Everything In The World
Qu Wanting
Two female singers currently stand out on the airwaves: Hung Pei-yu singing Dian Qi Jiao Jian Ai (Tiptoe Love) and the other is Qu Wanting on Wo De Ge Sheng Li (You Exist In My Song). There is a rawness to their husky voices that equates with emotional honesty and I have been looking forward to their albums. No word, however, on when Taiwanese Hung is putting out a disc.
China-born Qu is the first one to release a record and she takes an unusual approach. Now based in Vancouver, her debut album comprises nine English tracks and six Mandarin numbers (not counting the demo version of You Exist In My Song).
She had signed on with Canada’s indie label Nettwerk Music which includes Sarah McLachlan on its roster of artists.
While her phrasing may sometimes sound a little stilted on the English material, the singer-songwriter always manages to be compelling. Even when the lyrics feel too prosaic – “When you kissed me on the street, I kissed you back/You held me in your arms, I held you in mine”, on Drenched – she pulls it off with the swoonsome swirling music.
Still, she seems to sound more assured and at ease in the Mandarin numbers. On You Exist In My Song, she pulls you into her reminiscences of a past lover with conversational stanzas and a plaintive refrain: “You exist, in the deepest recesses of my mind/In my dreams, in my heart, in my song”.
And she makes you feel that he is everything in the world to her.
(ST)

Regret (1995)
Mavis Hee
Last heard at a television drama theme song concert earlier this month, Mavis Hee’s soothing mellow voice is still in remarkably good form.
Never mind that her last studio album was 2000’s electronica-infused Heelectronic, or that her public performances have been sporadic since a public meltdown episode in 2006.
At the gig at Resorts World Convention Centre’s Compass Ballroom, Hee, 37, performed Sunshine Always Comes After The Rain from The Silver Lining (1997), Regret from Mirror Of Life (1996), the wistful title track to A Song To Remember (2011) and, of course, her signature hit Moonlight In The City from the period drama Tofu Street (1996).
Her gentle musical stylings sounded as assured as ever, and she had no problems reaching the low notes.
What was also clear is how closely her early career was linked to local TV dramas. Regret, Moonlight and Iron Window were all collected on her breakthrough second album Regret, which sold more than 50,000 copies here and in Malaysia. Window was the theme song to the women’s prison drama Beyond Dawn (1996).
While each song conjures up the opening credit montage for fans of the shows, they fit together well on the album as well.
It is not surprising when one takes a closer look at the credits.
Of the nine tracks (since there are two versions of Window included), seven are composed by her long-time mentor and producer Chen Jiaming. Singer-songwriter Jimmy Ye contributed one track and Hee herself penned one. As for the lyrics, Chen had a hand in all of the songs, while Hee contributed to three numbers.
There was a very strong point-of-view as Chen and Hee had a clear idea of her strengths and played to them.
On record, she was the queen of melancholia. Whatever passed through her pipes took on a patina of wistfulness, and burnished the tales of loss and regret told in the lyrics.
Even when the tempo quickened and the music became chirpier as on Ai Qing (Love), a chill clung to the lyrics: “Why bother who let whom down, there are no absolutes in this world/There are no regrets after loving, doesn’t matter if I get a little hurt.”
It was not all doom and gloom, though. Her best-known hit Moonlight In The City holds out the balm of hope and redemption: “The moonlight in the city shines on dreams, please keep watch by its side/If we should meet again one day, let happiness be scattered across the night sky.”
Regret was also pivotal for Hee as it was the album that introduced her to the Taiwanese market in 1996. The Taiwanese version of the album included two extra tracks – Ying Zi Qing Ren (Shadow Lover) and the title track from her Singapore-released debut album Ming Zhi Dao (Knowingly, 1994).
At a time when the pristine-voiced Faye Wong ruled the Mandopop scene, Hee stood out with her beautifully low voice. Her subsequent records would regularly notch up sales of more 200,000 in Taiwan. Even more impressively, she would successfully venture into the hard-to-crack Hong Kong market in 1997 with Listen Quietly, a collection of her Mandarin hits augmented with three Cantonese tracks.
The album ended Heavenly King Andy Lau’s reign at the top of the territory’s music charts with Love Is Mysterious and sold more than 100,000 copies there. For trumping a Heavenly King as well as Faye Wong on the charts, Hee earned the nickname of Heavenly Queen Slayer.
Her songs, like her voice, have stood the test of time. Other artists have repeatedly covered her tunes.
Taiwan’s Chyi Chin took on Moonlight In The City, while Malaysia’s Abin Fang and local singer Kit Chan have reinterpreted Regret. None though can replace Hee’s unforgettable originals.
Fittingly, her tentative comeback has been on the soundtrack to the TV series A Song To Remember (2011). She sang four songs there, including the title track and the gorgeous ballad Remembrance (Travelling Together).
Hopefully, she will gain enough confidence to release another album. And if she wants to make a comeback on her own terms – with no interviews and no publicity photos – that is perfectly fine. The only regret would be if she stops singing.
(ST)

Hysteria
Tanya Wexler
The story: In strait-laced late 19th-century Victorian England, hysteria is a supposed medical condition afflicting half the women. The young and idealistic Dr Mortimer Granville (Hugh Dancy) gets a job which essentially requires him to give women massages to provide sexual relief. Meanwhile, he finds himself drawn to his employer’s daughters, gentle Emily (Felicity Jones) and firebrand Charlotte (Maggie Gyllenhaal). Along the way, the vibrator is born.

There must have been a lot of sexually frustrated women in Victorian England. The societal strictures and mores of the time would be more suffocating than a tightly drawn corset.
Then again, the concept of sexual frustration did not even exist. Instead, a whole host of symptoms and vague complaints were tagged with the label of hysteria.
The audience is quickly given a sense of the state of science and medicine when a senior physician dismisses germ theory as “poppycock” and leeches are routinely used to suck blood from patients in the misguided belief that this would cure them.
Enter the idealistic Dr Granville who puts his faith in science and simply wants to help people. He is such a decent chap, he even refuses to take money from his rich eccentric friend (Rupert Everett).
Looking like he stepped out from the pages of a Jane Austen novel, Hugh Dancy is perfectly cast as Dr Granville.
With his pleasant features and earnest demeanour, he is like a less stuttery but still charming version of Hugh Grant.
Dancy – incidentally the star of romantic drama The Jane Austen Book Club (2007) – keeps the character likeable even when he is shown up to be rather conservative and stodgy after all by the firebrand that is Charlotte Dalrymple.
As Charlotte, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s eyes are bright with hope and conviction as she agitates for a more equal society. It is clear that the two are attracted to each other even though Dr Granville is initially drawn to the more ladylike and genteel younger sister Emily.
Without quite realising it, he ends up playing a part in the revolution as well, nudging sexual equality along by coming up with the vibrator. The joke is that he initially conceives of it in order to give his tired hands a rest from massaging so many women.
Director Tanya Wexler handles the material here with a light touch and finds the humour in the absurdity of the situation: Perfectly proper women flock to the doctor and everyone is in denial about the fact that the women are essentially receiving sexual favours from the dishy young doctor.
And instead of feeling smutty, the feel-good scenes of a variety of women achieving pleasure are gently amusing.
In its good-natured celebration of female sexuality, Hysteria brings to mind John Cameron Mitchell’s outlandish but sweet Shortbus (2006).
Watch the end credits to learn about the amusing nicknames the vibrator has had over the years, from the squealer to the sorcerer’s apprentice.
(ST)

Lullaby
Tracy Huang
Fourteen years after her last album Crazy For Love (1998), Taiwan-born Tracy Huang has decided to put out a new album. Her 51st release is not a record of new material but, as the title points out, a collection of tunes to soothe and comfort.
It is a kind of benediction as well.
She writes in the liner notes: “I hope and pray that every child with a lullaby will grow up happily with the accompaniment of singing. For the child without a lullaby, I send him one as a gift to comfort all his unease.”
At 60, Huang’s voice can still sound as gentle as a caress and the effect is buttressed by the dreamy reverb as she sings a selection of Mandarin and English folk and pop classics.
Illustrator Jimmy Liao’s whimsical drawings add to the child-like vibe of innocence here. Huang’s take on The Mamas & The Papas’ Dream A Little Dream Of Me even features the voice of her then six-year-old niece.
A highlight here is the Minnan number My Sweet Baby, composed by feted singer-songwriter Lo Ta-yu.
Huang might not have biological children of her own but her hopes and wishes for the child in the song are touchingly moving.
Rest assured, grown-up fans, this is not just for children but also for the child in you.

On My Way
Jane Huang
After two albums as one-half of rock duo Y2J, Taiwan’s Jane Huang goes solo with a clutch of strong songs, courtesy of a stellar group of lyricists and composers.
Slightly left-of-centre electro-pop opener Run Run Run by Sandee Chan serves as a good introduction to what is on offer here – Huang as a spirited indie musician who is trying to find her way forward.
Make no mistake, she might have a bright open voice but there is an edge to it that tips her over into rocker rather than sweet-young-thing territory.
Chan is also responsible for the ballad Good Enough, which begins with the evocative couplet: “You’re good to me, the coldest winter has left behind your jacket/Your jacket, has imbued even my shadow with your scent ever since.”
Power rocker Wu Bai contributes three tracks. His strong personal style can sometimes overwhelm the material he writes for others but the surprisingly understated alt-rock vibe of I Won’t Cry proves to be the perfect fit for Huang.
The album’s title track, meanwhile, is radio-friendly pop fare and the idol drama theme song for Ti Amo Chocolate should serve to attract a wider audience to her debut.
On My Way suggests that Huang might not have all the answers regarding her destination but she knows that the journey itself is meaningful.
(ST)

30th Drama Anniversary – Our Theme Song Concert
Resorts World Convention Centre
Compass Ballroom/Sunday
A theme song has to set the tone for the television show it soundtracks, be it a slice-of- life comedy or a wrenching drama. The best ones can call up images from a particular series from the first strains of the music.
Some, such as Mavis Hee’s City In The Moonlight, even take on a life beyond the confines of the goggle box to become enduring hits.
In three decades, MediaCorp (previously Singapore Broadcasting Corporation and then Television Corporation of Singapore) has certainly amassed a treasure trove of material.
On Sunday night, a near sold-out crowd of 3,000-plus fans mostly in their 30s and older came to reminisce and to sing along.
Veteran singer Eric Moo got things off to a rousing start with four songs, including Kopi-O and Forget The Past from The Coffee Shop (1986). He reveals that he had insisted on being able to include the term “kopi-o” (local colloquialism for black coffee) in the song despite the ban on dialects on TV. It just would not have been the same if the Mandarin name for it had been used – “kafeiwu” just didn’t have the same authentic ring as “kopi- o”.
There were also cameos by actors Xiang Yun and Huang Wenyong, who talked about their historical drama The Awakening 1 (1984), and Wang Yuqing, making a cheeky appearance in school uniform when Maggie Theng sang the theme song for Flying Fish (1983), the drama that made him a pin-up star then.
While their appearances were welcome, the over 21/2-hour-long concert could have moved along at a brisker pace. And instead of having singer-songwriter Lee Wai Shiong perform an incongruously campy dance remix medley of numbers penned by him, they could have squeezed in, say, The Awakening’s stirring theme song or The Little Nyonya (2008)’s popular ballad Like Swallow.
At least the organisers were canny enough to save the best for last.
Singer Kit Chan gave a loose-limbed take on the jazzy Looking At The Moon from Driven By A Car (1998) as well as a diva-esque rendition of Stubborn from Devotion (2011).
She then introduced Hee, who has given only sporadic public performances after a public meltdown in 2006.
Dressed in a loose earth-toned gown and wearing big hoop earrings, she still possessed a rich balm of a voice. In fact, she sounded better here than she did at the xinyao-themed Chong Feng 7 concert in 2009 and at her guest appearance in last year’s musical-concert Don’t Forget To Say Good Bye.
On Sunday, she sang Sunshine Always Comes After The Rain from The Silver Lining (1997), Regret from Mirror Of Life (1996), the wistful title track to A Song To Remember (2011) and, of course, her signature hit Moonlight In The City from Tofu Street (1996).
Hee told the audience shyly: “Although I don’t see everyone very often, I miss you guys. And I’m doing okay.”
Her gentle musical stylings gave way to the blistering rock balladry of Taiwanese duo Power Station.
It turns out that they have had quite an affinity with local drama series. Who knew that their hit Na Jiu Zhe Yang Ba (Just Let It Be Then) was from Knotty Liaisons (2000)?
The final number of the night was the determinedly dramatic Wo Chi De Qi Ku (I Can Endure Hardships) from Stepping Out (1999), also known as the show for which actress Cynthia Koh shaved her head.
Despite the simple stage set-up and only an occasional use of vintage footage from yesteryear, the crowd seemed to have a good time. Even local drama stars such as Thomas Ong and Pan Lingling could be seen chorusing along enthusiastically among the audience.
As Moo sang on Friendship Lies In The Heart: “There’s yours, there’s mine, the traces of our growing up years.”
(ST)

Fiction
Yoga Lin
At this point, Taiwanese singer Yoga Lin’s biggest competition is himself.
Having released the adventurous Senses Around (2009) and the stellar Perfect Life (2011), the 25-year-old has set the bar very high indeed.
On his fourth album, he plays around with the conceit of fiction and storytelling, and things start off promisingly.
Opening track Si Fan (Captain S.V) takes an unusual point-of-view and is about aliens visiting earth. He ponders: “I must quickly find out the charms of this backward planet, the captain who should have long since returned, why does he refuse to leave.”
It feels, though, that much of Fiction lacks something of the surprise and urgency that the previous two records conveyed. In part due to the broad theme, the album is more like a disparate collection of songs than a tightly knit record.
Not that the songs are terrible – they just do not reach past heights.
With the inclusion of Unrequited, Fools’ Bliss and Fool, there also seems to be one too many love ballad by composer Cheng Nan, even with Lin’s emotive voice in fine form throughout.
Perhaps the lack of a breakthrough is due to the fact that Perfect Life was released little more than a year ago. It is worth bearing in mind that music, like fiction, needs time to be carefully crafted.

The Last Day Of Summer
831
Are Taiwanese rock band Mayday releasing a new album so soon after their triumphant six-statuette haul at the Golden Melody Awards?
One would be forgiven for thinking so upon hearing fellow Taiwanese band 831’s third and latest disc, given how vocalist Up Lee’s enunciation on the ballad The Best Ending makes him sound exactly like Ashin, frontman of Mayday.
There is also more than a passing similarity between the sound of quintets 831 and Mayday, as both serve up tenderly earnest ballads and blistering rock numbers. In fact, Ashin even wrote the lyrics for 831’s Lunatic here.
The Last Day Of Summer is not a bad record at all, but it does 831 no favours to be so closely associated with a bigger, more established act. If they want to be a band for all seasons, they need to think about staking out a more distinctive sound on their fourth album.
(ST)

Ice Age 4: Continental Drift
Steve Martino, Mike Thurmeier
The story: Manny the mammoth (Ray Romano) gets separated from his mate Ellie (Queen Latifah) and daughter Peaches (Keke Palmer) when the unstable land mass breaks apart. Together with his friends Sid the sloth (John Leguizamo) and Diego the sabre- toothed cat (Denis Leary), he has to outwit pirates and survive other dangers to reunite with his family.
Are they running out of ideas for the Ice Age franchise?
In Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006), a flood threatened to inundate the gang’s valley home. In Ice Age 4, it is another natural calamity, another journey for Manny and gang – just as it is in every Ice Age film.
Worse, some of the plot contrivances this time around feel too outlandish even for an animated flick.
Take, for instance, the pirate-ship conceit. A crew led by a giant ape Gutt (Peter Dinklage) terrorise the seas for... what exactly? Amassing booty from talking prehistoric animals?
Equally incongruous and incomprehensible is the appearance of deadly seductive sirens, as the film suddenly riffs on the seafaring adventures of the Greek hero Odysseus.
Clearly, Ice Age 4 is trying too hard, particularly in broadening its appeal to everyone from six to 66.
For the older crowd, the MannyPeaches storyline about an overprotective father connecting with a rebellious daughter is like a family sitcom made over for the animated ice age. It makes sense given Romano’s background in TV comedy (Everybody Loves Raymond, 1996-2005) but it feels too pedestrian to engage.
For the younger crowd, there are the funny faces by Sid and the silly action gags to amuse.
The stunt star-casting does not always work in Ice Age 4, either. While Game Of Thrones star Dinklage snarls and menaces as Gutt, singer Jennifer Lopez just sounds like herself instead of trying to essay the female sabre-toothed cat she voices.
It is left to the opening silent short film, which stars baby Maggie Simpson from TV’s animated first family of dysfunction, to provide some wit and charm.
There is also, of course, the reliable charm of the always-thwarted sabre- toothed squirrel Scrat, whose obsessive hunt for acorns triggers off the continental cataclysm in the first place.
In comparison, the recently released Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted (2012) is a smarter and more imaginative sequel which takes more risks in its storytelling and is the richer for it.
Maybe it is time to put this franchise on ice before it goes completely adrift.
(ST)

Motorway
Soi Cheang
The story: Cheung (Shawn Yue) is a young-punk cop with a taste for speed while his partner Lo (Anthony Wong) is just looking forward to retirement. When ace getaway driver Jiang (Guo Xiaodong), who had previously tangled with Lo, resurfaces, it is up to Cheung to stop him in his tracks.
Someone has clearly been watching Drive (2011), the oh-so-cool crime thriller by Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn.
While the magnetic getaway driver played by Ryan Gosling was the focus of that film, Motorway takes a more conventional route by setting up the good cops against the bad robbers.
Other familiar elements here include the odd-couple pairing between the cops played by Yue and Wong.
When Yue needs advice on how to rev up his skills so that he can make an impossibly tight corner, no prizes for guessing who takes on the Yoda-mentor role.
And then there are the driving-as-life metaphors which tend to be rather heavy-handed.
Where director Soi Cheang (Accident, 2009) excels is in his use of Hong Kong locations.
The city’s distinctive warren of narrow one-way streets is used to great effect when Cheung pursues Jiang down darkened alleys. And watch how Jiang slips out of the law’s grasp with some nifty driving.
Later on, there is an epic race-off as cars chase one another down twisty mountainous roads with hairpin turns and somehow, Jiang goes from being the pursued to the pursuer.
The final showdown is cleverly set in a parking lot where columns restrict one’s line of sight and being able to drive fast is not quite as important as being skilled.
While the film might not be quite as fetishistic as, say, the Fast And Furious flicks, Cheang does manage to work in loving close-ups of sleek-looking mechanical parts pumping away smoothly and gauge needles swinging seductively.
Wong is reliably dependable as the older and wiser cop who has seen it all while there is not much for Yue, so good in Love In A Puff (2010), to do here but glower and look intense.
Guo (Summer Palace, 2006) adds gravitas to the role of Jiang but can only do so much with a thinly written character.
It is a pity that the story is rather bare and does not pack much in the way of surprises.
The female characters are also given short shrift and Barbie Hsu’s love-interest doctor is awkwardly superfluous.
But it is still satisfying to watch Cheung fulfil his destiny as a Jedi-knight driver and become one with the wheel.
(ST)

Ideal Life
Lala Hsu
The pixie-faced Lala Hsu is one of the most promising singer-songwriters to have emerged from the singing competition One Million Star.
She made a strong showing with her self-titled debut album in 2009. It included the excellent Riding On A White Horse, which unexpectedly and successfully mixed pop with Chinese opera.
Follow-up album Limits (2010) was less memorable though the ballad Acrophobia was a decided highlight.
On her new record, Hsu sounds more mature and assured than ever.
The heart of the album are ballads that throb with a morass of emotions.
I Dare You has her challenging a lover: “I dare you to/Say that hating me is like loving me, a determination springing from the heart/I dare you, loving someone can make you feel petty and low.”
And the title track with lyrics by David Ke is heartbreakingly poignant: “Are we happier than before/Each leading our ideal lives/ Knowing better than anyone in my heart/No one is more suitable than you.”
The rest of the album is no slouch either.
From charming opener Cuckoo, on which her dulcet tones gently caress the lyrics, to energising closer Lala’s Squad, Hsu has crafted a beautifully honest and moving record about love and life.

Mr. Jazz – A Song For You
Jam Hsiao
Asian singers have proved before that they can do jazz.
Hong Kong’s Jacky Cheung tackled the genre in Cantonese on Private Corner (2010), while Taiwan’s Soft Lipa collaborated with Japanese jazz quintet Jabberloop on the heady concoction that was Moonlight (2010).
Unfortunately, Mr Jazz takes a step backward.
Yes, Taiwan’s Jam Hsiao has the pipes, but his phrasing often feels stiff and overly mannered here.
And do we really need another version of chestnuts such as Rhythm Of The Rain and Put Your Head On My Shoulder?
His less-than-perfect diction further distracts.
Listening to him sing “I thing of you every morneeeng” on (I Love You) For
Sentimental Reasons, you would seriously wish you did not.
(ST)

Painted Skin: The Resurrection
Wuershan
The story: The fox spirit Xiaowei (Zhou Xun) needs a human to willingly give her a heart so that she can become mortal. She comes between princess Jing (Zhao Wei) and general Huo Xin (Chen Kun) in a triangle of love and lust.
In Gordan Chan’s Painted Skin (2008), fox spirit Xiaowei (Zhou) falls for general Wang Sheng (Chen) who is married to Peirong (Zhao).
The sequel or rather reboot reunites the main cast with Zhou reprising her role. But even though Zhao and Chen play new characters, there is a sense of karmic continuity as the three are entangled once again.
Princess Jing has been in love with Huo for a long time but he is reluctant to reciprocate because of their different stations in life.
After an accident in the woods which leaves her horribly scarred, Huo is sent to the western frontier to guard the Han Dynasty from the animalistic Tian Lang kingdom. Thrown into the mix is the appearance of fox spirit Xiaowei, who wins Jing’s trust and then bewitches Huo with her beauty.
In the end, she offers Jing a deal – a human heart in exchange for Xiaowei’s skin so the disfigured princess can win Huo’s affection.
In a fantastical setting, the film explores age-old questions about the nature of love by pushing things to the extreme and giving up one’s heart to love is taken literally.
Taking over from Hong Kong’s Gordan Chan, China director Wuershan (The Butcher, The Chef And The Swordsman, 2010) imbues Resurrection with a languid sensuality.
A key scene of Xiaowei and Jing swopping identities is languorously teased out as the two women get under each other’s skins in a steamy pool. What prevents this from tipping over into cheesy pervy territory is the fantasy element as the skin is removed and then put on as if it were a costume.
Striking visual effects are also put to good use elsewhere such as in depicting Xiaowei’s imprisonment in an icy abyss at the beginning of the film.
The cast is uniformly competent, from Zhou’s husky-voiced seductive spirit to Chen’s conflicted general to Zhao’s painfully-in-love princess.
Look out for 1980s Mandopop idol Fei Xiang, who is almost unrecognisable as a Tian Lang seer with a bulbous bald head and sunken eyes.
Going by his birth name Kris Phillips, the Chinese-American looker has made a gutsy move that might just resurrect his Chinese show business career.
(ST)