3.1415
Selina Jen
Her last EP, Dream A New Dream (2011), shimmered with tears as she charted her journey to recovery after being badly burnt in a filming accident in 2010.
Taiwan’s Selina Jen (below), one-third of popular girl group S.H.E, is done with crying and goes for bright, cheery and dance-y on her debut solo album, 3.1415.
The album’s title is the mathematical ratio pi and Jen cheerfully uses it as a symbol of things coming full circle. She has also jokingly referred to her round face before and notes on the title track: “Not afraid of my face looking like the moon/As long as I can shine on every friend’s heart/ Anyway, it’s round to just the right degree and I’m very contented.”
Whatever cares she might have, she wears them lightly. On the bouncy Watch Me Now, she sings: “Look at my regrets, till they come to a satisfactory end/Look at my magnanimity, till you see the bravery.” And she invites you to shimmy your worries away on the electropop number Dance Dance Dance.
Another highlight here is the adorable Minnan duet Love You For Who You Are, in which the sweet-voiced singer teams up with Ricky Hsiao.
If you are not a fan, this album might just bring you round.
(ST)

Vestiges & Claws
Jose Gonzalez
It was Norwegian duo Kings of Convenience who gently declared that Quiet Is The New Loud on their debut album in 2001. And Swedish singersongwriter Jose Gonzalez has been one of the staunchest adherents of that manifesto.
Early on, it was revelatory covers of songs such as The Knife’s Heartbeats and Kylie Minogue’s Hand On Your Heart which broke him through to a wider audience. But now, he is confident enough to mine his specific vein of music without directly tapping into the works of others.
Vestiges & Claws is only his third solo album, after Veneer (2003) and In Our Nature (2007), and it stays true to the same hushed, almost austere, aesthetic – his caressing murmur of a voice buttressed by a guitar line.
Emotions can roil though beneath that placid facade. He croons on Stories We Build, Stories We Tell: “Got myself angering over you/Sitting in silence, wondering what to do.”
But he is not one to stew in negativity, and much of Vestiges & Claws is a heartfelt embracing of nature and the world we are in.
“Migrant birds pass by/Taking off to warmer skies” in Let It Carry You and “Landscapes blurred by rain/Mountains covered in snow” paint an evocative picture in The Forest.
On the single Leaf Off/The Cave, he observes “How the light feeds life/What makes up you and I/What it takes to thrive/What we need to survive” and urges: “Make the light lead you out.”
At other times, nature blooms as a metaphor. Every Age proposes: “Every branch of the tree has to learn/Learn to grow, find its way.”
It is not as though Gonzalez has all the answers and he confesses to self-doubt on Open Book: “What am I doing here?/What’s this leading to?”
Still, his calm and earnest contemplation is mesmerising.
(ST)

in::music – Hanjin: Happiness Can Be Simple
Esplanade Recital Studio / Sunday
Home-grown Hong Kong-based artist Hanjin Tan is many things to different people. Obligingly, the singer-songwriter-arranger-producer-actor catered to the different segments of his fanbase at his hour-plus gig.
On the opening autobiographical song Hands To The Sky, he rapped about his life “from 14 years ago to four years ago”.
From his days as a singer at the now-defunct Fat Frog Cafe in Armenian Street, he went on to pen songs for Hong Kong Heavenly King Jacky Cheung and has grown into a respected singer-songwriter in his own right with feted albums such as Who Is Hanjin Tan (2011).
He has a big, bright and bold voice that easily fills the cosy recital studio as he draws you into his songs.
Speaking mostly in English, he also shared little tidbits about his works. Useless, for example, was written for his wife before they were married – and he is advising her to walk away because being a musician will not amount to anything.
Ironic then that there are those who know him for the Mandopop hits he has created for others. They include Eason Chan’s Love Is Suspicion, Jam Hsiao’s Marry Me, Coco Lee’s So Crazy and a duet he sang with Sammi Cheng, Steps.
He performed all of these, but in testament to his mad skills as an arranger, they were all re-imagined, especially Love Is Suspicion, whose original funky and bluesy arrangement was ditched. Stripped of their pop sheen, the tunes still shone. They were usually set to a piano and guitar accompaniment and exuded a loose-limbed vibe. He also scatted at points, adding to the improvisational, jazzy feel.
Others may know him as an actor in TVB series, including the long-running sitcom Til Love Do Us Lie (2011). So he performed No Time For Regrets – which he wrote and sang – the theme song for the popular legal drama Ghetto Justice (2011), which he did not act in.
Apart from fans who appreciate his talents, he asked the audience if there were any who were there because they knew his parents.
He was joking, of course, because the fact is, no matter which Hanjin Tan you know, one thing remains constant: He is a man of singular talent.
(ST)

Dragon Blade
Daniel Lee
The story: Huo An (Jackie Chan) is the leader of a small squad trying to keep the peace among 36 warring tribes along the Silk Road during the Han Dynasty. Framed for a crime, he and his men are exiled to the Wild Geese Gate as slave labourers. There, he crosses paths with Lucius (John Cusack), a Roman general on the run with his young master Publius from the latter’s villainous elder brother Tiberius (Adrien Brody). K-pop star Choi Si Won has a small role as Huo’s trusted lieutenant Yin Po.

Action superstar Chan’s Huo An is a multilingual, peace-loving, headband- wearing pacifist who sings to rally others. It all makes sense when you think of him as a proto-hippie.
Alas, it is one of the few things in the movie that make sense.
Chan has repeatedly stressed that Dragon Blade is about bringing a message of peace to the world. Unluckily for him, a film is not judged by how noble its intentions are, but whether it actually holds together as a piece of entertainment.
In this respect, one could describe Dragon Blade as a family film – there is something for everyone to snigger at.
One big stumbling block for East-West co-productions is convincingly resolving the problem of communication. What language should the characters speak and how would they understand one another?
In the period turkey Outcast (2014), which starred Nicolas Cage, Hayden Christensen, Liu Yifei and Andy On, English was simply designated as the common tongue from the Middle East to the Middle Kingdom.
Dragon Blade appeared to be going for some kind of historical accuracy with different tribes speaking in different languages.
Then Roman general Lucius shows up, Huo suddenly starts mouthing pidgin English and that illusion is soon shattered, replaced by the image of a sarong party girl prepping her colonial master target.
“I’m Huo An, work so hard,” is one of the choice lines from Chan’s character, by way of Yoda.
Worse, Huo suffers from a moral superiority complex. When Lucius confides in him about his crisis of faith and loyalty, Huo just about smirks when he replies that Chinese soldiers are not like Roman soldiers, they are “not trained to kill, but to save”.
Hong Kong director Daniel Lee, who had previously helmed the messy period action flick 14 Blades (2010), is also prone to indulgent scenes, including a drawn-out song fest as Huo sings a song of pacifism and the Romans respond with a bellicose anthem.
The cultural miscommunication presents opportunity for some humour, only to be spurned by an earnest hand and a serious tone.
At least Brody has fun as the evil-to-the-core Tiberius and there are spectacular scenes of Wild Geese Gate, thanks to the US$65-million (S$88-million) budget.
Ultimately, the success of any film starring Chan in the lead rests on his shoulders. And Chan in saintly mode is definitely less entertaining than Chan in playful mode.
(ST)

From Vegas To Macau II
Wong Jing
The story: Chow Yun Fat returns as Ken in From Vegas To Macau II, but otherwise, most of the cast has changed. DOA remains the big bad organisation. Its accountant Mark (Nick Cheung) has absconded with US$10 billion (S$13.5 billion) and everyone is after him. Ken’s disciple (Shawn Yue) is now with the police and his old flame (Carina Lau) suddenly shows up in his life again.

12 Golden Ducks
Matt Chow
The story: Future (Sandra Ng) used to be a wildly popular gigolo, but he fell into a funk after getting scammed. He is down and out in Thailand, but his former teacher (Anthony Wong) convinces him to return to Hong Kong and get his groove back.

There is a whiff of something in the air as Chinese New Year draws near. It is deja vu, not goat.
Last year’s festive offerings from Hong Kong included gambling comedy From Vegas To Macau and sex comedy Golden Chickensss. From Vegas To Macau hit the jackpot here and was the No. 2 Asian title, earning $2 million.
Both were enjoyable romps.
In From Vegas To Macau, Chow played master gambler Ken, who is roped in by the police to bring down the money- laundering mastermind of the criminal syndicate DOA.
Golden Chickensss starred Sandra Ng, reprising her role in Golden Chicken (2002) and Golden Chicken 2 (2003) as plucky prostitute Kam.
The new instalments feel more tired than inspired though.
It does not really matter if you did not watch the first From Vegas To Macau as plot and continuity have never been film-maker Wong Jing’s strong suit anyway. His comedies are usually thin on story and are just an excuse to see big-name stars engaging in tomfoolery.
In this regard, Chow gamely delivers. He mopes like a peacock with his pride wounded when his old flame resurfaces with a new man in tow. And then he manages to land in a ring with a Thai kickboxing champ.
Cheung matches him in the silly stakes by appearing in one scene with chocolate dripping from his mouth. He is also paired with a young daughter who steals a few scenes with her cute antics.
There are also some laughs, courtesy of Ken’s robot butler who mouths off in a strong mainland-Chinese accent, presumably to greater effect in the original Cantonese.
To up the stakes in the sequel, Wong has piled on chases and firepower action in Thailand and on board a plane when it would have been more profitable to focus on the comedy.
While 12 Golden Ducks is not exactly a sequel, it is spun off from the Golden Chicken series in which Ng played a working girl with a heart of gold. In Cantonese, chicken is slang for prostitute and duck is the male equivalent.
This time, instead of oversized boobs, she sports a manly chest complete with sculpted abs as the gigolo Future. The promising teaser trailer had Ng impressing a black man at the urinals with “his” impressive endowment.
But it turns out that the prosthetic manly chest is a one-note gimmick that quickly wears thin. It does not help that despite the light fuzz above the lip and thicker eyebrows, Ng looks more like a butch female than a handsome man.
Ivana Wong, so hilarious as a bucktoothed newbie hooker in Golden Chickensss, has less to do here as a Thai-speaking tai tai.
Even though director Matt Chow has packed the movie with many cameos – Louis Koo is a personal trainer who has to endure getting groped by women, Nicholas Tse is a successful entrepreneur who had a crush on Future and Joey Yung is, um, a woman who performs a dance for a charity show – the jokes are more misses than hits; the movie simply is not as much fun as its predecessors.
Crucially, Hong Kong is missing from the movie. The Golden Chicken movies were very much about the indomitable spirit of the territory and its people. Without it, 12 Golden Ducks is just a bland dish.
(ST)

Ah Boys To Men 3: Frogmen
Jack Neo
The story: The titular Ah Boys are a bunch of young men who are posted to the Naval Diving Unit to undergo the notoriously challenging combat diver course. They include eager beaver Aloysius Jin (Maxi Lim), Hokkien beng Lobang (Wang Weiliang), spoilt brat Ken Chow (Joshua Tan) and Hong Kong-import gangster Hei Long (Wesley Wong). The instructors they meet include strict sergeant Alex Ong (Tosh Zhang) and the legendary and scary No. 2 (Justin Misson).

Despite the 3 in the title, this movie is not a sequel. Instead, think of it as a movie with familiar characters, but taking place in a parallel universe.
In other words: Same same, but different. Or as narrator Aloysius puts it: “This is our another story.”
The good news is that having put the boys through basic military training in the previous two films, writer-director Jack Neo has a firmer grasp on pacing this time and the choice of the tough amphibious frogmen programme as a setting is a smart one.
The combat diver course is incredibly demanding and only a small number have successfully completed it.
Even those who have gone through regular national service will find it fascinating to peek into what exactly it entails – muscle-straining exercises with their heavy rafts, energy-sapping beach manoeuvres and a spectacularly punishing hell week complete with a freezing “spa” bath.
No. 2 warns that “the only easy day was yesterday” and that sounds about right. By the time it comes to the passing out parade, it really feels as though the boys have earned it.
Misson’s turn as a hard-nosed sergeant in Ah Boys 1 had impressed and he is in his element here as a fearsome instructor.
This means, though, that Zhang has less to do as sergeant Alex here, despite the popularity the role has brought him.
Unfortunately, Neo does not have enough faith in the combat diver material. So he piles on the melodrama.
Lobang is saddled with a drug-taking mother (Aileen Tan) and a vulnerable younger sister, but at least the domestic situation gives Wang a chance to show his dramatic acting chops.
Hei Long has a belligerent attitude and a prickly relationship with his parents, but there is no surprise in how that is resolved.
Meanwhile, Ken is stuck in a rut with girlfriend problems and has to complete his turnaround from bratty to mature in one movie instead of two. Luckily, he gets less screen time since his was never a particularly compelling story anyway.
Instead, Lim as Aloysius gets his turn in the spotlight by both narrating and getting an emotional showdown in a scene with Hei Long.
Along with the melodrama, the blatant product placements for beer, face wash, pastries and, again, an accounting firm, serve to distract from the boys’ best outing among the three movies.
(ST)

You can always tell that awards season is around the corner when biopics begin to flower. And the recent crop has been a particularly bountiful one.
They include Mike Leigh’s Mr Turner, about English Romantic painter JMW Turner; Bertrand Bonello’s Saint Laurent, about the iconic French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent; James Marsh’s The Theory Of Everything, about English theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking; Morten Tyldum’s The Imitation Game, about pioneering British code-breaker Alan Turing; Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken, about American war survivor Louis Zamperini; and Tim Burton’s Big Eyes, about American artist Margaret Keane.
It is easy to see the allure of the biopic for film-makers as they wrestle with the challenge of conveying a colourful subject’s life in under three hours and actors have to evoke a known personality with sensitivity. Done well, such movies are an easy magnet for nominations and awards.
The Imitation Game is up for eight Oscars and The Theory Of Everything is up for five. Benedict Cumberbatch’s Turing and Eddie Redmayne’s Hawking have both been recognised with nods in the Best Actor category.
But while these movies can be absorbing in their own right, as a whole, they tend to stick to a tried-and-tested template.
For starters, the subjects are overwhelmingly male and white. They can be long dead, more recently deceased or still alive, active in science or arts, charming or tortured or arrogant, but they are united by gender and ethnicity.
To be sure, the list above is far from exhaustive and one can raise examples that point to a greater diversity than seems at first glance.
There is Ava DuVernay’s Selma which, while not strictly speaking, a biopic, focuses on African- American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.
Apart from Big Eyes, Jean-Marc Vallee’s Wild also features a female protagonist, in this case, American writer Cheryl Strayed undertaking a physical and spiritual journey on a hiking trail.
Even then, there seems to be a definite bias when it comes to committing a person’s life to celluloid.
Part of it stems from the way the biopic is often a movie about a person of accomplishment, be it in scientific reckoning, artistic endeavours or the political arena. And the cards are already stacked in the real world where men dominate, from women’s fashion to theoretical physics.
Precisely because this is so, it is important for movies to tell more diverse stories.
Biopics can also be about individuals who fascinate people because of singular acts of courage or the incredible journeys they undertake, as in Unbroken and Wild. This is one field where gender and ethnicity confer no added advantage.
The lack of diversity in the current crop is also striking given that there is no lack of strong and distinctive personalities to profile in Asia.
There have been a few reminders from time to time of that. There was Songyos Sugmakanan’s The Billionaire (2011), about a Thai entrepreneur made good; Luc Besson’s The Lady (2012), about Myanmar political activist Aung San Suu Kyi; and Hanung Bramantyo’s Soekarno (2014), about Indonesia’s first president.
As The Imitation Game kept reminding the audience, somewhat clunkily: “Sometimes it’s the people no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine.”
Those worthy of having a film dedicated to them can come from the unlikeliest of places and it would be powerful to see that reflected in the movies.
Many biopics also follow the predictable story arc of triumph over adversity and fail to deliver nuanced portraits of the protagonists.
Hawking is celebrated for his physics despite being physically debilitated and Turing outwits the Germans despite an inability to play nice with others.
On the whole, biopics tend to portray their subjects in a heroic light. But there are films which break the mould here.
Saint Laurent was a hugely influential figure in fashion but he was no saint. While the movie floundered in giving a sense of the man behind the interlocking initials of YSL, it did not shy away from portraying the destructive side of him.
In Mr Turner, the celebrated painter of light is a gruff and heavyset man who treated many of the women in his life badly. He could also be, by turns, generous, petty, morose, humorous. In other words, a complex human being with flaws and foibles – and also an extraordinary talent.
A biopic’s subject need not be likeable. He or she just needs to come across as flesh and blood.
(ST)

I'm Pets
Pets Tseng
Taiwan’s Pets Tseng got her start on singing contest One Million Star, but it was as an actress that she made it big, playing the role of the androgynous King on the idol dramas KO One Return (2012) and KO One Re-act (2013).
With a short crop and slightly left of centre outfits, she carries that over into her debut album with an image that is more groovy than girly.
Music-wise, she covers the ground from bouncy light-hearted pop to emotional ballads.
Black-framed Glasses is about a “shopping queen” who “loves lemon tea”, but pulls back from the edge of cutesiness as Tseng sings: “Sometimes she feels that life is meaningless/But she chooses to believe and not look back, and move on.”
Then on Just Lose It (Hurt So Much), she nurses a broken heart.
While the songs are pleasant enough, the album can be jarring when taken as a whole – she is chirpy on one song and morose the next.
At 14 tracks, it is also too long.
Dip into this for little nibbles rather than imbibe everything at one go.
(ST)

Girls In Peacetime Want To Dance
Belle and Sebastian
On the opening track, Nobody’s Empire, Stuart Murdoch sings in his distinctive and delicate voice: “Life was too much/It was loud and rough round the edges.”
Fans of Belle and Sebastian know they can always turn to the Glaswegian band to soothe and smooth out the edges.
On their ninth studio album – their first in five years since Belle And Sebastian Write About Love (2010) – the band continue to offer their signature brand of literate, wistful and droll pop.
And what would a Belle and Sebastian record be without a literary reference or two?
After all, the band’s name comes from a French children’s book and they once released an EP titled Books (2004). Enter Sylvia Plath, one of the bouncier numbers here, sees the band flirting with synth pop. Ditto The Party Line.
Apart from the raising of the tempo, the album title also points to an exploration of political themes. The flipside of peacetime is war and on the jangly Allie, Murdoch notes drily: “When there’s bombs in the Middle East, you want to hurt yourself.”
The deprecatory The Cat With The Cream references a “Grubby little red MP/Tory like the cat with the cream.” A Tory is a colloquial term for a member of the Conservative Party.
The album closes with Today (This Army’s For Peace), a dreamy number playing on the oxymoronic juxtaposition of army and peace.
Trust Belle and Sebastian to take on war and politics in a gentle, peaceable croon instead of a bellicose roar.
(ST)

Of the three countries that make up the island of Britain, Wales is probably the least familiar to visitors. Scotland is known for its castles and lochs and England has its bustling cities and popular Lake District.
But there is no reason why this should be so. Wales has plenty of greenery and scenery as well, from viridescent, wooded national parks to dramatic coastlines and brooding castles to charming villages.
It offers all that Britain can offer – with an added exotic touch. The written Welsh language has a suspicion of vowels and one is greeted by seemingly improbable signs everywhere. Wales in Welsh, for example, is spelt Cymru and pronounced “kumree”.
Everyone speaks English, however, so visitors will enjoy that frisson of something foreign and yet have no problems getting around.
On a trip organised by national tourism agency VisitBritain, we skip the major cities of Cardiff and Swansea and venture deep into the Welsh countryside in a trusty van.
The most direct way of experiencing the countryside is to simply immerse yourself in it. The Brecon Beacons National Park (www.breconbeacons.org) in South Wales is lush and green and peaceful – and a magnet for walkers, climbers, fishermen, canoeists, horse-riders and bird-watchers.
At its heart is the welcoming Gliffaes Country House Hotel (www.gliffaeshotel.com). It is possible to get our fill of nature just pottering around the grounds of the handsome house. There is even a walk on the estate to take in the almost 40 varieties of trees, including redwoods, oaks, cedars and maples. In autumn, bursts of red add a dash of dazzle to the landscape.
It is a land that I can almost believe is alive with magic, particularly when gazing upon the 4.27m free-standing stone in the middle of a field in the Glanusk estate. Nicknamed the fish stone for its resemblance to an upright fish, the menhir is one of the many standing stones which dot western Europe, silent sentinels of pre-historic cultures.
The Honourable Shan Legge-Bourke, owner of the estate, explains, in an accent so posh that the folks of Downton Abbey would blush with shame, that there is a legend associated with the stone.
It is said that it would turn into a man once a year on midsummer’s eve and, as a child, she had tried to catch a glimpse of that transformation by camping with friends. They managed to spook themselves but, of that elusive fish-man there was no sign.
Spread out across the Welsh countryside are other relics which conjure up the distant, if not quite as fantastical, past.
There are the spectacular ruins of Tintern Abbey (search at cadw.wales.gov.uk), with their towering interlocking arches, splendid against a backdrop of green rolling hills in the picturesque Wye Valley.
The remains date back to the 12th century, when the abbey was home to an austere order of monks known as the Cistercians. A short walk away and tucked into the hillside is the atmospheric ruined 19th-century church of St Mary. Tombstones dot the grounds, including what looks like a clawfoot bath memorial.
Not for naught has Wales been dubbed the castle capital of the world. It has more than 500 castles, of which more than a quarter are still standing, either as ruins or restored attractions. Many of them are under the care of Cadw (pronounced “kadu”), the historic environment service of the Welsh government.
One of the best preserved is Conwy Castle (search at cadw.wales.gov.uk) on the north coast of Wales, which Unesco considers one of the “finest examples of late 13th-century and early 14th-century military architecture in Europe”.
It is also home to some of the continent’s best preserved mediaeval walls and I get an excellent overview of the town and the surrounding environs while walking along the elevated stone walkways. And when we peer into the yards of modern-day houses, we wonder if property prices are lower the closer they are to pesky tourists.
Another familiar building in the Welsh landscape is the church, be it large or small, imposing or inviting. The Holy Cross church at Mwnt (pronounced “mont”) is a modest affair, with whitewashed walls and a grey roof, but it is dramatically set against a green hillside which overlooks a sliver of beach. A waterfall runs down the slope invitingly to what has been voted as one of Europe’s top 10 loveliest hidden beaches in the Daily Mail newspaper.
We, a motley crew of writers from around the world, troop down to the quiet, sandy cove and also hike up the hill, hunkering against the whipping wind to perch atop a rocky ridge to take in the gorgeous view. No one is blown away and we have windswept pictures to prove we made the foolhardy trek. It is a good day.
Those with a taste for adventure can also fly over rugged landscapes at Zip World Titan (www.zipworld.co.uk), nestled amongst the mountains of Snowdonia in North Wales.
For a more genteel way of luxuriating in the countryside, hop on a train or tram.
The Vale of Rheidol Railway (www.rheidolrailway.co.uk) is a storybook steam engine locomotive that shuttles between the holiday resort town of Aberystwyth and the intriguingly named Devil’s Bridge. As it winds its way through the woods, the gorgeous valley bursts into view for a second or two before getting swallowed up by the trees once more. And each time, it sets off a mad scramble of picture-snapping for Instagram’s sake.
For a less challenging level of photo-taking, take a ride on The Great Orme Tramway (www.greatormetramway.co.uk), in operation since 1902. As it climbs 1.5km up the Great Orme Country Park and Nature Reserve, the houses drop away and sweeping vistas of blue sea and green and yellow grass appear as sunlight peeks through the cloud cover.
For a change of scenery, we drop by some of the charming towns and villages snuggled in the countryside. With its maze of bookshops catering to every taste, from murder thrillers to poetry, Hay-on-Wye (www.hay-on-wye.co.uk) is a welcoming sight indeed for the voracious reader.
Even the animals here seem more literary as one orange tabby lazily patrols an unmanned second-hand shop set against a stone wall. An advertisement for Anti-Stiff to strengthen the muscles in an old tome sets off a round of giggles and someone buys it for a laugh.
The village hosts an international renowned book festival in May and just about the only thing that is not welcome is the electronic reading device. “Kindles are banned from the Kingdom of Hay,” proclaims a banner solemnly.
Even quirkier is coastal resort Portmeirion (www.portmeirion-village.com) within Snowdonia National Park in north Wales. Designed and built by one Sir Clough Williams-Ellis between 1925 and 1975, it feels as though we have wandered onto a film set of an Italian village filled with colourful facades and incongruous touches.
Cherubs and mermaids abound, a Buddha statue sits serenely under a verandah, while sculptures of Thai dancers perch atop columns in a central garden.
One of the most satisfying ways of savouring the countryside is to sink one’s teeth into it.
Given the variety of fresh local produce, chefs have no need to look beyond their own backyards for inspiration. Check out the ingredients at food markets such as the one at Abergavenny, with its distinctive decoration of lifelike pigs hanging from the rafters – or get down and dirty at the cattle market in Cardigan and get hypnotised by the sing-song auctioneer.
Treat yourself to a traditional Sunday roast beef and Yorkshire pudding or pamper yourself with the delicious tasting menu at one-Michelin-starred Ynyshir Hall (www.ynyshirhall.co.uk) by head chef Gareth Ward. Our lunch includes a mushroom dish that is umami richness, balanced with a little tartness and crunchiness from some croutons, perfectly cooked pink lamb and a dessert that harmonises tart flavours and creamy textures.
And to work off any meal, simply start walking from wherever you are. You will not be disappointed by what you find.
(ST)

Understudy
Lapsley
Newcomer Lapsley’s voice is airily delicate. At the same time, it sounds like someone who has seen much of the world, with a certain weariness and vulnerability to it.
The repetition of phrases on Falling Short suggests a familiarity with difficult times: “And it’s times like these, and it’s days like/It’s been a long time coming but I’m falling short.”
She could be talking about rent, she could be talking about something far more personal.
The songs draw you in slowly, but surely. On the confessional Brownlow, she is achingly honest when she sings: “I wouldn’t say that I was known for doing the right thing/I wouldn’t say that I was always comfortable in my own skin.”
With just four songs, she creates a cohesive music world that is moving and beguiling. Maybe it is the association to Lapland that Lapsley evokes or the haunting electronica that she conjures, but there is something decidedly Scandinavian about Understudy. It comes as a surprise to find that she hails from Merseyside, Britain. And at only 18, she sounds mature beyond her years.
The buzz has been building steadily over the last year. Her bedroom-recorded Monday EP was embraced on Soundcloud and she played at Glastonbury. She has since been making her way onto lists of artists to watch.
Never mind the title of the EP, she is no one’s understudy.

The Great Escape
831
The plaintive violin wail on the opening track is a feint, for 831 soon launch into an energetic number.
With other songs such as the kinetic Shake Shake and fervent Iron Man, the Taiwanese band have no intention of abandoning the youthful catchy rock found on their previous album, The Last Day Of Summer (2012) – not just yet. But at least lead vocalist A-pu is sounding less like a dead ringer for Mayday’s Ashin.
One of the most interesting tracks here is Monster, in which the protagonist imagines he is being swallowed up by life: “A monster gnawing at me bite by bite, heart getting numb day by day.”
There is startling realisation at the end of the song: “I let myself turn into the most frightening monster.”
(ST)

A Most Violent Year
J.C. Chandor
The story: Abel Morales (Oscar Isaac) is in the cut-throat heating oil business in New York in 1981. Unknown assailants are robbing his delivery trucks, the assistant district attorney Lawrence (David Oyelowo) is building a case against him for dodgy business practices and he needs money to close a crucial property purchase. Meanwhile, his wife Anna (Jessica Chastain) threatens to get her mobster father involved if Abel is not able to pull it all together.

In the bad old days before it was cleaned up and Times Square made safe and tourist- friendly, New York was something of a wild city and a law unto itself. Those making the rules there were the crooked and the powerful, people you did not want to cross.
Abel is an ambitious man trying to make his way up in that volatile world.
In the hands of another film-maker, say Martin Scorsese or Brian De Palma, this could easily have been a very different movie, one that is flashier and more gorily violent.
Writer-director J.C. Chandor’s style is more low-key and considered. His debut, finance thriller Margin Call (2011), was talky but had little in the way of incidental music while his follow-up drama, All Is Lost (2013), did not even have much dialogue as Robert Redford played a man lost at sea.
A Most Violent Year is similarly spare without much of a score to signal to the audience what they should be feeling.
What Chandor offers instead is a slow burn of a movie with plenty of greys instead of black-and- whites. Is Abel as corrupt as the next guy or is he merely naive in genuinely trying to do the right thing? Isaac (Inside Llewyn Davis, 2013) brings to the role a mix of enigma and appealing decency that will have you going from wondering about his scruples to rooting for him.
Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty, 2012), with a retro Farah Fawcett hairdo, is the perfect foil as the formidable wife constantly egging him on. She is the one who pulls the trigger on an injured deer when Abel hesitates over what to do.
Increasingly, he is a man under siege on all fronts and, as the noose tightens around him, his moral resolve begins to waver in what turns out to be a deeply cynical examination of the perversion of the American dream in the guise of a business thriller.
(ST)

Still Alice
Richard Glatzer, Wash Westmoreland
The story: Alice Howland (Julianne Moore) is a respected professor of linguistics at Columbia University. The discovery that she has early onset Alzheimer’s disease comes as a bolt out of the blue and the family – including husband John (Alec Baldwin) and three grown children (Kristen Stewart, Kate Bosworth, Hunter Parrish) – have to come to terms with it. Based on the novel of the same name by Lisa Genova.

Disease-of-the-week movies, a staple of cable channels such as Lifetime and Hallmark in the 1980s and early 1990s, pretty much followed a fixed template.
Some good, worthy individual would fall ill and it would turn out to be Lou Gehrig’s Disease or leukaemia or a rare genetic disorder.
The details of the illness would be dutifully trotted out, tears would be shed and lessons would be learnt.
Married writer-director couple Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland (Quinceanera, 2006) have decided to revisit this formula when even the cable channels have long abandoned it.
Never mind that they have tried to gussy it up with a big-name cast, big-screen treatment and some attempt at a more sophisticated story here – Still Alice never really breaks the mould.
The fact that Alice is a linguistics professor who finds herself grappling with words is ironic and poignant.
But when she says things such as “I wish I had cancer, I wouldn’t feel so ashamed”, the public service announcement vibe to the proceedings is undeniable.
The performances prevent the film from becoming totally generic.
Moore makes you feel Alice’s frustration and anger as her identity slips away from her. For that, she has been reaping Best Actress wins, including from the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild.
She is seen as a front-runner for an Oscar, for which she had been nominated four times previously as Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress.
While she is good, Moore has also done more moving and compelling work in better films, including The Kids Are All Right (2010) and Far From Heaven (2002).
The bigger acting surprise in Still Alice comes from Stewart, best known as the wooden lead in The Twilight Saga romance fantasy films.
Her chemistry with Moore as a mother-and- daughter pair makes the relationship between the increasingly hapless mother and sullen actress daughter the most moving thing here.
(ST)

G.E.M. X.X.X. Live World Tour
Max Pavilion, Singapore Expo
Last Friday

It is an incredible success story.
Hong Kong-based G.E.M. has never done any promotional activities in Singapore, has never even been here before.
But thanks to a widely watched run on the China reality contest show I Am A Singer, the 23-year-old sold out three nights at the 5,000-seater Max Pavilion. Indeed, she has been selling out venues since she emerged as runner-up on the show last April, thrilling fans with her big voice and stirring singing every step of the way.
No wonder she was filled with gratitude.
She thanked her fans repeatedly and said at one point: “As a singer, to see so many people supporting me and my music is a really happy thing.”
Nicknamed the girl with giant lungs when she made her debut in Hong Kong in 2008, it was not hard to see why she did well on the show given her strong pipes and wide range.
And last Friday night, she gave her fans what they came for, singing many of the songs she had performed on the show.
She kicked off the evening by emerging from a metallic capsule in a sparkly midriff-baring get-up. Her vaunted lungs were unleashed early on her dance tracks After Tonight and One Button. There was some cheering as she tried to get the crowd going, but clearly, these were numbers not many were familiar with.
When she launched into Wang Feng’s Exist, the second song she had performed on the show, the excitement level shot up.
She is definitely a powerful singer and she hit the high notes with ease and confidence. Add a smoke machine and her hair blowing wildly in the wind, though, and the overall effect on a thoughtful song questioning the meaning of existence was one of overkill.
Still, it was what the crowd had come for and they cheered the many high points and an impressively held note on Mavis Fan’s I Want Us To Be Together.
For the most part, the covers stuck close to the versions she had performed on TV. She had arranged them with her music producer Lupo Groinig, who doubled as a guitarist on her touring band.
Between songs, we learnt about her love for the Jack Neo film I Not Stupid (2002) and that she had eaten Hainanese chicken rice at Lau Sa Pat market, she said endearingly.
Other than impressing with her live singing, G.E.M. also showcased her musicality on the guitar, drums and piano, most memorably on I Want Us To Be Together.
She was no mere jukebox singer and the singer-songwriter also took the opportunity to showcase her own material. Her songs ranged from Cantonese dance pop to Bubble, a Mandarin ballad which explored her lower range.
The energetic performer also knew how to crank it up for the finale.
With a dose of high-octane dance numbers, the livewire urged her fans to stand up so that she could live up to her stage name and Get Everybody Moving. Adele’s Rolling In The Deep was turned into a dance remix and G.E.M. made it her own.
A rapturous response brought her out for two encores and she was clearly moved by the love showered upon her.
For the final song of the 21/2-hour-long show, she performed Where Did U Go, the breakout hit from her 2008 self-titled debut EP.
Her newer fans might not have been able to sing along, but they showed her support and encouragement by clapping to the rhythm.
A singer could not ask for more.
(ST)