Queen of Queens
Miss Ko

Make It Real!
GBOYSWAG

The title of Miss Ko’s new album sounds like typical rapper braggadocio.
Then again, she does have something to boast about as she was the first hip-hop artist to win the Golden Melody Award for Best New Artist for her debut Knock Out (2012).
But it also points to her roots as the Taiwanese-American grew up in Queens, New York.
Her third album finds her in fine form and ready to reclaim her throne. Her comeback to naysayers who nitpick over her Mandarin: “Did win a prize, wrote a song for A-mei/I’m not your idol, I’m your idol’s idol”. She then raps smoothly in English on Started From Scratch: “Never settin limits/representin for da women”.
There is a less combative side of this queen as well.
She rails against an inferior offering on Pizza, but also waxes lyrical about the perfect pie. Athletic Shoes Centipede finds her in a playful mood as she raps about her beloved sneakers. Everybody Ride gets into the groove with a piano riff and an invitation to hang out and chill.
It is a more varied album compared with the party-hearty vibe of GBOYSWAG’s album. This is the debut of Taiwanese outfit Magic Power’s DJ Gu Gu and it does not stray far from the dance-floor and radio-friendly electro-pop formula of the group.
He raps in English as well and on Make It Real, he offers to: “Talk n talk n share them thoughts/Maybe chill out for a while.” But I would rather listen to Miss Ko.
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Sleepless
Baran bo Odar
The story: Las Vegas vice cops Vincent Downs (Jamie Foxx) and Sean Cass (T.I.) rob a shipment of cocaine belonging to casino boss Stanley Rubino (Dermot Mulroney), who has promised it to the vicious mobster Rob Novak (Scoot McNairy). Vincent has to return the drugs when his son gets abducted. Meanwhile, internal affairs agents Jennifer Bryant (Michelle Monaghan) and Doug Dennison (David Harbour) are on his case. A remake of the French film Sleepless Night (2011).

It has been more than two years since Oscar-winning actor Foxx’s last film, the family-friendly musical Annie (2014). Too bad his return to the big screen is this snoozefest that left out the thrill from crime thriller.
Is Vincent a dirty cop or an undercover cop? Somehow, the question is not very interesting when clearly, he is a super one who can run, jump and fight on despite getting knifed – the occasional wince is all he seems to suffer.
There is a mole thrown into the proceedings as well though the identity of the snitch is unlikely to surprise anyone.
As is the case for too many generic crime flicks, the police are shockingly inept and Monaghan’s (Source Code, 2011) character is both annoying and ineffectual.
The ludicrous final act manages to rope in Vincent’s ex-wife (Gabrielle Union) before things are neatly resolved.
The French-Belgian-Luxembourg original premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and was well received. Did something get lost in translation?
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Collide
Eran Creevey
The story: Americans Casey (Nicholas Hoult) and Juliette (Felicity Jones) meet and fall in love in Cologne, Germany. He swears off crime to win her over, but decides to do one last job for Geran (Ben Kingsley) to pay for her medical expenses. This pits Casey against the dangerous drug kingpin Hagen Kahl (Anthony Hopkins).

This romance in the guise of an action thriller works in both respects, thanks to the casting and director and co-writer Eran Creevy’s (Welcome To The Punch, 2013) sly sense of humour.
In a running joke, as Casey gets into one car chase after another, he gets his hands on a sweeter and swifter ride every time he totals his current vehicle.
Neither cop nor superhero, he is an ordinary man thrust into extraordinary circumstances because of love. This makes him a sympathetic character the audience roots for as he relies only on wits and reflexes to fend off squads of killers equipped with a barrage of firepower.
Hoult makes a convincing action leading man here after outings in superhero flicks (X-Men: Apocalypse, 2016) and romances (Equals, 2015). He has an easy-on-the-eye physicality and he makes all the running, dodging and high-octane sequences believable and exciting.
Jones has much less to do here beyond adding to her chameleonic credentials after having enjoyed both critical (The Theory Of Everything, 2014) and box-office successes (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, 2016). But she has a great reaction shot in a scene where she expresses her incredulity that no woman before her has said “I love you” to blue-eyed hottie Casey.
And as seasoned scenery-chewers are wont to, Oscar winners Kingsley (Gandhi, 1982) and Hopkins (The Silence Of The Lambs, 1991) have fun here, the former as a Turkish mobster whose brains have been fried by drugs and the latter as a ruthless criminal cloaked in a veneer of respectability.
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Love Contractually
Liu Guonan
The story: Katrina (Sammi Cheng) is a nitpicking taskmaster of a boss who has issues such as claustrophobia and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Xiao Bo (Joseph Chang) is a former paratrooper turned courier who ends up as her assistant because of the attractive salary. He later learns that he was picked to be her sperm donor.

Perhaps the best thing dating couples could do during this Valentine’s season is to avoid this rom-com, which contains neither genuine romance nor comedy.
There is only plenty of nothing between Hong Kong singer-actress Cheng (Blind Detective, 2013) and Taiwanese actor Chang (Eternal Summer, 2006) to sustain this annoying debut feature by Chinese director Liu Guonan, which turns maudlin in the last stretch.
At 44, Cheng looks good enough to pass for a 35-year-old. Unfortunately, her character is a cold and cheerless creation that audiences will find hard to warm up to, even when she gets saddled with a sob story of a backstory that is meant to evoke some smidgen of sympathy.
The sunny Chang is the lone bright spot, but his character is just ridiculously perfect – man enough to save Katrina from a crazed employee and good-hearted to the point of being self-sacrificing.
And yes, he has also experienced tragedy in his past – essentially an excuse for him to have something in common with Katrina and also to set up the over-the-top ending.
Nothing else sticks here. Not the lacklustre storytelling, not the desperate use of France as a scenic backdrop and, above all, not the forced romance between Katrina and Xiao Bo.
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Humorous Life
Kenji Wu
Never mind that Taiwanese singer- actor Kenji Wu is no A-list star – 17 years after his debut, he is a seasoned singer-songwriter who still has fun with music, but it no longer comes across as gimmicky.
This is a far cry from his earlier records such as First Creative Album (2004) and The Kenji Show (2005), in which it seemed as though he was trying a little too hard (on the song Wu Ke Qun, for example, he imitated a gamut of singers, from Jay Chou to A-do).
Aptly, he sings in the title track: “Life is full of ups and downs/It’s perfection to experience it yourself.” It is a collaboration with Chinese singer LaceDoll incorporating jazz and rap as they contemplate the vicissitudes of life.
Another breezy number is Shandong Lass, which has the feel of a folk ditty as Wu sketches a portrait of a rural girl who discovers that city life can be lonely.
Among the handful of radio- friendly ballads here, Losing Speed stands out for its memorable melody and lyrics, which liken his state of mind to driving in the night: “Braking suddenly/Memories shimmering on the streets/I crash head-on into loneliness.”
The closer, Pulling Radishes, is a poignant collaboration with Taiwanese indie musician Yorke Tsai that ponders what happens after happily-ever-after: “Is the prince still doing well, how is the princess faring/If you’re not a prince, how do you live?”
Is it a reflection on his own status in the scene? He might not be pop royalty, but he can still put out music worth listening to.
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The Lego Batman Movie
Chris McKay
The story: Stung by the realisation that Batman (Will Arnett) does not regard him as his greatest foe, the Joker (Zach Galifianakis) hatches a devious ploy that will unleash a plethora of notorious villains and monsters on Gotham City. In order to defeat them, Batman needs to learn to work with others, including Robin (Michael Cera), police commissioner Barbara Gordon (Rosario Dawson) and his butler Alfred Pennyworth (Ralph Fiennes).

This new animated feature should appease movie fans who loved the animated flick The Lego Movie (2014) and are impatient for its sequel scheduled to be released in 2019.
It is chock-full of that familiarly irreverent tone, non-stop wisecracks and, of course, the inventive use of the humble Lego brick to conjure up buildings, monsters, explosions and everything in between.
The jokes start early with Batman critiquing the opening film logo sequences – and never stop coming.
It helps that the self-aware film-makers are happy to take aim at themselves and others. There is even a dig taken at the much-reviled Suicide Squad (2016) in which villains are recruited to fight other villains.
The line-up of monsters is a hoot, a who’s who of top cinematic nasties including Voldemort from the Harry Potter films, Eye of Sauron from The Lord Of The Rings and flying monkeys from The Wizard Of Oz. It is always cool to see what characters can be achieved simply by using Lego bricks.
Arnett, best known for the television comedy Arrested Development (2003-2013), reprises his brief role as Batman in The Lego Movie and his deadpan, growly delivery remains spot on.
The buoyant cast includes Cera, yet another Arrested Development alumnus, as the irrepressibly cheerful orphan unwittingly adopted by Batman/Bruce Wayne; Galifianakis as a villain with an identity crisis; and Fiennes as the loyal and wise butler/friend.
For all the silliness and mayhem, this is a movie that asks smart, pointed questions about the superhero genre: What is a superhero without his nemesis? In the case of Batman, a lonely man with attachment issues, shunned even by the rest of the Justice League.
Also, given that he has been at his job for such a long time, why does Gotham City remain crime-ridden? A most valid observation.
The Lego Batman Movie gleefully sticks a pin into the self-inflated pomposity of tortured superheroes and overblown superhero flicks and then tops it off with a sublimely ridiculous ending.
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A Midsummer Night's Dream
Dionysus Contemporary Theatre/ Huayi 2017
Esplanade Theatre Last Saturday
Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a play that tackles some rather weighty themes, including the nature of reality and illusion, and the arbitrariness of attraction.
But it does so with a light touch and a cloak of fantasy and comedy. However one chooses to interpret the play, it is one trippy adventure.
Director Olivia Yan of Hong Kong’s Dionysus Contemporary Theatre taps into that playful, surreal essence for this adaptation.
Story-wise, she sticks quite closely to the Bard’s version.
The Fairy King Oberon (Anthony Wong) and Queen Titania (Candice Yu) are squabbling over who should have a young boy.
In a fit of pique, he casts a spell on her that leads her to fall head over heels for the first creature she sees on waking up.
That turns out to be Bottom (Franky Mcnugget), an actor who has been stuck with the head of a donkey.
The mischievous sprite Puck (Huen Tin Yeung) uses the same potion to meddle in the affairs of four young lovers: Lysander (Alex Lam) and Hermia (Kate Yeung), who long to be together against her father’s wishes; and Demetrius (Angus Chan), who wants to marry Hermia; and Helena (Rosa Maria Velasco), who is besotted with Demetrius.
The use of Cantonese dialogue, while generally retaining the English names, immediately gives the production an exotic feel.
The lines switch between formal and colloquial Cantonese, so it feels both comfortingly familiar and detached at different times.
In one memorable scene, Helena and Hermia descend into a catfight in which they hurl insults about each other’s bust size and it plays out like an exaggerated Hong Kong comedy film.
The stage is kept uncluttered, with a few pieces of props, such as a large rock and a ramp, to delineate the space. It means the costumes, lighting and sound are key to transporting one to a realm of magic and fantasy.
Costume designer Tsang Man Tung must have had a field day coming up with the diverse looks, from neon-coloured-circus-acrobat Puck to the skivvies the four lovers run about in to the regally ostentatious raiments of Oberon and Titania.
Wong is feathered and cocky as the Fairy King while Yu has an imperious presence as the Queen and also as Hippolyta, who is marrying Duke Theseus (also played by Wong) in yet another strand of the tale.
Kudos to Huen for a lithe and limber performance and to Mcnugget for a fearless one, wearing a pair of underpants with an obscenely large bulge as the transformed Bottom.
But it is Velasco who leaves the deepest impression as she makes one really feel the desperation of Helena’s situation.
Her Helena is funny and sympathetic instead of merely being an object of ridicule or pity.
In a story filled with fairies, magic and outsized drama, she keeps things real.
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Huayi 2017: Yoga Lin Live
Esplanade Concert Hall/Last Friday
After waiting more than four years for Taiwan's Yoga Lin to return here for a concert, his fans were impatient to hear him live again. There was clearly much expectations, not to mention pent-up emotions - tickets for the 1,600-seat Esplanade Concert Hall gig sold out quickly.
Lin sure lived up to expectations in a thoroughly enjoyable show that hit all the right notes, proving that his one year away from show business to serve his mandatory military stint had done nothing to diminish his fine instrument of a voice.
Over the course of a close to two-hour-long concert, he rocked out, crooned and glided into his falsetto range effortlessly. He had his fans spellbound with silence one moment and then roaring with approval and up on their feet the next.
His latest record, Sell Like Hot Cakes (2016), was his fifth studio album of original material. Rather than focusing on that, he drew substantially from his discography - Fiction (2012), Perfect Life (2011), Senses Around (2009) and even his debut Mystery Guest (2008).
Even though the lyrics were not displayed as they usually are on monitors, fans chorused along and even chimed in perfectly on the last line of Wake Up: "I've been sleeping really badly, it's best if you move in."
One of the most moving moments came when Lin sang the ballad The Early Sunset, originally written for a fan who had died after a car accident. Accompanied by the plaintive strain of a cello, he conveyed a palpable sense of loss and devastation: "I didn't give you wings, why do you want to fly."
He could have just ticked off his sizable number of hits and his fans would have been satisfied. Instead, he chose to cover songs by others as well, demonstrating his chameleonic musicality and leaving his inimitable stamp on them all.
Rene Liu's Cheng Quan (Step Aside) took on an elegiac quality and built up to an emotionally overflowing finale. He also had fun with British band Blur's cheeky headbanger Song 2 - he strummed on an acoustic guitar to launch into the tune before blowing the track wide open with a full band accompaniment.
Given the time constraint - the concert was billed as 90-minute long - Lin did not spend too much time talking. When he did, his offbeat sense of humour came through. Noting that he could see everyone clearly when the house lights came on, he added: "I can tell that everybody washes their face well."
And when he found out that only a handful of fans had started listening to his music only in the past year, he quipped: "I guess that means I've been pretty popular."
He might have meant it ironically, but there was no doubt he was indeed popular. After the show, it took him an hour to autograph CDs for the line of about 500 fans which snaked about the venue.
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Between
Sun Shengxi
This is supposed to be the album sandwiched between Chinese-Korean singer-songwriter Sun Shengxi’s debut Girls (2014) and the upcoming Women.
It is no mere placeholder though. There is an au courant R&B vibe to Moving On and a welcome spunk in songs such as He Isn’t Worth It.
She works with a wide range of collaborators, from author Four One and photographer Avril Hsiao on the lyrics, to reggae musician Matzka on the duet Lost On The Way. Yet, the record feels cohesive.
A highlight is Don’t Panic, which delivers a gentle exhortation over a breezy melody: “Don’t panic, please don’t panic/Just relax a little/Don’t panic, please don’t panic/Give yourself a break.”
She makes sure listeners are too busy grooving to the track to freak out.
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Journey To The West: The Demons Strike Back
The story: The monk Tang Sanzang (Kris Wu) is on a journey to India to obtain sutras. He is accompanied by three disciples – Monkey (Lin Gengxin), Piggy (Yang Yiwei) and Sandy (Mengke Bateer). Along the way, they encounter a nest of vicious spider demons, a petulant king (Bao Bei-er) and his minister (Yao Chen), who has a dangerous belief in doing as he pleases.

This is billed as the sequel to Journey To The West: Conquering The Demons (2013), but there are actually quite a few changes from the earlier film.
Hong Kong’s Stephen Chow only writes and produces here, and leaves the directing to Tsui Hark (Detective Dee And The Mystery Of The Phantom Flame, 2010) instead.
The tone of the film is a tad less silly, but there are still comic elements that are signature Chow, such as the exaggeratedly drooly Piggy and old women who are supposed to be exhausted 16-year-olds.
More jarring is the overhauled cast.
Idol singer-actor Kris Wu makes for a better-looking Tang, but Wen Zhang was more affecting in the earlier film. Monkey, Piggy and Sandy are also played by different actors, though the impact is less marked in their case as their faces are hidden under heavy make-up.
The source material – the classic Chinese novel Journey To The West – merely serves as inspiration here and the film-makers take lots of liberty with the story.
That is not necessarily a bad thing, though Tang behaves in a rather inconsistent manner, particularly in his relationship with Monkey.
What makes the film entertaining is the inventive use of computer- generated imagery (CGI).
Tsui piles on the effects and, more importantly, lets his imagination run riot in conjuring up landscapes, creatures and battles.
There is a forest of deformed and menacing trees, a crazily colourful kingdom run by a child-like monarch and an epic showdown involving four buddhas, a giant Monkey and a demon who looks like a mechanical toy. Oh, and a poisoned Sandy gets transformed into a giant fish the gang have to lug around and keep wet.
There is a wild and joyous abandon to the film-making that calls to mind Tsui’s early work, Zu Warriors From The Magic Mountain (1983), which memorably featured flying stone elephants. He has not lost his touch when it comes to making fantasy take flight.
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