What Are You Waiting For
Jiro Wang
Fahrenheit’s Jiro Wang wants to leave boyband music behind on his rock-flavoured solo debut.
But it is not exactly a clean break.
Opening number Feel Me is all blazing guitars and propulsive drums.
The sentiment, though, sounds suspiciously familiar: “I can hold your hand tight, sketch a beautiful dream for you, I can/I can watch over you, can’t leave your eyes, have my fill of love.”
And the crowd-pleasing love ballads are still present.
However, they are not the best showcase for his pedestrian voice and certainly not when he pits himself against the power vocals of Power Station on Do You Dare To Love Me.
The strongest tracks here are the rock ballad Make-believe and the mid-tempo Perfect Heart Beat.
They were featured in the Taiwanese idol drama Absolute Boyfriend, in which Wang played the perfect robot boyfriend, and cleverly add a pop sheen to his rock leanings.
These credible efforts mean that I would rather wait for Wang’s next solo album than a new disc from Fahrenheit.
(ST)

Jay Chou
2012 Formula 1 SingTel Singapore Grand Prix
Padang/Last Friday
Like a racer burning rubber on the tracks, Mandopop king Jay Chou was here and gone in a flash.
The 33-year-old Taiwanese singer-songwriter performed for an hour last Friday night at the Padang stage after the night’s race for the 2012 Formula One SingTel Singapore Grand Prix.
He was in pretty good form though the volume for the vocals seemed rather soft especially compared to the roar of the engines.
It seemed ironic when he remarked at one point: “It was pretty loud just now, so my music can’t be too soft either.”
And even under the best circumstances, it can be hard to make out the wordy tongue-twisting lyrics so the slightly muffled sound at points did not help.
Chou kicked things off with newer material – the frenetic title track from Exclamation Point (2011) and the drama- tic title track from The Era (2010).
Tellingly though, it was his older hits that the crowd really responded to.
From his watershed record Fantasy (2001), he performed the slinky Love Before The Century, the poignant ballad Can’t Utter A Word and the high-energy crowd-pleaser Nunchucks.
According to the organisers, 35,000 fans sang and bopped along.
Projecting to such a big crowd is challenging and those standing further back could hardly make him out on stage, so the giant screens flanking the stage were essential.
Given the outdoor setting and the short duration of the performance, the stage set-up was much simpler compared to his full-on gigs here.
As for costumes, he went through a few different black jackets, from one with sequinned sleeves to one which lit up and made him look like a character out of the sci-fi fantasy Tron (1982).
There were some interesting touches here and there to keep things entertaining.
He was raised up on a tiny platform during The Era and for the appropriately themed The Goddess Of Racing, a sleek red sportscar rolled onto the stage as Chou danced with women in bikini tops.
The talented musician also played the piano ivories for a few tracks.
He teasingly launched into a beatbox intro for one song before revealing that it was the so-called China-style ballad Blue And White Porcelain.
While recent publicity pictures had revealed a toned abdomen, there was no flash of it on stage.
Chou did seem slimmer though and from some angles, he looked uncannily like the Korean-American actor John Cho.
Maybe it was the lighting, which was definitely a bright note.
From powerful beams cutting swathes into the night sky to green lasers sweeping across the field to a spray of sparklers shimmering over the stage, the dramatic lighting definitely made an impact.
If only the sound had shone like that.
(ST)

Love Is Revealed In The Long Run
Fish Leong
Sometimes, all we want is comfort food. Nothing fancy or new, just something familiar and reassuring.
This is what Malaysian singer Fish Leong offers with the title track on her 12th studio album.
The ballad is about staying true through trials and tribulations and is tailor-made for her richly soothing voice: “I’m not a rumour, I can’t guess you/This crazy game, who needs to approve it/ Others may talk, I don’t care/Whether I love you or not, all will be revealed in the long run.”
With the song She, Leong ventures beyond love to sing about learning to let go of past hurts: “In the midst of wandering, her hands are empty/But her heart is full.”
Then she strays further and flirts with, gasp, dance pop on Bonjour! and Telepathy. It does not help that the transition from She to Bonjour! is jarring and neither fast-paced track feels particularly necessary.
All is right with the world again with the breezy album ender Around The Four Seasons Of Love, as Leong proclaims joyfully: “Spring summer fall winter/Tour the four seasons with your love, super exciting.”
A couple of adventurous tracks are all the excitement one needs from a Fish Leong album.
(ST)

The spectacular landscape of the Nordic island of Iceland does not seem quite of this world. And that is why it has such a beguiling allure.
American astronauts trained there before walking on the moon as that was the closest they could get to a place that looks like an extra- terrestrial environment.
From fiery volcanic activity to blocks of ice floating serenely in a lagoon, Iceland has it all, thanks to its geographic location atop restless tectonic plates and just on the edge of the Arctic Circle.
And because it is relatively small, its sights are all easily accessible from the capital of Reykjavik.
The adventure starts when you land, as the Blue Lagoon geothermal pool (www.bluelagoon.com) is just 20 minutes away by bus from Keflavik Airport. Book ahead with operators such as Reykjavik Excursions (www.re.is) or Iceland Excursions (www.grayline.is), or sign up at the airport when you arrive.
Lounging in the warm mineral-rich, milky-blue waters with curative powers is the best way to relax after a long flight. Do plaster the white silicate mud on your face to get the most out of the soak. And when you are done, buses can take you straight to Reykjavik, a 50-minute ride away.
Instead of renting cars, my friends and I decided to base ourselves in the city and go on day trips instead.
Top attractions – Thingvellir rift valley, Geysir’s spouting pools and Gullfoss waterfall – are clustered together in a circuit tagged as the Golden Circle.
Most companies offer tours and we decided to go with Gateway To Iceland (www.gti.is) at the recommendation of the staff at the tourist information centre. Our guide was steeped in facts and even told a story about elves, gods and a kettle of gold though on comparing notes later, it seemed that everyone nodded off at some point.
The more ambitious day trip we made was to Vatnajokull, Europe’s largest glacier. It covers 8,100 sq km or over 8 per cent of the country. Vatnajokull National Park is south-east of Iceland, 330km from Reykjavik. We went with Glacier Guides (www.glacierguides.is) because it included both light hiking and a boat ride. The brochure also promised a “warm Icelandic waffle with cream and jam” at the end of the day.
Arriving at the Falljokull (“falling glacier”) section, we geared up with crampons (metal spikes strapped to the shoes) and were soon walking on the glacier itself.
It was an exhilarating experience trekking on 1,000-year-old ice and seeing melted water flowing freely just beneath the solid surface. It felt perfectly safe though our guides pointed out sinkholes and mentioned that one was about 50m to 60m deep.
The reward for our hike was a very special treat indeed. Perched over a rivulet with one’s weight supported by a pickaxe lodged into the ice – Chuck Norris-style, said the guides – I lapped up the purest and most refreshing water I have ever tasted.
There was more to this magical day when we entered the Jokulsarlon lagoon with its serenely floating icebergs in shades of blue and white.
The lagoon has frozen over only once – for James Bond. When they shot Die Another Day (2002) with Pierce Brosnan, the area was dammed up so that sea water could not flow in. The lagoon duly froze over and the film had its stunning chase scene in the bag.
And yes, there were waffles to end the excursion on a sweet note and they were perfect washed down with Vatnajokull beer, which is brewed from glacial water.
In between drinking in the sights, we explored the vibrant city of Reykjavik. Street art blossomed everywhere and you could hardly turn a corner without seeing something thoughtful (“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see”), witty (shimmery lava that seemed to flow down a wall) or beautiful (a giant mushroom made up of smaller colourful ones). There was also poetry stencilled onto the pavement.
And when you need a break, pop into one of the cafes or go to Eldur & Is for its yummy ice cream in a cone dipped in your choice of chocolate sauce.
Before the trip, friends had warned that the food “leaves something to be desired”. Either the culinary scene had improved markedly or they somehow missed the best of Icelandic cuisine.
For a light snack, try the hotdogs from the Baejarins Beztu Pylsur stand near the harbour (Tryggvagotu 1). Ask for fried onions to add some crunch and top it off with mustard, with its welcome note of caramel.
The Saegreifinn, or Sea Baron (saegreifinn.is), at the harbour serves excellent lobster soup. The humarsupa came with wonderfully tender chunks of lobster and was faintly reminiscent of laksa broth but without the spiciness, and it tasted as though the essence of the sea had been distilled into it.
At the other end of the dining scale was Dill Restaurant (dillrestaurant.is). Despite an over-liberal use of salt at times, the meal we had there was an exciting one with fresh shrimp, cod, mushrooms and skyr (Icelandic yogurt). We also saw the chef dashing out into the garden to grab a handful or two of herbs.
There were plenty of exotic dishes on offer, from smoked puffin to minke whale sashimi.
We tried hakarl, or rotted shark, which the waitress described as having the taste of strong cheese. It tasted like an animal that had drowned in a pool of urine. It was served cold and when a cube of it warmed up in the mouth from chewing, it released a jolt of pungent ammonia that threatened to overwhelm one’s senses. For some reason, the waitress said she does not eat it.
A quick word about the money situation here.
The Icelandic krona is the currency used and the exchange rate is about 100 krona to S$1. You can change a small amount of it at the airport but plastic is accepted everywhere. My smallest card purchase was for a doughnut which cost the equivalent of S$1.38.
The people there are also great about splitting bills and will happily do so even for large parties. To give a rough idea of how much it costs to eat out: A casual meal of a burger and a beverage at Geysir Bistro & Bar costs 2,760 kr (S$27). A five-course tasting menu plus a bottle of beer at Dill Restaurant cost 9,700 kr.
As for accommodation, the band of 15,000 to 30,000 kr for a standard double room is deemed mid-range by the website wikitravel.org. In other words, it is not very cheap. I found a cosy apartment on airbnb.com located just off the main shopping street of Laugavegur which could comfortably fit three. We paid about S$58 a night a person.
The only place I visited which did not take plastic was The Icelandic Phallological Museum. Its gift shop, by the way, has some fun and naughty souvenirs.
For friends and family with a less liberal sense of humour, get hand-made treats from chocolatier Haflidi Ragnarsson. Or pick up kitschy-cool items with characters such as Bubble the mushroom and Buddha the rock star from the magical world of Tulipop (tulipop.com) by Icelandic illustrator Signy Kolbeinsdottir.
An Icelandic sense of humour is apparent from souvenirs such as message T-shirts (“If you don’t like the weather, wait 5 minutes”) and offbeat items such as canned air (“For best effect, use outside of Iceland”).
Then again, you probably need a cheery outlook to get you through the long dark winter. Visiting in summer meant re-calibrating one’s idea of the season since temperatures can drop to as low as 10 degrees.
Forbidding as it may seem, we are already looking forward to going to Iceland in the winter. The Aurora Borealis blazing across the night skies has to be the most spectacular light show on earth – or even beyond.
(ST)

Wolf Children
Mamoru Hosoda
It might not be as beautifully drawn as offerings from the famed Studio Ghibli but there is still much to love in the anime Wolf Children.
The title refers to the adorable siblings Yuki and Ame, but the film is also very much about their (human) mother Hana. She raises them single-handedly and also has to help her children cope with their dual human-animal nature.
Despite the fantastical premise, the drama is very much low- key, from Hana struggling with farming and acceptance in a rural community to Yuki and Ame’s differing experiences at school.
While Western stories about werewolves inevitably feature sex and violence, writer-director Mamoru Hosoda has instead fashioned a gentle and moving tale about familial love and becoming your own person – or wolf, as the case may be.
(ST)

Listen To Jane Z Live
Jane Zhang

2020
By2

A live recording works only if one has the voice for it. And China’s Jane Zhang certainly does. She shows off her powerful pipes on this disc – recorded on April 9 in Beijing in front of an intimate audience of fans – which begins with a smoky, smouldering version of the jazzy English standard At Last.
It also helps that she has good taste in music and her covers include a delicate take on the folk-pop classic Meng Tian (Dream Field).
New Mandarin track Not So Easy is a standout. The ballad has an ease and lightness to it, even as it tackles heartbreak and sorrow. Zhang reins in her vocals as she contemplates: “How many drawers are there in the heart, are secrets which can’t be turned over” and then “My life has to go on, not so easy”.
Some of the material are too indulgent, though: I do not need to listen to her ooh-ing and ah-ing along on Concerto Pour Une Voix. Nor is it clear why the instrumental piece Por Una Cabeza is included. Maybe you had to be there at the gig for it to work.
While Zhang’s voice takes centre stage on her album, the focus of home-grown duo By2’s new EP is really the oversized photo books – one with Miko on the cover, the other with Yumi.
The nubile twins roll about on a bed, loll about on a beach and smile, or gaze blankly at the camera, in a series of sexy cutesy shots.
Their breathy vocals are used to best effect on the electropop number Touch Your Heart With Love. The song makes a decent case for bubblegum music by offering rhyming couplets and bouncy rhythms coated with a bright pop sheen.
They fare less well on the ballad You Don’t Know Me. A profession of “I’m so sad, you don’t love me” is so lightweight, the emotion barely registers.
(ST)

The Thieves
Choi Dong Hoon
The story: The MacGuffin here is a dazzling necklace worth millions and the bunch of crooks after it is a pan-Asian line-up of stars. The South Korean team lead by Popie (Lee Jung Jae) and the Chinese team led by Chen (Simon Yam) are brought together by Macao Park (Kim Yun Seok). Naturally, everyone is suspicious of everyone else, especially since Popie, Macao Park and the recently released from jail Pepsee (Kim Hye Soo) share a tangled past.

Korean writer-director Choi Dong Hoon has made away with quite a stash of cash with his latest crime caper.
With more than 12.3 million tickets sold in South Korea, The Thieves is the second highest-grossing local film of all time, trailing only Bong Joon Ho’s creature-feature thriller The Host (2006), which had more than 13 million admissions.
The glittery star power on display certainly helped.
Heart-throb Lee Jung Jae of the time-travelling romance Il Mare (2000) and the erotic thriller The Housemaid (2010) is the somewhat pompous leader who knows more than he lets on.
Gianna Jun (My Sassy Girl, 2001) is cat burglar Yenicall who can make her way into any room. Nice to have the actress back in sassy, sexy mode after seeing her sleepwalk through Snow Flower And The Secret Fan (2011).
Kim Hye Soo, who had starred in Choi’s hit gambling flick Tazza: The High Rollers (2006), brings glamour and vulnerability to the role of safe- cracker Pepsi.
And that is less than half of the Korean cast.
In addition, Hong Kong stalwart Simon Yam plays a wily thief while Malaysia’s Angelica Lee Sinje is another safe-cracker with her own agenda.
In total, there are 10 professionals going after the necklace. Designing the poster to fit everyone in must have been a major challenge.
The crime capers of the Ocean’s Eleven series would seem to be an obvious reference but the grouping here is far more fractious despite the surface attempt to work together.
The scene where the Korean and Chinese teams first meet and suss out each other is fun as they trade under-the-breath insults and engage in some one-upmanship.
To Choi’s credit, he does a decent job of juggling the large cast and drawing out the interplay of the relationships among them.
Yam has a tender interlude with the boozy Chewing Gum (Kim Hae Sook), Jun flirts with the boyish Zampano (Kim Soo Hyun) while the shifting relationships among Popie, Pepsee and Macao Park threaten the entire operation.
Some character development is well and good but a heist film has to deliver the goods when it comes to the heist itself.
The bar has been set very high here with the Ocean’s Eleven series and recent thrillers such as Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011), in which Tom Cruise dangled from the world’s tallest building in Dubai.
There is nothing in The Thieves quite as heart- stopping or show-stopping as Cruise’s showpiece stunt but it is entertaining enough to steal away some of your time without you crying foul.
(ST)

Vulgaria
Pang Ho Cheung
The story: Film producer To’s (Chapman To) meeting with prospective investor Tyrannosaurus (Ronald Cheng) takes a strange turn when he finds himself facing the prospect of having sex with a mule. Soon after, he starts to remake the classic erotic film Confessions Of A Concubine with one-time idol Yum Yum Shaw (Susan Shaw) and the deliciously named Popping Candy (Dada Chen). Meanwhile, his shrewish ex-wife (Kristal Tin) wants to stop him from seeing his young daughter so that he will not be a bad influence on her.

This movie is lewd, crude and proud of it, proclaiming its vulgarity like a badge of honour in the title.
The set-up is a simple one: Producer To has been invited to give a talk to a group of students on the business of putting a movie together. As he recounts his experiences, flashbacks unfold.
Very quickly, one gets a sense of the film’s irreverent tone as To launches into a discourse on the purpose of pubic hair, and concludes with the pronouncement: “A great producer is like a thick bunch of pubic hair.”
Writer-director-producer Pang Ho Cheung delivers the laughs along with a send-up of the film industry, where those who hold the purse strings can hold enormous, and dubious, sway.
In an unforgettable dinner scene with a prospective mainland investor, not only does To have to stomach some unusual “delicacies”, but he also has to get it on with a mule. This would placate the loaded triad boss Tyrannosaurus, whose interest in movies is extremely personal and narrow – he wants to remake an erotic classic with the original starlet.
Singer-actor Ronald Cheng gamely plays the swaggering buffoon for laughs in a nicely calibrated performance complete with hilariously intoned Cantonese, or Mandarin for audiences here.
Comedian Chapman To is also stellar as the put-upon producer who is always trying to weasel his way out of tight spots with his gift of the gab and his street smarts.
He is a man under siege as he tries to raise money, convince actors to come on board and juggle his livelihood with fatherhood.
Vulgaria’s cast of colourful characters also includes Dada Chen as Popping Candy, a wannabe- actress with a specific sexual skill, and Hiro Hayama, star of the exploitative flick 3D Sex And Zen: Extreme Ecstasy (2011), as himself.
The Vulgaria version of the Hong Kong-based Hayama is a sly in-joke as he plays an actor who is extremely wary of explosives after his experience on the set of Sex And Zen.
Pang is a director who is able to be raucous and raunchy one moment and sensitive and gentle the next. Like Kevin Smith (Zack And Miri Make A Porno, 2008) or Seth MacFarlane (TV’s Family Guy and Ted, now showing in cinemas), he has a salacious saltiness that is often balanced with an unexpected sweetness at the core.
Add to that his ability to pen sharp and smart lines and his characters come to believably flawed life and make you root for them.
His genuine affection for movies also comes through as he chronicles the difficulties of producers and directors as they wait for the opportunity to do what they love.
With Vulgaria a hit in his native Hong Kong – earning close to HK$28 million (S$4.5 million) to make it the No. 1 local film of the year so far, ahead of his own rom-com sequel Love In The Buff – Pang will probably not have to muck around with a mule to get funding for his next project.
(ST)

Someone Is Waiting
William Wei

Same Species #2
Nylon Chen

Awkward
Kit Teo

Someone is waiting all right.
After releasing a lovely eponymous debut in 2010, Taiwanese singer-songwriter William Wei went off to fulfil his military obligations.
Which means it has been a long wait for the follow-up album from the Golden Melody Award winner for Best New Artist last year.
The accompanying DVD here is a making-of documentary and in it, Wei clearly states his musical direction: He wants to do popular music while realising that the challenge is to do so without being hackneyed or trite.
He succeeds to a large extent.
Moon offers an unusual and out-of- this-world take on heartbreak: “Beneath the moon is my splintered heart/The surface of the moon is where my blood is shed.”
Even when the lyrics are more straightforward as on the gently groovy Tired and the spare Heart Drunk Heart Broken, his evocative singing conveys the emotions convincingly.
We’ll Never Know and Still Get end the album on a poignant note. “We’ll never know the answer/Cause you never chose that choice” is a musing on the road not taken, while Still Get is about the fragility of happiness: “Still get scared/I won’t be by your side when I wake/Scared, won’t ever be next to you”.
In contrast, Taiwanese singer-actor Nylon Chen’s second album, Same Species #2, fails to make much of an impact as neither his voice nor the material is particularly distinctive or memorable.
The lyrics by the singer-songwriter can be rather prosaic as well.
He declares on Just Wish To Embrace You: “I wish to embrace you like this, okay? Okay?/Tightly embrace, no matter how hot it gets”.
Mostly, the love songs sound generic and the sentiment, well, hackneyed.
Malaysia’s Kit Teo does a much better job with the love ballads on the EP Awkward.
At times reminiscent of a less husky-sounding A-do, he is also able to write tunes with a sweeping romanticism to them.
It all comes together on Love Spreads Like An Epidemic: “Love spreads like an epidemic/Would rather be infected than be alone”.
And it was a treat having Taiwanese singer Julia Peng guest on the duet Curved Moon.
She has been rather quiet of late on the music front but her crystal-clear voice sounds as good as ever.
Really, the only thing awkward about this EP is the odd title.
(ST)

Seven Something
The planet Uranus spends about seven years in each sign of the zodiac. This means that every seven years, there will be major changes in a person’s life.
So goes the theory which weakly links the three stories about love in this compendium put together to celebrate the seventh anniversary of the Thai film studio GTH.
The best segment is the third one, 42.195.
A young marathon runner (America- born Nichkhun from the popular Korean boyband 2PM) literally runs into a 42-year-old female newscaster (Suquan Bulakul) at the park and proceeds to turn her life around.
It is an incredibly chaste romance though the two leads keep one watching as they chase after the goal of completing the Bangkok Marathon.
The other two stories are lacklustre in comparison.
The first, 14, is about a teenage crush in the age of social media. The idea is topical and has potential but the segment, like Puan (Jirayu La-ongmanee from the musical comedy SuckSeed, 2011), suffers from attention deficit disorder.
And part two, 28, stars Cris Horwang (Bangkok Traffic (Love) Story, 2009) as a shrill and self-centred actress who is desperate to have a second stab at fame with her former co-star and ex-boyfriend Jon (Sunny Suwanmethanont).
By the time the film ends after 21/2 hours, you feel you deserve a pat on the back for completing something of a marathon yourself.
(ST)