Serena
Susanne Bier
The story: George Pemberton (Bradley Cooper) is a lumber baron with an operation located in the North Carolina mountains in 1929. He marries the unconventional Serena (Jennifer Lawrence) and soon, she begins to clash with his right-hand man Buchanan
(David Dencik). When Serena learns of George’s past indiscretion, she turns to the skulking Galloway (Rhys Ifans) to help her wreak terrible vengeance. Based on the novel of the same name by American author Ron Rash.

Moviegoers know Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper can generate chemistry together.
Despite the age gap – she is 24, he is 39 – they sizzled in the romantic drama Silver Linings Playbook (2012). They were both nominated for Oscars and Lawrence won for Best Actress. The two also worked together in the acclaimed comedy-drama American Hustle (2013), though they did not play a couple there.
And because they enjoyed working together so much, Lawrence persuaded Cooper to come on board for Serena. They forgot, though, that you cannot generate sparks in a vacuum.
The script by Christopher Kyle is full of risible dialogue and acclaimed Danish director Susanne Bier flounders in the follow-up to her first American film, the drama Things We Lost In The Fire (2007).
The courtship between George and Serena is perfunctory and he essentially wins her over with: “I think we should be married.”
And more than once, they profess their feelings for each other with lazy lines such as “I really love you”.
Hidden in this dour, dreary film is a potentially interesting one with feminist leanings. What happens when a strong woman is introduced into a fraternity where men run the world and women serve, cook and raise babies? What does she have to do to prove herself?
While moviegoers get a scene of Lawrence manfully wielding an axe, she is eventually reduced to a hysterical state in an over-the-top resolution.
Instead, Bier adds other elements such as the clash between the timber-for-profit and woodland- for-preservation factions, mostly to wooden effect. Meanwhile, George is hunting down an elusive panther and it feels like the film is straining for metaphor, but ends up falling flat.
This is a rare misstep for Lawrence, who has ably balanced crowd-pleasers such as young-adult franchise The Hunger Games with acclaimed arthouse work in films such as Winter’s Bone (2010).
Working with friends is well and good, but next time, she might want to read the script more carefully.
(ST)

Opus 2 Jay 2014 World Tour
National Stadium
Last Saturday

Can a concert suffer from sequelitis?
A year and a half after the Opus world tour made its way to the Indoor Stadium, Mandopop king Jay Chou was back with Opus 2 at the National Stadium.
The first two numbers certainly made a case for it. The volume was pumped up to deafening levels as he descended onto the stage like some celestial being garbed in glittery silver. And then a riot of colours and movement exploded on stage as Exclamation Point was punctuated with bolts of blue, while Dragon Fists swirled about in red.
These were the two opening songs for the first Opus as well, and the idea here seemed to be to pummel the memory of that into submission.
And since we are comparing editions, it has to be said that he kept his abs hidden from view this time, though he did show us his slick-with-sweat biceps in a sleeveless top.
Thankfully, the assault on the senses let up by the third song, The Final Battle.
Unfortunately, the messy, murky sound never really cleared up. He mostly sounded echoey and, at times, was barely audible. The acoustics were particularly bad during Mr Magic, when other singers came on board, as some voices were swallowed up completely.
While Chou did not have a new movie out, there was still a short segment of role-playing that felt like a redux of the mini-musical that plugged The Rooftop (2012) previously. It did not work last time, and it did not work this time.
Ultimately, what the more than 30,000 fans were here for were the songs. And whenever he launched into a familiar favourite during the almost three-hour-long gig, the reception was thunderous.
Even those who criticise him for essentially putting out the same album over and over again have to admit he has a knack for coming up with diverse hits, from R&B ballads to fast-paced tonguetwisters.
Chou remarked that he saw many children and some parents in the audience and added: “It shows that my music speaks to fans across a wide age range.”
They bellowed along with gusto and cheered when he dedicated Adorable Woman from his debut album, Jay (2000), to “the adorable women of Singapore”.
At one or two junctures though, it hardly seemed to matter what he was singing.
Nunchucks was propelled by an insanely catchy beat and some wicked rhymes and not by his vocals, which one could barely make out.
And during the giddily entertaining track Dizzy Eunuch, he could just as well have been spouting gibberish since you had no idea what he was rapping if not for the karaoke-style lyrics displayed on the screens flanking the stage.
Inevitably, the new songs from his just-launched album, Hey, Not Bad, did not pack as much of a punch given that they were not as familiar.
None of this seemed to dampen the enthusiasm of his adoring fans. There was almost a stampede when he made his way into the audience to shake some hands.
The affection was mutual and he cherished his fans as well. He showed his sweet and playful side when he picked three fans and sang duets with them. When an Indonesian fan professed that she could not sing well, he said encouragingly that neither could he.
The finale song, Common Jasmine Orange, harked back to the previous tour’s closing number. But it seemed particularly apt for the stormy evening as he sang: “It rained all night/My love overflows like rain.”
It was answered by a flood of love from his fans as well.
(ST)

Best & Worst of 2014 gigs
Best
DICK LEE: CELEBRATING 40 YEARS IN MUSIC
Drama Centre, Aug 31
Home-grown music man Dick Lee marked four prolific decades with a cosy gig with, and for, family and friends. His body of work is a richly diverse one and spans the beloved national song Home to pop hit Paradise In My Heart to musicals such as Snow.Wolf.Lake.
He crooned Canto hits, duetted with his ex-wife Jacintha Abisheganaden and performed with his three brothers. In between, he reminisced on how he got his start on Talentime and his encounters with stars such as the late Leslie Cheung.
The thunderous standing ovation at the end was a tribute to both the man and his music.
(ST)

Best & Worst of 2014 Asian gigs
Best
EASON’S LIFE IN SINGAPORE
Singapore Indoor Stadium, March 1
The best reason to catch Hong Kong singer Eason Chan live is his voice. Wonderfully rich and beautifully emotive, this is a brew to get drunk on when he performs hits such as Under Mount Fuji and Tourbillon. His exuberance on stage suggests that even he himself gets intoxicated as well.
If you need more reasons, how about the playful outfits and the thoughtful staging? The most indelible image of the night was a man defying gravity by walking on the underside of a cloud while Chan was dressed like a beekeeper on his way to a funeral.

STEFANIE SUN 2014 KEPLER WORLD TOUR
Taipei Arena, Feb 15, and National Stadium, July 5
Singapore’s favourite home-grown pop star wife and mother staged a triumphant comeback at the new National Stadium in July. And Stefanie Sun goes down in the history books as the first pop act to perform at the venue. Unfortunately, it was not quite the perfect gig as she lost her voice as a result of the flu. Still, her fans rallied around her and kept spirits high.
Her Taipei concert in February showed what she was capable of when she was in top form. She was relaxed and happy on stage and even pulled off some slinky dance moves. And best of all, her powerful and distinctive pipes rang out strong and clear.

Worst
2014 SPRING WAVE MUSIC AND ART FESTIVAL
The Meadow, Gardens by the Bay, June 7
The festival made news overseas when Taiwanese diva A-mei was prohibited from singing her ballad Rainbow as authorities deemed that it was used to promote an LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) agenda when she performed it here previously.
Reports said she was perplexed as the lyrics and mood of the track are very gentle.
Crowd control was also messy as the event tried to be both a sit-down concert as well as a do-as-you-please festival. Security personnel could be heard shouting at fans to return to their seats and disgruntled people yelling at others to not block their view.
(ST)

Best & Worst of 2014 movies
Best
THE LUNCHBOX
Inspired by the feat of logistical wonder that is the daily lunch delivery in Mumbai, writer-director Ritesh Batra cooks up a moving tale of urban loneliness and human connection.
It is liberally sauced with delicious curries and spiced with lovely performances from Irrfan Khan as a curmudgeonly widower and Nimrat Kaur as a housewife slowly discovering her own voice.
There are moments of drama, comedy and tragedy and the first-time feature director balances all the flavours as deftly as a dabbawalla wending through Mumbai traffic.

BEYOND BEAUTY: TAIWAN FROM ABOVE
From above looking down, one sees beauty as well as a landscape ravaged by rampant, thoughtless development in the name of progress and economic growth.
The Golden Horse Award winner for Best Documentary shows cinemagoers both stunning natural vistas as well as scarred earth and polluted waterways, all set to a stirring score by Singapore composer Ricky Ho.
What comes through is film-maker Chi Po-lin’s love of the land and while he does not harangue, it is also clear that something has to change before more mountains come tumbling down.

GRAND PIANO and BROTHERHOOD OF BLADES
Two of the most purely entertaining flicks of the year could not be more different.
Spanish director Eugenio Mira goes for high drama and taut suspense in his virtuoso performance of Grand Piano.
Elijah Wood is a concert pianist who has to get a devilishly difficult piece right under threat of death and there are plenty of intriguing questions raised along the way. The score by Victor Reyes works in tandem with what is unfolding as it teases and thrills.
Brotherhood Of Blades is the Mandarin wuxia version of A Simple Plan (1998) – what seems like a good idea turns into a nightmare that will not end.
An easy windfall ends up exacting a terribly high price on Ming dynasty palace assassin Shen Lian (Chang Chen) and his sworn brothers.
Director Lu Yang keeps cinemagoers on tenterhooks over their fates and Lin Sang dazzles with the sizzling swordfights.

Worst
OUTCAST
In bizarro land, wracked with guilt Crusader Jacob (Hayden Christensen) has to chaperone a China princess and her heir-to-the-throne younger brother to safety.
Christensen’s fauxhawk always looks sharp even though they are on the run and Nicolas Cage shows up – blind in one eye, brandishing a snake in one fist and lurching about drunk and angry. It seems like an apt response to getting cast in this turkey.
(ST)

Best & Worst of 2014 Mandopop albums
Best
BREAKTHROUGH
Luantan-Ascent, B’in Music International
Inspired by the natural world, the record dives into the sea, emerges on land and takes flight on songs such as Out From Water, Streams In The Desert and Iceberg. This is revelatory rock, propelled by everything from buzzing guitars to Luantan-Ascent’s magnetic, raspy voice. He ruminates on the essential nature of this earth and even takes on animal forms like a music shaman.

FACES OF PARANOIA – ONLY THE PARANOID SURVIVE
A-mei, Mei Entertainment
Much ink has been spilled on the Taiwanese diva’s ballooning weight, but the spotlight should really be on how good A-mei’s new album is. It sounds like a best-of compilation distilled from the three years that went into it – every track sounds like it could be a hit. Highlights include the slinky Dog, examining a relationship on the brink from the perspective of a shared pet.

MODEL
Li Ronghao, Linfair Records
Thanks to five nominations at the prestigious Golden Melody Awards, China’s Li Ronghao found himself catapulted into the limelight. He eventually nabbed the trophy for Best New Artist.
His lightly husky baritone lights up the understated, mid-tempo material here. Highlights such as the breezy opener Li Bai, Too Frank, a light-footed number about getting hurt, are why the album is compelling enough to make a mannequin move.

Worst
LION ROAR
Show Lo, Sony Music Entertainment Taiwan
One expects more from a milestone 10th album, but dance king Show Lo merely serves up warmed-over rehashed K-pop. His boast on the title song – “I’m not afraid to take on challenges, keep breaking through to something new” – rings hollow.
(ST)

Departures
Karen Mok
Arriving in time to bid farewell to the year is Karen Mok’s new album, Departures. The two-time Golden Melody Award winner for Best Female Mandarin Artist is in a reflective mood as she ruminates on farewells and reunions.
On standout ballad Outside The Borders, emotional baggage fails to weigh her down: “Feel like leaving, leave/Walk beyond memories, there’s nothing to worship/Feel like returning, return/Realise after touring, I’ve left the past outside the borders.”
Saying goodbye need not always be a morose affair. Opener Farewell To Myself finds Mok in celebratory jazz-rock mode as she philosophises: “Regardless of how busy life gets, at least once/You’ll leave yourself, meet yourself.”
Meanwhile, Regardez, penned by sodagreen’s Wu Ching-feng, seems to offer a snapshot of her life after marrying German finance executive Johannes Natterer in 2011.
She sings with fervour: “Let you look at my heart/Let you look at my heart/Every tomorrow, every deep night, every season, won’t change anymore/Let me look at your heart/Let me look at your heart/Every process, every circumstance, want you to dote on them.”
It seems that marriage will not be tying down the Hong Kong singer as she declares on the last track, With Just One Piece Of Baggage. Adventures in life and music beckon.
(ST)

Saint Laurent
Bertrand Bonello
The story: From 1967 to 1976, French designer Yves Saint Laurent (Gaspard Ulliel) was at the peak of his career. He and his business and personal partner, Pierre Berge (Jeremie Renier), were building a fashion empire that expanded worldwide. Creatively, Saint Laurent was being inspired by muses such as model Betty Catroux (Aymeline Valade) and the bohemian Loulou de la Falaise (Lea Seydoux). But his life threatens to careen out of control when he fell for Jacques de Bascher (Louis Garrel), who was also designer Karl Lagerfeld’s lover.

Saint Laurent is no conventional, chronological biopic. And that is both its strength and weakness.
On the one hand, it avoids the expected template of its subject overcoming challenges and difficulties to emerge at the top of his game. On the other, it can be a frustrating exercise trying to make sense of Yves Saint Laurent’s importance as a designer without much of a context.
Mostly, the movie feels like an impressionistic and languorous take on his downward spiral into a booze and drugs-fuelled bender of sexual hedonism.
The movie flits forwards and backwards in time and there are surrealistic touches that suggest his state of mind, such as when he imagines snakes slithering in his bed.
There is also a humorous sequence which pokes fun at fashion’s ludicrousness as we hear models at a photo shoot – one completely nude – voice their inner thoughts. Then there is the pointed juxtaposition of luxe clothing with images of unrest, poverty and agitation.
But it is mostly touch-and-go for director and co-writer Bertrand Bonello (The Pornographer, 2001).
At one point, he casually references the controversial naming of the Opium perfume for the American market and then never returns to it.
The context for Saint Laurent’s place in the pantheon of fashion greats only comes at the end, when a newspaper editorial team is trying to put together an obituary for him in 1977. He died in 2008 at the age of 71.
What keeps the movie from falling apart are some canny casting choices.
With his long, delicate face, Ulliel (Hannibal Rising, 2007) conveys the fragility and ego of the tortured artist.
At one point, he mock mourns the fact that he has no competition.
Garrel (The Dreamers, 2003) mixes sexiness and danger as the decadently louche de Bascher.
While Saint Laurent is something of a mixed bag, the competing biopic Yves Saint Laurent by Jalil Lespert has also gotten mixed reviews.
Perhaps, like the perfect sleeve or silhouette, the larger-than-life designer is not an easy subject to pin down.
(ST)

Chyi Yu 2014 Singapore Concert
Grand Theatre, MasterCard Theatres at Marina Bay Sands/Last Saturday

No fancy staging, no costume changes, no guest stars.
Taiwanese folk-pop singer Chyi Yu kept things simple at her concert at Marina Bay Sands’ Grand Theatre last Saturday and proved that less can be more.
She said at one point to the full-house audience of 2,200: “I think it’s not necessary for me to say too much as I think that will disrupt your memories.”
At 57, her voice remained a thing of beauty, enchanting and enthralling. There was a purity and richness to her vocals that brought songs to wondrous life.
She opened with Your Smiling Face (1979), not the easiest number to start with as it shoots for the high notes. There was perhaps a touch of tightness here and Chyi herself pointed out that she was actually very nervous as this was her first solo show here.
She soon settled down. After all, Singapore was a familiar place to her, one filled with “lots of good friends and good food”.
While the accompanying video visuals were relatively basic, she painted evocative pictures with her crooning.
She sang on Chrysanthemum Sigh: “Smiling gently, slowly blossoming in the cold night/Drifting gently like falling leaves in the forest.”
Chyi could be playful as well. On the oldie Ye Lai Xiang (Fragrance Of The Night), her voice was as light and refreshing as a passing evening breeze.
After a stretch of classic tracks from the 1980s and earlier, she teased: “Some people still refuse to sing along. Are you afraid of revealing your age?”
Midway, she brought out her biggest hit, The Olive Tree. Taken from her 1979 debut album of the same name, it is a track which manages to sound timeless rather than dated.
Chyi thanked lyricist and writer Sanmao and her mentor and composer Li Tai-hsiang for her signature song and wondered where she would be without it.
A few surprises were in store for her fans.
She performed Tian Xia You Qing Ren (Lovers Of The World), originally a Mandopop duet with Wakin Chau, and sang both parts herself. Not only that, she also added the Cantonese version of the wordy track into the mix. It was a showcase of her linguistic as well as vocal dexterity, given the range she had to cover.
As a treat for polyglot Singapore, she then did a mash-up of Leslie Cheung’s Cantopop hit Silence Is Golden in the Minnan dialect, as well as delivered renditions of evergreens such as Whoever Finds This, I Love You and Sailing.
But it was a pity that she found no space in the two-hour-plus concert for any song from her mesmerising 1997 album, Camel. Flying Bird. Fish.
Apart from songs, Chyi also shared the story of her journey from a folk-pop singer to one who does religious music now. Since 2004, she has been releasing Buddhist and gospel works.
She felt that mistakes she had made in life were like little locks weighing her down, but since she started on her new music path, “all those little locks have opened and I feel the path to heaven is open to me once more”.
This was followed by a deeply felt version of the hymn Amazing Grace, which was then juxtaposed with a Buddhist track, Lotuses Bloom Everywhere.
The evening ended on a philosophical note with the song Bodhi Tree, which is strongly associated with Buddhism.
She mused: “I hope that your olive trees and mine can turn into an eternal Bodhi tree after gaining wisdom.”
(ST)

Miracle
Valen Hsu

Love In Songs
Rachel Liang

At her peak in the late 1990s, Taiwan’s Valen Hsu was selling millions of records and winning fans with her beautifully pristine vocals.
Her commercial fortunes have since faded but her voice is as gorgeous as ever. And she works with top-notch talents on this album to showcase it. They include sodagreen’s Wu Ching-feng and home- grown songwriters Tanya Chua and Xiaohan.
There is a sense of anticipation, of being on the verge of something new and exciting, in the title track penned by Chua: “Something’s happening around me/What is it, I can only guess, play a game of catch and guess.”
Some of the loveliest tracks include two ballads composed by Wu, the lush I Will Be With You and the poignant The Most Precious Thing Is Meeting.
Musically, Miracle blooms with orchestral strings and a smattering of electronica touches.
While Hsu has moved on creatively, Taiwan’s Rachel Liang takes a step back on her fifth album. Yellow Jacket (2013) added some colour to her usual palette of ballads but she is back to painting by the numbers here.
Taken as a whole, the album suffers from a surfeit of love ballads. It is best savoured in small doses such as the sweet and simple Rukai Tribe Girls and the laidback title number with its strumming guitar accompaniment.
Also included here is the hit Let’s Not Be Friends After Breaking Up, the ending theme of the idol drama Deja Vu.
Unfortunately, deja vu could also be used to describe the sensation one gets on encountering this album.
(ST)

Annie
Will Gluck
The story: Annie (Quvenzhane Wallis) is a spunky foster child in New York City, determinedly searching for her parents. Billionaire Will Stacks (Jamie Foxx) becomes her temporary guardian in a bid to boost his popularity in the mayoral race. Meanwhile, sleazy adviser Guy (Bobby Cannavale) and boozy foster home tyrant Miss Hannigan (Cameron Diaz) cook up a scheme that threatens the growing bond between Stacks and Annie. Adapted from the 1977 Broadway musical of the same name.

The movie starts with a perky, red-haired, Caucasian Annie in a familiar-looking, iconic red dress giving a presentation in class. It turns out to be a jokey little introduction as the real Annie is soon unveiled and it hints at how this adaptation is different – Wallis is African-American and has more street smarts and is soon leading the class in an improv rap-and-clap session.
That energy carries over into the staging of one of the musical’s best-known numbers, It’s The Hard- Knock Life. With brooms, mops, cleaning cloths and smooth choreography, the foster girls at Miss Hannigan’s mope about their lot with verve and vigour.
But director and co-writer Will Gluck (Friends With Benefits, 2011) seems to run out of steam and fresh ideas after that. Annie the movie merely chugs along when it should be roaring ahead, taking you on a ride and tugging at your heartstrings.
Turning Daddy Warbucks into a wealthy entrepreneur with an obsessive-compulsive disorder for cleanliness does not add much to the character beyond saddling Foxx with some lame jokes.
Adding self-aware references to product placement and the fact that this is a musical do not work either.
And the new songs written – including Opportunity and Who Am I – have a modern sensibility that makes them stick out from the rest of the material like sore thumbs.
It is as though Gluck is trying too hard to make this adaptation different from the many others which have come before.
The critical casting of Annie herself was a little disappointing as well. Wallis was exceptional as the fiercely resilient Hushpuppy in the critically acclaimed fantasy drama Beasts Of The Southern Wild (2012). But here, she seems more restrained and even a little tentative at points.
One appreciates that Gluck has turned the cuteness dial down, but he might have moved it a few notches too far.
To riff on that paean to optimism: Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya, tomorrow/Another adaptation can’t be too far away.
(ST)

Super Slipper Live Part 3
Various artists

No. 10
New Taiwan Recreational

Rock is a many- splendoured thing. And what better way to experience the exhilaration of the genre than in a live setting?
But until Super Slipper Live makes its way to Singapore, fans here will have make do with the CDs and DVDs (which are sold separately).
Founded by mega band Mayday, the line-up for this third edition at the Taipei Arena in August is especially noteworthy.
It features Luantan-Ascent, Quarterback, Tolaku, Chairman and Mayday themselves – also the nominee list for the Golden Melody Awards’ Best Duo category in 2000, according to the Taipei Times. Back then, there was no Best Band category and Luantan-Ascent was still part of the group Luantan.
Fast forward 14 years and bands are very much part of the Mandopop scene.
Over a sprawling three discs, you get Chairman’s richly local brand of Minnan rock, Quarterback’s energetic pumpers, Tolaku’s playful pop-rock, Luantan- Ascent’s soulful songs and Mayday’s arena-sized anthems.
Unlike some festivals where artists stick strictly to their own sets, there is a, well, festive vibe here as musicians pop up in one another’s sets and even perform one another’s songs.
It culminates in a finale segment with everyone pitching in and ends with a rousing rendition of Stand Up.
The party continues on New Taiwan Recreational’s No. 10 as different languages come out to play, including Hakka, Minnan and the aboriginal Paiwan tongue, on a diverse array of genres from traditional folk music to synth-jazz-rock.
New Taiwan Recreational is a collaboration among singer-songwriter Bobby Chen, Hakka singer-songwriter Ayugo Huang and Paiwan tribe singer Shig Loog Ching, and the band have released 10 albums since 1992, bringing marginalised music into the mainstream in the process with humour and grace.

Early word on Ridley Scott's biblical epic Exodus: Gods And Kings appears to be mixed. It has parted the sea of critics as neatly as Moses parted the Red Sea when he led the Hebrews to freedom from the Egyptians.
Exodus: Gods And Kings opens in Singapore on Dec 11. Here are some other biblical, and biblically themed, epics to check out as well.

1. Noah (2014)
Russell Crowe is the titular hero in Darren Aronofsky's (Black Swan, 2010) take on the story of Noah's Ark from the book of Genesis. This is the biblical tale as action flick.

2. The Passion Of The Christ (2004)
With its dialogue entirely in Aramaic and Latin and depiction of extreme violence, Mel Gibson's passion project did not seem to be targeted for the masses. It turned out to be a major hit and earned over US$600 million (S$750 million) worldwide.

3. Bruce Almighty (2003)
The biblical epic gets a makeover in this comedy starring Jim Carrey as a down-on-his-luck reporter, Bruce Nolan, who gets to play God for one week. There was a sequel, Evan Almighty, released in 2007.

4. Ben-Hur (1959)
The fastest and highest grossing film of 1959 was also a critical hit as it swept 11 Academy Awards, including for Best Picture and Best Actor for Charlton Heston as Judah Ben-Hur. Also known as the movie with the most famous chariot-racing scene in cinematic history.

5. The Ten Commandments (1956)
The granddaddy of the religious epic was produced and directed by the legendary Cecil B DeMille and starred Charlton Heston as Moses. It was filmed on location in Egypt, Mount Sinai and the Sinai Peninsula and at US$13 million, it was the most expensive movie ever made at the time of its release.
(ST)

Mandopop newcomer Bonnie Loo is singing up a storm on the dance track YOLO. She is getting into the groove and moving to the beat when suddenly, your ear catches something off. Instead of tian hua luan zhui (an idiomatic expression which means extravagant embellishments), she sings tian hua luan zui, which sounds as though heavenly flowers are getting drunk with abandon.
It was noticeable enough that a radio station deejay commented on it recently, wondering if it might have been due to the recording process.
When it comes to Chinese-language idioms especially, just one slightly mispronounced word can shift the meaning entirely or turn the phrase into gobbledygook.
In the bigger scheme of things though, this was no biggie. The album went on to top CD-Rama’s regional releases chart.
Old-timers such as Fong Fei-fei would be envious.
Proper pronunciation used to be a requirement of the job for Mandopop singers. And they would be criticised when they were off. But fast forward to today and hardly anyone bats an eyelid. Some singers such as Bai An even wear that cloak of imperfection with pride and chalk it up to personal style.
Fong, the late Queen of Hats who was rarely sighted without glamorous headgear of some sort, is considered a legend in the Mandopop world for her sensitive interpretations and precise vocal inflections. But when she started out in the early 1970s, she struggled with diction.
She was born in southern Taiwan where the Minnan dialect was more prevalent and that influenced her pronunciation of Mandarin.
An entire section in her Chinese Wikipedia entry is devoted to dissecting an early track of hers, Zhu Ni Xing Fu (Wishing You Happiness). Among the sins listed: She sings Zu instead of Zhu and Xin instead of Xing.
This was something to overcome and be corrected, not celebrated.
But over the years, listeners began to get less hung-up on exact enunciation.
Partly, this was due to Hong Kong’s musical pre-eminence in the 1980s with stars such as Leslie Cheung and Anita Mui lighting up the pop firmament. They were Cantopop stars first and foremost but also ventured into making music for the growing Mandarin market.
With varying levels of Cantonese-accented Mandarin, singers such as Alan Tam and Jacky Cheung crossed over and less-than-perfect diction became more common.
In the opening line of Between Dreaming And Waking (1988), Tam sings “Zou zai ban meng ban xing de zhi jian”, or “walking the line between dreaming and waking”. But if you look at the lyrics, the word is meant to be “jiu” (“just” for emphasis) and not “zou”.
One might say that in this case, familiarity breeds acceptance.
Singers from Singapore, including Stefanie Sun, Tanya Chua and JJ Lin, played a part as well with their not-quite-standard accent.
Home-grown lyricist Xiaohan once told Life! that one factor that helped these singers stand out is their Westernised background.
She said: “The Western influence in their music sets them apart in terms of their writing and diction. Sun’s diction is very un-Taiwan but it makes her very different.”
On her breakthrough hit Cloudy Sky, Sun actually sings zong (always) as zhong. No one seemed to care as the ballad was a mega hit and she won the prestigious Golden Melody Award for Best New Artist in 2001.
The rise of the singer-songwriter over the last two decades has further blurred the line between imperfect diction and personal style.
The singer-songwriter ethos is very much about the celebration of the individual and individuality. In this context, imperfect diction can be seen as a unique interpretation, even as an inimitable personal style which sets one apart rather than a fault to be eradicated.
Perhaps with dedicated singers, audiences demand more since that is the one thing that they do. But since singer-songwriters juggle more than one ball, they get to enjoy a little more leeway.
Taiwan’s Mandopop king Jay Chou might have mumbled his way through his debut album Jay (2000) but he also packed the record with fresh and exciting music ideas, offering a delectable mix of groovy pop, smooth rap and tongue- twisting R&B.
Despite some criticisms, Chou has been vindicated by the enormous success he has enjoyed.
By the time Taiwanese singer-songwriter Bai An released her debut album The Catcher In The Rye (2012), she was embracing her distinctive, as opposed to wrong, enunciation as a part of her identity.
Like Chou, she also delivered a compelling album and an immediately recognisable singing style only seemed to complement it perfectly. On the ballad What Brings Me To You, she sings about not disappearing into a sea of humanity. That seems unlikely to happen when she sings “chun zhai” instead of “cun zai” (exist) and “zhi ji” instead of “zi ji” (myself).
But before any aspiring singer decides to mangle words in the name of individuality, here is something to think about: Have something to say in the first place and then you can decide how you want to say it.
(ST)

Play
Jolin Tsai
On her last album Muse (2012), Taiwanese pop diva Jolin Tsai fruitfully drew inspiration from the creative process. The undisputed gem there was The Great Artist, which went on to nab the Golden Melody Award for Best Song Of The Year.
She is not quite done with creative play yet.
On the electropop-rap title track, she seems to declare that she is beyond categorisation: “Who cares if you’re niche or mass-market, pooh/Who cares if you’re fresh and light or have heavier tastes, pooh.”
Indeed, some of her play-acting here ventures into suggestively darker places. On one version of the cover – there are at least three – she is bound to a chair with pink ribbon while a tattooed arm is holding a lollipop up to her dark red lips. Read into it what you will.
She dabbles in diverse collaborations on the music and one of the most anticipated has to be her teaming up with Japanese pop diva Namie Amuro on the Mandarin and English dance number, I’m Not Yours. The result is not the most compelling thing either have done, but at least the message is a positive one about girl power.
Instead, it might be the sassy and funny Phony Queen that best exemplifies the spirit of playfulness here.
(ST)

Bonnie
Bonnie Loo

Wings Of Dreams
Stella Seah

Televised singing competitions continue to be a good way of launching newcomers and two champs of local shows have released their debuts. Bonnie Loo won Campus Superstar last year, while Stella Seah (below) came up tops in Sunsilk Academy Fantasia in 2012.
Loo has a powerhouse voice and the the first two tracks showcase it. They also show her range – Don’t Want To Admit is an emotional ballad, while Yolo is a thumping dance track.
She balances restraint with belting on Admit: “I don’t want to admit/Admit you’re the one that I loved/Facing your cold greeting/I smile, I remain calm, but I’m just putting on a front.”
The sassy attitude of Yolo, that youthful cry of You Only Live Once, is a good fit for her, though the word “zhui” (to fall) is noticeably mispronounced as “zui”.
Loo also takes on legendary singer Teresa Teng’s I Only Care About You and local singer Kit Chan’s Heartache. She gives a sweeter spin to the songs, which works for I Only Care About You, but not so much for Heartache.
Seah also does a cover on her EP, a version of Dawn Gan’s Our Class that is not too different from the original. But it is at least consistent with the sweetie- pie image she is going for here.
Head instead for the breezy pop of Go Local, which is peppered with references to all things home-grown. She sings: “Local go go go, local enough?/ Kopi-O is tastier than espresso/You teach me to wrap a dumpling/I’ll treat you to curry fish- head.”
One way to spice up your music diet is to give these new records a go.
(ST)

Women Who Flirt
Pang Ho Cheung
The story: Shanghai urbanite Zhang Hui (Zhou Xun) has been pining for her colleague Gong Zhiqiang (Huang Xiaoming) since they were university classmates. When he falls for a Taiwanese girl Bei Bei (Sonia Sui), Zhang turns to her good friend (Evonne Sie) for tips on flirting and getting her man. Inspired by the advice book Everyone Loves Tender Woman.

China actress Zhou Xun is not a girly girl.
She looks like she could be one, with those big doe eyes and that petite frame. But when she opens her mouth to speak, it is a husky voice and not some delicate coo.
That unexpected juxtaposition has served her well in the movies in which she played an enigmatic beauty in mermaid costume (Suzhou River, 2000), temptress demon (Painted Skin, 2008) and even masked hero (Flying Swords Of Dragon Gate, 2011).
Here, Huang Xiaoming’s Zhiqiang pretty much sees her character Hui as a bro.
But act cute? That is a side of Zhou cinemagoers rarely get to see and it is one of the pleasures of the film. It is not a juicy dramatic role and it might not win her any awards, but her performance here is a charming turn that is a worthy addition to her body of work.
While the title translates “sajiao” as flirting, the term is actually a specific type of flirting in which acting cute is paramount and the arsenal of weapons employed includes, but is not limited to, pouting, baby talk and the fluttering of eyelashes.
Zhou seems a little embarrassed when she tries to master the art of saying
“taoyan” (literally, I hate you) in a coquettish manner, but that only strikes the perfect note for her character.
After all, this is war and, like it or not, the clash is on. It is not just a matter of Hui versus Bei Bei, but of Shanghai girls versus Taiwanese girls. The stakes are not just personal.
Gamely embodying the worst cliches about Taiwanese women is Sonia Sui, star of TV dramas such as The Fierce Wife (2010). So good is she at playing the helpless, hapless damsel that she has Zhiqiang completely under her thumb.
While the dialogue is more sparkling in writer-director Pang Ho Cheung’s movies in which he employs his native Cantonese compared with the Mandarin banter here, he invigorates the often dismal genre of romantic comedy with some much needed life.
With Hui and Zhiqiang, he has created yet another indelible modern-day couple after Cherie (Miriam Yeung) and Jimmy (Shawn Yue) in Love In A Puff (2010) and Love In The Buff (2012), in which they navigate the tricky waters of modern love.
Cherie and Jimmy are perhaps more well-rounded – Zhiqiang is a little underwritten, given that the focus is on Hui.
(ST)

Shut Up And Kiss Me
Elva Hsiao

Fighting For Love
Magic Power

While balladry remains a mainstay in Mandopop, there are a few acts that choose to move to a different, faster, beat.
Taiwan’s Elva Hsiao has been styling herself as a dance diva for some time now and her latest release appears to have an added edge. From the assertive title to the body-hugging leather, it seems as though she is going for sexy with a hint of naughty.
But it stops at hinting. After all, the album contains tracks such as Romance Strikes, Dare To Love and Love Like A Teen.
And despite its title, Play The Field is a ballad that laments such behaviour: “Play the field, you let us be surrounded by variables/I can only worry and persuade myself not to mind.”
At least the title track has some show of sass as she fires off a riposte to those snooping around her love life: “I am who’s who, who cares as long as I love/Who’s nagging, who’s preaching, who’s ardently probing/Don’t feel like explaining, too boring, only need to work hard when kissing.”
The low point here has to be Thunder Of Love. There is more than a whiff of desperation here as it sounds like a track grimly determined to be hip and with it. It manages to be a patchwork of cribbed ideas without a tune.
While they also tease, Taiwan’s Magic Power do a better job and nail a stronger album.
God Of War’s opening harks to the industrial metal of German band Rammstein with its war-like chant, but it quickly returns to a more mainstream synth dance-pop sound.
Adding some variety are the retro-dance vibes of Venus and the crowd-pleasing ballad, I Still Love You.
The jaw-dropping oddity here is the English track Rock Zombie in which the link between sex and rock ’n’ roll is made explicitly: “In this new age we are the rock stars/You can be my personal porn star.”
There are even more risque lines and it seems totally out of place on an album called Fighting For Love.
(ST)

Dearest
Peter Chan
The story: In 2009 in Shenzhen, Tian Wenjun (Huang Bo) and his ex-wife Lu Xiaojuan (Hao Lei) lose their three-year-old son, Pengpeng, to an abductor. Over the next few years, the search for the boy consumes Tian. Miraculously, Pengpeng is eventually found in a farming village in Anhui, but he now calls Li Hongqin (Zhao Wei) mother. Based on a true story.

Losing a child is every parent’s worst nightmare.
Preoccupied with some unruly customers while helping out at an Internet cafe, Tian has no time to chase after his son when he runs off to play with his friends, merely shouting for an older child to look after him. But Pengpeng gets distracted when he sees his mother driving and tries in vain to follow along. He then gets stranded in traffic.
In the aftermath of the abduction, both blame themselves. Tian is consumed with searching for his son, putting up posters, appearing in video clips and chasing down every last dubious lead from monstrous con men.
Huang, who broke out in the black comedy Crazy Stone (2006), is riveting as a parent drowning in grief and guilt. The hope of finding his son is the one thing that keeps him afloat. As heartless as the scam artists are, they nevertheless hold out the illusion of hope. But as the years pass, even they give up harassing him.
Hao (Summer Palace, 2006) also turns in a wrenching performance.
Director Peter Chan (American Dreams In China, 2013) is a sensitive film-maker who handles the moments of frenetic action and scenes of emotional devastation equally well.
At their lowest point, Tian and Lu find solace in a support group of parents whose children have also gone missing. While the group led by Han Dezhong (Zhang Yi) offers understanding, encouragement and even moments of light-heartedness, gut-churning grief is never far below the surface and the precarious mood can turn on just a dime.
Chan takes a gamble, though, by shifting the focus of the story when Pengpeng is found.
The wife of a child abductor is a tricky role to play and the casting of Zhao (Love, 2012) is a smart choice. You need an actress who has enough star power to hold an audience when a movie pivots to her late in the proceedings and someone for whom you might be willing to reserve judgment for a while.
While her husband might be a child abductor, Li is depicted as a loving mother even if you wonder how much she really knew. When Pengpeng is first snatched back by Tian and Lu, he cries out piteously for Li as his mother in a heart-rending scene.
Zhao has been nominated for a Golden Horse Award for Best Actress for her role as an uneducated rural farmer who turns out to be a tenacious mother.
Some of the most moving scenes in the film come on after the end credits start rolling. There is footage of the people the movie is based on, including the mischievous-looking little boy and his father, who makes a touching visit to the home of the woman who raised the boy for several years under a different name.
These scenes can sometimes undercut the fictional film, but in this case, they lend the drama a note of searing authenticity and teary grace.
(ST)

Stonehearst Asylum
Brad Anderson
The story: A young doctor, Edward (Jim Sturgess), travels to the bleak and forbidding Stonehearst Asylum around the turn of the 20th century for his apprenticeship. He meets the charismatic man in charge, Dr Lamb (Ben Kingsley), his unsavoury right-hand man Finn (David Thewlis) and the lovely and fragile Eliza Graves (Kate Beckinsale). But nothing and no one are what they seem. Based on the short story The System Of Doctor Tarr And Professor Fether by Edgar Allan Poe.

Madness, murder and mayhem. These were the stuff of lurid Victorian drama and also of writer Poe’s works. And director Brad Anderson (The Machinist, 2004) does a good job of bringing that melodramatic sensibility to the big screen.
He deftly evokes a specific time and place with the first scene set in Oxford University in 1899. A distraught and dishevelled woman is wheeled into a room full of medical students and a professor intones that every mad woman insists she is sane. In such unenlightened times, terrible fates awaited women unlucky enough to be diagnosed with “hysteria”.
The next time we see her, though, the beautiful Graves is dressed in a gown and playing the piano. No doubt she is in an asylum, but her circumstances are much improved.
The questions of how and why start to form in viewers’ minds. Anderson doles out scenes which seem reasonable and plausible while, at the same time, sowing seeds of doubt in your mind. Something is not quite right, but viewers cannot quite put their finger on what is wrong.
Lamb seems at first to be some kind of visionary who advocates treating patients with kindness. But his method of feeding fantasies is radical and he takes issue with the idea of curing them. Regarding a man who imagines himself to be an animal, he says: “Cure them and make a miserable man out of a perfectly happy horse?”
What is going on at Stonehearst Asylum? Why does Graves seem so frightened? Who exactly is Dr Lamb?
Kingsley, with his piercing gaze and sometimes off-kilter pronouncements, keeps you guessing. Edward appears to be an earnest do-gooder and Beckinsale (Underworld: Awakening, 2012) is well cast as the beauty in peril who brings out the protective side of men.
As revelations unfold, you find your sympathies swinging one way then the other like a boat on gloomy, choppy seas.
The best way to enjoy the film is to know as little about it as possible and let Anderson take you on a dark and Gothic thrill ride.
(ST)

What's Next
Bai An

It’s Still Summer
Calvin Chen

Before anyone can fire that salvo, Bai An jumps the gun and asks herself on her second album, What’s Next?
The Taiwanese singer- songwriter broke out with her debut album, The Catcher In The Rye, in 2012 and there is undoubtedly pressure to follow through on her follow-up.
And she proves that there is more to her than just one good record.
Some things are familiar, such as the shimmery dusting of electronica, which makes her music sound youthful and au courant, and her distinctive, less-than-perfect enunciation.
For all the pressure she must have faced for her sophomore album, its vibe is surprisingly chill.
She will not be rushed, as she sings on the title track: “Give me, give me, some time/Let me, let me, figure it out/Don’t keep rushing forward.”
While she could sound tentative at times, she has the tenacity to stick to her guns.
Right And Wrong has her pondering: “Maybe I’ll look back someday, will no longer be surprised, I’ll still choose the same answer.”
Perhaps her coping mechanism includes denial. On Forgetting Tomorrow, she sings: “Just pretend that tomorrow is very far away, I know I’m not prepared to face all this.”
The thing is, she is smart enough to turn her fears and insecurity into compelling music.
As the last member of Taiwanese boyband Fahrenheit to release a solo record, Calvin Chen must have been feeling the heat as well.
He shrugs it off in the title dance track in which he urges: “It’s still summer, the beers are icy/Life is about being happy in the moment.”
But was there any doubt that Me And You, the heart-on-sleeve ballad from the romantic drama 3 Peas In A Pod (2013), which he starred in, would be included here?
Still, the big decision here for the average- voiced singer might have nothing to do with the music.
The six-track EP comes packaged with one of two different set-in-Dubai pictorial books.
One has him looking all suave and mostly covered up and the other has him showing off his buff bod. Sizzling enough?
(ST)

Don't Go Breaking My Heart 2
Johnnie To
The story: At the end of Don’t Go Breaking My Heart (2011), analyst Cheng Zixin (Gao Yuanyuan) chose architect Fang Qihong (Daniel Wu) over financial hotshot Cheung Shen Ren (Louis Koo). In the sequel, the couple are due to tie the knot but Cheung is still unable to get over her. Complicating things further are Zixin’s brother Paul (Vic Chou), who has returned from France and falls for her new boss Yang (Miriam Yeung), who just so happens to be dating Cheung.

In the first film, Zixin dithers between two men – steadfast Qihong and and the slick Cheung. But even though she is supposed to be marrying Qihong here, the dithering is not quite over yet.
In the first film, Cheung is capricious and insensitive. Here, he seeks to get over his unhappiness by sleeping around and stringing Yang along, all the while still pining for Zixin.
In the first film, Zixin and Cheung flirted using Post-its as they worked in facing glass buildings. Here, he flirts with other women and Post-its again demonstrate their versatility as a piece of office stationery.
Why am I watching the same thing again?
As if conceding that the central triangle’s entanglements are not enough to fill up another movie, director Johnnie To (Blind Detective, 2013) hastily throws in two more characters. The addition of Zixin’s brother and her new boss are meant to complicate matters but it is hard to care when everyone acts like a petulant child.
Also, there is not much chemistry between Taiwan’s Chou and Hong Kong’s Yeung. And having him spout smatterings of French because he supposedly lived there does not make him charming – it merely makes him pretentious.
The misunderstandings between the various characters are so slight that they come across as the flimsiest of excuses to keep things moving along. It all threatens to tip over into farce, but stops short, wallowing instead in exaggerated dramatics such as having Cheung scale a building’s exterior.
If the first movie was an unwitting indictment of the sorry state of modern romance, this sounds its death knell. The actors deserve better and so do audiences.
(ST)

Wayang Boy
Raymond Tan
The story: Raja (Denzyl Dharma) comes to Singapore from India and has difficulty adjusting to life here. At school, egged on by fellow student Shi Han (Tan Wei Tian), he gets into a fight with Xavier (Loh Ren Jie). All three end up getting roped into the Chinese Opera club by Mr Koay (Law Kar Ying). Raja also misses his father and lashes out at his stepmother (Chantel Liu).

This is the hook: An Indian boy sings Chinese opera. And that, as the school principal in the film crassly puts it, is akin to the spectacle of a fish walking on land.
The question is, how do you make an entire film out of it?
Director Raymond Tan builds upon his own short film Wa Is For Wayang (2011) and ends up surrounding the fish-out-of-water with all manner of unnecessary sideshows, such as a drawn-out endurance competition to win a car.
Hong Kong actress Michelle Yim’s turn as the principal’s secretary is also pointless, beyond the veteran star lending some big-name glamour to the production.
An extensive plug for a security company and the career opportunities it offers is so intrusive as a product placement that Jack Neo would be proud.
The central story has some promise, but even in multicultural Singapore, this is not quite run-of-the-mill.
Yet there are no explanations given for these somewhat unusual situations and we are simply expected to accept them as given.
Given that the movie is titled Wayang Boy, it is also reasonable for viewers to expect to see a fair bit about Raja learning Chinese opera. Unfortunately, aside from the final performance, Chinese opera does not get much of an airing.
Instead, the film gets bogged down with Tan framing the subject matter as one of foreigners versus Singaporeans and then piling on more of such examples. Henry (Chen Tianwen), for example, keeps getting passed over for promotion as foreigners get parachuted in. He is also not happy that his son has a smaller role in the opera skit compared to Raja, a foreigner.
There is nothing new here that is not already heard in the media and on social media.
It also does not help that everyone is a shrill variation of the ugly Singaporean, even though Denzyl is watchable as the Mandarin-speaking boy struggling to cope in a new environment after leaving India, both at school and at home; and Liu is sympathetic as the stepmother.
To its credit, the film tries to dismantle some stereotypes, such as having a Caucasian executive (played by Bobby Tonelli) speak Mandarin rather than appear completely clueless. But it inexplicably feeds into others, such as having Indian workers dance whenever they hear music. What would Raja have made of that?
(ST)

Dumb And Dumber To
Bobby and Peter Farrelly
The story: Lloyd (Jim Carrey) has been committed to a medical facility for years and his best friend Harry (Jeff Daniels) has been faithfully visiting him. It turns out to be an elaborate prank (it is no spoiler as this is already in the trailer) and the two dimwits set off on a new adventure. They need to track down Harry’s newly discovered daughter (Rachel Melvin) as he needs a kidney transplant. The sequel to Dumb And Dumber (1994).

At the start of the film, Lloyd is confined to a medical care facility. Wild-haired and unkempt, he seems to have lost control of his limbs and bodily functions. Mentally, he does not seem to be all there either. He is as helpless as a baby and needs to be cared for like one.
It turns out to be an elaborate prank, one that is 20 years in the making.
Talk about commitment to comedy. It is a claim made not just for Lloyd, but also for writer-directors Bobby and Peter Farrelly.
It is also a short and smart way of accounting for the two-decade absence of Lloyd and Harry from the big screen. Dumb And Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd from 2003 does not count as it was a prequel. Also, it did not involve the Farrelly Brothers or Carrey and Daniels.
In this sequel, the brothers are determined to make you laugh and they unleash the full arsenal of rib-tickling weaponry on you.
There are the physical gags which include Harry pulling out a catheter from Lloyd’s groin area and the two farting in a car to overwhelm an unsuspecting victim. There are jokes playing on how dumb they are and include oblivious word substitution by Lloyd: A “genetic organ match” becomes “genital organ match”. And there is the general mayhem that ensues when the two are let loose on a brainiac scientific convention.
The jokes are hit and miss, but it helps that the actors are committed to them.
Carrey and Daniels are totally game to make fools of themselves while Kathleen Turner (The War Of The Roses, 1989) has fun as a one-time tramp who fooled around with Lloyd and Harry.
For all the dumb antics and rude innuendos, there is a sweet centre to this confection. There is something touching about the life-long friendship between the two men and their air of cheery optimism in the face of insults and putdowns. So what if they are the butt of jokes? They might just have the last laugh.
(ST)

Over the weekend in the United States, animation Big Hero 6 beat out sci-fi drama Interstellar for the top spot at the box office. A huge part of its appeal comes from big and fluffy Baymax, the bot hero of the piece, so here is a look at five reasons why he, and the movie, are ballooning in popularity.

1. Big Hero 6 is inspired by the Marvel Comics superhero team of the same name. And Marvel, home of Spider-Man, the Avengers and Guardians Of The Galaxy, can do no wrong in the superhero stakes these days.

2. In the comics, Baymax was a science project by brilliant teenage boy Hiro, originally designed to serve as his personal bodyguard, butler and chauffeur. His default form is a humanoid male and he can transform into a green winged monster or even a powerful mechanical robot. He gets the cute and cuddly Disney treatment and is an inflatable robot in the film. This is probably what the Michelin Man looks like when his folds get ironed out.

3. Cute and cuddly is great for merchandising. Also, Baymax can potentially drive a spike in demand for certain items, merely by association. A character says of him: "It's like spooning a warm marshmallow." A smart tie-up would have the puffy snack rocketing off shelves. Maybe airbags designed to look like Baymax when inflated could even make collisions less traumatic? Heck, just put two eyes on any white blob and let the movie do the advertising, I mean, story-telling.

4. Baymax is a little awkward. He is not not the smoothest guy around and manoeuvring in tight spaces gets a teensy bit challenging with that pot belly. And when his batteries run low, he behaves like an amusing helium-voiced drunk. This means that he is not at all intimidating and is easy to like. One minute, he is protecting his human Hiro from harm and the next, he could be used as a bouncy castle.

5. The depiction of Baymax is almost ridiculously simple and childlike. And that means that even very young kids can cosy up to him in all his forms – stuffed toy, shimmery balloon, comfy beanbag and easy-to-complete drawing books.
(ST)

A critic tears a movie to shreds and its distributor quakes with fear.
It sounds like a fairy tale of a bygone time when a critic could wield enormous power over the fate of a film. In this age of easily accessible information, that sphere of influence has been whittled down considerably. But still, to paraphrase writer Mark Twain, reports of the critic’s death have been greatly exaggerated.
At a Singapore Writers Festival panel discussion two weeks ago titled Death By Keyboard, the subject under scrutiny was the review itself. The session was moderated by the very funny Adrian Tan, novelist and film producer, and I was on the panel with Helmi Yusof from The Business Times and Genevieve Loh from Today.
Helmi critiques theatre and the visual arts and used to review movies for The Straits Times. Loh writes about films and I cover movies and music.
For the most part, the conversation swirled around the movie review.
What a review does is to introduce a film and it can serve as a useful guide for someone deciding whether to watch a movie. It gives you an idea of what the work is about and can touch on one or more aspects of the following – plot, acting, cinematography, sound and direction.
But a review is not the final word. It is not meant to dictate to the reader what to think of the film and certainly not what to think of the film in lieu of watching it. A review is an opinion and one is free to disagree with it.
Since a review is an opinion, it has to be said that all reviews are subjective. My review is my response to watching a movie and that is shaped by everything else, from other films I have seen to how I feel about particular actors, and the fact that preposterous plotholes irk me to no end. Of course, whether something is preposterous is also a matter of personal taste.
In fact, a completely objective review is pointless.
You might as well outsource a review to the robot TARS from the sci-fi drama Interstellar, having set the parameters of 100 for Truth and, say, 80 for Humour. And that one single piece would be dogma.
The diversity of views and reactions to the same film opens up room for debate and enriches the conversation we have about the work.
The different views are all easily available on the Internet through review aggregating portals such as metacritic.com. This might diminish the amount of sway any single critic might have, but at the same time, the collective power of reviews still has weight.
If, say, out of 100 reviews, 80 are telling you it is bad in 80 different ways, it might well give you pause. Call it critical mass.
The Internet is also a repository of all manner of information that you might want to know about a film before watching it. There are teaser posters, trailers, making-of clips, interviews and even gossip about the stars.
Much of this is extraneous noise and what a review can help do is cut through the hype and distractions. When every film that comes along is spectacular, mind-blowing and simply the best, you begin to doubt your understanding of those terms.
As far as possible, I try to know as little about a film as I can before watching it so that I do not have any preconceived notions. At the same time, a review should also give some context to a work, be it referring to a film-maker’s body of work or other similarly themed movies.
Ideally, all films should be treated the same, but the thing is, not all films are created equal.
The bigger a film’s marketing budget, the more hype it generates. And so a blockbuster is at your bus stop, in your fast-food meal and in your hair, while an indie production will not have the luxury of trumpeting its existence. In some way, having no or few preconceived notions about a film when one steps into the cinema is also about being fair to differently-sized movies.
It is also in keeping with the egalitarian nature of the film-going experience itself where it is still possible to watch vastly different offerings at a similar price, regardless of the production budget.
Falling into a category of its own is home-grown films. We want to encourage a local film industry for the simple reason that if we do not make films about ourselves, no one else will.
But that does not mean that critics should treat local films with kid gloves. A local movie will have to compete with everything else out there for an audience.
And the reviewer has a responsibility to the reader as well. Having a laxer standard for Singapore-made films and another for all others does no one any favours and only erodes the credibility of the reviewer.
In the end, writing a review is not an exact science but a balancing act.
Personally, I find that it is easiest to write reviews about films that I love and hate. When a film is great, you cannot wait to tell everyone about it and how and why it moved you. When a film is terrible, you cannot wait to tell everyone about it and why they should steer clear.
The majority of movies falls in between and it takes more work to come to grips with them.
And yes, movie reviewing is work. Some imagine that the reviewer gets to watch a film while sipping wine and reclining in a gold-class seat during work hours and think that it must be the cushiest job in the world.
I jest about the gold-class seat. But, and this is a big one, people conveniently forget about Theodore Sturgeon’s observation that 90 per cent of everything is cr**. And there have been times when I feel that the sci-fi writer was being too generous with his observation.
But the prospect of beauty, of coming across a hidden gem, keeps me watching.
(ST)

The Seventh Sense
Jane Zhang

More
Popu Lady

China’s Jane Zhang goes for pink and sexy in the images for The Seventh Sense.
While the makeover packs a punch, it sounds jarring when she attempts to be sexy on the English track, Unwind: “Our bodies are touching baby/Feelin’ so lonely lately/My luck’s gonna change/I ain’t got no shame.”
The song has nothing to do with the rest of the album and adds to the sense of this being a fractured record.
It comes across as her trying too hard to cover all her bases, even rapping on the Jay Chou-composed number, Isn’t It.
Zhang is at her best on the ballads and R&B-flavoured tracks.
She sounds relaxed as she swings to the laidback groove of Last Smile by Khalil Fong and Xiaohan: “I really miss you/And I’m really sorry/Thinking of you every second/I’m really jealous.”
It is okay not to cram everything into one album. Sometimes, less is more.
And sometimes, more is not enough.
On Popu Lady’s third EP, the Taiwanese quintet still sound thin- voiced and the music still feels like an afterthought compared with the accompanying glossy pictorial book which the group flew to Guam for.
But at least they are smart enough to go for bouncy pop which does not tax their vocals too much.
Come Dance With Me goes the electro-pop route, while Different When With You is breezy and upbeat. I could do without the cutesy enunciation though.
They lay it on thick on the title track: “One more, Two more/Can’t get enough of sweetness/Want more/More than more.”
How about cutting back on the aural sugar levels the next time?
(ST)

The Best Of Me
Michael Hoffman
The story: After surviving an oil rig accident, Dawson (James Marsden) believes there is a reason why he was spared. Later, he is reunited with his high-school sweetheart Amanda (Michelle Monaghan), now a wife and mother, at the will-reading of a mutual friend. Through flashbacks, we learn about Dawson and Amanda’s love story and why they have not met in 21 years. An adaptation of Nicholas Sparks’ 2011 novel of the same name.

The Best Of Me could be a best-of collection of previous Nicholas Sparks weepies. As you read the general plot of the new movie adaptation, past Sparks stories will come to mind.
For instance: Dawson says at one point that he and Amanda are the lucky ones for getting a second chance at love, reminding one that Zac Efron had just starred in The Lucky One (2012), yet another Sparks adaptation.
Worse news for the writer than the fact that he appears to be repeating himself is that The Best Of Me limped to a US$10-million (S$12.9-million) opening in the United States.
That is less than half what the last Sparks adaptation, Safe Haven (2013), earned in its first weekend (US$21 million).
In the new work, Australian up-and-comer Luke Bracey (November Man, 2014), playing the younger Dawson, is a brainiac who does not know how to flirt.
He is also the boy from the wrong side of the tracks and so Amanda’s father tries to pay him off to keep him away. America in the 1990s has more in common with the Hong Kong of 1950s melodramas than one might suspect.
It is also very thoughtful of the villains, namely Dawson’s dad and assorted other deadbeat relatives, that they show up at the most opportune moments and inflict just enough villainy to move things along.
Fast forward two decades and the movie poses the conundrum: What happens to a romance when one party is now a wife and mother?
And what is the woman to do when faced with a doe-eyed and dishy James Marsden (Hairspray, 2007)?
For all the justifications of a sweet romantic history and a cooling marriage, there is no denying the fact that the movie treads on adultery territory.
As if knowing he is in a morally unsavoury situation, director Michael Hoffman (who also helmed the lacklustre Gambit, 2012) then extricates himself from it in the most preposterous way possible.
Alas, there are at least two more Sparks adaptations in the works.
(ST)

Paradise In Service
Doze Niu
The story: The film is set on the Taiwanese island of Kinmen from 1969 to 1972, at a time when relations between Taiwan and mainland China are tense. During his military service, Pao (Ethan Juan) is posted to Unit 831, code for an officially sanctioned military brothel. He strikes up a friendship with one of the women there, the beautiful and enigmatic Nini (Regina Wan Qian). Meanwhile, Pao’s one-time instructor, Old Chang (Chen Jian-bin), falls for A-chiao’s (Ivy Chen) coquettish charms.

After taking to the streets in the gritty gangster flick Monga (2010) and exploring romance in the light-hearted Love (2012), Taiwanese film-maker Doze Niu turns his eye to a neglected and controversial episode in Taiwan’s history.
He takes great care in evoking the sights and psyche of the time and the period details feel authentic.
Pao is originally assigned to the Sea Dragon unit and what marks them out as elite is the fact that they go about everywhere in their red training shorts, including trips into a carefully reconstructed town with vintage signboards.
The mood is far from idyllic though as Taiwan and the mainland blast propaganda messages at each other across the narrow strait of water separating the two. At other times, the blasts are more deadly as shelling shatters the island’s calm.
It is against this backdrop that the story of Unit 831 unfolds through Pao’s eyes after he flunks out of physical training. Making his tale more interesting, the young soldier played by heart-throb Juan has made a vow of chastity for his girlfriend.
Despite that, it is the stories of the characters surrounding him that are more moving. “Demon” instructor Chang is a tragic figure who left China as a prisoner of war and can never return home. He falls for 831’s flirty A-chiao but things do not turn out the way he expects.
For his moving and naturalistic performance as Chang, Chen Jian-bin has been nominated for a Golden Horse Award for Best Supporting Actor, one of six nods, including Best Supporting Actress for Regina Wan and Ivy Chen.
It is a pity that Niu does not spend more time on them. As a result, the movie ends up feeling scattered.
Moreover, given that history has silenced the women of Unit 831, this feels like a missed opportunity for them to find their voice.
(ST)

Jack And The Cuckoo-Clock Heart
Mathias Malzieu, Syephane Berla
The story: On a day so cold that birds fall out of the sky, Jack (Mathias Malzieu) is born with a frozen heart. He is saved by a midwife-cum-witch who replaces it with a cuckoo clock. Later, he travels across Europe to seek the girl of his dreams, Miss Acacia (Olivia Ruiz). It is a mission overshadowed by tragedy as Jack has been warned never to fall in love – doing so would mess with his cogs and gears and kill him. Based on the 2007 illustrated novel by Malzieu, lead singer of French rock band Dionysos.
Once in a while, Singapore moviegoers get to watch something from Europe that reminds them there is more to animation than just Pixar’s fully realised computer-generated world, Studio Ghibli’s hand-drawn loveliness and the flatter look found on television series. The Triplets Of Belleville (2003), for example, had a distinctive style and story about a kidnapped Tour de France cyclist.
So too does Jack And The CuckooClock Heart, a unique and offbeat-
looking work that takes an unusual premise and just runs with it.
The cuckoo clock behaves like a mechanical device as well as an organ. Instead of Jack’s heart pumping wildly when he gets scared or excited, the cuckoo might shoot out instead.
Peopled with other unusual characters, such as a man with a xylophone on his back and an excitable Georges Melies (based on the real-life pioneering filmmaker who straddled the 19th and 20th centuries), this is a film that is not too concerned with linear logic.
And this frees directors Malzieu and Stephane Berla to let their imaginations roam when it comes to depicting Jack’s world. The village he lives in is not some rectilinear grid. Instead, there is hardly a straight line to be found. Water flows upwards in a fountain and an accordion train moves by compressing and extending itself.
Add characters that look like alabasterskinned dolls who break into song to express their emotions and it all sounds a little, well, cuckoo.
But it works, with everything coming together to make an intriguing package.
(ST)

Interstellar
Christopher Nolan
The story: The future is here and it is a dismal one. Massive dust storms threaten food production, hope is running out. Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) is recruited as a pilot for a last-ditch space mission to find a planet suitable for human habitation.
The crew includes scientist Amelia Brand (Anne Hathaway) and a robot, Tars (Bill Irwin). One consequence of interstellar and wormhole travel is that time passes differently for those out in space. Cooper’s daughter Murph (Jessica Chastain) grows up and assists Amelia’s father, Professor Brand (Michael Caine), with the mission back on earth.

No shortage of motivational speakers have said that you should reach for the moon because even if you miss, you will land among the stars.
Director Christopher Nolan has learnt the lesson well. There is no lack of ambition in his space odyssey; in certain parts, in fact, you can almost feel the movie striving for monumentality in every frame. While it eventually falls short, it is still a work that holds your attention as you are watching it.
The themes and topics here are as grand as they get – mankind’s thirst for exploration, the survival instinct, the question of what exactly is out there in space and love.
Expectations are high because Nolan is one of the most vital story-tellers in cinema today. There is always the sense of someone highly intelligent behind the camera, from the intricately plotted stories to his refusal to spell everything out. And, as seen in the Dark Knight trilogy (2005-2012) and the mind-blowing thriller Inception (2010), he is no stranger to working on an epic canvas.
But with Interstellar, wormholes and black holes suddenly feel like too-convenient plot devices to propel the story in a certain direction. And the relativity effect of visiting a particular planet keeps getting repeated, that one hour equals seven years. One might have thought that this was a detail that would have been taken into consideration from the start.
More than once, the audience is asked to take a huge leap of faith with where the film is headed.
Good thing that it is Matthew McConaughey in the lead role of the space pilot Cooper, asking us to make that jump. Is it the intensity of his deep-set gaze, that mesmerising drawl or the sharpness of his cheekbones – or a combination of all that – that is making him one of the most compelling actors to watch?
He has gone from cut-rate romantic comedies leading man to acclaimed turns on the big and small screen in stripper flick Magic Mike (2012), Aids drama Dallas Buyers Club (2013) and crime thriller True Detective (2014). It is a remarkable turnaround that shows no signs of slowing down.
Early on, when Interstellar goes from being a cautionary tale about man’s destructive nature to a space mission movie, the process it takes to convince Cooper to join the mission helps the audience buy into the film and take a stake in it as well.
In depicting the mission to find out which planet among three possibilities is capable of sustaining life, Nolan packs in surprises, visual beauty and much welcome moments of lightness, thanks to the inclusion of robots whose truth and humour settings are adjustable.
When the tiny spacecraft is juxtaposed against the immensity of the cosmos, it underlines the puny nature and fragility of human life and endeavour.
At his best, Nolan made films that you kept playing over and over in your head. Psychological thriller Memento (2000) and Inception made you question what you thought you knew.
But Interstellar – with clunky dialogue that conveys different viewpoints rather than what the characters are feeling – holds up less well in the harsh light of day.
What ultimately anchors the film is the bond between parent and child.
Unlike the mawkish treatment that bond was given in the Oscar- winning sci-fi thriller Gravity (2013), the fierce love between Cooper and Murph is at the very heart of Interstellar.
(ST)

I’m Always Here
Victor Wong
It has been 14 years since Malaysian pop duo Wuyin Liangpin broke up, but I still remember their fresh and breezy tunes, such as Heart Of The Palm, with much fondness.
As a solo act, Victor Wong has largely been in the shadow of former partner Michael Wong (no relation). Even if his latest album does not change that, it is a step in the right direction.
It is sweetly tender in a way that reflects Victor Wong’s maturity, as he is now a husband and father.
The Most Beautiful Greeting is dedicated to his baby daughter Vivian and on the opening ballad Winding, he sings: “Life is so winding/ What’s at the end/ Eternity is so abstract/ Time can’t be caught up with/ It’s all to love you/ All for the sake of happiness.”
He embraces the passage of time on Silently: “The clock-hands are silent/ The calendar is silent/ Turning everything old/ Dyed a pale yellow/ Yet it feels warmer.”
Some of the ballads here could warm you as well.
(ST)

Prelude To The Sea
Lemonpuffs
Local quintet Lemonpuffs, which include former radio deejay Lin Weidong and film-maker Looi Wan Ping, make their debut with a record that sails into dreamy waters.
Instrumental track Parable I eases you in with a gentle and insistent tug like the sway of the hypnotic sea.
Vocalist Vivien Koh weighs in with her languorous pipes on By The Lake, with vibes that evoke American band Mazzy Star, and spoken-word track Akureyri takes listeners somewhere specific – a town in northern Iceland.
Indeed, this is music that will have you dreaming of mysterious faraway lands.
(ST)

The Golden Era
Ann Hui
The story: Xiao Hong (Tang Wei) was a major female Chinese writer in the 1930s. Before she died at the age of 30, she was forced to wander from Harbin in north-east China to Hong Kong in the south against a backdrop of war and revolution. In Shanghai, she meets the literary giant of the time, Lu Xun (Wang Zhiwen), and looks to him as a father figure. Fellow writer Xiao Jun (Feng Shaofeng) is the love of her life but another writer Duanmu Hong Liang (Zhu Yawen) later steps into the picture.

The Golden Era is about the bohemian life of a talented, ill-fated woman thrust into a tumultuous time. Xiao Hong wants to find love and she wants to be able to write – both goals turn out to be tall orders.
She is bold and brash in following her heart – eloping with a married cousin and later shacking up with the man she was originally supposed to marry.
Abandoned by the latter, saddled with a huge hotel bill she cannot pay and pregnant, she meets Xiao Jun.
At one point, she remarks that she does not know if her works will be read in the future, but one thing is certain, gossip about her will live on.
Tabloids today would have had a field day squeezing her juicy story dry, but director Ann Hui (A Simple Life, 2011) is more interested in a nuanced portrayal of a character whose joy, pain and loneliness is made palpable by Tang Wei’s charismatic presence.
The film has been duly nominated for five Golden Horse Awards, including for Best Film, Best Director and Best Actress.
Tang’s performance also makes you wonder if Xiao Hong would have thrived in a different time. Her combustible relationship with fellow writer Xiao Jun is marked by passion and admiration as well as competitiveness.
As the mercurial Xiao Jun, Feng Shaofeng (Young Detective Dee: Rise Of The Sea Dragon, 2013) is also compelling to watch.
The film does not neglect the portrayal of Xiao Hong’s struggles as an author.
A character remarks that everyone knows what it is like to be cold and hungry but no one can write about it the way she does.
And it is because Xiao Hong was destitute in Harbin, a situation that would deeply acquaint one with cold and hunger.
Hui evokes the bitter winters of the place and contrasts those with the warmth and bustle of a rickshaw-puller’s canteen in a wonderfully atmospheric scene.
Xiao Hong’s first visit to Lu Xun’s home is filtered through a voice-over of her writing and one realises how observant she is in picking up details about people and places.
Taking a cue from her subject, Hui gives the film a novel-like structure as characters speak to the camera and talk about events in the past and in the future. It is a move that breaks with usual movie conventions, no doubt something Xiao Hong would have approved of.
(ST)

Khalil Fong Soulboy Lights Up World Tour 2014 Singapore
The Star Theatre/Last Saturday
Soul Boy, the name of Khalil Fong’s 2005 debut album, is a most apt moniker for the Hawaiian-born, Hong Kong-based singer- songwriter.
Soul music is a key influence in his unique musical brew, which also mixes in R&B, jazz, funk, pop, rock and hip-hop. You also get the sense that he pours his heart – and, yes, soul – into his songs about love and making the world a better place.
When it comes to music, he is completely in his element. He is less smooth when it comes to chit-chat between songs, but that adds to his geekish charm. Unlike most R&B singers, he does not come across as a sweet-talking Lothario, conveying endearing earnestness instead in his love songs.
He made his entrance wearing shades and looking sharp in an all-black ensemble from the suit to the bowtie. As red lights flashed, he launched into the title dance track of his latest album, Dangerous World.
Despite sounding as though he had a touch of the flu when he spoke, it did not affect his singing at all over the two-hour-long gig, his first major concert here.
Fong flitted easily from genre to genre, from the disco-tinged English track Lights Up to emotive ballad Love Me Please. Often, he would be strumming the guitar as well and for a few numbers, he played the piano.
During My Only Girl, he picked a fan to go up on stage and serenaded her. Was it a cute coincidence that he had chosen someone wearing a pair of his trademark large black-rimmed glasses for the occasion?
The concert really hit its stride when Fong had most of the 2,500 fans on their feet for the uptempo Fun.
Among the tracks given a makeover, the hit Love Song was slowed down to good effect.
In other displays of his excellent live-performing musicianship, he easily made his covers of other artists’ songs his own. He did an unexpected mash-up of Brian McKnight’s Back At One with Jay Chou’s Quiet and also left his mark on Eason Chan’s Love Is Suspicion and Chang Chen-yue’s First Experience Of Love.
He came on stage with local group MICappella for the encore and they had a blast with Fong’s own Spring Wind Blows as well as with the crowd-pleasing Pharrell Williams hit, Happy.
The gig ended rather abruptly though after the ballad Not That Easy. Fans clamouring for more were dismissed by a terse announcement to disperse as the show was over.
That was the only off-note in an enjoyable concert, in which the star was not present to conduct a mere singalong session of his hits, but to share with his fans an evening of soulful musicality.
(ST)

Dare To Love
Della Ding Dang
Seven albums in and China-born Della Ding Dang is settling in comfortably into her own groove.
Having learnt that she need not always unleash her lung power at full capacity has made her a more effective balladeer.
Disc one includes Shake Off, I Don’t Love You That Much, Dare To Love and The Possibility Of Happiness.
They have dutifully made their way up the charts and get a fair bit of airplay. They range from not bad to good, but it is as though she is being too careful not to rock the ballad boat.
It’s a good thing then that she mixes things up with the breezy Reveal, the rocker That’s Just How I Like It and the synth-pop number I Don’t Think That.
Disc two is a collection of her TV theme songs and includes familiar hits, such as I Love Him and How Rare, as well as newer tracks, such as Lose Myself from Scarlet Heart 2.
One could think of this as a generous bonus disc, but still, there can be too much of a good thing. Like showboat belting, a two-disc release is a show of excess too.
(ST)

Rurouni Kenshin: The Legend Ends
Keishi Otomo
The story: This is the concluding chapter to Rurouni Kenshin (2012) and Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno (2014), in which assassin-turned-wanderer Himura Kenshin (Takeru Satoh) has vowed never to kill again. His resolve is sorely tested when he has to stop the vicious Makoto Shishio (Tatsuya Fujiwara) from bringing down the nascent Meiji government and dragging the country into chaos. Kyoto Inferno ended with Kenshin and his love interest, dojo owner Kaoru (Emi Takei), thrown into a stormy sea from Shishio’s warship. And a final scene of Hiko Seijuro (Masaharu Fukuyama) chancing upon an unconscious Kenshin on the beach. He is revealed to be Kenshin’s master in The Legend Ends, which builds up to a final showdown in Tokyo. The films are adapted from Nobuhiro Watsuki’s popular manga of the same name.

It has all led to this.
The epic battle between good and evil, Kenshin and Shishio, has been playing out against the backdrop of Japan in transition with supporting characters from the dogged and indestructible Sanosuke (Munetaka Aoki), the steadfast Kaoru and the obsessed Shinomori Aoshi (Yusuke Iseya) to the cool captain Saito Hajime (Yosuke Eguchi), forming a sprawling web of interconnectedness.
And The Legend Ends delivers a stupendous finale as Shishio and his flaming sword take on Kenshin and gang while cannonballs explode around them on the warship.
But it takes a while to get there.
There is an air of inevitability to concluding chapters and, right from the start, the showdown in Tokyo looms large as hero and villain must face off. And so the pacing here feels stretched out as director Keishi Otomo leisurely accounts for what happens to Kenshin and Kaoru before even heading to Tokyo.
Kenshin’s pit stop at his master’s forest dwelling is necessary for him to learn the Ultimate Technique in order to defeat Shishio. More importantly, he has to find out what he lacks. If not, he will lose his life, warns his master.
Big-budget blockbusters with scenes of carnage and destruction are a dime a dozen and human life is like so much chaff to be disposed off as blood flows easily. Rarely does a mainstream flick meditate on the consequences of violence and the worth of human life.
Yes, the Kenshin flicks do serve up their share of murder and slaughter, but underpinning it is a consistent message about the toll of violence. They are at least more honest than the usual vigilante-on-killing-spree-for-justice scenarios in which violence is hastily justified.
Even more unusual is the stance it takes that a killer’s life has worth as well. It is Kenshin who is the hero and saviour, the same Kenshin whose past is steeped in blood. And the films never let us forget that.
(ST)

Outcast
Nick Powell
The story: Wracked with guilt for taking part in the bloody Crusades, Jacob (Hayden Christensen) flees to the East. He tries to numb himself with opium, but reluctantly ends up chaperoning a princess, Lian (Liu Yifei), and her heir-to-the-throne younger brother, Zhao (Bill Su), as their ruthless brother Shing (Andy On) chases after them. They eventually seek refuge in the mountains, where they run into the White Ghost, none other than Jacob’s former comrade-in-arms, Gallain (Nicolas Cage).

During the 12th century, from the Middle East to the so-called Far East, English was the common tongue spoken and understood by all. Who knew?
Apart from fascinating historical nuggets such as these, the film is also bold in its radical reimagining of Chinese imperial culture as the emperor actually has physical contact with his children and hugs them.
Frankly, it is bizarre that this Chinese-FrenchCanadian production would be so tone-deaf and insensitive.
While it is slated for the China market, it is hard to see why this would appeal. Not only does everyone speak English, but the prince and princess also have to rely on a white man to rescue them – and not just any white man, but one who is doped up on opium. Miraculously, the drug does not seem to impair Jacob’s ability to take out pesky armed guards and assassins.
Impressively, Christensen also sports a modern-looking fauxhawk which always looks sharp even though they are on the run. Guess grooming is important even when under duress.
The actor’s career seems to have gone into freefall after the high-profile Star Wars movies in 2002 and 2005. Before long, he might be staring into the abyss that is Cage’s preserve.
To be fair, Cage is just wildly inconsistent, veering between strong projects, such as Kick-Ass (2010), and turkeys, such as Season Of The Witch (2011).
Here, he stumbles around drunk and angry, blind in one eye and brandishing a snake inexplicably wrapped around one fist.
Does he need the pay cheque that badly, or is he that oblivious when he gets into his hey-look-at-me-I’m-acting zone? Whatever it is, Cage can look forward to yet another Razzie nomination for his fine work here.
(ST)

Beauty And The Beast
Christophe Gans
The story: Belle’s father plucks a rose from an enchanted castle for her. Because of that theft, he is forced to return to the fortress. Belle (Lea Seydoux) goes in his place instead and finds a scary Beast (Vincent Cassel) lurking in the shadows. Whenever she falls asleep, she slips into the past and learns of the tale behind the enchantment.

Think Beauty And The Beast is just some harmless fairy-tale?
Some have seen it as an example of a problematic portrayal of domestic violence. The Beast is a savage male captor who demands submission from a powerless female, who eventually succumbs. And once cast in that light, it is hard to see it otherwise.
At least in this version, Seydoux brings a fearlessness to the role that prevents Belle from completely being a victim. The actress was last seen in the award-winning Blue Is The Warmest Color (2014).
Leaving the subtext aside, the movie has one major problem. The film is dubbed in English and it is so clearly out of sync with the French mouth movements that it is distracting. And it makes the film feel stilted and jerky in its rhythm.
What the dubbing cannot ruin though are the gorgeous visuals.
From the forbidding castle overgrown with thick roots and lush blooms, to Belle in a blood-red dress in a wintry white snowscape, the scenes are handsomely art directed. The use of rich colours adds to the sense of fantasy, that this is a storybook come to glorious life.
The alabaster-skinned Seydoux is as pretty as a picture, a stark contrast to the leonine-faced Beast with his sharp claws. There is not very much for Cassel (Black Swan, 2010) to do though as the arrogant prince in the flashbacks.
The inclusion of enchanted dogs with oversized eyes and ears strikes an off-note, as though director Christophe Gans (Brotherhood Of The Wolf, 2001) was taking a leaf from the Disney book of cute.
It all culminates in a finale with some spectacular action and a, well, fairy-tale ending.
If only the beautiful visuals were not marred by the beastly dubbing.
(ST)

To Protect
Aaron Matthew Lim
Aaron Matthew Lim, co-director of local music school Intune Music, has released his first solo EP.
One imagines that his past students will be poring over it to see if his practice lives up to his preaching.
It is a decent effort, with the last track, A Change Of Heart, making the biggest impact. This is an emotive ballad bolstered by the plaintive strains of the erhu.
There is an attempt to show some range over the three tracks with the inclusion of the upbeat soft rock of Palette: “I stand on the rooftop/ Drawing in the blue skies for you/
Van Gogh’s heaven/A palette of brilliant colours.”
The title track is a more conventional ballad that is a little too middling though.
Lim has clean, pleasant vocals, but as they are not immediately distinctive, he will have to rely on strong material to make the grade.
(ST)

Lupin The Third
Ryuhei Kitamura
The story: Lupin III (Shun Oguri) is part of an elite group known as The Works. After the head is killed, fellow thief Michael Lee (Jerry Yan) goes into hiding with a priceless Cleopatra necklace. To get back the necklace from the ruthless Pramuk (Nirut Sirijanya), Lupin and Michael have to work together to penetrate the security fortress known as The Ark. The team includes femme fatale Fujiko Mine (Meisa Kuroki), computer expert Pierre (Kim Joon) and sword-wielding warrior Goemon (Go Ayano). Based on the popular manga by Monkey Punch, which made its first appearance in 1967.

Quite the international cast has been assembled for this crime caper. Oguri (Gokusen: The Movie, 2009) and Kuroki (Space Battleship Yamato, 2010) are from Japan, Yan (Meteor Garden, 2001) is from Taiwan and Kim (Boys Over Flowers, 2009) is from South Korea. A number of Thai actors are also cast in supporting roles.
But in terms of wattage, it is less glittery than the all-star ensemble cast of the similarly themed South Korean thriller The Thieves (2012). As it turns out, Thieves was also lighter on its feet.
Part of the problem here is the overly broad tone.
The bumbling inspector Zenigata (Tadanobu Asano) is constantly getting thwarted and his response is to yell
“Lupin!” in frustration. One can imagine that this works with manga with exaggeratedly illustrated characters almost spilling out of the page. But with live action, the effect is merely cartoonish without being impactful.
The story also takes too long to play out, and without any real surprises in the unfolding either.
A top security system with formidable digital defences? No problem, a character banging away furiously on a keyboard will soon figure out a way in.
The stilted English conversations which crop up from time to time do not help matters.
There are some enjoyable elements though.
They include Oguri grinning cheekily as Lupin, suavely togged out in the character’s trademark red velvet blazer and black leather pants. And having a heist take place at the fictitious Hougang Museum of Art – the movie jetsets across several countries – could raise a smile of recognition.
Watching Goemon take on a villain driving an SUV was fun as well. If it is going to be cartoonish, it might as well be over the top.
(ST)

For close to three hours, legendary Taiwanese composer Liu Chia-chang, 73, celebrated his music with a sold-out crowd of 8,000 fans at the Singapore Indoor Stadium last Saturday night.
He had hits in 1960s and 1970s with songs such as Dream Behind The Curtain, I Found Myself and Plum Blossom. Backed by a 50-strong team of musicians, which included a full string section, he sang these and more. He also performed a track called Orchard Road, written when he was last here 30 years ago.
In between numbers, he cracked jokes about his age, quipping at one point: “If you sing along, I can save some strength.”
Guests such as Taiwan’s Bobby Chen Sheng, Hong Kong’s Teresa Carpio and Singapore’s Mavis Hee lent their voices to some of his most enduring hits, with Seagull and Memories Can Only Be Reminisced among them.
Seated among the audience were several big names, including screen goddess Lin Ching-hsia.
(ST)

Mayday
2014 Formula 1 Singapore Airlines Singapore Grand Prix, Padang Stage/Last Friday

You can count on Taiwanese band Mayday to wind up the crowd when the racing winds down.
The roar of engines at the 2014 Formula 1 Singapore Airlines Singapore Grand Prix had subsided but the quintet soon had the crowd of 40,000 roaring in approval when they came on at 11.10pm.
They kicked things off with a string of fast-paced rock tunes, such as OAOA and Sun Wukong. Stageside fireworks fired up the crowd even more.
Then, like racers taking a bend, they slowed things down for their first ballad, Starry Night. As lead vocalist Ashin crooned, coloured lights played across the stage.
Five songs into the set, he greeted the lightstick-waving fans and announced: “Treat this as a large-scale Mayday concert.” This flagged off a massive live karaoke session as the crowd chimed in on I’m Not Willing To Let You Be Alone.
Mayday are regular visitors to Singapore and their last concert here was at the Singapore Indoor Stadium last June. At their dedicated shows, the sets and effects are fancier. The last time round, specially designed lightsticks were even programmed to be in sync with the songs.
The F1 gigs are more stripped-down affairs but, in a way, the back-to-basics vibe can be just as entertaining. All you need is an act with a huge catalogue of hits and one that is willing to go all out. Mayday are known for that, once turning a free showcase here, for those who bought their CD, into a full-on, two-hour-plus concert.
Last Friday night, they played for close to two hours, dishing out hits old and new, from Tenderness to Battle Array Song to Sad People Don’t Listen To Slow Songs.
To rev up the crowd, Mayday packed the set with faster-paced numbers such as Jump and DNA, and the audience showed their L.O.V.E. for the band during the fan favourite In Love-ing.
At first, on the uptempo tracks, the guitars could clearly be heard, but the vocals sounded murky. Things improved as the night wore on, or perhaps I had become used to the sound mix.
Apart from Ashin, looking fuller in the face, holding court, other members of the band also had a chance to shoot the breeze with their fans.
Guitarist Stone won the crowd over with his attempt to speak in English: “We’re really exciting today because there’s a great race there.”
And for those encountering the band for the first time, he urged them to check out Mayday on Google and YouTube.
To those who were late to the Mayday party, Ashin quipped: “What were you doing before today?”
Bassist Masa, whose idea of Singlish seems to be Filipino-accented English, kept it short and sweet.
Guitarist Monster hoped “we won’t lose out to the roar of the engines tonight”, while drummer Guan You called Singapore a second home, a sentiment the band had expressed before.
Ashin said at one point: “Do you miss Mayday a little? After we finish all our songs, you’d miss us even more.”
Right on cue, the group performed their hit ballad, Suddenly Missing You So Much, during the encore. No doubt fans will be feeling that way soon enough.
(ST)