Simple Love
Yen-j

How To Deal With Loneliness?
Kenji Wu

I Remember
Shin

A trio of male Taiwanese singer- songwriters have new releases but only one has decided not to pull double duty and to focus on his vocals.
The jazz-influenced pop of singer- songwriter Yen-j’s third album harks back to his debut Thanks Your Greatness (2010). The piano and drums-propelled The World’s Not Too Bad opens with this optimistic observation: “The world’s not too bad when someone is willing to do something for you, not to return a favour, nor for money, but because of love.”
There is also a gentle sense of humour and self-deprecation in his songs. Temporary Boyfriend casts him in the role of rebound guy over a breezy tune: “I’m willing to be your rebound ball, be a temporary boyfriend.”
Sneeze brings on a smile with its chorus of hachoos. It strikes me that it could also be a drawled reading of “heart you”.
Simple Love thoughtfully strikes a better balance between pop and jazz than his sophomore effort Not Alone (2011), and that is something to be thankful for.
Meanwhile, singer-songwriter Kenji Wu gets contemplative on his dusk-to- dawn concept album. It kicks off with an instrumental dance number and then charts the course of the lonely night that follows after a night of partying.
He is down in the dumps on Messing: “So I party wildly, so I mess about, because I don’t dare to face, face the dark, face heartbreak.”
The tempo picks up on Chase as he resolves to go after the love he once had. Wu tends to be stronger on faster tracks than ballads, especially when the ballad is a schmaltzy one such as Because You’re A Woman. The gently rousing Morning ends the album on a hopeful note and is a nice contrast to the frenzied opener.
Shin, former frontman of the rock band that bore his name, is showing more restraint on his new disc. Unlike the angsty rock anthems he delivered in the past, he sounds more tender on the ballad Secret Regrets.
Maybe the photo shoot in dreamy Paris helped to get him in the mood: There are plenty of shots of Shin looking pensive and mellow in the lyric booklet.
He has left the songwriting duties here to others, such as indie band sodagreen’s Wu Ching-feng, lyricist Lin Xi and Singaporean singer-songwriter Hanjin Tan.
Old rocker habits die hard, though, and there is a sop to fans of his more intense style on the duet Hugging In The Wild Wind with power belter A-lin.
Still, it is good that Shin is trying something different, vocally, to shake things up. We will be even more intrigued if he ventures into socially conscious rock – something he said he might do in a recent Life! interview. Now, that would be something to remember.
(ST)

A Wild Man’s Dreams (1990)
Wong Hong Mok
With his raw husky pipes, Wong Hong Mok stood out immediately. The singer-songwriter, better known as Huang Hongmo, sounded distinctly different from most of the clear and genteel voices on the xinyao Singapore folk scene in the 1980s and early 1990s.
And the self-penned title track of his debut album, A Wild Man’s Dreams, proved to be the perfect song for him.
Although he sings it with xinyao group Tiao Dong Lv Xiao Zu, it was his unvarnished, low-pitched vocals which immediately evoked the image of the titular wild man.
The song opens with a dramatic howl and then throbs with a sense of yearning: “I once had this dream/I was lying quietly among flowers and grass/Through the wild glade and over the hill/I ran freely through the wide grass plain.”
His lush images were startling, given Singapore’s highly urbanised environment. The picture he painted of this idyll was irresistible. It seemed to tap into a yearning that city folk did not even know they had, for the freedom of vast, open spaces.
The album sold more than 69,000 copies in Singapore and Malaysia.
Wong, 53, was ahead of the curve in going green before being environmentally conscious was hip.
The titles alone – Lakeview At Sunset, Flower Date – contain several references to nature. And his subsequent album, Confessions Of A Stupid Bird (1991), contained tracks such as Mountain Passion and A Tree’s Conviction.
The lyrics for Zui Hou De Dian Ji (The Last Thing I Think About), for example, are also filled with nature imagery. The ballad opens with: “Walked through the melancholia of fallen leaves/Passed by the beauty of red flowers/Who was my earliest spring/And will also be my final season.”
While he has embraced nature all along, he had little desire to embrace the limelight, especially when he first started writing songs. In the mid-1980s, songs written by him under a pen-name were played on the radio and performed by others at the annual Xinyao Festival held in Singapore.
It was not until the 1989 Xinyao Festival that he performed live for the first time and using his own name, Huang Hongmo.
The performance caught the attention of an executive at music label BMG and eventually led to the release of A Wild Man’s Dreams.
Reflecting both the collaborative spirit of xinyao and perhaps his own reticence, Wong sang only four of his 11 compositions on the album.
Apart from the title track and Zui Hou De Dian Ji, he also lent his vocals to nostalgia-laden Wan Zhong Feng Qing (Ten Thousand Sensations) and Na Ban Qing Huai (That Kind Of Feeling).
He had said then: “I knew I had to record at least a few tracks. But I would be happier if I didn’t have to sing at all.”
Happily for us, he did.
(ST)

Eason Chan Singapore Concert 2012
Event Plaza at Marina Bay Sands
Last Saturday

When an event is labelled as rain or shine, you better be prepared for the eventuality that it does rain.
And rain it did on Saturday evening, starting with a torrential downpour which eased into a steady drizzle for much of the night.
Ponchos were provided but they were placed at the seats. Fans had to stand in the rain for over an hour just to get into the open-air venue.
The messy situation was not helped by the lack of signage for the different entrances in the mall area next to the event plaza and announcements were so muffled, one could barely make out what was being said.
Most unforgivable of all, the show started at 9.05pm with 200 people still waiting to get in. The fans deserved better. And so did top Hong Kong singer Eason Chan.
As it was, people were still streaming in and trying to get to their seats for quite a few songs.
The rain also seemed to dampen the crowd’s enthusiasm and Chan wondered at one point if people were feeling hemmed in by the yellow ponchos.
Still, the professional singer gave it a good go over the two-hour show.
It is not for nothing that he is dubbed God of Songs. With his rich and resonant voice, Chan can pretty much sing about anything convincingly, be it ruminating on the essence of time on Tourbillon to professing lust and desire on Servant Under The Dress.
The gig was part two to his 2010 Duo concert series and the costumes reflected the theme of duality. He first appeared in a white-in-front yellow- behind outfit with his hair sculpted to look like game character Sonic the Hedgehog’s (left). For the most part though, this felt like a scaled-down version of his previous show and some dancers’ costumes were definitely recycled.
At least there were differences in the song line-up. With 36 studio albums under his belt, there was plenty of material to choose from and Chan dug deep into his catalogue.
There was Love Is Suspicion, Why Not This Way and The Whole World Can’t Sleep from his breakthrough Mandarin album It’s Me (2001) all the way to dance numbers Heavy Flavour and Swipe Card from his latest Cantonese album ...3mm (2012).
When fans clamoured for Ten Years, he said that he disagreed with the view that his old songs were better. He added that his newer songs needed time to mature before launching into the wisely observant See Through, a highlight from his last Mandarin album ? (2011). He did eventually get round to Ten Years though.
Quite a few of his songs appear in two versions and, unfortunately, he tended to go for the less satisfying Mandarin take over the Cantonese one on Saturday. Hence, concertgoers got the merely moving Long Time No See instead of the devastating Might As Well Not Meet. At least we got both versions when he alternated between the thrillingly gorgeous Cantonese ballad Under Mount Fuji and the Mandarin knock-off Love Shifts.
The set ended with Chan bending his knees and pretending he was being lowered below the stage. Then he stood up, announced “Let’s not waste time” and launched into the encore of Heavy Flavour and a reworked version of his hit ballad Backpack.
It was not the most ideal circumstances to watch Chan perform. But it was still worthwhile just to hear him sing live.
(ST)

sodagreen “Walk Together” Tour – Singapore
Max Pavilion @ Singapore Expo
Last Friday

The albums of Taiwanese indie band sodagreen are always a treat to listen to. But there is nothing quite like experiencing them live to get the full impact of their peerless musicality.
It has been three years since the six members performed together as guitarist Ho Jing-yang and keyboardist-violinist Kung Yu-chi were serving out their military service stints. It sounds like they were never away from the way the music flowed.
Frontman Wu Ching-feng shone with his crystal-clear high-pitched voice and he was tireless over the almost 31/2- hour-long concert. He is such an evocative singer that he can take on a familiar hit such as Stefanie Sun’s Cloudy Sky and make you feel like you are hearing it for the first time.
On the delicate Stopping At Each Station, he flits between his higher and lower registers like the butterfly of the song.
It was also impressive the way the band could pull off almost any song request, though Wu would also blithely ignore cries for a number he did not feel like singing.
In the case of early hit Little Universe, he finally relented – by singing the lalala chorus.
The theme for this concert was Walk Together, the title of a song found on their latest album What Is Troubling You (2011). More specifically, it was about heading home to the warmth of family.
There was a video clip of the band members talking about their parents and Wu shared a moving song he had written for his late father, When I Was Young.
And when he sang Come Home Soon from Daylight Of Spring (2009), he asked if the audience wanted to go home soon and the response was a resounding “No!” from the 4,500-strong crowd.
There was a segment when sodagreen performed songs Wu had written for other singers. He quipped that it was like having children put up for adoption brought back home for a short while.
Indeed, Eason Chan’s A Trouble Like This and Rainie Yang’s Youthful Troubles sounded perfectly at home at a sodagreen show.
There were other surprises as well. Wu flirted with a stanza of Coldplay’s Yellow before segueing into A-mei’s My Dearest. There was also an uproarious mash-up of The Lonely Goatherd from the musical The Sound Of Music (1959) and Harlem Yu’s Minnan number Black Dog Man On The Mountaintop. It was a strange-sounding pairing that worked and it was worth it just to hear Wu yodelling away.
While the band might be better known for their ballads, they could also step it up and get the crowd pumping with rockers such as Fever.
They even devised some simple dance moves on Control Freak for the crowd to dance along to and then amped up the genteel Daylight to end the set on a rousing note.
Adding to the entertainment value was Wu’s welcome sense of theatricality. He sported a dramatic smear of red and blue eyeshadow over his left brow and could always be counted on to say something funny, cutting or outrageous.
When the band members came off the stage and did their walkabouts, Wu kept order with both the stick and carrot. He jokingly threatened to cancel the concert if people did not return to their seats and then announced he would head to whichever section was the most orderly.
He even made the usually dry thank-you segment fun by keeping up a patter of commentary as photographs of the behind-the-scenes personnel in wigs flashed onto the screen.
More of the Wu Ching-feng variety show was seen during the encore when he challenged guitarist Liu Jia-kai to shoot for the ending high notes in the duet I Wrote Of You In My Song – and then moving up the register as Liu nailed each attempt.
The encore ended with the gospel- tinged What Is Troubling You as some fans, mostly togged out in sodagreen T-shirts, streamed onstage and everyone sang along. It was a moment that felt as cosy and comfortable as home.
(ST)

J Moment
Jay Chou

Mandopop king Jay Chou’s (right) last two albums were not among his strongest. And this is a fact that a collection of music videos for Exclamation Mark (2011) and The Era (2010) will not change.
They work best when they have a sense of fun about them, such as on Free Tutorial Video, a country- and-western tinged number staged with group choreography in a school setting that rolls along with rollicking energy.
For catchy dance track Enchanting Melody, Chou turns to an unlikely source for inspiration – cerebral Hollywood thriller Inception (2010).
While the animated video for Exclamation Mark unfolds like a violent video game and reminds one of how the record seems to aim at younger listeners, the live-action-cartoon vibe of Hydrophobic Sailor was more successful.
Some songs are let down by the videos. The mid-tempo Long Time No See flits easily between Mandarin and Minnan and is a highlight on The Era but is given an overly cutesy treatment complete with a dancing robot.
The making-of bonus snippets feature Chou acting directorial on set or speaking directly to the viewer. Check out the making of Free Tutorial Video for a glimpse of his mother.

The Story Of Billy
Wilber Pan

Free Now
Equator 2

It is always a sign of desperation when soap operas turn to multiple personality disorder as a plot device.
But even though the title track of Wilber Pan’s new album is inspired by The Minds Of Billy Milligan (1981), a book about a real-life criminal with the disorder, there is nothing desperate about the resulting electronic stomper.
The 32-year-old singer-songwriter has even designated different personalities for different parts of the song.
He warns at one point: “Ignorant you, please be careful, because I might not be able to endure/Too much, too much.”
The lively fast-paced tracks are the stronger ones here, so pay attention to Live Broadcast and Get It.
Given his thin voice, Pan should stay away from ballads as they tend to show up his limitations.
And the tune for English ballad Baby Tonight is not so great that we need to hear it again with Mandarin lyrics on Don’t Wanna Wake Up. The album may not always work but at least no one can accuse Pan of playing it safe.
Neither are the guys of the collective called Equator 2 afraid of taking risks.
Out of the 10 tracks, only two are credited to the quartet. They include the opening title track which has a laidback summery vibe to it: “La la la la oh oh oh, shorts, singlet and slippers/La la la la oh oh oh, talked the night away without realising it.”
The others are credited to the individual members – Jeff Wu, Sega Lu, Strong and Johney – and it is quite a mixed bag of material from folksy love ballad (Actually She Knows) to rap-rock (Li Bai’s Voice) to slice-of-life number (Watching Movies) to pop oddity (John’s Magic Medicine).
This is a record with multiple personalities no doubt.
(ST)

David The Best 2.0 Kucing Kuraps FTW
Drama Box, The Joyden Hall @ Bugis+/Thursday
Overheard near the three-hour mark at this production: “Oh my God, it’s not over yet.” A wildly ambitious piece of community theatre, David The Best tries to explore identity and how its different layers – national, racial and personal – overlap.
Sadly, its execution falls short. What we get is a sprawling, scattered talk show that is crying out to be edited. It is as unwieldy as its title, which references the underdog (David vs Goliath), Internet slang (FTW) and throws in the Malay phrase for “small fry” for good measure. This is the second edition of a well-received play radio DJ Huang Wenhong did in 2008 called David The Best!.
David 2.0 has a loose talk-show format. Guests, from MediaCorp actor Chew Chor Meng to regular folks who responded to an audition call on Huang’s radio show, share their stories on stage. Huang serves as host and also slips in and out of different voices and characters in observational pieces which pad out the show. He co-created the show with Drama Box’s Kok Heng Leun, who directed and wrote the script.
One theme that crops up in the show is this: We all have our stories, and by sharing our stories, we become a stronger and more tolerant community. Alfian Sa’at’s 2011 play, Cooling Off Day, about how people voted in the General Election, had conveyed the same message in far more compelling fashion – and without spelling it out.
The idea is a worthy one, but while I admire the courage of the regular folks who came forward to share their tales, it is theatre’s job to give some shape and form to the stories rather than letting them run on. For example, a mother’s convoluted story about a disciplinary incident involving her son at school did not have enough of a pay-off.
In addition to Chew, the production also featured guest appearances by Taiwanese getai performer Hao Hao and theatre actress Aidli Mosbit. A slightly different roster of guests will appear at each performance. The show’s run is till Oct 20.
On opening night on Thursday, Chew talked about his abusive father and his journey as an actor and his struggle with spinal muscular atrophy, while Hao Hao shared the hurdles he has faced as a cross-dressing performer. Some of it was amusing. Some, touching and moving. But one wonders if this was the right venue for these confessionals.
Sure, Hao Hao makes a point about multiple identities and how they shift, depending on context. But it takes him some time to get to it. Meanwhile, he hijacked the evening to flaunt his flirty, sassy getai persona (above).
Huang bantered quite a bit with Aidli, asking the audience to freely ask her about Malays and Muslims. Mostly, he offered up broad stereotypesfor her to swat away easily. The exchange was done in the spirit of fostering greater understanding and it helped that Aidli had some zinging comebacks.
When Huang riffs on about aspects of Singapore life, the delivery is genial, but the writing is not tight or sharp enough. It is a charge that could be levelled against the production as a whole. Adding FTW – Net lingo for “for the win” – to a title does not automatically make a show awesome.
(ST)

Too Foolish (1994)
Eric Moo


Along with musicians such as Liang Wern Fook and Billy Koh, Malaysia-born Singapore-bred singer-songwriter Eric Moo was a key figure in xinyao, or the Singapore folk movement of the 1980s.
Some of the 49-year-old’s best-known songs were slice-of-life ditties about the man in the street, including the rousing Kopi-O from the popular drama series The Coffee Shop (1986).
But his love ballads were what cemented his reputation as an angst-ridden, leather jacket-clad star. And Too Foolish was a prime example of the macho, heartbroken laments favoured by the melodramatic.
It was the essence of bombastic love songs distilled into a single song, and amateur singers struggled to master the monster hit in karaoke lounges all over.
Composed by Moo, with lyrics by Chen Jiaming, the tune boasted a chorus that daringly went for the high notes. Its claim to fame, however, were 30-word-long phrases that tested the singer’s breath control. For instance: “It’s only, why did you ignore all those swirling rumours in the beginning, and choose me in the midst of wind and rain?/It’s only, why, after we have ignored it all, chased after true love and tasted the sweet after the bitter, did you give up on me?”
With the inclusion of a plaintive erhu in its arrangement, the song also prefigured the so-called “China-style” tunes popularised by later artists such as Jay Chou.
The EMI-released album that bears the same name – a collection of nine of Moo’s previous ballads, a live track which sampled songs from his 1993 Malaysian concert, plus the new title number – reportedly sold a whopping 1.8 million copies across Asia.
It was arguably an early example of the now-common marketing tactic of packaging together some greatest hits with a sprinkling of new tracks.
The collection includes earlier examples of Moo’s ballads: from the more radio-friendly Sad People Get Sadder (1991), to the more quietly affecting For You (1989), which was written for his then-girlfriend, model-actress Jazreel Low.
Moo was also successful as a songwriter for others.
The big Cantonese hit for Hong Kong singer Jacky Cheung, Just Want To Spend My Life With You (1993), came from his pen and it appears here in its original Mandarin version, Shouldn’t Let You Wait Too Long.
Among my favourite tracks are those taken from the 1988 album You Are My Only One: Those Days and the stirring title number.
Moo broke into the Taiwan and Hong Kong markets with You Are My Only One and the power ballad became a template of sorts for his future lung-busters – a gentle, contemplative stanza, building up to an explosive chorus as emotions boil over.
In contrast, Those Days was a very different type of ballad. In it, Moo reminisced about friendships of yesteryear. Inspired by a phone call from a friend’s mother, he wrote the song in half an hour.
Over the course of his long career, he has sometimes come across as cocky and even controversial. He has also been guilty of over-singing at times and his forceful blasting of songs by female singers on The Classic (2009) was an exercise in excess.
But Too Foolish reminds you of Moo at his best. To dismiss the veteran all together, because of transgressions real or imagined, would be plain silly.
(ST)

Muse
Jolin Tsai

Wishing For Happiness
Rainie Yang

Games We Play
Deserts Chang

Mandopop queen Jolin Tsai is seen wearing a number of sexy outfits in the elaborate music video for a song from her new album. That is no surprise, of course.
Less expected perhaps is the song itself: The Great Artist, a cover of an English tune, is easily the best thing on her new album. It’s sassy, spunky and dripping with attitude.
The Taiwanese singer even takes a stab at rapping on the hard-hitting dance track: “You hypnotise yourself/That he’s a great artist/You give him the colour palette/To mix a collage of betrayal/He is not van Gogh/Or Monet/But he has never lacked for models.”
Buried near the end of the record is another highlight. Penned by Tizzy Bac’s Chen Huei-ting, Someone chugs along with a perky beat paired with musings about love: “Some say I’m too proud when it comes to love/Some people just want someone.”
The rest of the record is not as inspiring, despite the title. It’s not for lack of trying as she works with the big hitters, including sodagreen’s Wu Ching-feng, Peggy Hsu, Tanya Chua and JJ Lin. Maybe that is why it does not feel like a cohesive record.
Still, there is more progress here compared to Rainie Yang’s latest record.
The Taiwanese singer got things right with the sophisticated adult pop of her last album Longing For. But she seems to have gone back to bland ballads and cutesy offerings here.
The title track does her no favours by painting her as the passive party: “I’m just someone wishing for happiness/Why can’t I meet a fate that puts down roots.”
The ballad Missing You turns things around somewhat by being just sweet enough. But despite a song on this album titled Possibilities, she does not seem to be exploring them fully.
With Deserts Chang, one could never accuse her of being anything but ambitious on her new disc.
The lyric booklet for the Taiwanese singer-songwriter’s fifth album opens with the enigmatic phrase: “Fate is the gods, the game, is us.” The record goes on to explore the idea of god and destiny in a musical tapestry woven from indie rock and folk influences.
She imagines on Lunatic’s Sunbath: “God cups you in his hands, this life shimmering gently; alas my life is on the ground.” And, admirably, her songs about relationships such as Significant Others veer away from cliches.
Sky Inside The Eyewall has a moment of pure sweetness and light when she coos “I used to have only you in my sights” and then one of calm epiphany when she croons “Maybe at dream’s exit, peace embraced emotion/Understood in an instant/You are leaving.”
Chang does not need to shout to make herself heard but her insistent whisper lingers on after the record has ended.
(ST)

It is that time of the year that Singapore fans of American TV get to fall in and out of love with a new slew of dramas and comedies.
Welcome to the American fall season, when an array of fresh series hits the screens in what amounts for the viewer to a session of speed-dating.
Watch them and then decide, after an episode or two, which ones you want to continue seeing and which ones you want to dump unceremoniously.
No common themes jump out immediately – fairy tales, for example, inspired the fantasy Once Upon A Time and crime drama Grimm last year – but there are a lot of familiar faces taking another shot at coming up with the Next Big Thing.
Matthew Perry, 43, from the sitcom Friends (1994-2004), is back with a new comedy, Go On. Of his two post-Friends series, the high-profile Aaron Sorkin drama Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip failed to find an audience despite generally good reviews.
Terry O’Quinn, 60, whose charismatic Lost character John Locke proved to be his breakout role, plays a mysterious building owner in supernatural thriller 666 Park Avenue. Sci-fi adventure Lost aired from 2004 to 2010.
And Mindy Kaling, 33, from The Office (2005 to present) comes into her own with The Mindy Project. On paper, this sounds blah – a single female doctor looking for romance. But the twist is that the comedy is headlined by an Asian-American – Kaling is of Indian descent – which is a rarity on American TV.
Margaret Cho’s single-season All American Girl (1994-1995) is the only example that comes readily to mind after all these years.
Still, there has been some headway made.
Lucy Liu, who made a splash in legal dramedy Ally McBeal (1997-2002), is now starring in Elementary as Dr Joan Watson to Jonny Lee Miller’s Sherlock Holmes. While there are no details now on when it will appear here, keep an eye out for this.
In the meanwhile, check out the new offerings including those from familiar faces, and weigh up if they have earned your commitment. Remember, relationships come and go but TV is forever.

THE NEIGHBORS
What: Aliens are already here and they are living in the suburban community of Hidden Hills. Extra- terrestrial neighbours are definitely more than what the Weavers bargained for when Marty (Lenny Venito) moves there with his family.
Status update: Alien-themed comedies have done well in the past from Alf, which stands for Alien Life Form, in the 1980s to 3rd Rock From The Sun, which ran from 1996 to 2001.
But the clash-of-cultures jokes in The Neighbors were only mildly amusing in the first episode. Maybe intergalactic humour does not travel well in this case.

PARTNERS
What: The creators of the long-running sitcom Will & Grace (1998-2006), Max Mutchnick and David Kohan, have tweaked their formula. Instead of a series about a gay guy and his best friend, a straight woman, Partners is about a gay guy (Ugly Betty’s Michael Urie) and his best friend, a straight man (Numb3rs’ David Krumholtz).
One-time hyped actor Brandon Routh (Superman Returns, 2006) is stuck in the role of the dim-witted boyfriend.
Status update: The laugh-free pilot was painful to sit through and this is one of the worst reviewed new shows, according to the website metacritic.com.
Signs are that this partnership will not last.

MALIBU COUNTRY
What: Reba Gallagher’s (Reba McEntire) world comes crashing down when she discovers her country music legend husband has cheated on her. She heads out to California to restart her own music career with her two children and her sharp-tongued mother (Lily Tomlin) in tow.
The plot sounds like it could have come from some country music tearjerker ballad.
Status update: The only reason this is not called Reba after its country music star McEntire is because she already did that show. The sitcom did well enough to run from 2001 to 2007. So head for Malibu Country if you are a fan of either Reba the show or Reba the singer.

GO ON
What: Matthew Perry stars as Ryan King, host of a sports radio show. He is in denial about losing his wife and is forced to attend grief counselling sessions before he is allowed to return to work. He reluctantly joins a support group and finds an assortment of oddball characters there dealing, or not, with grief.
Perry and show creator Scott Silveri had previously worked together on a little show called Friends (1994-2004).
Status update: Post-Friends, Perry starred in two short-lived series – sitcom Mr Sunshine (2011) and dramedy Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip (2006-2007).
Go On might not be third time lucky judging from the first episode, as it seems to be trying too hard. The biggest reason for going on with it is if you are a Perry fan.

THE MINDY PROJECT
What: Single doctor Mindy (Mindy Kaling) loves movie romances and is looking for Mr Right so that her own dream romance can come true. She might not be perfect herself but she is working on it. At work, she flirts with sexy Jeremy Reed (Ed Weeks) and squabbles with Danny Castellano (Chris Messina), who clearly has a thing for her. It is the first American TV series with a South Asian-American starring as the lead.
Status update: Can we see more of each other please? So what if there are shades of Bridget Jones? Kaling makes her flawed character likeable and someone you actually want to spend time with and get to know better. This could be the love of your life, at least for this TV season.

THE WEDDING BAND
What: Four young men have figured out that weddings are the hottest parties in town and they have a ticket to every single one as the wedding band.
Brian Austin Green from teen drama Beverly Hills, 90210 (1990-2000) and Harold Perrineau from sci-fi thriller Lost (2004-2010) star.
Status update: The movie Wedding Crashers (2005) was fun but the idea of it stretched out to an entire series is less appealing.
The show is offering a wedding band but commitment might not be forthcoming.

GUYS WITH KIDS
What: The no-effort title does not bode well. Neither does the premise of three 30-something dads who are barely grown up themselves.
The biggest name in the cast is Jesse Bradford, star of films such as erotic thriller Swimfan (2002) and a 2008 Hollywood remake (of the same name) of the hit Korean film My Sassy Girl (2001).
Status update: Enough with men who cannot grow up already. Can this be anything but juvenile?

ANIMAL PRACTICE
What: Dr George Coleman (Justin Kirk) is a top veterinarian who likes to do things his way, and that includes having a capuchin monkey assistant around. Not surprisingly, he clashes with the hospital’s new owner Dorothy Crane (Joanna Garcia-Swisher), who also happens to be his ex.
Status update: There is potential here for all kinds of monkey business so it would be great if the show could loosen up more. If we wanted a strait-laced medical drama, there are plenty of options out there.

ARROW
What: The DC Comics character Green Arrow gets reinvented for the goggle box. Billionaire Oliver Green (Stephen Amell) returns to civilisation after being marooned on an island for five years. Things happened to him there and he returns a changed man and one who now fights injustice in the guise of the Arrow.
Executive producer Greg Berlanti is best known for creating the sensitive cult drama Everwood (2002-2006), though he had made a previous foray into superhero territory with No Ordinary Family (2010-2011).
Status update: Given the underwhelming big-screen adaptations of The Green Hornet (2011) and Green Lantern (2011), dropping the Green from Green Arrow might well be a smart decision.
The hunky Amell could well hold attention for a few episodes but the back story will need to be interesting in order for this to be more than just a crime-fighting caper.

666 PARK AVENUE
What: The swanky apartment building at 666 Park Avenue is a place where dreams come true – but at a price. And owner Gavin Doran (Terry O’Quinn from Lost) is there to extract it. Ugly Betty’s Vanessa Williams plays his none-too-innocent wife.
The new co-managers of the building (Rachael Taylor and Dave Annable) can barely believe their luck in landing their dream jobs. Taylor soon stumbles upon the basement which hints at the building’s dark past.
Status update: If you did not already know, 666 is supposed to be the sign of the devil. Which means that this new show is not particularly subtle.
It seems to be cashing in on the success of American Horror Story’s haunted house premise, so tune in if you like your relationships dark and with a hint of danger.

REVOLUTION
What: A high-concept thriller from Supernatural’s Eric Kripke, produced by J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot Productions.
A mysterious blackout renders all technology obsolete and the world is thrust into a post-apocalyptic landscape of manual labour and competing warlords.
The series focuses on the Matheson family who are in possession of a device which could be the key to explaining the blackout – as well as reversing its effects.
Status update: Post-apocalyptic shows are a tough sell. Jericho, for one, struggled to find an audience during its run from 2006 to 2008.
For the moment, Revolution has an intriguing premise in its favour and several revelations at the end of the first episode suggest that the pacing could be snappy enough to keep audiences hooked.

HANNIBAL
What: The fascination with serial murderers translated into success for the books and films about psychiatrist-turned-man-eating-serial-killer Dr Hannibal Lecter, created by best-selling writer Thomas Harris.
The small-screen series zooms in on the relationship between Hannibal (Cannes 2012 Film Festival’s Best Actor Mads Mikkelsen) and FBI criminal profiler Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) as they join forces to nab twisted villains.
This is a departure for creator Bryan Fuller, who is best known for whimsical series such as Wonderfalls (2004) and Pushing Daisies (2007-2009).
Status update: The cast is top-notch and the Hannibal Lecter character is a familiar one. This series could be a killer.

CHICAGO FIRE
What: The title pretty much sums it up as the series is set at a fire station in Chicago where macho men butt heads but stoically put aside their differences when it comes to heroically battling fires.
It is produced by Dick Wolf, best known for creating the evergreen Law & Order franchise.
Status update: Actor-model Taylor Kinney attempts to be known for being more than pop star Lady Gaga’s boyfriend but one gets the feeling that a reality series about their lives would be more entertaining than this by-the-numbers drama.
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Dangerous Liaisons
Hur Jin Ho
The story: For the sport of it, suave lothario Xie Yifan (Jang Dong Gun) makes a bet with scheming businesswoman Mo Jieyu (Cecilia Cheung) that he can seduce the virtuous, widowed Du Fenyu (Zhang Ziyi). At the same time, the spurned Mo wants Xie to prey on the virginal Beibei (Wang Yijin) to take revenge on her former lover.

Sex, lies and betrayal. No wonder the 1782 French epistolary novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses keeps getting the movie treatment.
Notable adaptations include Stephen Frears’ Dangerous Liaisons (1988) with Glenn Close, John Malkovich and Michelle Pfeiffer; Milos Forman’s Valmont (1989) with Colin Firth and Annette Bening; and a modern-day teenage update Cruel Intentions (1999) with Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe and Reese Witherspoon.
Korean director Hur Jin Ho’s (One Fine Spring Day, 2001) version sets itself apart in two immediate ways by being a Mandarin feature and with the setting moved to 1930s Shanghai.
But the story remains familiar. Whatever Chinese writer Yan Geling added to the script, the focus of the story is still on the triangle of, in this case, Xie, Mo and Du.
The success of any interpretation depends on the trio. Close, Malkovich and Pfeiffer’s luminous performances made Frears’ take compelling. In comparison, the Asian cast fall short.
Korean A-lister Jang Dong Gun (My Way, 2011) gets the slick charm of Xie down pat. And there is a perpetual smirk that points to an arrogant smugness and unshakeable self-confidence. But he does not project silky menace the way Malkovich did, taking away the elements of danger and amorality, and weakening the impact of the tragedies that lie at the heart of Dangerous Liaisons.
It is a tragedy about Xie, who finds true love against the odds and is then tricked into renouncing it; about Mo, who unhappily turns into a hard and conniving woman in order to survive in a man’s world; and about Du, who gives in to passion and is punished for it.
Cheung (One Nite In Mongkok, 2004) fares a tad better than Jang though there is something a little too deliberate about her performance and there is not enough chemistry between the two conspirators.
After all, the prize at stake in their callous game of sexual conquest is no less than Mo herself.
It is Zhang (House Of Flying Daggers, 2004) who shines as a woman trying desperately not to fall for a cad and yet gives her all when she finally succumbs, literally shaking with love and desire. She is equally convincing as a virtuous widow holding onto the memory of her late husband, a woman made happy by love and, ultimately, a woman destroyed by love.
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The Bullet Vanishes
Lo Chi Leung
The story: A young girl is accused of stealing bullets at a munitions factory and dies by her own hand with a gun handed to her by the psycho boss (Liu Kai Chi). Not long afterwards, people connected to the case start dying – killed by the lethal bullets nowhere to be found. Song Donglu (Lau Ching Wan), the new police administrator of Tiancheng county, and hot-headed ace detective Guo Zhui (Nicholas Tse) have to crack the mystery of the vanishing bullets.

Dead people tell plenty of tales and the success of television’s CSI series proves there is lots of life in the forensic crime procedural.
In Wu Xia (2011), director Peter Chan thrillingly transplanted the idea to olden- day China and mashed it up with the martial arts genre. With The Bullet Vanishes, writer-director Lo Chi Leung (Double Tap, 2000) transports forensic investigation into the warlord era in China and also introduces some interesting characters to hold the viewers’ attention.
We first meet Song as he is swinging by a rope from the rafters in the toilet of a prison facility. He is not attempting suicide though. Rather, the dedicated officer is trying to find out what exactly happens during death by hanging – thus exonerating an accused person. It seems that Song is much too zealous in his job, which means that he makes enemies easily, especially when he is parachuted into Tiancheng county to clean it up.
The eminently likable Lau makes Song someone to root for as he pits his wits against corrupt police, vanishing bullets and a locked-room murder.
Lau is paired with the always intense Nicholas Tse as Guo Zhui, the broody and hot-headed detective who is a sharpshooter and a sharp observer of details.
Chasing after a suspect who has jumped to the street from a window, Guo is able to quickly discern his quarry’s height and weight based on the suspect’s foot imprints. His relationship with con artist Little Lark (Yang Mi) is less believable though, and their romantic interlude feels a little jarring.
What is fun is watching Song and Guo come up with theories for the vanishing bullets, including the very cool idea of creating bullets from ice.
There are even autopsies performed by a pathologist (Hong Kong singer Yumiko Cheng) as she seeks to unearth clues from the bodies of the victims.
The Bullet Vanishes also has a strong sense of place as the armaments factory looks like something out of a Dickensian nightmare with forbidding barbed wire fences and enormous smokestacks belching out thick black smoke. I was briefly distracted though by the use of the exact same location for the prison in this movie and the intelligence outfit headquarters in recent drama The Silent War (2012).
Still, the film is strong enough to be nominated for several Golden Horse Awards, including a nod for Best Film.
Unfortunately, it over-reaches at the end. Lo wants to explore ideas about the nature of justice but he piles on one revelation too many and, regrettably, the final twist is not fully persuasive.
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...3mm
Eason Chan

Love, After All
Wan Fang

Heartbreak Is No Nig Deal
Yisa Yu

After a series of adventurous EPs, Hong Kong’s Eason Chan drops a Cantonese full-length album. His latest release opens with the retro synth-pop of Heavy Flavour, taking you immediately back to the 1980s circa A-ha’s Take On Me.
If his concerns on his excellent Mandarin album ? (2011) were broad musings on the mysteries of love and life, ...3mm addresses specific societal issues.
He muses on Class that “Money can’t buy/the cultural index”, while Swipe Card takes a swipe at consumerist culture (“Everyone’s in debt/Happily racking up emotional and monetary debts”). Together with musical collaborators Eric Kwok and Jerald Chan, both of whom are name-checked on one track, Chan has concocted a fun album packed with infectious beats – and something to mull over when the dancing stops.
Even without a propulsive rhythm section, Love, After All is compelling. Wan Fang’s voice suggests mellow sunshine and tender warmth, and the Taiwanese veteran’s latest album showcases it beautifully.
The accompaniment is clean and unfussy on ballads such as Love, After All and Daisy, relying on her pipes to tell tales brimming with gentle quotidian humanity.
In the moving Alzheimer (Silence By The Sea), composed by sodagreen’s Wu Ching-feng with lyrics by theatre director and poet Li Huan-hsiung, you can hear the ache and fragility when she croons: “Forgetting is a really happy form of cruelty/I don’t want cruelty to seem so content content content content”.
There is a literary air to the proceedings and the album is aptly packaged as a book.
China’s Yisa Yu has beautiful vocals as well, though it is in service to a more pop-varnished album. Coming soon on the heels of Add A Little Happiness (2011), there is clearly a concerted effort to turn her into the next Queen of Ballads.
But the title track feels a little too safe and a little too expected. It seems to hark back to the last record’s more affecting Can’t Afford To Get Hurt as she sings about love gone wrong: “Who says heartbreak’s no big deal, only know when it’s gone/Can’t even control my emotions, who dares disturb.”
The light-as-air mid-tempo charmer Dress is a pleasant change of pace. Better yet, it was penned by Yu herself, suggesting that her music could get more interesting – if she gets a bigger say in it.
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