-eyed lass addressing herself on the ballad, Please Be A Little Braver?

The lyrics, in this case, are courtesy of Vincent Fang, Chou’s long-time musical partner: “Will you please be a little braver/Don’t want to hear any more sorrys/I’ll recover from my broken heart on my own.”

While she might be nursing a broken heart, the songs here do not come across as deeply felt.

The mood of the music is too light, cheery even, and her voice merely skims along, even when the lyrics are about hurt and pain.

At the same time, there is no denying that these bouncy numbers will get you grooving. Perhaps, one could think of the songs here as being defiantly resilient.

This might well be the strategy from the start. After all, living well is the best revenge.

Draw G’s First Breath

G.NA

Korea’s Cube Entertainment has girl group 4Minute and boyband Beast in its stable. The company is now branching out with solo female act G.NA, who used to be part of an unimaginatively named girl quintet, 5 Girls.

This debut EP is heavy on guest star power, featuring Beast’s Jun Hyung on the opening number, I’ll Back Off So You Can Live Better, and K-pop superstar Rain on the R&B duet Things I Want To Do If I Have A Lover.

It is the aptly named Supa Solo, though, which swaggers with attitude, and on which G.NA shines brightest.

More importantly, it sounds a little different from what is out there, and could help her to stand out in a K-pop market crowded with lookalikes and soundalikes.

(ST)

You Again

Andy Fickman

The bland generic title is actually a pretty good indication of what you can expect from the movie.

In high school, Marni (Kristen Bell) was pimply, wore braces and was tormented by popular cheerleader Joanna (Odette Yustman).

Years later, Marni is attractive, confident and successful at work. But she is aghast when she finds out that her brother’s bride-to-be is none other than her old nemesis.

What really gets her goat is the fact that the now saintly Joanna acts as though they have never even met. Cue unbelievable, and unfunny, situations as Marni tries ways and means to get everyone else to see the truth about Joanna.

On top of that, there is the fraught history between Marni’s mother (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Joanna’s aunt (Sigourney Weaver) but not even a swimming-pool catfight between Curtis and Weaver can keep this film afloat.

(ST)

The news that singer-songwriter Liang Wern Fook was awarded the Cultural Medallion last Tuesday came rather as a surprise. I had assumed the 46-year-old had already been the recipient of Singapore’s highest accolade for culture and the arts.

After all, he was the seminal figure in the xinyao Singapore folk movement which began in campuses and hit its peak in the 1980s. His influence rests on five albums released between 1986 and 1992, and songs he wrote for others. One of them, Lian Zhi Qi (Love’s Refuge) sung by Jiang Hu, topped the singles chart for an astounding 29 weeks in 1986.

Much that Liang wrote about were part and parcel of my growing up years as they revolved around school and friendship.

There is the classic Xi Shui Chang Liu (Friendship Forever) with its carefree harmonica and guitar opening: “When we were young, who didn’t have dreams/Without realising it, you revealed your heart’s ambitions to me.”

It was probably the first Liang song that I heard and I still have this one memory associated with it.

A group of us were hanging out after extra-curricular activity, as it was still known then, and we ended up near the Padang, singing songs on the steps of City Hall. Under a darkened sky, we sang: “Shooting stars fly by in the night, imagining the road ahead/The breeze listens to our countless aspirations.”

This is one of those moments you will always remember and hold on to because it is just so perfect, even if there were no shooting stars in sight that night. The future held so much hope and promise that one could almost taste and touch it then.

But he was no starry-eyed optimist. He looked further and imagined: “Many years later, we meet again/We all have tired smiles/I’ll ask my friend, when will you play for me again/Will it still be the same, will it still be the same?”

He did not sugar-coat the future to come and there was the weight of would-be nostalgia already mourning the loss of those youthful days.

His bittersweet songs made one smile and ache at the same time, and grateful that someone could put these thoughts to paper and then set the indelible words to unforgettable music.

Little wonder that in a 2003 poll by the Composers and Authors Society of Singapore (Compass), Friendship Forever topped the list of the 10 top xinyao songs. More impressively, he had six other songs in that honour roll.

He was, of course, not the only one writing about such themes. Ocean Butterflies’ xinyao boxsets show songs written and performed by the likes of Eric Moo, Roy Loi and Hong Shaoxuan. They reveal how dominant Liang was in the scene as every other song is written by him.

He stood out also for the depth and breadth of his works. In songs such as Tai Duo Tai Duo (Too Much Too Much) and Yi Bu Yi Bu Lai (One Step At A Time), he proved to be an astute and witty observer of society.

The latter was an inventive song to boot as he weaved into the track a traditional children’s ditty: “The sun goes down and comes up again the next day, can it climb up slower on Sunday/Flowers wilt and bloom again the next year, which company is going to drop the axe this year.”

So what if he did not have polished vocals? That boy-next-door voice made his songs only more accessible as they seemed to be the intimate musings of a close friend.

He was also generous and self-aware enough to know when to let others sing his songs, personal as they seem to be. Zhi Shi Jing Guo (Just Passing Through) is a clear-eyed love song about bad timing and it was sung by frequent collaborator Koh Nam Seng.

You could see how Liang grew with each album, broadening his outlook from personal relationships to national identity in Singapore Pie (1990) to Chinese and eastern identity in Go East (1992).

However, I remain partial to his earlier work, when as a thoughtful young man in his 20s, he gazed upon the ordinary and the everyday and came up with timeless music. His genuine passion for friends, for society and for life was so palpable and compelling.

In the liner notes to The Name Of Love (1988), he wrote: “There are no answers here, I still believe answers have to come from everyone searching for them together. There is no anger or rebellion here, I still believe in compassion more... If you could turn over every song here, on the back of each would be a single word – love.”

He did not vanish from the music scene after his series of albums. There was a foray into pop as a songwriter with hits such as Kit Chan’s Worried and Andy Lau’s Everytime I Wake Up, but he was now far less prolific.

The 1996 musical December Rains, restaged recently, suggested a new trajectory while 2007’s If There’re Seasons was a show built around his existing songs. He has said he wants to continue doing musicals as they combine his two loves, Chinese literature and music. The thought of new material to come is a cheering one.

While Seasons did not quite do his songs justice, it did give a new lease of life to some old classics.

And that really is the best thing about the Cultural Medallion award, that it will introduce a new generation of the young and the young-at-heart to be moved by Liang’s heartfelt poetry and music.

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Fighting With Bach

Nan Quan Mama

The shadow of mentor Jay Chou still looms large, even though this is Nan Quan Mama’s sixth album and they have shrunk from being a quartet to a duo.

Otaku’s Summer harks back to Chou’s Sunny Otaku. Another track River, Afternoon, I Passed By vaguely sounds like Sunny Otaku as well. At times, the vocals could even pass for the Mandopop superstar’s too.

The track Panda Man, meanwhile, is the theme song to the idol sci-fi TV series Pandamen, a project helmed by Chou.

The odd thing is that songwriting duties are largely split between the remaining two members, Devon and Yuhao.

Where Chou’s shadow dissipates, there are some nice moments. The gothic and dramatic Battling Bach is easily the most exciting thing here, with a piano riff, electronic beats and a guest tenor voice swirling in the mix.

Now that Nan Quan Mama are a duo, they will have to take care not to sound like newcomer male duo The Drifters – yet another Chou-backed musical venture.

It's My Time

Lin Yu-chun

It’s too much to expect a one-trick pony to run an entire race.

The roly-poly Taiwanese Lin Yu-chun, nicknamed Little Fatty, brought the house down when he sang the Whitney Houston version of I Will Always Love You on the popular One Million Star competition.

His vocal range is stupendous, it’s true, but an entire album of Englishlanguage material with slightly off diction is still gimmicky.

One can understand the comparisons to the previously dowdy Susan Boyle – neither of them sound like what you might imagine when you first see them. But these comparisons are unfair to Boyle, who has a surer grasp on the emotional phrasing of a song than Lin’s showboating mimicry, of tracks such as Mariah Carey’s Hero and Celine Dion’s My Love Will Go On.

The inclusion of Christina Aguilera’s rock number Fighter offers some respite from the onslaught of women power ballads, though he still seems to be parroting Aguilera rather than re-interpreting the song.

The lone original English track Under Your Wings offers some genuine emotion for a change, but the race has long been lost.

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The Child's Eye

The Pang Brothers

The story: Rainie (Rainie Yang) hopes that a trip to Bangkok will improve the rocky situation with her boyfriend Lok (a glum Shawn Yue). Two other couples join them. When protests break out, they are trapped in the city and are forced to put up at a dodgy, dingy hotel with a brusque owner (Lam Ka Tung). Strange things begin to happen, then Rainie’s friends start disappearing. She has only a little girl and her dog to rely on for help.

The movie goes to hell at the conclusion of the story. Too bad it does not do so earlier since its vision of the underworld is the most distinctive thing about this otherwise pedestrian horror thriller.

Directors and co-writers the Pang brothers imagine Hades as a smoky, smouldering inferno composed of the paper offerings of houses, cars and such that people dedicate to the deceased at traditional Chinese funerals.

It is a visually witty and different take on the netherworld but one that probably would have worked equally well in regular 2-D.

The Child’s Eye comes right on the heels of The Shock Labyrinth: House Of Horrors, the first Japanese life-action 3-D flick. But as Asian film-makers rush to embrace the technology, they also need to keep in mind that it is no longer such a novelty that any 3-D offering will automatically draw a crowd of curious moviegoers.

Already, some of the showcased 3-D sequences here – a bullet flying into the audience, a disembodied hand reaching out – feel lazy and cliched.

Such cheap thrills make the film seem stuck in theme park-attraction mode (remember Captain EO starring the late Michael Jackson at Disney theme parks?).

Part of the problem is that The Child’s Eye is very much a standard horror picture with too many familiar elements, from a chair moving ominously on its own to creepy-looking children.

The upheaval in Bangkok at the beginning anchor the film in reality but, unfortunately, it does not have anything to do with what follows. The attempt at keeping things believable is later completely abandoned and the movie plunges into full-blown haunted house territory.

Also, the music score was rather intrusive and the most effective scene, sound-wise, was one which simply used the ambient sounds of a laundry room.

It is all rather disappointing given that the Pang brothers had previously helmed The Eye (2002), which was more successful at conjuring up a sustained atmosphere of dread and foreboding. It helped that Malaysian actress Angelica Lee was in the title role.

Taiwanese singer and idol drama star Rainie Yang comes off worse in the comparison between the two leads as she is unable to summon the same level of emotional intensity. She is more like the petulant cutie-pie in some, well, idol drama having a minor crisis that has been blown out of proportion.

That, though, might be more than enough to scare the living daylights out of some people.

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Genesis

Jeff Chang

The 43-year-old Jeff Chang faces essentially the same challenge with each new album: How can he make himself relevant again?

The Taiwanese singer has no problem filling concert venues on the strength of his past hits such as Don’t Worry About My Sadness and Love Tide. But he has not sounded current since the flirtation with electronica on the album Come Back (1999) – and that was 11 long years ago.

Since 1989, that pristine voice of his has been caressing ballads, his signature genre. The problem is that when the tunes are less than stellar, they easily run the risk of sounding like tired retreads.

White Moonlight (2004), for example, is one of his more moving efforts in recent years. Here, Frosted Sun, in title and tone, merely seems like a vain attempt to recapture that past glory.

The retro vibe of More Than Words is not a good idea, either, as it just ends up sounding dated, while The Power Of Happiness, a duet with local singer Olivia Ong, feels more like an opportunistic tie-up than an essential collaboration.

It is not that there is a dearth of decent material – check out Those Bygone Times and Back Where We Began – but, fairly or not, his releases simply do not generate much excitement now.

Sometimes, it could be something as banal as a matter of image and styling. So thank goodness that ill-advised mop of curls on Escape (2008) is gone so he won’t be scaring away potential fans before they even listen to the CD.

A Wonderful Journey

Ariel Lin

The journey begins promisingly enough with Fall In Love When The Flower Blooms. This likable, summery track doesn’t demand too much of either Taiwan idol drama star Ariel Lin or the listener and it breezes along amiably.

But too much of the scenery that follows is in the same vein, either sweet and disposable or sweet with a tinge of sadness. After a while, it all blends together.

Even though Lin flew out to London for the publicity shots, the follow-up to her debut Blissful Encounter – what is with the hyperbolic titles? – fails to head anywhere interesting.

Super Hot

Fahrenheit

Clad in matchy-matchy black and white ensembles on the oversized album cover, Aaron Yan, Wu Chun, Calvin Chen and Jiro Wang get their sexy on in the Taiwanese boyband’s fourth album.

The title dance track has them going: “Burning hot, if this temperature still makes people lonely/It’s too hot, might as well let us be naked, hot.”

The seduction continues on Sexy Girl: “Sexy girl, promise me, don’t be soft-hearted, please continue to harm me/Sexy girl, save me, without this kind of pain, I don’t think I can live.”

But while the tempo might have quickened, the excitement level for the listener stubbornly refuses to rise.

The sampling of the Minnan ditty Any Beer Bottles To Sell in Going On My Way does not quite work but at least they get some points for trying.

Too bad the other numbers generally leave me cold.

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Reign Of Assassins

Su Chao-pin

The story: The Black Stone is a group of highly skilled assassins led by the shadowy Wheel King (Wang Xueqi). After tracking down half of a mystical monk’s bodily remains, rumoured to contain the secret to becoming all-powerful, one of the killers, Drizzle (Kelly Lin), disappears. Years later, a woman, Zeng Jing (Michelle Yeoh), turns up in town and sets up a stall selling fabric. She catches the eye of a messenger, Jiang Asheng (Jung Woo Sung), but her secret past casts a shadow over their lives.

Everything new is old again. Reign Of Assassins is a period martial arts flick that takes a few recent ideas and gives them an antiquated makeover. Some of it is fun, such as watching a bank robbery in progress. We are so familiar with hold-ups from TV shows and crime thrillers that it is refreshing to see it take place with swords in olden China.

The transformation works less well in some other cases. In the action series Nikita, no-hopers at the end of their tether are trained to be assassins. Here, murderous nymphomaniac Ye Zhanqing (an unconvincing Barbie Hsu) is saved from the gallows and taken under the Wheel King’s tutelage to replace Drizzle.

Plastic surgery? Criminals nowadays might go under the scalpel to change their features but that is nothing compared to the extraordinary Doctor Li, who manages to turn Kelly Lin, as Drizzle, into Michelle Yeoh (below), as the seemingly demure cloth-seller Zeng Jing. What is more unsettling, though, is that the 48-year-old Yeoh gets saddled with the voice of a sweet young girl in the Mandarin dub.

Apart from some familiar plot devices, there are also echoes of producer John Woo’s work in Reign, even though Taiwanese Su Chao-pin is credited as the director. The nip-tuck routine recalls Woo’s flamboyant Hollywood thriller Face/Off (1997) while the slo-mo swordfight and freeze frames bring to mind his penchant for showy action scenes.

Still, the fight scenes are tightly executed and Su keeps things interesting by giving the characters different signature weapons, from Zeng Jing’s flexible blade to the Wheel King’s sword which has a rotating wheel attached to it.

What Su also brings to the table is a script with a strong female protagonist underpinned by Buddhist precepts about forgiveness and letting go, both unusual for the martial arts genre as the recent spate of Donnie Yen flicks would attest to.

Yeoh brings a reserved dignity to the role and there is a homely sweetness to her relationship with Jung, recently seen in the Korean western The Good, The Bad And The Weird (2008). But it does not surpass her turn in Lee Ang’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), no matter what Woo claimed at the press conference in Singapore.

As for the remains of the monk, it is a MacGuffin that sets off the chain of events that unfolds but Su has a sly joke up his sleeve when we finally find out why the Wheel King has been searching for it all this time.

It feels a little like a missed opportunity, since a martial arts flick steeped in black humour would indeed have been something new.

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Limits

LaLa Hsu

The pixie-ish LaLa Hsu could easily have gone down the cutie-pie route but, thank goodness, the Taiwanese singer-songwriter has bigger ambitions, and the talent to match them.

Hsu’s 2009 debut album was well received and won her the best newcomer trophy at the Golden Melody Awards. The champion of the third season of One Million Star scored a KTV-friendly hit with Riding A White Horse, which mixed pop with Chinese opera, to surprisingly moving effect.

There is nothing quite as exciting as Riding A White Horse on this, her follow-up album.

Still, there are a couple of tracks that will grow on you here, including the ballads Limits and Acrophobia. On the latter, she sings sweetly: “You let the sky lose its distance/I let myself leave hesitation/Scaling love, bidding memory farewell/ I’m loving you”.

The unexpectedly elegiac Disco is another keeper. But, despite the album’s name, it does not feel as though Hsu is pushing herself to her limit.

Once In A Lifetime

sodagreen

Taiwanese rock band sodagreen’s latest live release raises a couple of questions.

Firstly, why didn’t their Daylight Fever tour come to Singapore? Secondly, after the group’s last two feted albums released last year, Daylight Of Spring and Summer/Fever, which kick-started their four-

album season-themed Project Vivaldi, what has happened to the autumn and winter instalments?

And since this is a concert recording offering, why not offer more songs, rather than a paltry selection of 11 songs?

There is a bonus of three new songs tacked on, though one of them, No Sleep, hardly counts, since it is merely the Mandarin version of a Minnan track on Summer/Fever. Thought of as an extended single, Once In A Lifetime comes up to their usual high standards. In that case, can we get the next fulllength album soon, please?

Solace

Jones Shi

After making his debut with Firelight five years ago, local singersongwriter Jones Shi fell off the Mandopop radar. He is now signed on to a new label and has released a threetrack EP to test the waters.

The catchy soft rock ballads here have been crafted to showcase his emotive and slightly gruff voice, with the Lee Shih Siong/Xiaohan-penned Imperfect Perfection being the most memorable. Missing out on five years in the industry can be hard on a musician’s career. Shi can find solace in the fact that this EP marks a promising return to the scene.

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I Love You Phillip Morris

Glenn Ficarra and John Requa

The story: Steven Russell (Jim Carrey) is an ex-cop who turns conman to support his flamboyant gay lifestyle. Busted, he is thrown into the slammer where he meets the love of his life, Phillip Morris (Ewan McGregor). They build a life together post- imprisonment, but Steven gets up to his old tricks once more. This is based on a true story and crime reporter Steve McVicker’s book of the same name is subtitled A True Story Of Life, Love & Prison Breaks.

The gay drama, Brokeback Mountain (2005), was about a furtive love affair that dared not speak its name. Even from the title of this movie, it is clear that there is no such restraint here.

There is a series of jokes about sexual acts in prison and the sexual aspect of the relationship between Steven and Phillip is not coyly omitted.

The raunchy humour is nothing less than what one would expect from co-directors and co-writers Glenn Ficarra and John Requa. The two were responsible for writing the scabrously funny Bad Santa (2003), which stars Billy Bob Thornton as an “eating, drinking, shitting, f***ing” department store Santa.

This is probably the film on their resume, rather than, say, Cats & Dogs (2001), which attracted A-listers Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor to star in their directorial debut.

The rubber-faced Carrey is best known for his over-the-top manic energy in hit films such as Yes Man (2008) and Liar Liar (1997). But he has also proven himself to be a fine actor in more serious fare such as Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (2004).

His easy affability is put to good use here and you end up rooting for him even though he is the crook. It is loads of fun watching him adopt different identities to pull off his hustling and jail-breaking escapades.

Exuding brazen confidence as a serial con artist, he reminds one of the light and sprightly feel of Catch Me If You Can (2002), in which Leonardo DiCaprio plays a conman on the run.

I Love You Phillip Morris, though, has a decidedly more quirky and off-kilter vibe. There is that bright and cheery musical theme associated with Steven and throwaway jokes are snuck onto billboards and signs.

For all the monkeying around, there is a positive and embracing message in there that happiness is something that everybody deserves.

McGregor’s gentle and vulnerable Phillip, complete with an adorable Southern accent, is a good foil to Carrey’s incorrigible Steven and their relationship gives the film its sweet emotional centre.

And while the title might be in- your-face, it also tells you where the heart of the film is.

(ST)

An image of Hong Kong film-maker Tsui Hark that has remained stuck in my mind is of him as a straitjacketed escapee from the mental institution going “Beeboobeeboo!” in the action comedy Part 2, Mad Mission: Aces Go Places (1983).

It captures in one indelible instant the 60-year-old as a madcap genius. Whether you think of him as more mad or genius depends pretty much on which movie of his you catch as he swings from one end to the other.

At his best, he is like a mad scientist who blithely blends genres to come up with movies that are original, visually arresting, funny and just a blast to watch. When the concoction works, his brand of anarchic energy is irresistible.

His directorial debut in 1979, The Butterfly Murders, mixed wuxia, crime and sci-fi. Peking Opera Blues (1986), about the adventures of three unlikely heroines during the chaotic early years of the Republic of China, deftly married action, comedy and Peking opera. It has been widely hailed as his masterpiece.

He has also demonstrated a knack for casting the right actor in the right role.

The wide-eyed Sally Yeh was a hoot as a naive country girl in the war-time musical comedy Shanghai Blues (1984) and as the daughter of an opera troupe leader in Peking Opera Blues.

Sometimes, he would see something no one else did in an actor and it would turn out to be spot on.

Brigitte Lin was best known for playing lovelorn heroines in a string of tearjerkers in the 1970s. Yet he cast her as a tomboy who dresses in men’s clothes in Peking Opera Blues. Transgender parts would later become something of a calling card for her in roles such as a castrated male sorcerer in Swordsman II (1992).

When he felt like doing it, he could offer some exhilarating action sequences.

The fantasy wuxia flick Zu: Warriors From The Magic Mountain (1983) featured groundbreaking special effects for Chinese-language cinema then. Watching screen idols Lin and Adam Cheng duel on flying elephant statues was just the coolest thing ever for a primary school kid, even if the ambiguities of gender, identity and morality all flew over my head.

In the early 1990s, he made the Once Upon A Time In China gongfu series. True, the action sequences in the furiously paced and inventive flicks about folk hero Wong Fei Hung, played by Jet Li, were not choreographed by him but he captured them with economy and flair.

Later that decade, Tsui seemed to lose focus with a detour to Hollywood.

Both critics and fans hated Double Team (1997), a buddy action film with the Muscles from Brussels Jean-Claude Van Damme and one-time basketball star Dennis Rodman, and Knock Off (1998), in which Van Damme plays a fashion industry rep who ends up fighting terrorism. Even a one-line summary of these films alone sounds alarmingly bad.

If his Hollywood misadventure could be blamed on the lack of total creative control – a common complaint among Hong Kong film-makers who are used to having the final say – there is a criticism he will find harder to dodge, that he has resorted to sequels and retreads far too often.

He helmed the gangster flick A Better Tomorrow III (1989) as well as Once Upon A Time In China parts I, II, III and V.

To be fair, a sequel is not in and of itself a bad thing and the second instalment of Once Upon A Time In China is widely regarded as the most brilliant entry in the series.

But the lacklustre sci-fi actioner Black Mask 2: City Of Masks (2002) and the cliched and exaggerated humour of All About Women (2008), originally meant to be an update of Peking Opera Blues, give sequels the bad name they deserve for being unimaginative and mercenary.

With his latest, the compelling Tang dynasty whodunnit Detective Dee And The Mystery Of The Phantom Flame, he is back in form. It is hard to say if this is part of an upward trajectory since the man has had more ups and downs in his career than a gymnast on a trampoline.

According to reports, American auteur Quentin Tarantino said Peking Opera Blues was either one of the greatest films ever made or one of the craziest.

When it comes to Tsui Hark, either, or both, could be true.

(ST)

Detective Dee And The Mystery Of The Phantom Flame

Tsui Hark

The story: The construction chief in charge of building a monumental female Bodhisattva statue mysteriously bursts into flames and dies. Taking place as it does before her coronation, the formidable empress Wu Zetian (Carina Lau) suspects that something is afoot. She summons Dee Renjie (Andy Lau), whom she imprisoned eight years ago for defying her, back to the capital and charges him with solving the case.

Judge Dee (630-700) was a historical figure who served as a high-ranking official during the Tang dynasty in China. He was later the star in a series of 25 crime fiction novels written by a Dutch diplomat, Robert van Gulik (1910-1967), who was fascinated by the magistrate detective.

The movie is set several years after the conclusion of van Gulik’s series and is based on an original story by Taiwanese film-maker Chen Kuo-fu.

There is something satisfyingly old-school about the premise, which sounds like a Hardy Boys or Sherlock Holmes puzzler.

While Tsui Hark has a good grasp of the mystery thriller genre, he also makes it his own by injecting the film with his trademark touches.

The supernatural element plays a big part in the film. More than just a plot device, it helps to create an ominous mood, helped by the X-Files-like musical cues.

It is also an opportunity for a talking deer to show up. Clearly, Tsui relishes such a surreal sight. Not content with a serenely talking mystical deer, he later ups the ante with a spectacular scene of deer in attack mode.

Gender identity and conflict, another Tsui trademark, is played out on different levels. For example, Li Bingbing, who plays the empress’ right-hand woman Jing, plays both dashing lad and icy beauty.

There is also the fact the story is set before the inauguration of China’s lone female emperor and there is plenty of male anxiety over a woman assuming power.

If this sounds a little heavy-handed, rest easy. What Tsui has delivered above all is an engaging romp with visual flourishes and lots of twists and turns.

Even the movie’s star, Lau, seems to be enjoying himself and turns in a relaxed performance.

Given that Dee Renjie’s colourful origins provide plenty of source material for Hong Kong film-maker Tsui to work with, the prospect of a series of Detective Dee mysteries is definitely delightful.

(ST)

To Hebe

Hebe Tien

The Next Chapter

Chase Chang Jay

They both started out as part of Taiwanese music groups, but are now striking out on their own.

Hebe Tien is still onethird of the popular girl group S.H.E, while Chase Chang Jay, formerly of the quartet Nan Quan Mama, has made a more definite split.

Tien’s To Hebe is no slapdash effort. A carefully engineered debut, it ropes in some of Mandopop’s top composers and lyricists, including Sandee Chan, Derek Shih, Lin Xi and Chen Hsiao-hsia.

Her sweet, disposable voice fares better on uncluttered pop numbers that don’t tax it, such as A Condominium With No Attendant and You’re Too Much.

One of the album’s highlights is Love!, about a daisy chain of relationships ending in a failure to connect: “I love you, you love her, she loves her, she loves him/You love me, I love him, He loves him, He loves her/Why does no one love each other in this world, why is everyone unhappy in this world/Why does everyone love someone else in this world, but not themselves?”

This is more adult fare, compared to the sometimes kiddy and playful pop S.H.E churn out. Kudos to Tien for trying something different, even venturing into indie rock, with I Think I Won’t Love You, and jazz, with Super Mary.

I can’t shake the feeling, though, that a better set of pipes could have knocked this out of the park.

Chang Jay’s vocal stylings bring to mind Mandopop superstar Jay Chou’s, though Chang’s diction is a little suspect at times.

But he definitely leaves his own stamp on the songs here, having written both lyrics and music for most of them.

The autobiographical lyrics raise a smile on the title track: “Dad and Mum tell me to endure, don’t think of acting in an idol drama with your looks”.

He also refers to advice he got from Chou, who was Nan Quan Mama’s mentor: “Chieh-lun, he tells me, you’re the one writing the songs, don’t ever lose yourself in order to be popular”.

The line-up reveals that the personal makes for stronger material such as on I Won’t Listen, while generic-sounding tunes such as Firefly do nothing for Chang. He also shows that he can write commercial hits with Repeat Broadcast.

Both Chang and Tien prove they have something different to say. Going solo, in their cases, was no mere ego-stroking exercise.

Heaven And Earth

Huang Wen-hsing

The likes of Jody Chiang may still determinedly peddle old-school Minnan pop, but rock groups such as Mayday and sodagreen are taking it in a different direction.

Boyish-looking newcomer Huang Wen-hsing, who placed second in the first season of the Super Idol singing competition in 2008, brings a pop sheen to the genre. Unfortunately, he does not take it far enough.

Opener Hook My Heart kicks off promisingly with a rock riff, but then settles back into a dated arrangement. More successful, though, are the catchy duet In Two Minds and the sprightly Half A Lover. But, it is Wooden Love Song, co-written by androgynous popster Chang Yun-jing, that is most promising, with its refreshing acoustic pop vibe.

Given that this is subtitled Vol. 1, one hopes that Huang will take off in the direction of acoustic pop for his follow-up.

(ST)