Day By Day
Hebe Tien
On the album cover, singer Hebe Tien is pictured ironing clothes. In the pages of the lyric booklet, she paints her nails and does a yoga stretch.
The prettily coloured and carefully styled images of the most successful solo member of the popular Taiwanese girl group S.H.E were taken by award-winning Slovakian photographer Maria Svarbova. In other words, the singer’s fourth album might be about the quotidian, but there is nothing perfunctory about it.
Ren Jian Yan Huo (Every Day Is A Miracle) is a good example of this.
The phrase “bu shi ren jian yan huo” is used to describe someone who is not quite of this world. So I was expecting something ethereal- sounding, but Tien ventures into upbeat electronica territory instead.
Defying expectations is a good thing and so is sounding different from everything else on the radio, which bodes well for Tien.
The tempo slows down on Useless as her voice casts a languid spell and then gently hits the high notes as she croons a series of zen koans: “Uselessness is useful or completely useless, what’s the difference?”
Working with a wide range of musicians here – from China’s Lan Xiaoxie (lyrics for Useless and others) to Singaporean newcomer Boon Hui Lu (music for Every Day Is A Miracle and Your Body Speaks) – she produces an eclectic, electronic collection that will liven up your day.
(ST)

One Night Only
Matt Wu
The story: Gao Ye (Aaron Kwok) is an incorrigible gambler who is deep in debt. Momo (Yang Zishan) is a prostitute who knocks on his door by mistake. Thus begins a night of adventure as they place bets in an underground fight club, get forced into a life-threatening car race and trade stories in an abandoned mansion.

The idea of a story taking place in the course of a single night is an intriguing one.
The compressed timeframe heightens the sense of excitement as characters have to meet, fight, make up or break up – and all before the sun rises.
Before Sunrise (1995) is an engaging talky take on the concept, while Au Revoir Taipei (2010) goes for a more energetic vibe with a caper that is also a love letter to the city’s rich nightlife.
One Night Only is like neither of those films; in fact, it does not seem to know what to do with the concept. Here, the one-night timeframe feels contrived at times as the story has to hinge on the most idiotic of events.
Despite meeting Gao Ye for the first time and despite the fact that he lives in a hovel, Momo happily hands over a stack of cash for him to gamble with. And later, her bunch of sisters-in-trade do the same as well even though he does not seem that persuasive.
Neither are the characters persuasively drawn.
Gao has an estranged daughter but his actions are not exactly consistent with that of a man who wants to have a second chance with his child. Kwok tries but it is hard to feel much sympathy for his character.
Fresh-faced Yang, who broke out in Zhao Wei’s coming-of-age drama So Young (2013), is saddled with inconsistencies in her role as well. Aside from her questionable motivation, there are things about Momo that do not make sense.
It is suggested that she was trafficked into prostitution, yet she seems to be remarkably free when it comes to her time and movements.
It is also incongruous to have all these characters interacting in Mandarin when they are clearly in Thailand, a setting which feels incidental and accidental.
The big reveal at the end is supposed to make everything click. In truth, it raises more questions than it answers.
(ST)

HK Forbidden Super Hero: The Abnormal Crisis
Yuichi Fukuda
The story: At the end of HK Forbidden Super Hero (2013), Kyosuke Shikijo (Ryohei Suzuki) – in his alter-ego as Hentai Kamen (literally, Pervert Mask) – has defeated villain Tamao Ogane (Tsuyoshi Muro). His girlfriend Aiko Himeno (Fumika Shimizu) wants him to give up his perverted side and takes back the pair of panties she had gifted him. But when a mysterious force starts to suck up women’s underpants, Kyosuke has to train under the Perverted Hermit (Ken Yasuda) to take down foes old and new. Adapted from the cult manga Kyukyoku!! Hentai Kamen (Ultimate!! Pervert Mask, 1992-1993).

Think that Deadpool, with his snarky barbs as he rains violence down on his enemies, is subversive? How about a superhero who wears a mankini, fishnet stockings and a pair of panties over his head, and whose finishing move is to smush the heads of baddies into his crotch?
The tagline for the movie is No Panties, No Justice. Your reaction to it should determine whether you should watch it or skip it.
Returning director Yuichi Fukuda has fun sending up the superhero genre here, including sending the protagonist on a training stint and journey of self-discovery in the mountains – except that the Perverted Hermit is not quite the wise and respectable Yoda.
He is first shown crouched on the floor, waiting for someone to turn on a whipping machine.
The villains, from a dismembered head scuttling around on mechanical legs like a demented spider to a human-crab cuum hybrid monster, are over the top.
The film sags somewhat as it meanders in the middle, but the game cast keeps its energy level up.
Ryohei Suzuki (My Love Story!, 2015) returns in the title role. He is equally convincing as mild- mannered Kyosuke, aka the in-your-face Hentai Kamen. And Tsuyoshi Muro’s pigtailed Tamao has to be the most annoying villain ever.
For all the sexual innuendos and fetishising of panties, the film manages to retain a sweetness at its core.
After all, as Kyosuke proclaims: “I’m a pervert for justice.”
This is what wholesome smutty fun looks like.
(ST)

For A Few Bullets
Peter Pan Anzi
The story: Zhuang (Kenny Lin Gengxin) prides himself as China’s top hustler. He finds himself working with the icy agent Ruoyun (Zhang Jingchu), veteran con man Shi Fo (Tengger) and his wife (Liu Xiaoqing) to retrieve a precious jade seal – one that the Japanese military wants to use to legitimise its rule in Nanjing in the 1940s.

Kenny Lin’s big break came in the period drama Scarlet Heart (2011) in which he stole hearts as the dashing 14th prince.
Seizing his chance to lighten up here, he turns in a charming performance as a rakish con man with a winning smile and a quick wit, which is the best thing about this uneven movie.
His character Zhuang is remarkably cavalier in the way he handles the MacGuffin here, a priceless four dragon rectangular zun (ancient Chinese wine vessel). His carelessness with it reveals the greater treasure within, a royal jade seal which has to be kept out of Japanese hands, a task that falls to an unlikely team assembled by director Peter Pan Anzi (The Palace, 2013).
There are some twists and turns involving traitors and double- crossers, not to mention hurdles that are set up to keep them from their prize. But none of it feels particularly clever or terribly exciting. The ploy to nab the seal on a ship – clearly set up to be a highlight – falls short of being inspired.
It is sad to see Liu Xiaoqing, China’s movie queen in the 1980s, reduced to clowning about in a slight role in a sloppy movie whose villains are hammy, subtitles are rife with errors and computergenerated imagery is distractingly amateurish.
This movie headed by China’s ambitious Wanda Pictures needs stronger ammunition to mount a successful assault on the stranglehold of Hollywood’s best.
(ST)

Skiptrace
Renny Harlin
The story: After the death of his partner, Hong Kong police officer Bennie Chan (Jackie Chan) is bent on proving that businessman Victor Wong (Winston Chao) is the crime boss known as The Matador. By chance, scam artist Connor Watts (Johnny Knoxville) ends up with evidence that could implicate Victor. He also falls for Bennie’s goddaughter Samantha (Fan Bingbing), who works at a Macau casino. But first, Bennie has to rescue Connor from the clutches of a Russian gang.

As with any Jackie Chan live-action cartoon, fans can expect the usual mix of smooth moves and humorous gags from the action star in his latest work.
But Skiptrace, which is a travelogue in the guise of an actionadventure comedy, feels more lacklustre than the average vehicle for the star.
Thanks to his passport getting destroyed, Bennie, along with Connor, has to take the scenic route in the journey from Russia to Hong Kong – because, clearly, that is the fastest way to go, with Samantha in the hands of the bad guys and the clock ticking away.
They tangle with traditional wrestlers in Mongolia and there is a campfire rendition of Adele’s Rolling In The Deep complete with the region’s famed throat-singing. In China, they come across a festival and find time to set alight a Kongming, or sky, lantern and then have to sing in order to cross a throng of women in ethnic costumes.
All the while, Bennie is spouting factoids a la a travel show host, until Connor snaps: “Are you on Wikipedia all the time?”
Renny Harlin, who has five Golden Raspberry nominations for Worst Director, could have done with a greater degree of such self-awareness in his approach to the movie.
Instead, he muddies the water with touches such as a choice of hillbilly western songs for the soundtrack. The music mayhem is compounded by a caper involving Hong Kong cops and criminals speaking a version of English as jarring as the buddy pairing of Chan and Knoxville.
The odd couple are a notch above the dud duo of Wallace Chung and Lee Min Ho in Bounty Hunters, but not as entertaining as Chan and motormouth Chris Tucker in the Rush Hour movies.
(ST)

What A Folk!!!!!!
Crowd Lu
From the effusion of exclamation marks in the title of his latest album, you can already feel the excitement of Taiwanese singer- songwriter Crowd Lu in returning to the music scene after his military service stint.
What A Folk!!!!!! proves that Lu has plenty to sing about even after leaving the fertile campus ground that had inspired so much of his early work, especially the excellent 2008 debut 100 Ways Of Living.
He is still crooning about chasing after one’s dreams albeit tempered by a reality check. In One-and-a- half Ping (one ping is 3.3 sq m), which refers to the size of the tiny room he had once lived in in Taipei, he sings: “Can I rent some more strength/Lick my wounds/As I continue to make way.”
The optimism of old is not entirely missing, as he scats joyously on the opening number, Happy Chakra, and breezes his way through Summer Song.
On this record, his path seems to have opened up musically and in terms of subject matter.
With its refrain of “look, look”, the Minnan track Little Phone (1) is a gentle reminder to tear one’s gaze away from one’s phone and to notice the world around one instead. After all, as he points out: “A handphone is not your lover.”
Little Phone (2), an acoustic punk number, takes it up a notch, opening with the exhortation: “Stop looking at your phone!”
Wedding Ring, which was co-written with singer-songwriter Cheer Chen, suggests greater emotional maturity on Lu’s part. Rather than a happily-ever-after ballad, it is instead about the fraught meeting between a man and his now-married ex.
Lu’s concerns go beyond the personal to embrace the wider world.
Sleeping Here Today touches on homelessness and it comes from a place of care and compassion. He paints a poignant picture and also offers warm encouragement: “If you are happy that you are living, live life with intent/It’s the best homework in life.”
His positivity can almost seem like rose-tinted optimism, but there is no denying that there is an innocence about him that is genuine and touching. He muses with gratitude on Kind Glasses: “Kind glasses can help you/Discover the beauty of this world.”
We could all do with glasses like these.
(ST)

The Edge Of Paradise
Kit Chan
Home-grown singer Kit Chan used to be known for her emotive ballads, in which she would swing for the high notes. Hits such as Heartache and Dazzle made her a star.
She no longer feels a need to engage in vocal dramatics for the sake of doing so. Instead, her voice seems more tender and sensitive in The Edge Of Paradise, her first album of original songs since 2004’s East Towards Saturn.
Perhaps the title track comes closest to the feel of her earlier works, but even then, the effect is more ethereal than forceful when her voice climbs the scale.
There is a laidback ease to her singing on the quietly insistent There’s Been You In My Life and the gentle yet compelling Sudden Rain.
Chan has fun on the playfully jazzy number Don’t Ask Me Why I Love You, composed by singer-songwriter Jimmy Ye. And she pulls off a neat trick by making this seem like a new song with a different arrangement and Cantonese lyrics by the feted Lin Xi on A Missed Opportunity Is Not A Crime.
This is what a Kit Chan album sounds like now.
As she croons on the slow-burn track Spellbound: “My heart has long melted, my love is so passionate.” There is no need for her to showboat, the emotions come through loud and clear.
(ST)

Bounty Hunters
Shinterra
The story: Former Interpol agents Lee Shan (Lee Min Ho) and Ayo (Wallace Chung) are now slumming it as bodyguards. A potential job goes seriously awry and they are framed for a hotel bombing. To nail the real mastermind, they join forces with bounty hunter Cat (Tiffany Tang) and her trusty sidekicks, computer whiz Swan (Karena Ng) and butler extraordinaire Babe (Louis Fan).

There are idols who can act. South Korea’s Lee Min Ho is not one of them. Witness a scene where he recoils from the sudden appearance of a kitty – meant to be a funny instance of his phobia of cats, but it comes across instead as laughably fake.
Not much else works in this film. Characters jet about from Tokyo to Bangkok to Jeju island chasing after a villain, but it is hard to work up much enthusiasm to watch them when the proceedings veer between being lame and lacklustre.
Lee Shan and Ayo are a classic pair of bros in a buddy action flick except that there is not much chemistry between them and the bonhomie feels forced.
Lee Shan’s relationship with Cat also fails – their intended mutual simmering attraction is merely lukewarm instead of red-hot. Even when they are thrown together into the boot of a car – a la Jennifer Lopez and George Clooney in 1998’s Out Of Sight – they achieve not sensuousness, but a comic payoff.
Perhaps only singer-turned-actor Wallace Chung shows some potential in the movie, with his game take on a comic role. He is not afraid to be silly or lame and there is a sweet goofiness to his antics.
When the villain is finally revealed, he turns out to be a caricature – shrill, bratty and with more than a screw loose. Actually, the baddies are easy to spot as their dramatic eyeshadow gives them away.
Not much of a hunt after all.
(ST)

Yuzu Asia Tour 2016 Summer Natsuiro
*Scape The Ground Theatre
Last Saturday
What a fruitful journey it has been for Japanese folk-pop duo Yuzu.
Yujin Kitagawa and Koji Iwasawa started out busking on the streets of Yokohama in 1996 and have gone on to perform at major arenas such as Tokyo Dome and Yokohama Stadium.
To mark their 20th anniversary, they have embarked on their first Asian tour, which kicked off in Singapore at *Scape.
There is certainly demand for their concert here as tickets were snapped up within four hours.
The Ground Theatre has a capacity of 500 and the majority of the fans there were Japanese. It prompted Iwasawa to joke in English: “Welcome to Singapore.”
The duo spoke largely in Japanese with Kitagawa throwing in a few explanatory phrases in English.
But mostly, their songs spoke for them. There was a joyousness to their sunny and breezy tracks that was irresistible and they were clearly happy to be performing here.
Accompanied by guitars and the plaintive wail of the harmonica, they harmonised on early hits such as the catchy Goodbye Bus and the elegiac Someday.
They also took on more recent works, including the title track from their 13th album Towa (2016) and Reason, off their award- winning record Land (2013).
During one segment, Yuzu went back to their busking roots as it was just the two of them on stage without any backing musician. They sang their original birthday song and inserted the name of one lucky fan.
On many of the numbers, fans clapped along, waved their hands, sang and even danced, making it feel like a cosy, communal experience.
To get everyone loosened up, there was a short workout segment that took place before the gig started. It all led up to the mass dance for the track Love & Peach, in which Kitagawa and Iwasawa appeared with pink peach butts while two Japanese Citron (yuzu) Monkeys led the choreography with instructions such as “Tap tap your bum”.
The energetic two-hour concert ended where it all began, with Yuzu’s first single released in 1998, Natsuiro (Summer Colour). To chants of “one more time”, the duo extended the feel-good track twice before bowing out.
Inevitably, summer must end but, like the season, fans hope that Yuzu will return.
(ST)

Jay Chou's Bedtime Stories
Jay Chou
Fourteen albums in, Mandopop king Jay Chou can still put out catchy and chart-scaling songs.
But the inventiveness which marked his early output seems to have been largely spent.
The propulsive beats, the rapid- fire rhythms, the sunny ukulele strumming – they are familiar from earlier works.
On the title track, Bedtime Stories, what starts off as a music- box melody soon gets its tempo tightened and there are even snatches of falsetto singing as the mood grows increasingly frenetic: “You still don’t want to sleep, but I want to sleep”.
Welcome to fatherhood, Chou. His daughter, Hathaway, with model Hannah Quinlivan, was born last July.
Now, finally, he has a reason to play the jester; previously, his inclination towards kiddy-sounding pop, on discs such as Exclamation Mark (2011), was puzzling.
At the mere age of four months, Hathaway inspired Chou to come up with Past Life’s Lover.
Her random tinkling gets her credited as co-composer, which has to be a record of sorts, though you have to wonder how much of that is down to parental pride.
Some of the material – including the radio-friendly A Little and Shouldn’t Be, the attention-grabbing ballad with A-mei – seem to be here merely to tick a box, though.
The duet itself is pretty decent, but their voices simply do not go together.
Among his collaborations, the best remains the unexpected pairing of Chou’s unmistakably contemporary pipes with Fei Yu-ching’s smooth, evergreen croon in Faraway from 2006’s Still Fantasy.
Commercial considerations lie behind other numbers.
Now You See Me is Chou’s contribution to the thriller movie, Now You See Me 2, in which he has a small role. With its inclusion of gaming lingo, Hero points to his entry into that world as the leader of an e-sport team.
Ahead of his sold-out The Invincible concert in Singapore on Sept 3, the release of Bedtime Stories is a timely and canny move.
But it would be nice if the whole thing did not feel so calculated.
(ST)

Cold War 2
Longman Leung and Sunny Luk
The story: In Cold War (2012), deputy police commissioners Sean Lau (Aaron Kwok) and Waise Lee (Tony Leung Ka Fai) butted heads over the handling of the hijacking of a fully equipped police van. Waise’s cop son Joe (Eddie Peng) was eventually jailed for masterminding the daring crime. It ended on a cliffhanger when Sean received a phone call instructing that Joe be released. The sequel picks up at this point. Although Sean is now the police commissioner, his position is at stake and his actions are questioned by a panel of legal experts, which includes a formidable Oswald Kan (Chow Yun Fat). Can he hang on to his job and unravel the big conspiracy that stretches up to the highest echelons of power in Hong Kong?

There was always going to be a sequel to Cold War and not just because it ended on a cliffhanger. The film was a popular and critical success – the highest-grossing domestic film in Hong Kong in recent years, with more than HK$44 million (S$7.7 million) earned and a haul of nine prizes at the Hong Kong Film Awards, including for Best Film.
Unfortunately, scripting and directing pair Longman Leung and Sunny Luk seem to have written themselves into a corner in this instalment.
The greater conspiracy hinted at in the earlier film is revealed here, unsatisfactorily, to be a kingmaker pulling the strings behind the scenes. The villain’s motivation and his relationship with Joe are unconvincing, not to mention terribly complicated. At the same time, the idea of a cabal of crooks controlling the agenda from on high comes across as too sweeping and easy.
What helped to make the first film riveting was that audiences were kept guessing which team Tony Leung Ka Fai’s Waise was truly on. After establishing him as a good guy, the film-makers throw his loyalties into doubt again, unnecessarily, implausibly and unoriginally.
While Leung and Luk have thrown new characters, from Chow Yun Fat’s combative Oswald Kan to his sort-of goddaughter/nosy investigator Isabel Au (Janice Man), into the fray, they come across as superfluous distractions who are never fully fleshed out.
Everything seems over the top, from the intrusive, bombastic music score to a shoot-out scene in a tunnel that descends into ridiculousness. And there is so much macho posturing from Leung, Kwok and Chow that it quickly gets old.
Without the lingering goodwill from the first flick, this overcooked sequel would have left me totally cold.
(ST)

“The magic of the movies” is one of those phrases that have been used so often that we do not give it a second thought. But every once in a while, we get a reminder of the power of the motion picture to cast a spell.
Home-grown film-maker Boo Junfeng recently told The Straits Times: “Sometimes, topics may seem contentious and difficult to deal with, but I’ve always believed that through story-telling, through film, when we are able to humanise characters and make them relatable, these topics no longer remain just topics.”
He then added: “They become human experiences with the potential of inspiring empathy.
The world could use a bit more empathy.”
He achieved that in his second feature Apprentice, currently in cinemas. The film broaches the controversial topic of capital punishment, but steers away from characters soapboxing about its cons. There are names, faces and stories instead of lectures about the inhumanity of the death penalty.
Along with weighing the impact that killing a prisoner has on the family members left behind, Apprentice also contemplates the toll it takes on the hangman. The act of taking another human life is a heinous one that is condemned in every society and yet, one man is sanctioned by the state to do so.
Malaysian actor Wan Hanafi Su’s charismatic Rahim has to come to terms with what he does for a living. It is not exactly a job one can easily talk about and the cost of opening up can be high.
At the same time, he takes pride in doing it well – so that death comes quickly and suffering is minimised for the condemned.
As movies trumpet their use of ever more expensive and expansive computer wizardry, it is worth noting that the best special effect a film can have is to evoke empathy.
And that is a way for projects with much smaller budgets to compete against tentpole titles backed by vast resources.
Shedding light on difficult situations is what some documentaries in the Singapore International Festival of Arts’ ongoing pre-festival programme The O.P.E.N. do as well.
British film-maker Sean McAllister’s A Syrian Love Story (2015) traces the story of Amer and Raghda – they fall in love as political prisoners, get married and start a family. They are lucky in that they were able to obtain asylum in Paris because of Raghda’s status as a known dissident of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
But their exile ultimately tears the couple apart. They escape with their lives, but are still casualties of war. The film also provides an entry point into the complicated conflict engulfing Syria and reducing it to rubble.
In the two-parter Homeland (Iraq Year Zero) (2015), film- maker Abbas Fahdel turns the lens on members of his family to show what life was like before and after the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 .
The O.P.E.N.’s closing film, Fire At Sea (2016), winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival, casts a compassionate eye on the desperate refugees who risk their lives to cross the Mediterranean Sea to escape from the horrors unfolding at home.
The conflicts in Iraq and Syria and the migrant crisis in Europe may dog the news, but nothing crystallises notions of war, strife and suffering the way a film does by making them come alive as we experience them through the characters and subjects on the big screen.
Of course, films do not have to tackle challenging terrain in order to evoke empathy.
Take, for instance, Japanese director Hirokazu Koreeda’s wonderfully humane films about ordinary people living everyday lives, in works such as Still Walking (2008) and Our Little Sister (2015).
He makes the quotidian utterly compelling as he gently paints a picture of the contemporary human condition, one rendered with honesty and great affection for the characters.
Empathy has been likened to walking a mile in someone else’s shoes. Movies can take you on that journey – and even show you what those shoes look like.
(ST)