Let's Not Fall In Love Again
Nicholas Teo

Just when you had Malaysian balladeer Nicholas Teo firmly pegged as a B-lister, he has you thinking again with the irresistible Let’s Not Fall In Love Again, one of the best karaoke-ready hits to come along in a while.
Written by fellow Malaysian Zyan Chen, the number is tailor-made for Teo’s soothing emotive voice and a great comeback vehicle for him. He has been lying low since 2009’s The Moment Of Silence.
The song is about the complicated feelings for an old flame sparked by a chance meeting: “As harmonious as ordinary friends/Be polite and let’s not startle love anymore.”
It builds into an epic chorus of longing and self-denial which tugs at the heartstrings: “These few days, these few months, these few years/I don’t miss/This moment, this minute, this second/You’re in front of me... I’ve been doing very well, don’t disturb me/Let’s just be quiet this moment.”
The album has a mix of ballads and faster-paced songs but it is undoubtedly the slow numbers which play to Teo’s strengths.
Tracks such as Why Cry, the Mandarin theme song to the Korean drama Lie To Me, and the Wu Jiahui-penned Not Much are memorable, if still in the shadow of the title track.
Finally, Teo is no longer a one-hit wonder best known for covering When You Are Lonely, Who Will You Think Of? in 2004.
Perhaps when you are lonely now, you might think of Let’s Not Fall In Love Again.
(ST)

Flying Swords Of Dragon Gate
Tsui Hark
The story: At the end of New Dragon Gate Inn (1992), which Hong Kong’s Tsui Hark produced and co-wrote, the infamous desert outpost of lawlessness was razed to the ground. Three years later, the new inn in its place is once again bustling as an array of characters with different motives and motivations gather there: A concubine (Mavis Fan) on the run from the powerful eunuch Yu (Chen Kun) is being protected by a masked woman (Zhou Xun), righteous hero Zhao (Jet Li) wants to take down the eunuch, and treasure hunters are drawn there as a massive storm is about to reveal a buried palace.

Do not buy into the hype that this is the first 3-D martial arts movie.
The technology is far from being the highlight of the film. Some of the showcase 3-D scenes look rather fake and the epic showdown between Jet Li’s Zhao and Chen’s eunuch Yu could have done with a little less CGI and more oomph.
Not that it lacks visual flair, though. Indeed, one gets swirling capes, flying swords and twirling ropes in an early fight scene between Jet Li and Gordon Liu, the action star of the 1970s and 1980s who cameos as another powerful eunuch.
More importantly, Flying Swords is an absorbing work. Clearly, there is a lot going on here. Part of the fun is working out exactly what is going on since people are not quite who they say they are and almost everyone is hiding something.
Complicating things is the fact that the eunuch Yu and the opportunistic treasure-hunter Wu are dead ringers for each other. They are both played by China actor Chen Kun, recently seen in Jiang Wen’s excellent Let The Bullets Fly (2010). He does a great job playing the silkily villainous Yu as well as the quick-thinking Wu. Of course, Tsui sets it up so that Wu ends up impersonating Yu. To add to the subterfuge, both camps realise that the two look alike and Yu comes up with a passcode to prove that he is the real McCoy. Sit back, pay attention and enjoy how it all plays out.
While those who have watched Tsui’s earlier work in films such as Peking Opera Blues (1986) and Shanghai Blues (1984) would be familiar with these devices of mistaken identities and use of code words, they still feel fresh and funny when executed with verve.
Aside from Chen’s performances, Tsui’s famed ability to do surprising work with actors is also evident here. Taiwan’s Guey Lun-mei is often cast as the elegantly genteel city girl in films such as Taipei Exchanges (2010). Here, she is clearly having a ball of a time, swaggering and spitting as a tattooed tribal princess.
Although the interplay of some of the relationships could have been drawn out a little more, there is more than enough here to entrance viewers. If last year’s Detective Dee And The Mystery Of The Phantom Flame suggested that Tsui was back on form, Flying Swords seals the deal.
(ST)

Chinese Gigs
Best & Worst
Faye Wong 2011 concert
Singapore Indoor Stadium, Oct 29
It has been a long wait for fans of the Chinese pop diva who left the music scene six years ago to get married and have children.
True, she started off a little shaky and her voice was not quite as pristine as before, but she could still sing beautifully. The production was also top-notch, with seasonally themed tableaux unfolding on stage. At one point, she even soared over the audience in a contraption that seemed to be made of light and air.
The enigmatic ending divided fans but love it or hate it, the famously reticent Wong definitely made quite a statement there.

Rock 30 Singapore concert
Singapore Indoor Stadium, Jan 22
Iconic music label Rock Records marked its 30th anniversary with one big bash after another. The celebratory gig in Singapore was shorter than the five-hour-long festivities in Taipei in November last year, but it was still an exhilarating treat. The stellar line-up included past and present stars such as the sexily confident Tarcy Su, the raspy-voiced Wa Wa and the crowd-pleasing Wakin Chau.
Also, a finale twice thwarted in Taipei as they ran out of time was happily completed in Singapore as the performers returned for a mass singalong of Happy Paradise.

Kit Chan The Music Room Concert 2011
Grand Theater at Marina Bay Sands, Oct 13 to 15
Singapore’s own Kit Chan made a welcome return to the music scene. It was an all-out comeback with a covers album and not one, but two concerts.
While she had to share the stage with the Singapore Chinese Orchestra at her show at the Esplanade in February, the spotlight was all hers at her second gig.
Here was a performer who was totally comfortable in her own skin and her vocal and emotional maturity was evident from her take on songs such as Stephen Sondheim’s Send In The Clowns.

What I Want To Banish
The inconsistent sound quality at the Singapore Indoor Stadium marred one’s enjoyment of the Faye Wong concert and did not help the largely underwhelming experience that was local singer-songwriter Tanya Chua’s gig.
(ST)

Music: Asian
Best & Worst
Who is Hanjin Tan
Hanjin Tan, BBS Records
The Hong Kong-based Singaporean singer-songwriter Hanjin Tan is not likely to remain unknown much longer with records such as this one.
Here are compelling stories about his life and his philosophy of happiness, dressed up with insistent melodies, groovy beats and even joyous scatting. This is 100 per cent Tan’s vision as he composed the music, wrote the lyrics, did the arrangements, recording, mixing and also played the instruments.
Impressively, this is his second brilliant record in a little over a year after Buy 1 Get 1 Free, a Mando-Canto-jazzy-hip-hop collaboration with rapper MC Jin, came out last July.

Moonlight
Soft Lipa & Jabberloop, AsiaMuse Entertainment
Giving musical cross-pollination a good name is this collaboration between Taiwanese rapper Soft Lipa and Japanese jazz quintet Jabberloop.
It is an ambitious album that simply works as Soft Lipa’s smooth rapping flows along with the brassy brew of music on tracks such as Classic!. Add the elegantly elegiac She Waltzes With Time and the clear-eyed Process which both ponder life and living, and what you have is a richly layered album which warrants repeat listening.

Perfect Life
Yoga Lin, HIM International Music
The third album from Taiwanese singer Yoga Lin proves that being part of mainstream need not be a bad thing. The popular champ of the singing contest One Million Star in 2007 once again serves up an album with songs which appeal to different tastes and yet feels remarkably cohesive.
From the energetic jolt of Wake Up to the soothing balm of Good Night, Lin’s distinctive voice ties it all together to make this a near flawless pop record.

What I Want To Banish
Image is not everything when it comes to music albums. So Amber An and Show Lo, do note that the focal point should be the music CD – and not the fussily lavish photo album.
(ST)

Movies: Asian
Best & Worst
Let The Bullets Fly
Writer-director-star Jiang Wen’s hugely entertaining take on classic spaghetti westerns was both a critical and box-office hit. Even if some of the dense symbolism went flying over one’s head, there was much to enjoy here from the top-notch performances from Jiang, Ge You and Chow Yun Fat to the exciting action sequences to the zip and zing of the humour.
The two-hour-plus running time could have been trimmed but there is no denying that this was an exhilarating cinematic experience from a film-maker with a singular vision.

Poetry
Thanks to the Lee Chang Dong retrospective organised by local distributor Luna Films in July, audiences here finally had a chance to watch this drama on the big screen more than a year after it wowed the Cannes Film Festival.
The quietly devastating Poetry juxtaposes lyrical beauty with an ugly crime and is anchored by an unforgettable performance by Yun Jung Hee, a major star of Korean cinema in the 1960s and 1970s.

You Are The Apple Of My Eye
A simple story of first love is turned into a fresh, affecting and uproariously funny movie by first-time feature director Giddens Ko.
The casting is perfect with winning performances from newcomer Ko Chen-tung as the rascally and immature Ko Ching-teng and actress Michelle Chen as the sweet-but-not-saintly Shen Chia-yi. For his endearing portrayal, Ko was named Best New Performer at the Golden Horse Awards last month.
The ending will break your heart and then have you laughing heartily. An all-round charmer.

What I Want To Banish
The misuse and abuse of CGI in films such as Legendary Amazons, The Sorcerer And The White Snake and Mural. Also, Taiwan-born actress Shu Qi needs to stop acting drunk pronto. Her most recent episode of inebriation was in the sappy melodrama A Beautiful Life.
(ST)

Over The Cloud
Chyi Yu

Taiwanese diva Chyi Yu’s timing has improved since her last English album The Voice.
That semi-yuletide-themed offering came out in the unseasonal month of February, while Over The Cloud drifts by just in time for Christmas.
Deadlines aside, the song selection here is stronger, though the disc could have done without Sarah McLachlan’s schmaltzy Angel.
The Hank Williams-penned I Saw The Light is a rollicking spiritual that Chyi joyously embraces: “I wandered so aimless, life filled with sin/I wouldn’t let my dear Saviour in/Then Jesus came like a stranger in the night/Praise the Lord, I saw the Light”.
Her buoyant lilting voice also lights up the traditional numbers In The Sweet By And By and The Wayfaring Stranger.
Holiday chestnuts such as Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town and White Christmas are also included, and the sound of sleigh bells adds to the festive mood in her take on Jingle Bells.
There are not too many options when it comes to having an Asian pop singer spread the Yuletide cheer, so it’s a good thing that Chyi gets the job done.
(ST)

We Bought A Zoo
Cameron Crowe
The story: Widower Benjamin Mee (Matt Damon) gets a fresh start by buying a new house – one with a rundown zoo attached. While trying to connect with his sullen teenage son and looking after his young daughter, he also has to get the animal park ready for its opening with the help of head zookeeper Kelly Foster (Scarlett Johansson). Based on the 2008 memoir by Benjamin Mee.

We Bought A Zoo wants to be a warm-hearted feel- good offering for the holiday season but it ends up feeling a tad calculated instead.
The Hollywood treatment begins by transplanting the story stateside, turning the Dartmoor Zoological Park of the book into the film’s Rosemoor Animal Park.
Then it adds star power courtesy of Matt Damon and Scarlett Johansson.
After a busy year of high-concept dramas such as the sci-fi thriller The Adjustment Bureau (2011) and the medical thriller Contagion (2011), Damon relaxes with a supporting voice part in the animation Happy Feet Two and a not-too-taxing role as a widower-father trying to cope.
Even as a rather unlikely zookeeper, Johansson manages to up the movie’s glamour factor. The bigger problem is the cliched attraction between Kelly and Benjamin, conveniently available here, though in the book, he was taking care of his sick and dying wife.
Meanwhile, sullen Dylan Mee (Colin Ford) has innocent rural girl Lily (a charmingly gauche Elle Fanning) to draw him out of his emotional shell.
And Rosie Mee (Maggie Elizabeth Jones) is yet another cute moppet who spouts lines that are meant to elicit an “Oh, isn’t that adorable?” reaction.
Given that the park had 50 varieties of animals ranging from tigers to snakes to zebras, one was hoping for some entertaining interactions between them and the humans.
But even with a runaway creature and a last-minute problem with the lion’s cage on inspection day, there is not enough engaging animal drama.
Writer-director Cameron Crowe proved that he knew how to work with cute kids in the comedy drama Jerry Maguire (1996) and that he could tell a compelling story in Almost Famous (2000) but he is decidedly less assured here in his grasp of the tale.
If you are looking for a funny and entertaining story about animals, pick up a copy of Gerald Durrell’s classic My Family And Other Animals (1956) instead.
(ST)

Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows
Guy Ritchie
The story: The brilliant detective Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Jr) is investigating a series of seemingly unrelated crimes. With Europe’s peace at stake, he has to figure out – and stop – the game plan of the shadowy Dr Moriarty (Jared Harris) with the help of his trusted sidekick Dr John Watson (Jude Law) and
Sim, a gypsy fortune-teller (Noomi Rapace).

The sequel to the 2009 hit Sherlock Holmes reunites director Guy Ritchie with stars Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law.
It sticks to the same tone of the earlier movie, essentially a buddy-cop pairing of two men of very different temperament in an action-thriller. Think, say, Lethal Weapon (1987) set at the end of 19th- century Europe.
This being a sequel, everything, including the stakes, has to be grander and bigger.
The action is not just confined to London, as a building gets blown up in Paris, and Holmes and gang have to run for their lives through a forest in Germany as bullets zing and bombs explode around them.
The stakes are both political – peace in Europe – and personal, as Moriarty goes after Watson and his new wife Mary (Kelly Reilly).
Things get off to a quick and boisterous start with Holmes in disguise tracking former-lover-turned- Moriarty-associate Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams).
There is a dust-up and an assassination, followed by a stag party for Watson which turns into a messy brawl as Holmes tries to save Sim from a killer.
There is a lot happening and it feels rather disjointed as the film lurches from one set-up to the next.
Good thing that the movie remains grounded by the Holmes-Watson relationship even as it is being tested by Watson’s marriage.
Downey’s manic and wild-eyed Holmes plays off Law’s more sensible and uptight Watson, and Ritchie handles their bromance with a light comic touch.
Jared Harris, from TV’s acclaimed drama Mad Men, is not quite menacing enough as the world’s greatest criminal mastermind though.
But it was a nice touch that when the nefarious plot is finally uncovered, Moriarty points out that Holmes is fighting forces that are beyond him and that the audience knows would eventually lead to world war. There are limits to what even the great Sherlock Holmes can accomplish.
Unfortunately, the female characters get short shrift here.
Noomi Rapace, so compelling as Lisbeth Salander in the 2009 Swedish/Danish film adaptations of the late Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series, has little to do besides glower and flounce in her skirt as Sim. And Reilly and McAdams essentially have cameo roles.
What is lost in this busy film is the cerebral nature of Holmes’ detective work. This is something that Benedict Cumberbatch coolly nails as Holmes in the recent critically acclaimed BBC series Sherlock, which returns for a second season next month. Which is why the TV show is, for me, the more eagerly awaited sequel.
(ST)

You Are The Apple Of My Eye
Various artists

Be Yourself
Kai Ko Chen-tung

Still hankering for more after watching the Taiwanese youth drama You Are The Apple Of My Eye for the nth time?
Replay favourite moments from the hit film in your head, with the help of its original soundtrack which comprises a hodgepodge of featured songs as well as instrumental tracks. Fans would also be happy with the behind-the-scenes featurette included in the accompanying DVD.
The best numbers here are the poignant hit theme song Those Bygone Years by China singer Hu Xia, as well as lead actress Michelle Chen’s touchingly raw rendition of Childish.
Impressively, she wrote the music and lyrics for the track as well: “Tender childishness accompanied those years, like the gentle sun warming my heart”, and later, “Stubborn childishness pulled us apart, I dried my tears and left without turning back”.
Male lead Kai Ko Chen-tung also contributes his vocals to one track here, Lonely Caffeine. He has a pleasant enough baritone, but the song is not as memorable. Still, the 20-year-old newcomer’s upward trajectory is unstoppable at the moment with a Golden Horse Award for Best New Performer and also a debut record.
Even though the disc is titled Be Yourself, Ko seems to be taking on the persona of his character from the film – schoolboy-in-love Ko Ching-teng.
It is a smart move, as the album works as an unofficial soundtrack to the film.
The title of the opening number, Rang Wo Ji Xu Ai Ni (Let Me Continue To Like You), is a key piece of dialogue from the film and the official translation is actually You Are The Apple Of My Eye. The two leads are even reunited on the love duet Message In A Bottle.
One could also easily imagine the sentiments of Can’t Get Her Back and Let Me Love You Again being expressed by the character Ko Ching-teng.
The material here ranges from ballads to light pop-rock and does not overtax the neophyte singer. The question is whether he can follow up with a record that does not lean on the success of Apple. So, when is Michelle Chen releasing an album?
(ST)

Exclamation Point

Jay Chou

Singers such as Mavis Fan started out doing children’s songs and then spent years trying to be taken seriously as artists. Meanwhile, Mandopop king Jay Chou has decided to move in the opposite direction.

He has described his 11th release as being “more for the kids”.

And from the nautical cartoon-inspired CD cover design to the music video for the title track which unfolds like a frenetic videogame, one is left in no doubt whom this record is aimed at.

It is a strategy that has paid off as Exclamation Point debuted on top of the Mandarin albums chart in Taiwan, with the lion’s share of 48 per cent of sales.

The opening title track kicks off with siren wails and a rock swagger that leads to a chorus which sounds as though he is swearing. How fun for the kids, how lame for the grown-ups.

Princess Syndrome is like a warmed-over version of Sunny Otaku off 2007’s On The Run album, and the lyrics even include “sunny otaku”.

Hydrophobic Sailor is kind of cute, but he has sailed these waters before with tracks such as Cowboy On The Run (also from On The Run) and Mr Magic from Capricorn (2008).

So where does that leave the rest of Chou’s fans?

Head for the catchy dance beats of Enchanting Melody and check out its music video inspired by the cerebral Hollywood thriller Inception (2010).

And Shadow Puppetry shows that he is still capable of combining different elements – rap, falsetto, a sinuous synth line, Taiwanese comedian Tang Tsung-sheng’s lyrics about the folk art – into an irresistibly heady brew.

Taken as a whole, however, the album might be titled Exclamation Point but feels more like ellipsis as he treads water instead of aiming for new shores.

Deja Vu

Hacken Lee

Deja Vu indeed.

This feels like a return to the 1980s when big-name Cantopop stars would deign to release a Mandarin album every once in a while. Maybe it was at the dictates of the record label, but you could tell that their hearts were not in it. Neither was their diction.

Hacken Lee’s Mandarin pronunciation is passable, but the material is not. Mostly, it feels dated and stuck in time. The title of one track, The Happier I Get, The Lonelier I Am, even harks back to William So’s monster 1998 Canto hit The More We Kiss, The Sadder I Get.

Six years after his last Mandarin release Ask About Love, Lee goes on about love and loss in airbrushed ballads with little in the way of genuine emotion.

The saving grace are the jazzy The Best Medicine, which at least is an attempt at something different, and the two Cantonese songs tacked on at the end – Galaxy and Kongming Lantern. It is a relief to hear Lee in his mellifluous element instead of wondering whether the entire album was superfluous.

(ST)

What Is Troubling You

sodagreen

Listen. It is the first word sung here, an exhortation to pay careful attention to sodagreen’s eighth record.

But fans of the Taiwanese indie band would already know to do so, as poetic and incisive lyrics are a feature of frontman Wu Ching-feng’s compositions.

Opening track The Limits Of Happiness has him pondering: “Happiness won’t be like Newton, an apple turning into knowledge/So, should the one who doesn’t get it hate?”

Wu’s trademark soaring vocals have a vivid clarity which convey an emotional immediacy. When paired with poignantly tender lyrics as in Enjoy Loneliness – which the band had performed during the Loud Festival here recently – it’s goosebump-inducing: “Stretched out my hand then without a second thought/Saw your face, it was my universe/A sweet habit turned into routine life/So that I’ve understood something.”

Even if this is not the long-awaited autumnal follow-up to the summer-themed Fever, sodagreen are incapable of putting out a slapdash placeholder just to satisfy fans’ desire for new material.

The album also includes a sweet duet with popular girl group S.H.E’s Ella Chen and her alto pipes blend well with Wu’s high voice.

It all comes to a lovely end with the gospel-tinged title track as Wu sings: “Time never responds/Life never clamours/Even if it’s just moments, I’m not afraid/They make up forever.”

So just listen, and let sodagreen take away your troubles.

Hands Warmed With Love

Jerome Won

After honing his skills at Music Dreamer Cafe in Marina Square for 10 years, local singer Jerome Won is releasing his five-track debut EP.

The 32-year-old has richly evocative pipes that are showcased to great effect in the mid-tempo tracks about love here, including a cover of Hong Kong popster Leo Ku’s Struck By An Arrow.

It is also heartening to see a bunch of new names crop up in the songwriting credits: Composer Tok Ji Xiang and lyricist Zhang Le Sheng came up with the radio-friendly ballad Escape From Memories and for the romantic title track, Won composed the tune and Huang Jia Hui penned the lyrics.

Mournful strings open Hands, which goes on to paint a picture of devotion in a wintry emotional landscape: “I want to give you hands warmed with love, to warm your soul’s weary wait/Two hearts tightly bound together, searching for clues to each other.” This is a promising debut to warm a music lover’s heart.

(ST)

Restless

Gus Van Sant

Restless is a teen romance where the stakes are supposed to be heightened because of the spectre of death hanging over the characters but instead, it feels blanched of any meaningful drama.

No mean feat considering Enoch (Henry Hopper) crashes strangers’ memorials, has a ghost kamikaze pilot Hiroshi (Ryo Kase) for a friend and falls for Annabel (Mia Wasikowska), who turns out to have cancer.

Director Gus Van Sant has done intriguing work before with unusual material, including My Own Private Idaho (1991), a very loose take on Shakespeare’s Henry IV and Henry V, and Elephant (2003), about a high school shooting.

Here, he merely seems content to film everything prettily.

Henry Hopper, son of the late Dennis Hopper, has beautifully mussed-up hair while the gamine Wasikowska is pale and glamorously ill with her pixie-crop haircut.

Local actor Chin Han barely registers in a small role as a doctor. He is just another adult who hardly figures in the hermetic world of Enoch and Annabel.

Soporific, ponderous and self-consciously precious, the film left me feeling restless all right.

(ST)

Already Famous

Michelle Chong

Michelle Chong is one hilarious actress. We know that from the MediaCorp news spoof programme The Noose in which she fearlessly pulls off accents and switches personalities at the drop of a hat. Unfortunately, the writer-director-star is just stuck in one role here – as the starstruck Malaysian girl Ah Kiao who comes to Singapore in search of fame.

The story is threadbare and familiar, and Ah Kiao is just not interesting enough as a character to hold the movie together, though Chong does slip in some snarky observations about the entertainment scene including the strict hierarchy of actors, extras and make-up artists.

As a neophyte film-maker, she has trouble with pacing and the use of music. There are scenes which go on for too long without a worthwhile pay-off and the writing is not sharp enough – fellow Noose actor Chua Enlai, known for his comedic talent, is largely wasted as a bitchy sales assistant.

And the repeated use of the theme song in which Chong wails “Don’t give up, never give up” is grating rather than charming.

There is not much for Taiwanese singer-actor Alien Huang to do here as the improbable kopitiam boy who falls in love with Ah Kiao but smile and look sweet. Instead, it is Ah Kiao’s friend, a plump little boy who dreams of dancing ballet (played by Singaporean Tan Jun Sheng), who makes the bigger impression.

(ST)

50/50

Jonathan Levine

The story: Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a young man who does not drink and does not smoke. So the news that he has a rare form of cancer comes as an unexpected shock. He deals with it with help from his best friend Kyle (Seth Rogen), a counsellor younger than himself, Katie (Anna Kendrick), and his concerned mother (Anjelica Huston). The title refers to the chances of survival for someone with Adam’s condition.

It is official – you can crack jokes about cancer now.

On the small screen, acclaimed actress Laura Linney helms the Showtime comedy The Big C, which has been renewed for a third season.

And now on the big screen, there are characters using cancer as a pick-up line and as punch-lines.

When Adam first tells his best friend his bad news, Kyle’s reaction is: “Celebrities beat cancer all the time. Lance Armstrong, he keeps getting it,” and then, “if you were a casino game, you would have the best odds”.

Even Adam’s chemotherapy sessions feel like a cosy boys’ club with the good-natured ribbing by old-timers Alan (Philip Baker Hall) and Mitch (Matt Frewer).

But then a sudden death is a stark reminder that this is cancer here and the stakes are no less than life itself.

Scribe Will Reiser adapted his own experience with cancer for the script and he does a nice job in balancing the comedy with the anger, the fear and the frustration felt by the patient.

And it certainly helps to have Gordon-Levitt in the lead role. The actor has managed to escape the curse of being a young star on a hit TV show – Third Rock From The Sun (1996-2001) – and built a credible career based on indie films as diverse as the sexual abuse drama Mysterious Skin (2004) and the romantic comedy (500) Days Of Summer (2009).

Adam might not always be a nice guy but Gordon-Levitt keeps him real and grounded in a way that makes you care about what happens to him.

As Kyle, Rogen veers a little too close to the sweet-but-crude dude he has played before in raucous comedies such as Zack And Miri Make A Porno (2008) and Knocked Up (2007). But the friendship between the two men is touching and believable. Perhaps it helps that Rogen and Reiser are best friends in real life.

Kendrick, so memorable in the drama Up In The Air (2009), is adorable as the counsellor who is so young that she does not get Adam’s Doogie Howser reference. (Doogie Howser, M.D. was a 1989-1993 TV series about a teenage doctor.)

She finds herself caring for Adam beyond just seeing him as a patient and the film moves into romance territory when Adam’s self-absorbed girlfriend (Bryce Dallas Howard) gets out of the picture.

A romantic comedy with cancer sounds like an even worse idea than a comedy about the illness. But thanks to the actors, the writing and director Jonathan Levine’s light touch, 50/50 is not half bad.

(ST)

Jingle bells, holiday’s swell, lots of movies on the way.

This is the most wonderful time of the year for children as school is out and Christmas and New Year are just around the corner with the delectable promise of presents and pigging out on seasonal goodies.

Even the cineplexes seem more magical as they line up family-friendly fare that everyone can enjoy together.

For older folks, there is the nostalgic appeal of characters and stories one might have encountered as a child in films such as The Muppets, Starry Starry Night and Alvin And The Chipmunks 3.

There is also the more grown-up appeal of movie stars in We Bought A Zoo and even Horrid Henry: The Movie, while Arthur Christmas’ sly imagining of the entire Christmas set-up would probably strike a chord in those who have experienced the corporate world.

But do not be too quick to write off a film that seems to have little adult appeal.

After all, the holidays bring out the child in all of us.

Starry Starry Night

Release date: Tomorrow

Cast: Josie Xu Jiao, Eric Lin, Harlem Yu, Rene Liu

The story: Xiao Mei (Xu) is a 13-year-old schoolgirl with a vivid imagination. She uses it to cope with her grandfather’s illness, her parents’ unhappiness and her own loneliness.

She later finds a friend in Xiao Jie (Lin) and they set off on an adventure together.

Based on Taiwanese illustrator Jimmy Liao’s picture book Starry Starry Night (2009).

Kid appeal: The young, and the young at heart, will enjoy seeing how Liao’s beautifully illustrated book is adapted for a liveaction film. Who can resist the magical scenes of origami animals coming to life or a wondrous train whistling through the painted nightscape of Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night?

Children will also appreciate the way the world is seen through Xiao Mei’s eyes and that it can be a confusing and scary place sometimes.

Adult appeal: For those who remember Xu as a spirited little boy in Stephen Chow’s sci-fi comedy CJ7 (2008), marvel at how quickly the child star has grown up into a fine young actress.

There is also a lovely little coda added to the film that is not in the book. Years after Xiao Mei is all grown up (played by Guey Lun-mei), she chances upon an unusual jigsaw puzzle shop in Paris and is overcome by what, and whom, she finds there.

Liao’s artistry has a huge fanbase that goes beyond kiddy appeal. Other works of his which have made the leap to the big screen include Sound Of Colours (2001) and A Chance Of Sunshine (1999), which became the film Turn Left, Turn Right (2003).

You will appreciate how the whimsical spirit of his book has been translated on screen without the film being a slavish adaptation. Also, the CGI effects here have an emotional impact and are not merely visual showstoppers.

All in all, a winning ode to the power of imagination.

Arthur Christmas

Release date: Tomorrow

Cast: Voices of James McAvoy, Hugh Laurie, Jim Broadbent, Imelda Staunton

The story: Santa Claus (Broadbent) has returned from his 70th mission to deliver presents to children all over the world when an elf discovers a wrapped gift that was forgotten.

Santa’s son Arthur (McAvoy) has to figure out a way to save Christmas for one little girl before the sun rises.

Kid appeal: Christmas equals presents, so the thought of Santa and an entire team of elves using nifty high-tech wizardry to ensure smooth delivery of every single item will be a highly comforting one.

Good old-fashioned magic is not neglected: There is the wondrous spectacle of reindeer flying through the sky, pulling along a sleigh with Santa at the reins.

There is also the inspirational and feel-good story of Arthur himself – abumbling but good-hearted young man who saves the day and finds his destiny.

Adult appeal: You might appreciate the sly portrayal of Christmas as a mega- efficient, corporatised enterprise which is, alas, lacking in soul.

There is even succession politics as retired Grand Santa, current Santa and Santa’s other son Steve all squabble for the heralded position.

Those who enjoyed the Wallace & Gromit claymation films about the timid inventor Wallace and his clever dog Gromit might be interested to learn that this is the first computer-animated film made by Aardman Animations in partnership with Sony Pictures Entertainment. Feel free to debate whether this was a good move artistically for Aardman.

For something a little more challenging, avoid looking at the cast list and then play Who’s That British Thespian? during the show.

Horrid Henry: The Movie

Release date: Dec 22

Cast: Theo Stevenson, Scarlett Stitt, Anjelica Huston, Richard E. Grant

The story: Horrid Henry (Stevenson) fails to hand in his homework yet again, setting off a chain of events that has him forming an unlikely alliance with his arch-enemy Moody Margaret (Stitt) and his annoying little brother. And he ends up, gasp, saving the elementary school he detests.

Kid appeal: The first Horrid Henry book was published in 1994 and the 20th title Horrid Henry And The Zombie Vampire was released this year. The combined sales of all the books and audiobooks is more than 16 million copies.

This led to a successful animated television series which premiered in the United Kingdom in 2006 and the show is currently in its third season.

Clearly, kids love Horrid Henry.

Adult appeal: Think of this as an updated version of Dennis the Menace.

And there could be some campy fun in Huston’s take on Henry’s terrifying teacher Miss Battle-Axe. After all, she did play the Grand High Witch in the 1990 film adaptation of Roald Dahl’s children’s classic, The Witches.

We Bought A Zoo

Release date: Dec 22

Cast: Matt Damon, Thomas Haden Church, Scarlett Johansson, a menagerie of animals

The story: Based on Benjamin Mee’s memoir about buying the dilapidated Dartmoor Zoological Park in the English countryside.

In 2007, it was the subject of a four-part television documentary titled Ben’s Zoo.

In this stateside big-screen adaptation, the tale has been transplanted to Southern California.

Kid appeal: As little girl Rosie Mee (Maggie Elizabeth Jones) says when she finds out that her new home is a zoo: “Yay!”

There are two zebras and a lion among the 47 animal species so there is plenty of potential for the city slickers to be shown up by them.

Adult appeal: Director-producer Cameron Crowe proved with Jerry Maguire (1996) that he could work with children and with The Wild Life (1984), a sequel to Fast Times At Ridgemont High which he wrote and produced, he proved that he could, um, handle wild life.

There is also the top-notch cast including Damon and Church as brothers.

The busy Damon has been recently seen in fare as diverse as the western True Grit (2010) and heard in the animated feature Happy Feet Two (2011) voicing Bill the Krill. And Church is best known for his work on Sideways (2004), the hit comedy about wine and life.

If you think sex appeal is bound to be lacking in a film like this, here are two words for you: Scarlett Johansson. She plays head zookeeper Kelly Foster.

The Muppets

Release date: Dec 8

Cast: Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Jason Segel, Amy Adams

The story: The Muppet Theatre is about to be torn down by greedy oilman Tex Richman (Chris Cooper) unless the Muppets can raise $10 million in time.

But first, Kermit the Frog has to round up the gang with the help of Walter, a puppet and huge Muppets fan, his brother Gary (Jason Segel) and Gary’s girlfriend Mary (Amy Adams). They decide to put on a show in the best Muppets tradition and turn it into a telethon.

Kid appeal: There is a timeless appeal in Jim Henson’s motley crew of goodhearted puppets whose antics run the range from slapstick – Gonzo’s daredevil stunts – to the sublimely ridiculous – Camilla the Chicken with her posse of hens clucking along to Cee Lo Green’s Forget You.

Adult appeal: Embrace the return to a simpler, sweeter and sillier time in this nostalgia fest as those in their 30s and older would remember The Muppet Show, which ran from 1976 to 1981.

The self-referential humour is there, together with a clever updating of what the Muppets are up to before Kermit gathers the group. Miss Piggy is the plus-size fashion editor of Vogue Paris while Animal is in an anger-management clinic.

Writer-actor Segel is a long-time Muppets fan and that affection is palpable on screen. You might even find a lump in your throat when Kermit and gang are back on stage and singing the idealistic Rainbow Connection.

This is the first Disney-produced Muppets film since Muppet Treasure Island (1996) flopped. The studio hopes to revive the puppets’ fortunes with this outing.

Alvin And The Chipmunks 3

Release date: Dec 15

Cast: Alvin (Justin Long), Simon (Matthew Gray Gubler), Theodore (Jesse Mc-Cartney), The Chipettes, Jason Lee

The story: The Chipmunks and The Chipettes go on a cruise trip with the Chipmunks’ owner/manager Dave (Lee). They get up to their usual tricks and end up in hairy situations – on the ship and when they get “chipwrecked”, which is also the American title of this sequel.

Kid appeal: For some reason, kids find helium voices hilarious. Add cute little chipmunks with plump little cheeks and a penchant for getting into trouble and they are hooked.

Adult appeal: For 53-year-old chipmunks, Alvin and gang are remarkably spry. They were created in 1958 as an animated music group and later starred in a successful cartoon series Alvin And The Chipmunks from 1983 to 1990.

Meanwhile, The Chipettes are 28 years young – there is definitely a May-December thing going on here.

It also means there is an entire generation who grew up on the cartoons and are happy to relive fond childhood memories of rascally squirrels and squeaky voices.

Given the combined US$800 million (S$1.04 billion) global box-office gross of the two earlier films in 2007 and 2009, there is definite grown-up appeal for the studio honchos to plough on with the franchise.

(ST)

Riding A Bicycle

Soft Lipa & Shin-Ski

No Crying

Waa Wei

Track 6

Cheer Chen

The hard part to releasing a critically acclaimed album is following it up. And three musicians have taken on the challenge in their own ways – with varying results.

Taiwanese rapper Soft Lipa, real name Tu Chen-hsi, joined forces with Japanese jazz quintet on the revelatory Moonlight (2010). This time round, he has worked with Japanese hip-hop producer Shin-Ski to produce Riding A Bicycle.

While not as ground-breaking as Moonlight, there is much to admire and enjoy here. Soft Lipa is a master of rhythm and the chorus of Ride a bike, ride a bike is as hypnotic as watching wheels turn. Check out, too, the effortless flow of Minnan track Looking For Ong A.

There are also several collaborations, including with singer-songwriter Lala Hsu and jazz rap outfit ShinSight Trio.

Listen To One Song, which features reggae group Matzka, ponders the connection between listener and song: “It could be popular right now, or long past its prime/Or maybe it seems to exist just for you, with no one else knowing it/You can’t help but wonder, how the writer lives/So close, have you met before?”

Less successful is Taiwanese singer- songwriter Waa Wei’s offering after the elegant electronica of Graceful Porcupine (2010). Parts of No Crying feel like an indulgent exercise with her excesses on full display, from the babyish cooing on Bubble Life to the eight-minute-long Lovers, which incorporates a spoken-word narrative by the poet Hsia Yu.

Head instead for the attitude rock of Close Friends, the drama of One Stone, One Story and the tenderness of ballad Us. And Roarrrr’s lyrics made me laugh out loud: “When I don’t know what to do, I’ll shout ho-yo/When one steps in dog poo, who won’t cry ho-yo”.

Taiwan’s Cheer Chen has followed up the ruminative Immortal (2009) with a single.

It comprises the spoken word track Misty Dance as well as Ephemera, a ballad she first performed during her A Piece Of Summer II tour (2010-2011). The latter is an instant Chen-penned classic filled with hope and loss. Over ukelele and strings, she sings: “Every day, opening our eyes, we are mayflies/Living ordinary lives, vigorously chasing after one dream”.

It does a nice job in helping fans to tide over the dry spell between her albums.

(ST)

Crowd Lu Concert Singapore 2011

Grand Theater at Marina Bay Sands

Last Saturday

Forget the movie Happy Feet. The audience at Crowd Lu’s gig was treated instead to the real deal.

The Taiwanese singer-songwriter was so engrossed in his songs that his feet threatened to dance away from him in a burst of exuberance.

Seized by the music, they would bang together to keep time, twist about in a hypnotic manner or tap with an insistent urgency. At times, one leg would be raised or even two as he balanced on the stool.

It laid to rest any fears that the spontaneity of his performance would be compromised in a larger, grander venue with an audience of 1,800 instead of the 800 at his last solo gig here at St James Power Station’s Dragonfly in January last year.

Indeed, Lu proved that he could deliver a compelling show even without the bells and whistles of a slick set-up. He sported his familiar bowl-cut hairstyle, black-rimmed glasses as well as a striped T-shirt, bermudas and canvas shoes.

Instead of changing costumes, he switched guitars. He was supported by just a drummer, a bassist and a trumpet player.

Vocally, the 26-year-old was in excellent form as he took on ballads, breezy folk-pop and raucous rock numbers. He performed all 11 tracks from his third and latest album Slow Soul (2011) and even went all the way back to the first single he released in 2006, Yuan Ming.

Often, he would give a short introduction of the upcoming number. Zai Jian Afadisi (roughly Goodbye Afa-deus) was inspired by his roommate getting a haircut while Rock’n Roll Style came about as the result of a ravenous breakfast episode.

His songs are refreshingly grounded in life and his palpable optimism is infectious. On disc, a song such as Rainbow almost comes across as twee but you cannot help but smile when he says at the performance: “When you feel that you’re going through a rough patch, just turn on the water hose and, wow, rainbow.”

By the time he sang the joyous Goodbye Pinky Swear off 2009’s Seven Days, he had everyone on his feet and dancing along with the entertaining instructional video of him going through the moves.

For the encore, he opened with Slow Soul and then served crowd-favourite Good Morning, Beautiful Dawn! from debut album 100 Ways For Living (2008) as the fans happily chorused along, “Dui a, dui a” (That’s right).

The final song was the whimsically poignant Wu Di Tie Jin Gang (literally Mazinger Z, a robot from the Japanese anime series of the same name), which was performed by Lu alone with his guitar.

While I had a pang of nostalgia for his previous cosier gigs, it is great that his music is reaching a wider audience. In a world that can sometimes be grey and cynical, we could all do with a dose of the antidote that is Crowd Lu.

(ST)

Girls’ Generation Vol. 3

– The Boys

Girls’ Generation

Five

Ayumi Hamasaki

According to an online poll by ticketing agent Sistic, Korean group Girls’ Generation is the No. 1 live act requested by Singaporeans.

Ahead of their highly anticipated sold-out concerts here on Dec 9 and 10, the nine-member group have released their third Korean album.

It is clear that they have their eye on the global market as two of the songs here are available in different versions.

Mr Taxi, with its catchy nonsensical phrase “Supersonic n’ hypertonic”, was first released in Japanese while the title track The Boys was also released as an English-language single. Not surprisingly, these are among the strongest tracks here.

For the most part, the pop here is either sweet and bubbly, as on Say Yes or My J, or dancey with a sexy edge as on Trick and Oscar. But with the exception of the chirpy Lazy Girl (Dolce Far Niente), they do not leave a strong enough impression, maybe because a key component is missing here – the DVD of irresistibly choreographed music videos.

So what is a J-pop queen to do when K-pop is in the ascendancy and Korean acts are muscling in on her territory? Ayumi Hamasaki sticks to the basics.

In her case, that means writing all the lyrics. She contemplates a past relationship in the R&B duet ANother Song with J-pop band AAA’s Urata Naoya and is touchingly fragile on the ballad Beloved.

It also means offering an eye-popping array of image makeovers. Her chameleon-like guises are on full display in the accompanying DVD, which features music videos and making-ofs for all five tracks on this EP.

In Brillante, a dramatic ballad about going it on her own, she transforms into a blinged-out Egyptian queen surrounded by a mountain of male flesh.

One way or another, she is still royalty.

(ST)

Happy Feet 2

George Miller

The story: In Happy Feet (2006), tap-dancing penguin Mumble (Elijah Wood) found his mate, Gloria (popster Pink takes over from the late Brittany Murphy in the sequel). They now have a son Erik (voice actress E.G. Daily), who cannot dance. A bigger problem looms, though, when their colony is trapped by a massive shelf of ice and it is up to father and son to save the day with help from their friends.

If only this were Bill And Will’s Excellent Adventure.

The two krill are merely tiny players in the movie but they light up the screen every time they come on. Their goofy bromance is gamely played out by Brad Pitt and Matt Damon, who have worked together on films such as the Ocean’s series of heist movies.

The two actors are clearly having fun and they deliver lines such as “Goodbye krill world!” with relish.

Indeed, it is the supporting cast including Hank Azaria as The Mighty Sven, a “penguin” who can fly, and Robin Williams as the lovelorn Ramon as well as the evangelistic Lovelace, who buoy the film with their humorous characterisations.

The addition of the small krill also means that director George Miller, who had helmed the violent action film Mad Max (1979), gets to play around with perspectives here.

One moment, he would zoom in close on the shrimp-like crustacean so that one can even see the texture of the ice, and the next, he would be pulling out to show the vastness of the Antarctic landscape of snow and ice.

The rest of the film can pretty much be described as Glee for the penguin crowd.

It opens with a lavish musical number that mashes up hits including Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation and Justin Timberlake’s SexyBack, with the lyrics changed to “We’re bringing fluffy back”.

Dancing penguins and fluffy little chicks are adorable for about five seconds but the cuteness wears off when every dramatic moment is turned into an opportunity for a song-and-dance production.

A musical is a leap of faith as one does not normally expect a person to burst into song at the drop of a hat. And the suspension of disbelief required to buy into penguins doing that is just too big a jump.

Erik gets his big dramatic moment when his father’s plea for help to the elephant seals is initially rebuffed. But the ballad is delivered in a shrill chipmunkish voice that is more cringing than moving.

I wonder what Bill and Will would have made of that.

(ST)

Legendary Amazons

Frankie Chan

The story: In the 10th century AD, North Song dynasty’s borders were under constant attack by the people of Western Xia. The men of the Yang family have died in battle and Yang Zongbao (Richie Jen) is the latest to be defeated. His son, Wenguang, the clan’s last male scion, is ordered into battle as well and the women of the family, including his great-grandmother Taijun (Cheng Pei-pei) and mother Mu Guiying (Cecilia Cheung), decide to go with him.

There is an entire entertainment cottage industry based on the exploits of the Yang family.

There have been folk tales, plays, novels, a Peking opera titled Female Generals Of The Yang Clan, numerous television drama serials as well as a big-screen adaptation, the Shaw Brothers’ classic 14 Amazons (1972).

The fascination stems in part from the rare opportunity to depict strong and warrior-like women, given that war is often the preserve of the men, as in the case of Peter Chan’s The Warlords (2007).

The dilemma between loyalty to one’s country and responsibilities to one’s family is made all the more poignant, given that it is a group of widows who are fighting for their country.

But in this latest remake, all the high-minded talk of duty and sacrifice merely feels like hogwash with all that stupidity and silliness unfolding on screen.

Despite being wounded in battle, Mu Guiying is able to take out waves of enemy soldiers, who are comic caricatures with their mohawks and dreadlocks.

One fight scene follows another but given the large cast of poorly defined female characters, one’s patience soon wears thin.

On the other hand, too much time is devoted to the impulsive brat that is Wenguang, who is all too eager to fall for an obvious ruse laid out by the enemy.

Then there are the tacky and cheap-looking CGI effects which completely take one out of the story every time they are employed.

Furthermore, an obstacle such as crossing over a gorge is overcome in the most risible and hilarious manner as a metallic rope bridge is somehow woven from the armour the women soldiers are wearing. At this point, Legendary Amazons switches genres from period action to comic fantasy.

And did I mention that soldiers leap about on pogo stick-like devices in one battle scene? It is hard to believe that this is not a spoof and that one is meant to take this movie seriously.

Before the audience gets to the end, there are still the soap opera revelations to get through and a final death scene that is meant to be moving but is epic only in the scale of its failure.

The bright side is, given the thriving cottage industry, it would not be too long before another adaptation comes around to wipe out the memory of this one.

(ST)

Do You Love Me?

Wu Jiahui

Where’s the love for Malaysian singer-songwriter Wu Jiahui? Since his debut album in 2008, which was repackaged for the Taiwanese market last year, he has not released anything new – till this EP.

His high-pitched, crystal-clear voice is still in good form. He begins the album on a high note, literally, on the word Love. However, the songs here lack the immediacy of Although I’m Willing and No Home To Return To from his earlier disc.

Very Me offers a glimpse into the mind of this travelling troubadour: “No matter where I drift in the future/I’ll still have to bring those traces from the past/That’s a heart that’s very me and that belongs to me.”

It sounds like a lonely journey, but one has to admire his resolve: “Whether the road ahead is right or not/Doesn’t matter, I’ve no regrets.”

Nocturnal

Aziatix

Korean-American outfit Aziatix comprise rapper Flowsik, R&B singer-songwriter Eddie Shin and Mandopop singer Nicky Lee.

On their full-length English-language debut, the trio sing and rap mostly about girls over thumping beats and synthesizer hooks. Flowsik brags on Say Yeah: “I’ma show the girls I’m bout it/And they gon’ show me how they ride it.”

It’s all pretty smooth, if somewhat generic and not particularly exciting.

At least the tracks that venture beyond relationships and hook-ups offer something different.

Whatchu Know About Us piles on the football metaphors as they take on the doubters: “Witnessing hatred flying at me from every corner/On the brink of madness but I choose to play it smarter/Work twice as harder, with dreams of being Carter.”

Embrace them or diss them, Aziatix already have their comeback worked out. They declare on A Game: “I don’t care ’bout what you say, just know I’m here and I’m here to stay, hey.”

(ST)

You Are The Apple Of My Eye

Giddens Ko

The story: The playful and rascally 16-year-old Ko Ching-teng (Ko Chen-tung) is made to sit in front of goody-two-shoes Shen Chia-yi (Michelle Chen) in class as punishment. To her annoyance, Chia-yi has orders from the teacher to keep an eye on him. They needle each other incessantly at first but gradually, Ching-teng begins to nurse a crush on Chia-yi.

Writer-director Giddens Ko has made a simple story of first love into a memorable work that is fresh, affecting, and often uproariously funny.

This is not one of those films about teenagers who have been scrubbed clean. The characters in Apple play dumb pranks, and driven by their hormonal urges, make stupid mistakes and swear constantly.

Actually, that is what the boys do. Ko captures beautifully the purity of youth and the poignant fact that boys are simply emotionally less mature compared to girls of the same age.

The casting is perfect with newcomer Ko Chen-tung nailing Ching-teng’s mix of impishness and idealism, swagger and shyness – an endearingly and maddeningly immature boy on the cusp of manhood.

Michelle Chen, last seen in the romantic drama Hear Me (2009), so thoroughly inhabits the role of the sweet-but-not-saintly Chia-yi that she is now seen as the ideal girlfriend by her many male fans.

The chemistry between the two leads is genuine and unforced and you soon find yourself cheering on their tentative relationship.

Since the film is based on the director’s 2007 semi-autobiographical novel of the same name, one can sense the palpable affection he has for all the characters here.

The array of quirky classmates include the perpetually aroused Boner (Yen Sheng-yu), basketball-mad Lao Tsao (boyband Lollipop F’s Owodog), failed magician Liao Kai Pien (Tsai Chang-hsien) and the tubby A-ho (Steven Hao) as well as Shen’s good friend Hu Chia-wei (Wan Wan).

They could have been little more than one-note supporting players but the actors and the smartly exaggerated script manage to make each of them memorable in his own way.

The film sags somewhat in the middle after they graduate from high school and go their separate ways but it more than redeems itself with an ending that makes your heart break – and then has you guffawing heartily and leaving the theatre with a grin on your face and a spring in your step.

A real delicious Apple.

(ST)

Mosaic - The National

Esplanade Theatre/Sunday

Lots of bands make broody moody music but none does it like Ohio-born, Brooklyn-based indie rockers The National.

There is frontman Matt Berninger’s distinctive voice – a richly resonant and soulful baritone with a magnetic presence.

And of course, the magnificent songs, drawn largely from their last two acclaimed albums, Boxer (2007) and High Violet (2010). They are mostly written by Berninger and the twin brothers/ guitarists Aaron and Bryce Dessner.

There is the music itself – buzzing guitars, gently propulsive drums and the on-stage presence of a trumpet and a trombone for added texture.

And the lyrics can be strikingly evocative as in Bloodbuzz Ohio – “I was carried to Ohio in a swarm of bees” – or when Berninger sang of being “showered and blue- blazered” on Mistaken For Strangers.

Indeed, he was looking dapper in a black suit complete with tie and vest while his bandmates were togged out in black and grey.

Unexpectedly, the bearded frontman also had an offbeat sense of humour and, after explaining that he was drinking wine and not urine on stage, he deadpanned at one point: “Time for more swan’s urine. It’s hard to hold down a swan and make it pee into a bottle.”

He might dress like a sombre gentleman but there was a showman side to Berninger as well. During Squalor Victoria, he loosened his tie and let out his inner rock star. He flung the mike-stand to the ground as he shouted the lyrics: “This isn’t working, f*** that.”

For the set-closer Fake Empire, he came down from the stage and was borne aloft by fans as he walked over the seats. It sent the sold-out crowd into a near-frenzy.

Incidentally, an instrumental version of Fake Empire had been featured in American President Barack Obama’s election campaign.

For a moment, it seemed as though Berninger was about to get political when he asked if anyone had been following American politics.

Then he added: “It’s been particularly awful this week... but I won’t talk about it,” before segueing into Terrible Love.

The final song of the evening was the hauntingly cryptic Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks. Over acoustic guitars and mournful brass, the band crooned: “Vanderlyle crybaby cry/Though the water’s a-rising/Still no surprising you.”

Earlier in the evening, Berninger had thanked the crowd for waiting after the band postponed their Asian tour in March due to the earthquake in Japan.

Fans would say that it was worth the wait.

(ST)

One Way Ticket

Wu Bai & China Blue

Leehom New + Best Selections

Wang Lee Hom

Don’t let Blue Moon, the title of the opening track of his new album, fool you: Veteran Taiwanese singer-songwriter Wu Bai has been releasing albums far more consistently than that.

This marks his 16th studio release since 1992’s Loving Others Is A Happy Thing.

Over the years, there has been a distinct shift in his sound as well.

The earnest rock of hard-luck tales in the early releases has evolved into more playful shades.

The ballad Knot ties together a plaintive synth line with guitars: “Late night, perhaps you don’t want to sleep/Dawn breaks, the corners of your eyes still have tears/Maybe it’s like I imagined from head to toe/I know there must be a knot in your heart.”

I Was Wrong pairs woe-is-me lyrics with an unexpectedly breezy melody: “When I’m awake/Tears keep flowing/I think I’m already used to being very lonely.”

Wu Bai’s twangy vocals don’t work with all of the material here.

And the rock ballad version of Sarah Chen’s Dream To Awakening makes one yearn for the Wu Bai of old. Still, you have to respect him for trekking on.

Without quite looking it, Taiwan- based Wang Lee Hom is now a veteran of the music scene as well, with a total of 14 studio albums since 1995’s Love Rival Beethoven. This two-disc release compiles tracks from his Sony years from 1998 to the present.

The R&B-flavoured hits such as Revolution, Shangri-La and A Sun That’s Been Washed In Spring Rain are still a treat to listen to, as are the emo ballads such as Kiss Goodbye and The One And Only.

There are also some pleasant surprises such as the jazzy vibe of the less familiar Love Love Love from 2003’s Unbelievable. What has not improved with time are his self-described “chinked-out” tracks, which attempt to meld hip-hop with Mandopop – the irritatingly pompous Heroes Of Earth even features elements of Chinese opera.

There are two new tracks included here: maudlin ballad Still Love You and the campily fun Fire Power To The Max.

But with the omission of the exuberant Impossible To Miss You and the groovy logic of Loving You Equals Loving Myself, this collection is definitely not firing on all cylinders.

(ST)

23:59

Gilbert Chan

National service is a rite of passage for every Singaporean male and it comes replete with stories about haunted camps and unclean training grounds.

Among the most famous is the one about the bunk with the extra door at the Pulau Tekong camp, perhaps the result of a route march that chillingly ends in tragedy. Given the wealth of material out there, it is disappointing that this film did not do a better job of assimilating those tales into a coherent whole. And despite some creepy atmospherics, the slow-moving flick never quite gathers enough momentum to be truly unsettling.

As for the titular 23:59, writer-director Gilbert Chan points to it as the most potent time for a person to die as his or her spirit will then return to haunt the living. Unfortunately, this promising germ of an idea is never fully exploited. Instead, we get a largely Malaysian cast acting out various soldier stereotypes while Mark Lee (above left) plays the superstitious sergeant, a variation of his Hokkien Beng persona.

By the time the movie wanders into full-on demon-exorcism mode, it almost feels campy rather than horrific.

(ST)

Faye Wong 2011 Concert

Singapore Indoor Stadium/Last Saturday

Banter is part and parcel of every concert experience, except when it comes to a Faye Wong gig.

The Chinese pop diva said “xie xie” (thank you) five times and the sixth time, just to mix things up a bit, she said it in Cantonese. And that was the sum total of what she uttered to the sold-out crowd of 6,500.

Then again, if you are a fan, you were not there for the small talk. A Faye Wong concert is first and foremost about hearing her sing live.

And as a bonus, this concert boasted a few beautifully conceived tableaux. The creative director of the show is Ida Wong, also the producer-director of the tour, which has so far been to Beijing, Shanghai, Taipei, Hong Kong, Nanjing, Changsha and Wuhan. There was also creative input from director Wong Kar Wai for the visuals.

The show opened with a wintry snowscape. There were trees with bare branches and what appeared to be a huge white rock in the middle of the stage. The structure eventually split apart to reveal Wong as a human chandelier, singing her Cantonese ballad Promise.

Both she and the sound system got off to a shaky start. She sounded tentative and her pitch did not seem too secure.

But by the time she sang her cover of Teresa Teng’s You Are In My Heart, things were beginning to come together and the crowd signalled its approval with a roar.

Winter gave way to spring and Wong changed from her white get-up into an outfit with a flouncy red and white skirt.

Summer arrived with a blast of electric guitars as she took on the invigorating To Love and the electropop of The Last Blossom.

She was beginning to hit her stride as her pipes warmed up, which made it the perfect moment to put on Face. The track was a showstopper on the Scenic Tour (1998) album and live, it was a stunner as Wong switched between an operatic higher register and a twangy lower range.

While she never quite broke into a dance, she would shift about on the balls of her feet and during Bored, she even twirled the microphone over her head.

It was during the Autumn segment that she literally soared. She sat on a structure that seemed to be made of air and light and the entire contraption was hoisted over the stage and then, thrillingly, over the audience.

The ceiling was lit up like a night heavy with stars as she sang Sky and Wishing We Could Last Forever. The effect was heartstoppingly magical.

At other times, the lighting alone was enough to create drama. During her rendition of her early Cantonese hit Cold War, she was strikingly framed by cones of light beamed from different angles.

While her last album was 2003’s To Love, it did not mean that there was no new material at the concert. In a show of versatility, she gave her own take on Karen Mok’s Single Room Double Bed as well as Sinead O’Connor’s A Perfect Indian.

In the final Rebirth segment, Wong wore a white dress with a print pattern of black skulls. She performed New Tenant and then Chanel, as red cloth twirled mesmerisingly from the rafters.

Both numbers, as well as the following Flower On The Other Shore, are from the song cycle that she composed for Fable (2000). Flower is not exactly a crowd-pleasing set-ender and yet, Wong made it work.

She sang it standing in front of a screen, onto which a reflection of her was also projected, lending an other-worldly vibe to the proceedings.

By the end of the song, she was in that other world as depicted by the visuals of sweeping vistas on the screen.

Then intriguingly, the screen tilted and turned into a giant mirrored surface reflecting the audience back to themselves.

The house lights came on as Wong’s voice sang a Buddhist sutra. Slowly, the fans got to their feet and streamed out, too flummoxed to even chorus for an encore.

It was a deliciously enigmatic moment when pop culture and conceptual visual art collided.

Wong might not have said much that night but she certainly made a statement with that ending.

(ST)

Bad Man

Li I-chun

2 Be Different

Cindy Yen

Back in the early 1990s, Taiwan’s Li I-chun was peddling ballads about being unlucky in love. It seems like her romantic fortunes have not improved.

The songstress wails on Adding Hail To Snow: “My love can no longer come true/Can’t wait for the ends of time/If I weren’t soft-hearted time and again/I wouldn’t have been left forlorn time and again.”

On the Minnan number Half Of Man Is Woman, she begins by lamenting: “Not willing to see your wanton soul/Destroy your precious youth.”

The arrangements are also determinedly retro. This only makes the attempt to drag the album into the present by including a rap on I Don’t Believe jarring. The album is best taken in small doses or when a session of wallowing is called for.

While Li has stuck to doing what she does best, newcomer Cindy Yen is still floundering about in search of an identity.

After the clean-cut girl-next-door image on her 2009 debut failed to take hold, the singer-songwriter has been made over with a sexier look and a more dance-oriented sound.

Her vocals have not improved much, though, and she still sounds too shrill at times. And horrors, she goes cutesy on the cringingly bad track, Innocent Ground.

Yen also needs to realise that scream- singing will not help a ballad such as Shatter The Sadness. Shattering eardrums will not win her any new fans.

(ST)

The Chinese pop star the world knows as Faye Wong was someone quite different when she started out in show business – literally.

Her first three records with Hong Kong’s Cinepoly Records in 1989 and 1990 saddled her with Cantonese covers of American and Japanese hits, and the moniker Shirley Wong Jing Man.

Even then, the pristine quality of her clear, unsullied pipes shone through.

It was with 1992’s Coming Home, released after a study stint in New York, that she officially became Faye Wong. Musically, the album was more adventurous than typical Cantopop fare but her big hit was still a cover. Fragile Woman was a remake of the Japanese song Rouge and was a winner both on radio charts and during awards season.

Even as Wong began to explore different genres over her next few albums, she also continued to record the no-brainer commercial numbers. There seemed to be a tussle between what she wanted and the dictates of the record company.

When she began releasing Mandarin albums with 1994’s Mystery, the split was along language lines. True, she delivered beautiful ballads such as I’m Willing and Chess, but it was the Cantonese releases which proved to be more satisfying.

Even the album titles indicated her musical restlessness, such as Random Thoughts (1994), Ingratiate Oneself (1994) and Di-Dar (1995). These were alternative pop records in the sense that the music differed from mainstream offerings and the lyrics were more enigmatic than the usual musings about love.

One criticism often raised by detractors is that Wong is a mere copycat. In particular, she not only modelled her vocal stylings after Irish singer Dolores O’Riordan, she also covered The Cranberries’ Dreams in both Cantonese and Mandarin.

It is not true that she was content to simply emulate, though. It was a way of absorbing new ideas and influences and it paid off in spades on her most audacious album, Restless (1996).

She went from covering the Cocteau Twins’ Bluebeard to collaborating with the Scottish alternative rock band as they contributed two original tracks to the album, Fracture and Spoilsport.

The rest of the atmospheric electropop album was composed and written by Wong and featured made-up sounds such as the “la cha bor” refrain on the title track, to her scatting her way through Imagine. It is her most daring and cohesive effort to date.

Her next few albums were less experimental. Instead, they managed to strike a balance between musical exploration and commercial concerns. Her voice sounds deceptively delicate but it was a powerfully expressive and versatile instrument. It could be disarmingly child-like on You’re Happy (So I’m Happy), poignantly tender on Red Bean and then showily operatic on Face.

On Fable (2000), that schism between her and a by-now-different music label once again emerged. She composed the music for a cycle of five songs dealing with Buddhist concepts, with frequent collaborator Hong Kong’s Lin Xi providing lyrics. But the rest of the album was jarringly radio friendly.

Her last two studio albums saw her working with some new partners such as Taiwanese rocker Wu Bai. In the case of the techno-rock of Two People’s Bible off 2001’s self-titled record, the end result feels more Wu than Wong. More heartening were the songs on disc two, her most substantive offering of original Cantonese material since 1997’s Toy.

To Love (2003) marked a return to the template of her late 1990s albums but did not quite reach the same heights. Her compositions here include the throbbing title track as well as the exquisitely written Leave Nothing: “I gave the cinema ticket to you, gave the seat to him/I gave the candlelight to you, gave the dinner to him”.

Since then, there has been the odd soundtrack contribution to whet fans’ appetites but no sign of a new album. Hope springs eternal that she will some day decide to embark on another musical adventure.

Mystery (1994)

Faye Wong had previously sung in Mandarin, most notably on the track No Regrets off the 1993 album of the same name. Mystery is her first all-Mandarin disc and is best known for the ethereal ballad I’m Willing. However, it contained too many remakes of her Cantonese hits, including a new cover of Tori Amos’ Silent All These Years. Regardless, it was a huge hit and sales went past the 800,000 mark in Taiwan alone.

Random Thoughts (1994)

At this point, her Cantonese releases were more daring and playful both musically and in terms of packaging. Unusual for a release by a major pop star, there was no sign of her face anywhere on the CD. Instead, there were fragments of phrases such as “No new image” and “No photo booklet”. While the anglicised name Faye had already appeared on 1992’s Coming Home album, this was the first time she used her actual Mandarin name Wang Fei.

Chungking Express (1994)

Critics say that Faye Wong can only act as herself. True, but given the right role and director, her natural charisma comes through on the big screen as well. Her turn as a quirky snack-bar worker in Wong Kar Wai’s stylish drama won her the Best Actress award at the Stockholm Film Festival. Wong’s Cantonese cover of The Cranberries’ Dreams is played over the end credits.

Decadent Sounds of Faye Wong (1995)

This is how a covers album should be done. Wong took the songs of her idol, Taiwanese songbird Teresa Teng, and made them her own. It helped that the two shared the same clear and sweet vocal qualities but the appeal also lay in the unexpectedness of the arrangements. They even breathed new life into the dated folksiness of a track like Sentiments Of A Native Village. On the poetic Wishing We Could Last Forever, though, little more than Wong’s pure voice was needed.

Restless (1996)

The title song clocked in at under three minutes and the lyrics consisted of just 22 words, and it was probably one of the more conventional tracks here. Given the experimental nature of the disc, it did not sell as well as previous albums. It was critically acclaimed though and after its release, Wong became the first Chinese singer to feature on the cover of Time magazine. The headline: The Divas Of Pop.

Scenic Tour (1998)

She has never looked as serenely beatific as she does on the album cover here. And the record also contains several classics including the tender Red Bean and the showstopping Face, which sees her explor ing different ways of singing on one track. The track Tong was written by Wong for her daughter with her first husband, China musician Dou Wei. Gurgles of that daughter (Wong has two), Dou Jing tong, can be heard on it. The album sold more than 2.5 million copies in Asia.

Eyes On Me (1999)

It was the first time a Japanese video game, Final Fantasy VIII, had a Chinese singer performing the theme song. The single sold over 400,000 copies in Japan and paved the way for her entry into that market. She later became the first Chinese singer to perform at the Nippon Budo kan venue. She even starred in a Japanese TV series Usokoi (Love From A Lie) and recorded the Japanese theme song, Separate Ways, for it.

Fable (2000)

Her regular collaborators, Hong Kong’s Lin Xi and China’s Zhang Yadong, both play prominent roles here. And while the cycle of five songs written by Wong marked another step in her growth as a composer, it was Cantonese track Love Letters To Myself which set tongues wagging. The ballad was supposedly about Hong Kong singer-actor Nicholas Tse, whom she was dating, and the fact that he never sent her love letters.

Chinese Odyssey 2002 (2002)

Faye Wong had a silly side to her as well and this was perfectly captured in the loony Chinese New Year comedy by director Jeffrey Lau. She was once again paired with her Chungking Express co-star Tony Leung Chiu Wai and their easy chemistry showed onscreen. Wong won the Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards for Best Actress for her role as a runaway cross-dressing princess.

To Love (2003)

Despite the widespread acclaim for her singing and music, it was not until 2004, on her fifth nomination, that Wong won the prestigious Golden Melody Award for Best Female Vocalist. She quipped in typical straightforward fashion: “I’ve known that I can sing, therefore I will also confirm this panel’s decision.” Not counting the six low-cost cover albums she released in China as a high school student, this is her 19th and, to date, final full-length studio album.

(ST)

In Time

Andrew Niccol

The story: In this brave new world, a person stops growing older physically at the age of 25 and a timer imprinted on his arm starts counting down to death. But time is a transferable currency: The powerful live forever while the poor eke it out from hour to hour. Ghetto boy Will Salas (Justin Timberlake) wants to shake up the system and finds an unlikely partner in rich girl Sylvia Weis (Amanda Seyfried).

The premise of time as a currency is a promising one, but writer-director Andrew Niccol does not quite seem to know how to spend his time exploring it.

What the moviegoer gets, first and foremost, is an unending stream of weak puns and wordplay. The cops are called timekeepers, a bunch of ruffians are known as the Minutemen and characters are referred to as “coming from time”, in a play on the phrase “coming from money”. It makes the treatment of the material feel too literal.

The way in which characters transfer, or steal, time from one another also seems faintly ridiculous: grabbing one another’s bare arms. You would think that everyone would be going around sheathed in arm-guards but that seems to be a big fashion faux pas.

Still, some of the coolly dystopian vibe of Niccol’s well-received sci-fi flick Gattaca (1997) can be found here, such as in the forbidding concrete barriers that separate the well-off time zones, where nobody runs, from the ghettoes, where sleeping in is a luxury.

And there is something undeniably hypnotic about watching a life ticking through its final seconds, waiting, so to speak, for one’s number to be up.

Niccol builds tension with an early scene when Will and his mother (Olivia Wilde) run to meet each other as the seconds melt away. But the image becomes overused and its impact is diminished.

The film feels like a missed opportunity, especially given the cast assembled, from Cillian Murphy as self-righteous cop Leon to Vincent Kartheiser as heartless banking magnate Philippe Weis.

While Timberlake and Seyfried (both right) seem like a good combination on paper, they do not smoulder when they are thrown together, proving once again that movie chemistry is an elusive thing.

Pacing is also problematic. The movie feels flat for long stretches and potentially interesting plotlines – Will’s late father crossing paths with Leon, for instance – lead nowhere.

So, sadly, it takes too long before the film finally runs out of time.

(ST)

Never Said Goodbye

Eric Suen

The Things We Do For Love

Joanna Wang

Hong Kong’s Eric Suen burst onto the Mandopop scene as a fresh-faced 20-year-old back in 1993, with the monster hit Nice To Know You. Then, after a whirlwind five years, the singer-songwriter burnt out and left without bidding the public goodbye.

Having released last year’s wellreceived Cantonese album, Man In The Mirror, Suen is ready for his Mandopop comeback.

He does not address his absence directly, though he could well be addressing his fans on tracks such as You And I: “You and I, a new beginning of my life/You let me feel love’s excitement, never be parted from you my whole life.”

And on love song The Best Arrangement, he sings: “Goodbye yesterday’s boy, I must live in the now, the past is gone and will never come around again/If you’re afraid of failure, you won’t be able to live an exciting life.”

The album offers a preponderance of ballads such as the title track. Given that his voice is not that distinctive, I would have preferred more uptempo numbers such as the uplifting Count On Me.

Taiwan’s Joanna Wang, on the other hand, has a beautifully husky voice that leaves a stamp on whatever she sings.

And so we have another album of covers from her: The Things We Do For Love is a double-disc album of covers, after 2009’s two-disc Joanna & Wang Ruo-lin, which featured oldies on one CD and original material on another. Wang Ruo-lin, by the way, is her Mandarin name.

On disc one here, the inclusion of two versions of three songs – Carole King’s You’ve Got A Friend, Cat Stevens’ Wild World and Oingo Boingo’s Stay – feels like padding. Also, it would have been nice to hear her tackling more of the lesser-known material such as 10cc’s The Things We Do For Love.

The second disc of Mandarin material fares better. The late Anita Mui’s Intimate Lover is a beautifully languid showcase for Wang. And she does a tremulously tender take on Sarah Chen’s A Lifetime Of Waiting.

Hopefully, it will not be a lifetime of waiting before Wang releases her next album of original material.

(ST)

Life Without Principle

Johnnie To

The story: The paths of three cash-strapped characters cross: Bank officer Teresa (Denise Ho) feels the pressure at work as she tries to meet the sales target for a new, risky fund. Police inspector Cheung Jin Fong (Richie Jen) is under pressure from his wife to buy an apartment while thug Panther (Lau Ching Wan) needs a desperate gamble on the stock market to pay off.

Hong Kong director-producer Johnnie To’s latest film is a black comedy that reveals its true colours only towards the end. The first hour is, in fact, rather frustrating.

We are introduced to police inspector Cheung at a murder scene but the crime is largely a red herring. Then the movie cuts to Teresa’s story and there is a very long scene of her persuading a retiree to invest in a risky financial product.

Even though regulations have been tightened after high-profile fund failures, To pointedly notes that the less educated folk still get bamboozled by sweet-talking bank officers. While there is a touch of humour in the proceedings, there is simply too much unnecessary detail and repetition.

It is also a pity that Lau’s Panther turns up fairly late in the film. He lights up the screen in a vanity-free performance as the fiercely loyal triad hoodlum with a penchant for loud ugly shirts. The protagonists’ paths cross in unexpected ways and To uses flashbacks to reveal the hidden connections.

At the same time, there is a shift in the film’s tone as increasingly desperate and even ridiculous situations are handled in a deadpan matter.

The prolific To’s track record can be erratic but this – which was in the running for the prestigious Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival – is a definite improvement over his other offering this year, the massively irritating romantic comedy that was Don’t Go Breaking My Heart.

And for once in a Hong Kong movie, the English title actually makes sense: It is also the name of an essay by American philosopher Henry David Thoreau on righteous living and the pernicious influence of money.

The film turns out to be a morality tale though it has no preachy black-and-white lessons to impart. And that is a good thing.

(ST)

The Help

Tate Taylor

The story: The help refers to the African-American maids working in white households in Jackson, Mississippi, in the early 1960s in the midst of the civil rights movement. Against this backdrop, fresh graduate Skeeter (Emma Stone) persuades her friend’s maid Aibileen (Viola Davis) to tell stories about her life. It is a quiet act of rebellion as what they are doing is against the law. Based on American author Kathryn Stockett’s 2009 debut novel.

It was the little movie that could.

The sleeper hit at the American box office is a US$25 million (S$32 million) drama about women wearing uniforms – without one stitch of superhero spandex in sight. Thus far, it has made US$165 million at the American box office.

Its appeal is easy to see. It is an uplifting tale about a repressed people finding strength in words and stories. Indeed, it is about the power of the pen at a time when Martin Luther King Jr was leading the charge for change.

The irony is that it takes a white woman to spearhead change in Jackson. Stone’s Skeeter has returned home after graduation and is uncomfortable with the casual and pervasive racism she sees in her friends. In particular, queen bee Hilly Holbrook (Bryce Dallas Howard) is proposing a legal Bill to mandate that the black help have to use separate bathrooms.

While we are shown that Skeeter has a close relationship with the maid who raised her, it is not quite clear why her outlook is more enlightened given that her mother (Allison Janney) behaves like everyone else. After all, one of the poignant themes here is that the white children lovingly raised by the black maids eventually model their parents when they grow up. Still, Stone is an appealing actress and she keeps Skeeter likeable even when her motives for talking to the maids in the first place are muddled by her own desire to be published.

There are also strong performances from Davis, who brings dignity and a flash of anger to the role of Aibileen, and Octavia Spencer, as the sassy Minny who cooks up a stomach-turning revenge on her employer Hilly.

Look out also for Jessica Chastain, who goes from saintly mother in Terrence Malick’s The Tree Of Life (2011) to a lonely social outcast here.

In lesser hands, the characters could easily have come across as cliched types. While scriptwriter-director Tate Taylor has commendably avoided that, he makes it all a little too neat and a tad predictable. The award-winning musical Caroline, Or Change (on Broadway in 2004) similarly explored the social changes in the early 1960s more realistically and with deeper characterisation.

The Help could well trigger some reflection on how the help here – whether they are domestic workers raising children and looking after the elderly folks or foreign workers building towers and digging tunnels – are treated.

(ST)

One Day

Lone Scherfig

The story: After their graduation from the University of Edinburgh in 1988, shy Emma Morley (Anne Hathaway) spends a day and night with charming Dexter Mayhew

(Jim Sturgess). The film then returns to that one day, July 15, every year to trace the arc of their relationship over more than two decades. Adapted by David Nicholls from his best-selling 2009 novel of the same name.

How refreshing for a movie romance to be so free of artifice. You never get the sense that Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess (both below) are acting sexy or cute, or that they are calculatingly mugging for the camera.

Instead, this is a story about two people who make a connection and then have to figure out for themselves what that means.

When they first attempt to hook up after their graduation, it looks like a fling without much of a future. After all, they seem like such different people.

Emma comes across as serious, a little acerbic and gauche, while Dexter is more extroverted, the kind of guy that people are drawn to.

Yet, a friendship grows between them, one that is sustained by letters and telephone calls even if they are not always in the same city.

The idea to focus on one day a year over a period of 23 years can easily turn out to be a cheap gimmick, as the local film The Leap Years (2008) has shown.

But here, it works beautifully. The development of their relationship is sensitively handled and reveals how Emma and Dexter grow and change.

The going is hard for Emma at first. She wants to be a writer but finds herself stuck in waitressing. “Welcome to the graveyard of ambition,” is how she introduces a newcomer to the job.

Meanwhile, Dexter finds fame on television as a host but success goes to his head and booze and drugs get the better of him.

It is a heartbreaking moment when Emma realises that you can love someone but not like him anymore.

The two leads slip into their roles so thoroughly that you are completely drawn into their relationship and the turns that it takes as it wends through the years.

Hathaway came to audiences’ attention as the sweet young thing in The Princess Diaries films (2001, 2004) and then as the put-upon ingenue in The Devil Wears Prada (2006). In recent years, she has begun to win notice for her acting, most notably for the family drama Rachel Getting Married (2008).

One Day is another reminder that she is not just another pretty face.

Late in the film, Emma blossoms as a writer living in Paris and Hathaway finally gets to be gorgeous in an Audrey Hepburn kind of way though her character charmingly calls the look “butch”.

Sturgess is even better. The singer- actor broke out in the musical romance Across The Universe (2007) and is equally convincing as a shallow young man and as an older, wiser Dexter. He taps into the darker aspects of the character while conveying a touching sense of vulnerability.

The audience’s sense that it is watching flesh and blood characters is further bolstered by how the film was made.

Reflecting her Dogme 95 film background, Danish director Lone Scherfig’s follow-up to her lauded An Education (2009) looks like it was shot with natural light. It feels organic as opposed to some slick and glossy Hollywood product.

One Day will have you falling in love with movie romances once more.

(ST)

Kit Chan The Music Room Concert 2011

Grand Theater at Marina Bay Sands/Thursday

Is it too soon for another gig by home-grown songbird Kit Chan after her sell-out shows at the Esplanade’s Huayi – Chinese Festival Of Arts in February? The answer is a resounding no.

Once again, she proves to be a big draw live. Another show was added for tonight after the first two nights on Thursday and Friday at the 2,155-seater venue were sold out.

While she had to share the stage with the Singapore Chinese Orchestra at the Huayi gig, this time, it was all about Chan. Even the pre-show announcement about no flash photography and silencing beeping devices was made by her.

She appeared on stage with slicked-back hair and a shimmery gown which revealed a flash of leg. At one point, she said she was nervous and added: “You know the best cure for nervousness? Loud applause!” The audience responded on cue.

She was totally comfortable in her own skin and clearly relished the experience of holding another solo show after a seven-year hiatus from the scene.

Picking which songs to perform was a challenge as she has released more than 10 albums between 1993 and 2004, and she shared her winnowing process.

First, she would have to sing those songs without which she “might not leave the venue alive”. Second, were selections from her comeback covers album Re-interpreting Kit Chan (2011). Third, pick songs which would let out the drama queen in her.

So she performed her hits such as Heartache, Worried, Liking You and, of course, Home. The last was a version that started out hovering on the edge of space and then segued into Michael Buble’s Home. As hands waved in the air, she urged: “Let’s do this NDP rehearsal together.”

She bantered playfully in English, Mandarin and Cantonese and also sang Waiting and Forget Him from two Hong Kong musicals she had acted in – Snow.Wolf.Lake and The Legend.

Mixed in with familiar tracks were other Kit Chan numbers that had not been heard in years, including the first song she recorded, Do Not Destroy The Harmony, and the uptempo Look At The Moon.

Some of the classics she sang were not included on her recent covers album, including Prince’s Nothing Compares 2 U and Stephen Sondheim’s Send In The Clowns. In particular, Clowns is not a song for any young, wet-behind-the-ears singer and it is a measure of Chan’s vocal and emotional maturity that she did justice to this song about missed chances and fate’s twisted sense of humour.

On Pink Martini’s Sympathique, she got in touch with her inner diva, slinking across the stage and vogueing languorously as she crooned silkily: “Je ne veux pas travailler (I don’t want to work)”.

The decision to do away with over-the-top costumes, back-up dancers and elaborate production worked as it kept the focus squarely on Chan and her band of able musicians.

Even the encore was thoroughly satisfying as she presented a new song – a beautiful Cantonese ballad called Left And Right Hands written by local songwriter and guest pianist Jimmy Ye and lyricist Lin Xi for the late Leslie Cheung.

When it was time to finally say goodbye, she did a reprise of Liking You, accompanied by just music director Goh Kheng Long on the piano. She sang: “I like following you like this, up to you to bring me to wherever.”

It took the words right out of the audience’s mouths.

(ST)

Pure

Aska Yang

Another She

Claire Kuo

Pure is as much a Jonathan Lee album as an Aska Yang one.

Mandopop veteran Lee produces it and contributes several tracks. His style is so strong on Greed and Because I’m Single that one almost expects to hear his raspy half-sung-half-spoken vocals. Instead, one gets One Million Star alumnus Yang’s clear and emotive voice plumbing love and loss.

A lesser singer would have been overwhelmed but Yang holds his own and also has a hand in writing the tracks, including Light In The Shadow.

The compelling ballad has him fantasising: “Eyes squinting, ears listening, I’m thinking, I can/Against the light, following the illusion, slowly, walk towards you.”

There is a jazzy, loungey vibe to this record as the arrangements frequently feature keyboard and brass instruments, making this a good late-night record to wallow in.

The album, a follow-up to Yang’s 2008 debut, Dove, flounders a little towards the end.

The tacked- on extra track, the unabashedly mainstream ballad, That Man, does not quite gel with the rest of the album.

Taiwanese singer Claire Kuo (left) is nothing if not unabashedly commercial. Yet, apart from album title tracks such as 2008’s The Next Dawn or 2009’s Singing In The Trees, few other songs of hers stick.

It is not a good sign that Another She is less memorable than previous lead singles.

The Next Miracle, a duet with feted newcomer Weibird Wei, sparks some interest, though their voices do not mesh well and the arrangement sounds dated.

It is not all lacklustre. Wei’s other contribution here fares better: Soft, which he composed, gives Kuo the chance to demonstrate some bouncy liveliness. And on the Lala Hsu-penned ballad, Originally, the singer shows a glimpse of real emotion.

This is by no means an offensively bad record but it is an album that is hard to get excited about.

(ST)

Snowflower and the Secret Fan

Wayne Wang

The story: As little girls in early 19th-century China, two sworn sisters have their feet crushed and bound so that they would walk daintily and marry well. Over the years, Snowflower (Gianna Jun) and Lily (Li Bingbing) secretly communicate by writing on silk fans. Their relationship is echoed in the friendship between their descendants Sophia (Jun) and Nina (Li) in modern-day Shanghai. Adapted from American novelist Lisa See’s 2005 novel of the same name.

The lot of women in Chinese history has not been a happy one. In a strongly patriarchal society, they were expected to be subservient and to know their place.

As a matchmaker observes, marriages are arranged according to men’s reasons but laotong, or sworn-sister, relationships are for women’s needs for emotional comfort and support.

The idea of adding a modern-day parallel relationship to the film is a potentially intriguing one given how gender roles and social mores have evolved.

But Chinese-American director Wayne Wang, probably best known for his 1993 adaptation of Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, disappoints.

He is not helped by screenwriters Angela Workman, Ronald Bass and Michael K. Ray, who produce a leaden and unconvincing script. The dialogue is painfully stilted and filled with portentous sounding lines: “We are all women, we were born to leave our families” and “Disobedience is a woman’s greatest sin.” Not surprisingly, hardly anyone comes across as a flesh-and-blood character.

It is hard to believe that these characters are who they say they are to each other. Snowflower and Lily are meant to have a deep-hearted love for each other, as are Sophia and Nina, but Gianna Jun and Li Bingbing cannot summon that depth of feeling.

In particular, South Korean actress Jun, from the hit comedy My Sassy Girl (2001), seems rather vacant at times – you wonder if she was fully aware of what was going on.

And then Hugh Jackman turns up as Sophia’s love interest and attempts to serenade her in unintelligible Mandarin.

What is obviously missing in the film is an exploration of the sapphic element in female friendships. There are some hints of this and while one could argue that this was something not plausible in 19th-century China, it does not make sense for there not to be at least some mention of it in the modern-day storyline.

Moreover, instead of trusting the audience to grasp the past-present parallels, Wang cuts back and forth in a heavy-handed manner to underline his point.

Not only is the big picture askew, the smaller details are off as well. For reasons unknown to the audience, Li Bingbing, as Nina, switches distractingly between Mandarin and English even when she is conversing with other Chinese people in Shanghai.

The denouement that finally rolls around hinges on some convenient discovery, but by that point, one is barely invested enough in the story to be incensed.

(ST)