Extraordinary Mission
Alan Mak, Anthony Pun
The story: Lin Kai (Huang Xuan) is an undercover cop trying to get to the heart of the heroin-smuggling business. He finds his way to the ruthless Eagle (Duan Yihong), whom Lin’s handler Li Jianguo (Zu Feng) suspects is the same drug lord he had tried to bring down 10 years ago in an operation which went sour.

Tapping out messages on a mobile phone in Morse code was used to great effect in the Hong Kong crime thriller trilogy Infernal Affairs (2002-2003).
Alan Mak (co-director and co- writer) and Felix Chong (co-writer) liked the idea so much that they cribbed it for Extraordinary Mission, which Chong scripted and Mak co-directed with Anthony Pun.
But it is executed here lazily and in a throwaway manner that does not do the idea justice. At least they did not call this Infernal Affairs 4, the way director Jeffrey Lau slapped on A Chinese Odyssey Part Three (2016) to be an unworthy follow-up to a beloved series.
While it is not Infernal Affairs good, Extraordinary Mission is mostly quite engaging.
Huang (The Legend Of Mi Yue, 2015) makes for a compelling supercop who can pull off riding a motorcycle inside a building and on rooftops with panache.
The film-makers carefully weave a web of intense relationships around his character – Lin, Eagle, Li and Li’s partner Zhang Haitao, who was assumed to have perished in that botched operation.
Will Li’s sense of loyalty to Zhang lead him to put his subordinate in danger? Are Lin’s sacrifices, including getting shot up with drugs, worth it? What exactly does Eagle want?
Having set all this up, the movie then works itself into a corner and has no choice but to shoot its way out. The climactic gun battle is the kind where the vastly outnumbered good guys always find their targets while the bad guys seem to be shooting in a fog while blindfolded.
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Who Killed Cock Robin
Cheng Wei-hao
The story: Ambitious society reporter Chi (Kaiser Chuang) gets into an accident and finds out that his car was involved in another incident nine years ago – a fatal one that he had witnessed. As he digs deeper into that old case, he finds that many questions remain unanswered.

Taiwanese director Cheng Wei-hao (The Tag-Along, 2015) has a very dim view of human nature. Everyone is looking out only for himself or herself in this movie.
That can make for a darkly compelling study of morality and consequences. Too bad this is not that film.
It is too convenient how everyone and everything is so neatly connected here, from Chi’s mentor, newspaper editor Chiu (Christopher Lee), to his colleague Maggie (Hsu Wei-ning) and even the mechanic who repairs his car.
It does not help matters that director Cheng seems to be a fan of surprise revelations.
The effect of piling on twist upon twist is to have the viewer totally wrung out and exasperated by the end.
The more viewers learn about what happened nine years ago, the less things make sense, including why Chi would want to look into the cold case in the first place.
A needlessly gruesome scene thrown in for shock value in the finale serves to further sour the viewing experience.
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Goodbye Mr Loser
Adrian Teh
The story: In the present day, struggling musician Yi Bai (Ian Fang) attends the wedding of his former high-school crush Xiao Wei. He ends up drunk and makes a fool of himself in front of his wife Ah Hua (Hoon Mei Sim) and their friends. He gets a chance to do things right when he is transported back to 1999 and finds a way to become rich and famous – but at a cost. Originally a hit 2015 Chinese comedy, which was based on a 2013 play of the same name.

This is a cut-rate version of youth comedy romance You Are The Apple Of My Eye (2011), one complete with ersatz celebrities. Though to be fair, they managed to get an impersonator who can pretty much pass off as a young A-mei.
For the most part though, this feels like a cheap knock-off that never quite passes off for the real thing. The jokes are of the lame and lamer variety and the story has a whiff of the familiar about it. Indeed, the Chinese film was accused of pilfering from the 1986 American movie Peggy Sue Got Married.
At least Mediacorp actor Fang acquits himself well enough. He is committed to his role, whether that means commanding attention in a classroom with his outrageous actions or donning dreadlocks as a professional singer.
Malaysian singer-actress Hoon is quite fun as the feisty Ah Hua, but really, there is little that is fresh or surprising about how Yi Bai’s relationship with her develops.
There is one cute idea here as having travelled back in time, Yi Bai realises that all the hit songs he knows have yet to be written in 1999, a fact that he uses to his advantage.
Director Adrian Teh (The Wedding Diary, 2012) also has something to say about cherishing one’s true love, but really, you could see where this was going right from the start.
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Vampire Cleanup Department
Yan Pak Wing and Chiu Sin Hang
The story: Tim (Babyjohn Choi) is an aimless young man whose life takes a strange turn after an unexpected encounter with a vampire. He escapes unscathed despite getting bitten and finds out about the existence of a secret government unit called the Vampire Cleanup Department. But when he meets the human-like vampire Summer (Min Chen), he decides to keep her safe from annihilation.

Vampires in the West are sexy and seductive in shows such as Buffy The Vampire Slayer (1997-2003) and True Blood (2008-2014), but they are seen as either comic creatures (New Mr Vampire, 1987) or hideous ones (Rigor Mortis, 2013) in Asia.
This movie tries to have it both ways. The big baddie is an odious and immensely powerful creature while Summer is more like a cute amnesiac than an undead corpse with a mean bite.
Before long, Tim (a suitably earnest Choi) finds himself falling for a creature he is supposed to be exterminating.
While romance has been successfully worked into the likes of Buffy and True Blood, it feels like a distraction from the main event here – namely, the taking down of vampires.
A savvier tweak is imagining vampire-slaying as a government job which opens the door for jokes about bureaucracy and red-tape.
The department is thinly disguised as a cleaning squad complete with sweepers wielding brooms.
The idea sounds promising, but the execution feels a bit of a stretch, especially with the broom-sweeping moves used to take down vampires.
Unless there exists a variety of vampire which resembles litter on the ground, I am not convinced they would be of much use in actual combat.
Another point of interest here is the number of veterans in the cast. Fans of classic Hong Kong movies would be happy to see the likes of Chin Siu Ho, Richard Ng and Lo Mang in action.
(ST)

Beauty And The Beast
Bill Condon
The story: For plucking a rose for his daughter Belle (Emma Watson), Maurice (Kevin Kline) gets imprisoned in the Beast’s (Dan Stevens) castle. Belle asks to take her father’s place and finds that the castle is under an enchantment as the silverware and furniture come to life. What she does not know is that time is running out and the transformations of the castle’s residents – a one-time prince and his palace staff – are in danger of becoming permanent.

The 1991 version of Beauty And The Beast was the first animated film to be nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture and, in 2002, it was selected for preservation in the United States’ National Film Registry for its cultural significance. It was a major box-office hit with US$425 million in worldwide takings and is beloved by a generation of filmgoers.
In other words, this is a huge title to live up to and, despite the effort, this live-action remake never matches up to the original.
First, the good news.
Casting is one area in which this film fares quite well.
After her turn as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter wizarding films (2001-2011) and now this, Watson seems to have cornered the market on book-smart and feisty young women. And Stevens (Downton Abbey, 2010-2012) imbues the prince-turned-Beast with magnetism through his voice alone. Meanwhile, Luke Evans has fun as the vainglorious and boorish alphamale-about-town Gaston, who has his eye firmly fixed on Belle.
Some attempt has been made to tweak the problematic storyline of a female prisoner falling for a violent captor by making the Beast a tad more petulant than, well, beastly, and somewhat glossing over her loss of freedom. However, the fact remains that Belle is being held against her wishes.
The supposedly “openly gay” character controversy is just a distraction and, if not for the media coverage and threatened boycotts, you probably would have been none the wiser as to the sexual orientation of Gaston’s sidekick, LeFou (Josh Gad) .
And now we come to the musical numbers, a big reason for the success of the animated film.
Watson looks good and can carry a tune, but she cannot compare with the animated Belle, who looks and sounds like a dream, thanks to animators and the voice of Broadway actress Paige O’Hara.
Be Our Guest, the house-and-dinnerware version of the Under The Sea big ensemble number from The Little Mermaid (1989), is staged here with computer-generated imagery razzle dazzle that is meant to impress, but the animated sequence has greater charm.
Even for a minor role such as the playful young boy/teacup Chip, the animated version simply has more character.
At every turn, one is reminded of the superior 1991 film. It is hard to fully come to grips with this version, when one keeps flashing back to another movie.
Just because this is a tale as old as time does not mean it has to feel like deja vu watching it.
(ST)

Songs Of Love
Phil Lam

Loveaholic Vol. 1
C AllStar

On Phil Lam’s sixth release, there is sweetness and tenderness on ballads such as The First Breakfast and on the chart-topping Romance. The Vancouver-born, Hong Kong-based crooner is equally persuasive in English on Missing You and All I Have Is You and in Mandarin on the upbeat Do You Know.
Definition Not Found gives a lexicographical spin on the theme of loss: “Can’t find the definition for love, you’ve been cruel of late/Can’t find the definition for love, you think I’m nothing.” Stop Breeding takes a dim view of our times: “This era forces us into extinction/As we kiss with so much dread.”
On their eighth release, C AllStar offer a varied look at love as well.
Professionally Heartbroken 30 Years is the ultimate sad sack love song: “Use yesterday to divine the future, still won’t be loved next year/Wanted by no one, cared for by no one, loved by no one.”
A different kettle of fish is the cheeky Bromance: “Waiting for orders in a crisis, spurring the horse to full speed, battling with bro through the night/The way men love, only men understand, sweetness comes from silence.”
It definitely casts wuxia films in a different light.
(ST)

India has an image problem.
When I mentioned that I was going there for a holiday, the response was often, “Really?”, followed in the same breath by “Why?”, as though I had just announced that I was going on a dumpster-diving tour.
Part of it has to do with how the country has been portrayed in popular culture, from reality television game show The Amazing Race (2001 to present) to the movie Slumdog Millionaire (2008).
In a reminder of how powerful such images can be, a friend could recall the culture shock the participants felt in season 4 of The Amazing Race in 2003. They landed at Mumbai airport to an overwhelming reception of aggressive touts and later had to deal with the human crush of overcrowded Indian trains. At one point, someone was crying and exclaiming that it was all just too much to handle.
While it is exciting and exuberant, Slumdog Millionaire is also about the less savoury aspects of Indian society, such as street children getting blinded to become more effective beggars, and the deplorable conditions of slum dwelling. In one indelible scene, a child jumps into the communal toilet pit and emerges covered in human excrement.
In some of these depictions of India seen through foreign eyes, there has almost been a fetishisation of the worst aspects of its culture and society. A paper (A Content Analysis Of The Portrayal Of India In Films Produced In The West) published in The Howard Journal of Communications in 2005 makes the point that this is not new.
In a sample of 24 randomly selected films about the country produced from 1930 to 2000 in the United States or Britain, it was found that “India was consistently portrayed as backward, uncivilised, savage and traditional”.
It added that it was “common to find portrayals of dirty roads, dusty streets, unclean waters, overflowing sewers, marshy streets and spoilt food apart from the presence of garbage, depictions of noisy locales or overcrowded places (especially bazaars, trains and stations) in scenes depicting India”.
One way of getting a more balanced view of the sub-continent is to see how it depicts itself in Indian movies, from the fantasy of Bollywood musicals to the realist works of the late feted film-maker Satyajit Ray.
A more recent example would be The Lunchbox (2013), which serves up a portrait of modern India rooted in everyday life. As a housewife’s carefully prepared lunchbox makes its way to a lonely widower by mistake, via the feat of logistical wonder that is the food delivery system in Mumbai, director Ritesh Batra cooks up a moving tale about human connection and hope.
Another way is to travel to India and see the place for yourself.
There is far more to the sub-continent than can be contained in film and TV shows and even a short trip of five days proved to be eye-opening.
My itinerary packed in sprawling and beautifully decorated palace complexes in Jaipur, an impressive fortress and a massive mosque in Delhi, and that magnificent monument to love and fidelity, the Taj Mahal. Even with the guide playing up expectations, saying no one walks away disappointed, the sight of that sophisticated white-marbled feat of 17th-century architecture against the blue sky was spectacular.
Also, no small point, this – the food was delicious, with mouth-watering curries, tender tandoori meat and fish, fragrant naans and moreish snacks to devour.
Meanwhile, it is worth remembering not to gobble up everything one sees in cinemas and on TV just because it is served to us in a convenient little package.
(ST)

Sometimes The Great Yoga Sometimes Speaking In Tongues - Yoga Selects Live
Yoga Lin
Fans who missed Taiwanese singer Yoga Lin’s post-military service comeback gig at the Esplanade on Feb 3 will want to buy this release with a mouthful of a title. It is a collection of tunes from two of his tours, 2014’s Speaking In Tongues and the ongoing The Great Yoga.
Several are covers that were also performed in Singapore, including a loose-limbed take on British band Blur’s cheeky headbanger Song 2 and a persuasive version of singer-songwriter Sandee Chan’s Useless Umbrella.
There is also plenty of material here that would be new to those who were at the Esplanade concert.
He covers the late Chang Yu-sheng’s Missing You and singer-songwriter Cheer Chen’s Little Dust, leaving his distinctive personal stamp on each interpretation.
His own hits get new leases of life with different arrangements, such as the use of the vocoder to give Runaway Mama more of an electro- dance feel.
Another surprise here is the English track, Never Been In Love Before, better known as the title song off his third album, Perfect Life (2011).
One of the more compelling live albums in recent memory.
(ST)

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.
(ST)

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?
(ST)

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.
(ST)

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.
(ST)

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.
(ST)

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.
(ST)

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.
(ST)

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.
(ST)

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.
(ST)

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.
(ST)

Power Station 20th
Power Station

Flow
Winnie Hsin

In their earlier days, Taiwanese duo Power Station were known for rock ballads filled with angst and soaring vocals in hits such as Heartless Love Letters, which is found on this new two-disc album. Two decades on, the pair have matured and their most memorable new songs are the more measured mid-tempo tracks.
The opener Mi Tang (Potion) possesses a tenderness in lines such as “She uses warmth to heat up a bowl of potion for me, how fragrant”.
Despite its title, Zha Yao (Dynamite) starts gently and even the chorus is unhurried: “You are the dynamite deep in my heart/Why are these memories so overbearing/Don’t know when they will explode/ And blow everything apart.”
That said, Power Station have not lost their explosiveness and edge. They still have plenty of energy, judging from songs such as the Minnan-Mandarin track Next Station. They remain a relevant music force and that is no mean feat after 20 years.
Taiwanese singer Winnie Hsin has been around even longer and yet the 54-year-old’s crystalline soprano pipes have not diminished since her debut album, Lonely Winter, was released in 1986.
The album’s Mandarin title, Ming Bai (Understand), seems to hark back to her best-known work Ling Wu (Epiphany, 1994), but she has no intention of resting on her laurels.
If her awakening in Epiphany was a bitter one (“Ah painful realisation that you were my everything”), the parting shot in the title track here is a more empowering manifesto: “I can afford to love/I can let it go.”
First single My Dear You, which has been scaling radio charts, mixes lush strings with her deftly modulating voice: “My dear you, missing you/I wish you were here with me/You have to walk part of the way to realise that being safe and sound is the greatest happiness.”
It feels as though one is hearing from a good friend after a long absence.
(ST)

It is time for the annual Chinese New Year sweepstakes – the winner could walk away with millions of dollars, whether in the Toto draw or at the box office, where there are four festive titles in battle.
Hong Kong action star Jackie Chan is a regular fixture of the season. In action-comedy Kung Fu Yoga, his latest attempt to claim the holiday crown, he and director Stanley Tong pull out all the stops to appeal to just about everyone.
It highlights exotic and glamorous locations around the world, from the ice-and-snow landscape of Iceland to the over-the-top luxury on display in Dubai.
The diverse cast includes Bollywood beauties Disha Patani and Amyra Dastur, yoga goddess Mu Qimiya, dashing Aarif Rahman and singer-dancer Lay Zhang from South Korean boy band Exo.
In order to tie all these disparate elements together, the story is something of a stretch.
Chan plays archaeology professor Jack, who is keen to track down the lost treasure of the Indian kingdom of Magadha.
However, the lengthy exposition of an ancient battle plays out like a none-too-involving computer game and the references to Indo-Sino friendship feel too much like pandering to a potentially large Indian audience.
Missing is the appeal of Chan as the scrappy underdog who triumphs against the odds – nowadays, he tends to be treated respectfully as the undisputed top dog.
But even a top dog will grimace and cower when he finds himself next to the king of beasts – a highlight of Kung Fu Yoga sees him stuck in a car during a high-octane chase scene with an actual, not CGI, lion. Chan is a hoot as he tries to gingerly placate the pi**ed-off cat.
A joyous Bollywood dance extravaganza aptly wraps up the proceedings. It might not be part of Chinese tradition, but it is celebratory.
The most ostensibly festive entry is The Fortune Handbook. Mark Lee plays a fortune god-in-training who meddles in the affairs of lazy Soh Hock (Christopher Lee) and his industrious brother-in-law Hao Xing (Li Nanxing).
Prosperity, the importance of family and bak kwa are key themes of this holiday season and they are all here in this work from director Kelvin Sng (Taxi! Taxi!, 2013), but the end result is far from savoury.
Bak kwa gets quite a bit of play because Christopher Lee is the ambassador for a certain brand – and so does green tea, which Vivian Lai even breaks from her character as Soh Hock’s wife to promote.
While product placements in a film might be a necessary evil, a film-maker knows his work is in trouble when his characters laugh more than the audience – hearing laughter on the screen is not the same thing as watching a funny film.
The most entertaining thing in the movie is Christopher Lee’s performance as the vain, hairspray-toting Soh Hock, which at least feels a little fresh and different.
At first glance, the other local festive film, Take 2, seems to be a rather curious offering, given that ex-cons trying to move on is not exactly the most obvious Chinese New Year topic. But the theme of starting afresh does fit in with the notion of new beginnings.
It is a pity that debutant director Ivan Ho, who was scriptwriter for Ah Boys To Men 3: Frogmen (2015), cannot quite decide if he wants to do a drama or a comedy.
Ryan Lian (Long Long Time Ago, 2016) has potential as a brooding leading man in what could have been a moving story of how a jailbird father redeems himself in his estranged son’s eyes.
But he is surrounded here by discordant notes, from Dennis Chew in a number of cross-dressing roles to Chen Tianwen as a crazily flamboyant nemesis to a bizarre soundtrack of European songs.
There is yet another contender for the Chinese New Year box- office crown and that is Journey To The West: The Demons Strike Back, which opens on Saturday.
The final festive offering is from Hong Kong funnyman Stephen Chow, a proven box-office magnet here like Chan is.
The prints will be arriving just in time for its sneak previews on Friday and opening on Saturday, but the movie likely will not need good reviews to boost its takings.
Its predecessor, Journey To The West: Conquering The Demons (2013), was a hit even though Chow did not act in it – he co-wrote, produced and directed it.
He has even less involvement this time around – only a producing credit. Yet his name is still prominently featured in the trailer.
Now that is star power.
(ST)

Dear Paranoia
Andrew Tan
Make-up artist-turned-singer Andrew Tan remains best known for the hit ballad Queen, the title track off his 2010 debut album.
It is a pity – the Malaysian has a rich and sonorous set of pipes, which you might even call a handsome voice.
Dear Paranoia is a concerted effort to improve his fortunes with radio-friendly material about being in and out of love that showcases his vocals.
His falsetto is effortless in Internecine (Ju Shang), which features a brooding piano melody and a soaring chorus. Blue Love Theme (Hao Ai Hao San) plays to his strength as an emotive singer.
Taken as a whole, though, the album relies too much on love ballads.
It could do with more numbers such as the title track, which revs up the tempo in a welcome change of pace.
The dance-tinged Dear Paranoia blossoms into a surprisingly joyous refrain as he declares: “I insist on continuing to sing/Until the end of time.”
Tan might wish to note that perseverance is not enough. The choice of songs is crucial as well.
(ST)

Centrifugal Force
Faith Yang
Taiwan’s Faith Yang can often come across as cold, but the ice queen seems to be melting quite a bit on her sixth studio album.
Reportedly inspired by the astronomical concept of the Roche limit – the minimum distance to which a large satellite can approach its primary body without being torn apart by tidal forces – Centrifugal Force pulls you in inexorably.
Over a gentle piano accompaniment, she issues an invitation on the title track: “Come closer another inch/And I’ll believe you”. The vulnerability is devastating when she sings: “Don’t embrace, you musn’t kiss/I’ll shatter, never be whole again”.
Musically, there are some surprises here.
Zhuan Shen (Turn Around) is an electro track which flirts with the spoken word, while Fen Bi Zuo De Shou (Hands Made Of Chalk) is an unabashed EDM number. And Yan Yu (An Affair) seems to take place in some romantic European location, given the orchestral arrangement.
Fittingly, the album ends with the poignant Tui Kai Shi Jie De Men (Push Open The Doors Of The World). It sounds like an epiphany, suggesting Yang is ready to open up like never before.
(ST)

The Wasted Times
Cheng Er
The story: Lu (Ge You) is an influential and ruthless mobster in 1930s Shanghai on the eve of the Japanese invasion. His Japanese brother-in-law Watabe (Tadanobu Asano) has lived in the city for years and is practically Shanghainese. The wife of Lu’s boss is Xiaoliu (Zhang Ziyi), a woman prone to indiscreet affairs. Their lives intersect time and again as war upends the city.

The one word that best describes this film is Tarantino-esque.
Chinese writer-director Cheng Er (Lethal Hostage, 2012) is clearly a fan of American film-maker Quentin Tarantino’s distinctive bravura style, particularly as seen in the Palme d’Or-winning non-linear black comedy crime flick, Pulp Fiction (1994).
The Wasted Times does not proceed linearly, instead it moves back and forth in time, changing viewers’ understanding of characters and situations each time it does so.
Scenes that seem to make little sense the first time you watch them are repeated in a fuller context and are suddenly flooded with meaning and emotion.
While Tarantino has his characters riffing on pop culture, often in the most unlikely of situations, Cheng has two young men nonchalantly joshing about the younger guy’s virginity in a car – before he unveils what it is exactly they are on their way to.
Perhaps an English-language film in this style would have seemed overly derivative. In a Chinese work, it still feels fresh and intriguing.
Moreover, Cheng is not paying homage blindly. His style is in service to the story, reflecting the topsy-turvy upheaval of life during wartime.
Like Tarantino, who revived the career of actor John Travolta with Pulp Fiction, Cheng also seems to have a way with actors – the ensemble cast here is top-notch, from the quietly menacing Ge You to the vivacious Zhang Ziyi to Tadanobu Asano, whose surface calm belies a dark heart.
Even the smaller roles make their mark, including Yan Ni as the formidable housekeeper Wang Ma and Du Jiang, who brings a mix of naivete and viciousness to his part as a junior henchman.
This movie is no wasted effort.
(ST)

Trace Of Time In Love
Rainie Yang
On her 10th album, Rainie Yang is confident enough to stick to ballads and mid-tempo numbers throughout, without the need to mix things up just for the sake of it.
The best song is Audience, a ballad she interprets sensitively as she contemplates a distant lover: “Some people love like an audience/Don’t understand the simplest emotional scene.”
It was penned for her by China’s Li Ronghao, one of the hottest singer-songwriters of the moment. The 31-year-old has a way with both words and music, effectively exploring emotional states through the use of sustained metaphors.
The song benefits from their romance – they are dating and he is able to tailor a song to her exact strengths as a singer.
At this point, Yang, 32, is firmly into her second phase as a crooner of sophisticated grown-up tracks about love and life, leaving behind her cutesy and grating pop.
On the title track, she ponders the passage of time and the changes it has wrought. The changing of the seasons can be cruel and relentless, but time has been good to her as a singer.
(ST)

Farewell, 2016, year of loss and upheavals.
Who knows what 2017 will bring, but to start things on a bright note, there are several events I look forward to on the music front, from album releases to a living legend’s new musical.
Hong Kong’s Eason Chan is a great singer in top form and he has released at least one album or EP a year since 2005. He is adventurous when it comes to his music outings – from his collaboration with Singapore singer-songwriter JJ Lin for Mandarin album Rice & Shine (2014) to a trio of edgy Cantonese EPs released in 2010 and 2011.
Last year was an exception as he did not drop a new disc. There are rumours that he has been working on new material in the recording studio and that the album will be followed by a world tour. Hopefully, this is not just wishful thinking of fans hankering after a record from him.
Here’s also hoping that his new gig as a mentor on TV show Sing! China will not suck up too much of his time – as entertaining as his comments on the show could be given his shoot-from-the-hip tendencies, they’d be mere distractions to the kind of music he can produce.
It so happens that Taiwanese dancing diva Jolin Tsai sat out last year as well, after releasing Myself in 2010, Muse in 2012 and Play in 2014. (Did she get the same memo as Chan?)
She has been having fun playing around with Mando-dance-pop, stretching the genre and proving it can be more than throwaway fluff. In the process, The Great Artist from Muse was named Best Song of the Year at the Golden Melody Awards in 2013 and Play won Best Mandarin Album at the same event a year later.
At a concert in China last month, she promised to release a new album this year. The question is whether she will continue in the same musical vein or whether her break-up with model Vivian Dawson after six years will make its way into the music.
If Myself was any indication, Tsai seems unlikely to be baring her soul on disc. Maybe she will just dance away her troubles.
What is bound to be far more personal is 50 Song Memoir from American indie pop group The Magnetic Fields, due out on March 3. The concept here is an autobiographical album with one track for each year of frontman and songwriter Stephin Merritt’s life.
The band had previously struck gold with another concept record 69 Love Songs (1999). In one song, he memorably described his heart as “running ’round like a chicken with its head cut off” and on the album, he explored a diverse array of genres from country to jazz to synth pop.
Other idiosyncratic projects of his have included i (2004) – every song title begins with the letter I – and the contrasting pair of albums, noise pop on Distortion (2008), followed by the acoustic folk of Realism (2010).
In each case, Merritt’s droll lyrics and musical versatility made for a winning combination.
When it comes to penning words set to music, theatre giant Stephen Sondheim is in a class of his own. Producer Cameron Mackintosh once hailed him as “possibly the greatest lyricist ever”. From dissecting relationships in Company (1970) in contemporary New York to limning a murderous barber in Sweeney Todd (1979) in Victorian-era London, Sondheim has vividly brought to life diverse worlds and the spectrum of human experience.
Remarkably, he continues to be active at the age of 86 and there is the wonderful prospect of a new musical from him, eight years after Road Show – about a pair of brothers in the freewheeling, get-rich-quick America of the early 1900s – made its off-Broadway premiere.
The new work, tentatively titled Bunuel, is a collaboration with playwright David Ives (All In The Timing, 1993) and could possibly be staged this year. It is inspired by two films by Spanish director Luis Bunuel – The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie (1972) and The Exterminating Angel (1962), both involving surreal dinner parties. It sounds deliciously intriguing.
If this list does not excite you, no matter. Do the same exercise yourself and jot down the things that you are looking forward to. Before you know it, the year is already looking up.
(ST)

Railroad Tigers
Ding Sheng
The story: Ma Yuan (Jackie Chan) is the head of a group of railroad workers who regularly steals supplies from the Japanese military in east China in 1941. Tipped off by a Chinese soldier (Darren Wang), they get a shot at accomplishing something big – blow up a bridge to disrupt a key enemy supply route. Ma’s crew also includes noodle-seller/ sharpshooter Fan Chuan (Wang Kai) and tailor Dahai (former Exo member Huang Zitao).

Action star Jackie Chan and his son Jaycee provide some of the more amusing moments in this middling film.
Although Jaycee is missing from promotional material and even from online write-ups, he plays a member of Ma’s crew. Some have speculated that this is Chan’s way of giving his son a leg-up after the latter’s show-business freeze because of his marijuana-related jail stint.
Whatever the reason, father and son are pretty entertaining to watch.
In one scene, after being captured, they happily trade insults over each other’s looks instead of being worried – Jaycee even scores a big hit with a jibe at his father’s bulbous nose.
And during an attempt to steal explosives from a Japanese warehouse, they end up on two ends of a rope thrown over a metal beam – like two ends of a human pulley system – yo-yoing up and down as soldiers prowl the premises.
The key hook of the film – which reunites Chan with Ding Sheng, his director for crime thriller Police Story 2013 and period action flick Little Big Soldier (2010) – is how a motley crew with few resources go about destroying a bridge.
It has promise, but Ding takes too long to kick things into gear, burdened as it is with too much unnecessary cargo, from the superfluous framing device to the sprawling cast of characters.
Xu Fan is wasted in the role of a hawker who is sweet on Ma and Zhang Yishang barely registers as Ma’s daughter. At least Wang Kai (Nirvana In Fire, 2015) leaves an impression as the cool sharpshooter Fan.
The finale, which is predictable, needs better computer-generated imagery for the flick to end with a roar.
(ST)

Run! Frantic Flowers!
Waa Wei
The first thing that grabs your attention is the unusual- looking title.
Interestingly enough, the Chinese phrase Mo Lu Kuang Hua is also the translation used for the American movie title Thelma & Louise (1991). That road movie about two women breaking free of their mundane lives turns out to be a signpost of sorts for Taiwanese singer-songwriter Waa Wei’s fifth album.
The title track is an electro-rock number on which Wei proclaims with a snarl: “The ordinary is my enemy.” Then, she coos in her higher register on the chorus: “I’m a more dangerous kind of flower/The elegance at the end of the road/The confidence of the lowly/Frantic flowers in the gale/Bloom wherever they land.”
And yes, her creativity is in full bloom here.
Her sly sense of humour emerges on the electro track Snow Girl as she laments: “The heat of passion that others want will kill me.” And she wistfully imagines on the gentle Little Fish: “If I were a mountain, you couldn’t come and go as you please.”
Wei dips into a variety of genres here from the gently jazzy Crooked to the breezy pop of I Will Be Fine to the guitar ballad You You.
On the last, she sings in Mandarin and Minnan and also scats to convey her tender state of being in love and pain.
On the album’s dreamy, perky synth-pop closer Monroe, she draws inspiration from the icon and bombshell Marilyn Monroe.
When it comes to music, Wei is no shrinking violet either.
(ST)

Assassin's Creed
Justin Kurzel
The story: Sentenced to death by lethal injection, criminal Callum Lynch (Michael Fassbender) wakes up instead and finds himself in a facility run by scientist Sofia Rikkin (Marion Cotillard) and her father Alan (Jeremy Irons) of Abstergo Industries, the modern-day incarnation of the Templar Order. They are after the Apple of Eden, a powerful object last handled in 15th-century Spain by assassin Aguilar de Nerha (Fassbender) – whose memories can be accessed by Callum. Based on the video game franchise of the same name, in which the Assassins fight for peace with free will and the Templars want peace through control.

There is something interesting going on here.
The names for this project read like a dream combination for an indie arthouse flick.
Indeed, director Justin Kurzel had just worked with actors Fassbender and Cotillard on a well-received adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth (2015).
And then we have Oscar winner Irons, Emmy winner Brendan Gleeson and film festival favourite Charlotte Rampling.
But wait, this is a video game adaptation.
Despite an attempt to give this lightweight movie a heavyweight makeover, Assassin’s Creed ends up being a failed experiment.
It is both unnecessarily complicated and ridiculously simplified at the same time.
For all the powerful technology that Abstergo Industries has at its disposal, it is unable to fast forward to the exact moment when Aguilar last had possession of the Apple. Instead, the key moments of his life – which are now Callum’s memories – are helpfully converted into a technicolour film we can all watch.
It is also necessary for Callum to be strapped into a machine so that he can act out each gesture in his past life as he recalls it. Can the film be more literal?
Then there are the protracted speeches about the nature of free will and the relationship between genetics and the propensity for murder, which are not only tedious, but also mostly sound like hogwash.
What a waste of the killer line-up assembled.
(ST)

Albums of 2016
BEST
Talk About Eve by Eve Ai
The Sum Of Us from the album, Talk About Eve (photo 16), is one of my favourite songs of the year. The ballad penned by Taiwanese singer-songwriter Eve Ai is quietly compelling and the lyrics poignantly sustain a metaphor about love and mathematics. There is a soulfulness to her singing that lifts even more conventional material such as Harmless Loneliness, turning it into another highlight here. This is an album that should get people talking about Ai.

The River by Wang Feng
Before he became better known as a singing contest judge and as actress Zhang Ziyi’s husband, Wang Feng was already making waves with his songs and his ninth album is a reminder of his musical prowess.
It is a record made by a man at the crossroads of middle age and taking stock of life. He is defiant on the stirring ballad, Fleeting Time, What Can You Do To Me, and unbowed on the title track. There is more than navel-gazing here and he turns a critical eye on society in Full, juxtaposing to pointed effect things which are overflowing with an aching hollowness elsewhere.

Progress Reports by Eli Hsieh
This is the year’s most compelling debut and Taiwan’s Eli Hsieh was a deserving Golden Melody Award winner for Best New Artist.
The disc is intimate and ambitious. Conceptually, it was inspired by American writer Daniel Keyes’ sci-fi short story, Flowers For Algernon, comprising progress reports by the protagonist as his low IQ is boosted via experimental surgery. At the same time, the singer-songwriter’s pellucid voice evokes an honest portrait of a young man’s emotional world. Life can be filled with uncertainty, but there are moments of grace on songs such as Roam.

WORST
Journey by Nicky Wu
Maybe there is a reason for the 19-year break between this album and his last, 1997’s Hero. The Taiwanese might have been the best-looking of the boy band trio, Little Tigers, but he was not their strongest singer. The opening synthesizer strains of Lonely By Nature sound dated and the title track, which harks back to one of his best-known solo hits, Wish You A Smooth Journey, also fails to get things moving.
(ST)

Concerts of 2016
BEST
Stella Zhang Qing Fang Live In Singapore 2016, Singapore Indoor Stadium, Jan 30
It has been 20 years since Taiwan’s Stella Chang (photo 13) performed here and time has not dimmed her crystalline-clear vocals. Remarkably, her voice grew in strength and vibrance over the course of the show.
It also helps that she was never a cutesy teen idol and her love ballads have weathered the years well. The staging was elegant and classy and it all came together with a flourish for the finale.
Dressed in a vermillion gown and framed by a giant gazebo with a huge wall of flowers as a backdrop, she cut a striking figure as red confetti drifted down lazily.

Terry Lin Onetake Concert 2016 World Tour In Singapore, Suntec Singapore Convention & Exhibition Centre, Aug 26
Taiwan’s Terry Lin might not have idol looks and he can be a little awkward on stage.
But none of that matters when he sings. There is a purity to his pipes that makes emotions ring bright and true, and he glides effortlessly over the high notes, even in falsetto.
Apart from performing his solo hits and songs from his Ukulele duo days, he took on several covers, managing to make even a hackneyed ballad such as Making Love Out Of Nothing At All feel fresh. And to think he had a cough that night.

Yuzu Asia Tour 2016 Summer Natsuiro, *Scape The Ground Theatre, July 9
To mark their 20th anniversary, Japanese folk-pop duo Yuzu embarked on their first Asian tour. They brought with them a taste of natsu matsuri (summer festivals) with their sunny and breezy tracks, which were accompanied by guitars and the plaintive wail of the harmonica.
There was even a fun mass dance segment with two costumed Japanese Citron (yuzu) Monkeys leading the choreography with chirpy instructions to “tap tap your bum”.

WORST
“The Invincible” Jay Chou Concert Tour 2016, National Stadium, Sept 3
As expected, the production was top-notch for Mandopop king Jay Chou’s gig. But vocally, the singer was not at his best. He was too ready to point his microphone towards the audience members for them to sing along and he seemed to be relying heavily on his back-up singers.
The sound quality was contentious as well, with some fans demanding a refund after the show due to the poor acoustics.
Not being able to make out what Chou is singing because of his characteristic mumble is one thing. Not being able to do so because of murky sound is another altogether.
(ST)

Films of 2016
BEST
Mr Six
China’s Feng Xiaogang is equally at home behind the camera or in front of it. He is tremendous in this compelling character study of the titular Mr Six (photo 2), a Beijing old-timer of honour and principles who is out of step with the times, and he deservedly walked away with the Golden Horse Award for Best Actor.
The film packs in plenty of observations about contemporary Chinese society and values and ends with a visually spectacular showdown on a frozen lake.

Ten Years
The controversial Hong Kong Film Award winner for Best Film paints a disturbing picture of the territory in 2025. The anthology comprises Extras by Kwok Zune, Season Of The End by Wong Fei Pang, Dialect by Jevons Au, Self-Immolator by Kiwi Chow and Local Egg by Ng Ka Leung. The works run the gamut from heavily metaphorical to darkly humorous to overtly political.
The movieis uneven and raw at times, but is also filled with unbridled passion and a sense of urgency and it taps into a very real sense of unease about Hong Kong’s future.

Your Name
The anime flick, which has been smashing records at home in Japan, tells a beguiling story in an unexpected way and deftly ties together strands of humour, romance and mystery.
The movie starts out as a light-hearted high-school comedy and deepens into an existential mystery and a rumination on the nature of time as the appearance of a comet and the Japanese tradition of braiding cords are woven in.
The animation is gorgeous, detailed and vividly coloured.

WORST
A Chinese Odyssey Part Three
Comedian Stephen Chow’s priceless deadpan performance in his dual roles of Joker and Monkey King is a big reason the two-part A Chinese Odyssey (1995) is so beloved by its fans.
So a part three sans Chow – and much of the original Hong Kong cast – is absolute travesty in this sequel to the Journey To The West movies.
Even the jokes here are recycled. Did director Jeffrey Lau run out of money and ideas?
(ST)

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Gareth Edwards
The story: The Rebel Alliance recruits a reluctant Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) in its war against the evil Galactic Empire. Her missing-for-years father Galen (Mads Mikkelsen) has secretly sent a message about the Empire’s powerful new weapon, the Death Star, through former Imperial pilot Bodhi (Riz Ahmed). She embarks on a mission with intelligence officer Cassian (Diego Luna), blind warrior Chirrut (Donnie Yen), freelance assassin Baze (Jiang Wen) and android K-2SO (Alan Tudyk) to track down her father and finds out that the planet-zapping Death Star has a weakness.
Rogue One is the call sign of the space vehicle that they travel in.

For those who have wondered how the Empire could build such a powerful weapon of destruction and yet conveniently leave a fatal flaw in it that would allow Luke Skywalker to destroy it in Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977), this movie is for you.
Rogue One serves to bridge Episode III – Revenge Of The Sith (2005), which ends with the construction of the Death Star, and A New Hope, which starts with rebel leader Princess Leia having acquired the blueprint for it. But I suppose Episode 3.5 would have made for an awkward title.
Like the last Star Wars title, The Force Awakens (2015), this new instalment features a diverse cast in terms of gender and ethnicity.
Felicity Jones makes the jump from award-winning dramas (The Theory Of Everything, 2014) to big-budget movies (Inferno, 2016) and her strong-willed and quick- thinking heroine is compelling. Mexican actor Diego Luna and British-Pakistani actor-rapper Riz Ahmed are competent in their roles.
And, cue sigh of relief, Hong Kong action star Donnie Yen is no mere token presence. Chirrut is some kind of Jedi gongfu warrior and Yen gets to show off some moves and also has a poignant and pivotal scene towards the end.
In comparison, acclaimed Chinese actor-director Jiang Wen has less to do, although he does make an impact of sorts with his screen presence.
There is also comic relief from K-2SO (voiced by Alan Tudyk) – a droll droid in the tradition of C-3PO – once part of the short-lived space adventure series, Firefly (2002).
While the movie is a little confusing to follow at the beginning, jumping as it does from location to location, director Gareth Edwards (Godzilla, 2014) soon gets a handle on its scale as he juggles more intimate moments between the characters with the bigger battle and space scenes.
So, Rogue One is entertaining enough, but there is not much surprise as to how things turn out, given that the audience already knows that Princess Leia has the plans in A New Hope.
If only the story could have gone a little rogue.
(ST)

Imperfections
Ellen Loo

Fabulous
Sammi Cheng

There seems to be a lot weighing on Hong Kong singer-songwriter Ellen Loo’s mind.
On her latest solo Mandarin album, images of destruction and perversion of the natural world flit across tracks such as the guitar- and-tambourine-accompanied Mai Kong Qi De Ren (literally The Man Selling Air) and the flamenco- tinged Wu He (No Seeds).
She paints a bleak picture of the former: “Who dares to put a price tag on the water and land, air, forests/No responsibility, no life, nobody leaves here alive”.
On the song Ka Dai (Cassette), she wonders if she is out of step with everyone else: “The world outside wants me to go faster.../But I’m stuck in rewind in the machine”.
While she explores unusual territory lyrically, the music feels a little less engaging at first compared with that of her previous albums The Ripples (2011) and You’re Nobody To Me (2012).
The electro-pop of Through The Hurdles, which Loo composed with Hong Kong pop star Sammi Cheng for her Cantonese record Fabulous is more immediate. The uplifting dance number features lyrics by Lin Xi: “Through the hurdles, do you need permission from the world to be happy/Through the hurdles, only if you can let things go can you carry them”.
There is a good mix of fast and slow songs here, including radio- friendly numbers such as ballad I’m Not A Singer and mid-tempo track 8km.
She breaks into full-on dance diva mode with Incredible and the title track, on which she proclaims: “We make it fabulous”. Yes indeed, she does.
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10,000 Miles
Simon Hung
The story: High school student Kevin (Huang Yuan) is so determined to run that he leaves home to join his elder brother Sean’s (Darren Wang) track team. He gets rejected, but Ellie (Megan Lai), a senior member of the team, starts to train him. Their burgeoning relationship is tested when Kevin defies her to take part in a competition despite being injured.

There is a thin line between being passionate about something and being pig-headed and reckless about it. It is a line that Kevin crosses with abandon.
Injured as a result of over-training, he insists on taking part in a competition despite being warned that doing so could cripple him. On top of his petulant behaviour, he is also often shouty and unreasonable.
If not for the fact that Huang plays him with such earnestness, he would be completely insufferable.
It does not help that director and co-writer Simon Hung piles on florid emotions and cliches, turning 10,000 Miles into a sports film on melodrama steroids.
The story veers off-track when Kevin turns to driving a taxi to make a living while Sean bizarrely ends up as a criminal. Thrown into the mix are a tragic past for Ellie, Kevin’s disapproving father and an orphanage that needs to be saved from impending closure.
And then there is the Jay Chou cameo.
The Mandopop king drops in for a scene as his younger, demo-toting self taking a cab ride to a record company, inspiring Kevin in the process to keep running. This is even more jarring than superstar Andy Lau’s appearance as himself at the end of the youth romance comedy Our Times (2015), as it jolts one out of the movie.
Kevin eventually takes on a brutal run along the Silk Road to fulfil a promise. The movie then ends abruptly, as though it has suddenly run out of steam.
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Progress Reports
Eli Hsieh
Thanks to a Golden Melody Award win for Best New Artist in June, Taiwanese Eli Hsieh’s debut album Progress Reports – released on Dec 31 last year – has been getting more attention, including from this reviewer. And deservedly so.
The work is intimate and ambitious. Conceptually, it was inspired by American writer Daniel Keyes’ sci-fi short story Flowers For Algernon, comprising progress reports by the protagonist Charlie, as his low IQ is boosted through surgery. But the experiment is ultimately a failure.
The singer-songwriter’s pellucid voice evokes an unvarnished portrait of a young man’s emotional world. In a life that can be filled with uncertainty and diminished expectations, there are moments of grace and light.
The opening track Roam finds him contemplating: “What have I lost, what have I found/I don’t want that much right now.” Worry Song finds him fretting about the state we are in: “The whole world, the dark world/But I’m still living in these times/So I can only sing.”
There are no grandiose dreams, only modest ambitions to hold on to. On the guitar ballad Light, he wants to shine bright – but not like the sun: “I only wish to be a lamp for you/Press the switch when you need me.”
Just when you have him pegged as a sensitive troubadour, Hsieh surprises you with the rock-tinged You Found Me that harks back to early Maroon 5, a splash of electronica on Still Alive and then, for good measure, a dose of rap on You Found Me.
He might be a mercurial millennial, but there is no doubting the power of his songs. He performs in Singapore on Feb 11 as part of the Huayi Chinese Festival of Arts. For those who watched him sing as a 13-year-old on the singing contest One Million Star in 2007, this would be a chance to see how far he has progressed.
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Suddenly 17
Zhang Mo
The story: Liang (Ni Ni) has been with her boyfriend Mao (Wallace Huo) for 10 years, but the marriage proposal she has been expecting from him does not arrive. A box of chocolates she buys, for her to eat away her sorrows, turns out to have magical powers. Each piece of chocolate consumed returns her to her 17-year-old self, albeit in her 28-year-old body. The younger Liang then falls for a biker kid, Yan (Wang Ta-lu).

Body swopping is a common plot device in films that still works when it is done well. The massive success of this year’s hit Japanese anime Your Name is a case in point.
Director and co-writer Zhang Mo tries to give a twist to the tried-and- tested genre by swopping the same person at different ages into one body. Unfortunately, it does not work.
For one thing, the older and younger Liang seem like two different people rather than the same person at different ages. Big Liang is mousy and eager to please her man, while Little Liang brashly takes the initiative and is committed to her drawings and paintings.
Suddenly 17 ends up being an unfunny split personality movie – it is dour when one sees Big Liang and needlessly manic when Little Liang takes over because, well, youth rocks.
That both personalities are, in fact, Liang means that the antagonism between them feels forced – she is ultimately making things difficult for herself.
The idea here is that one’s youthful self is more idealistic and authentic and worth holding on to. Unfortunately, the execution of it is incredibly literal – Big Liang tries to hold on to Little Liang in one scene.
Meanwhile, the underwritten male characters seem like poor motivators for Liang’s actions.
Did Zhang pick the light-hearted romance comedy genre to steer clear of comparisons with her acclaimed film-making father Zhang Yimou’s dramas?
The comparisons will be made regardless and, based on this work, they will not be favourable.
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Museum
Keishi Otomo
The story: A woman is killed by ravenous dogs. An unemployed man who mooches off his mother is killed in yet another grisly manner. As detective Sawamura (Shun Oguri) digs deeper into the murders, a link surfaces to an earlier case of a girl encased in resin. Then, his estranged wife and their son go missing. Who is behind it all and what does he have planned for Sawamura? Based on the 2013-2014 manga by Ryosuke Tomoe.

It does not seem all that long ago (2005, actually) that Japanese actor Oguri broke out in the idol drama Boys Over Flowers as pretty-as- a-flower Hanazawa Rui.
Here, he plays a grizzled detective, Sawamura, a man stretched to breaking point by a sadistic serial killer who hides behind a frog mask.
While it is laudable that the 33- year-old actor wants to stretch himself professionally, Museum is not quite the ideal vehicle for doing so – it comes across as being more interested in the horrific spectacle of death than the psychology behind the crimes.
The gruesome murders are each described by the perpetrator as punishments, including “dog food penalty” and “feel pain of mom penalty”. They recall the horrific murders and the deliberate way in which the victims were displayed in Seven (1995).
The titular museum is a twisted take on the concept by the killer, who envisions a series of bloodcurdling tableaux for his museum of horrors. Alas, the motivation behind his plan is cursory.
In other respects, director Keishi Otomo, who did a better job with adapting the period action manga Rurouni Kenshin, is too heavy- handed – from the repeated flashbacks to the over-the-top emotions spilling forth.
This is an exhibit of a movie that is too baldly manipulative.
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Journey To The West
Khalil Fong

It All Started From An Intro
William Wei

Hong Kong-based singer Khalil Fong raps on Wu Kong: “My master is a master of self/He taught me how to master myself.”
Whether he is referring to himself or the Monkey King in the Chinese classic novel Journey To The West, the assertion is well earned.
Journey To The West is Fong’s first release under his own label Fu Music and he is pulling out all the stops.
His opus features an array of collaborators, from Beijing Mongolian folk-rockers Hanggai Band to South Korea’s R&B and hip-hop artists Crush and Zion.T, to London-based singer-songwriter Fifi Rong.
Their contributions spread over 20 tracks (21 if you include the bonus track demo of Wu Kong) on two discs, mostly in Mandarin with some in English, Korean and Mongolian.
Wu Kong, the opening number on the Black disc, starts off as a synth-rock number boasting about his prowess, name-checks actor Stephen Chow and singer Jay Chou in a Mandarin rap and ends with an English rap.
Remarkably, he makes it all sound so effortless and natural even as he is melding different elements and genres. The same is true of the album as a whole.
One of the best tracks is Listen, a song about the pleasures of music. It is seductive and irresistible.
Another thoughtful singer-songwriter with a new album is Taiwan’s William Wei, who will be performing at Shanghai Dolly on Saturday (tickets are sold out).
It All Started From An Intro wanders further away from the guitar-driven balladry he was known for, an artistic departure that had begun with his 2014 third record Journey Into The Night (2014).
Wei, who performs as Weibird, seems to acknowledge this when he sings on the opening track Intro: “This is the end, this is also the beginning.” The song’s structure eschews the standard pop template and goes from a ballad to electronica-tinged dance pop.
Another tune, One Shoe, with dramatic orchestral strings and piano and a backing choir, feels like it escaped from some stage musical.
But the album lacks focus with the inclusion of more radio-friendly tracks such as television drama theme songs Think Of You First and Play Games.
Nevertheless, there is still much to enjoy here, including the bonus tracks of well received recent works such as Deja Vu, which was easily the most poignant moment when it was performed in the Edward Lam play, What Is Sex? (2014).
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Bad Santa 2
Mark Waters
The story: Willie (Billy Bob Thornton) is at a dead end in his life. When his former elf suit-wearing partner in crime Marcus (Tony Cox) turns up with a proposition for a job, he reluctantly goes along. How will Willie cope with the appearance of his hated mother Sunny (Kathy Bates) and the unquestioning loyalty of the one person who truly cares about him – the simple-minded Thurman Merman (Brett Kelly)?

All that Christmas cheer starting to get you down? Never fear – here is Bad Santa to the rescue.
In the 2003 film, Willie was a department store Saint Nick with a difference.
The persona was merely a cover for the professional thief to get into malls at night.
There were reportedly 300 profanities uttered over the course of that uproarious, no-holds-barred movie.
Forget milk and cookies – he would rather have a drink and adult activities.
In case it is not clear, do not bring your little ones to this new movie.
Fans will be relieved that Willie remains incorrigible in the sequel – there has been no attempt to make him over.
Mark Waters (Mean Girls, 2004), taking over directorial duty from Terry Zwigoff (Crumb, 1994), maintains the tone of a black comedy generously topped with much swearing and boozing.
Key members of the cast – an excellent Thornton, a hilarious Cox and a deadpan Kelly – return, but not Lauren Graham (TV’s Gilmore Girls), who had played Willie’s love interest. So he gets to ogle charity organisation exec Diane, played by Christina Hendricks.
Bates (Misery, 1990), playing Willie’s tattooed biker-chick mother, is a brilliant addition to the cast. Her entry shows why he has issues – after all, her term of endearment for him is “s**t stick”.
Just when one thinks the shock factor of a foul-mouthed Saint Nick (and his equally potty-mouthed mother) could wear off, there are still quite a few highlights here, including two Santas having a punch-up.
Despite everything, Willie is not a complete jerk and there is a tender moment or two to be found.
Still, if it is redemption and the warm fuzzies of a happy ending that you want, go watch It’s A Wonderful Life (1946).
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I Am Not Madame Bovary
Feng Xiaogang
The story: Li Xuelian (Fan Bingbing) goes to court over a fake divorce that turned real. The ruling goes against her and so she keeps escalating the case up the chain, aggravating officials every step of the way. She gets another grievance when her ex-husband calls her Pan Jinlian, the infamous adulterer of lore. Only her old classmate Zhao Datou (Guo Tao), who has always had a crush on Xuelian, is willing to help her. Based on the 2012 Chinese novel of the same name (literally, I Am Not Pan Jinlian) by Liu Zhenyun.

The shadow of another movie looms large over this one: Zhang Yimou’s The Story Of Qiu Ju (1992), where Gong Li played a peasant woman from rural China who travels from village to town to city to seek justice.
So, too, does Fan’s Xuelian doggedly pursue justice, without qualms haranguing any and every official she meets to get her case heard.
The international red carpet regular also goes the de-glamorising routine, speaking with a rural/provin- cial accent and going from va-va-voom to looking as plain and dowdy as a worn rug.
Unfortunately, the strong sense of deja vu does her no favours. In a diva-to-diva face-off, Gong comes across as the stronger actress.
Still, Fan is competent enough that she has nabbed a Golden Horse nomination for Best Actress, which is among the five prizes the film is up for later this month at the event. I Am Not Madame Bovary is also competing for Best Feature Film and Best Director for film-maker Feng Xiaogang.
The black comedy about incompetent government contains flashes of sly humour. Sycophants and fools abound, their names exposing them for what they are: court employee Jia Congming’s moniker is a homonym for “fake cleverness” in Mandarin, for example.
Feng plays with the framing of the film, going from a circular frame to a rectangular one and then to the more familiar widescreen format. Some of the scenes composed for the circular frame are as pretty as a picture, recalling traditional Chinese painting. Or it could be a reflection of the loop that Xuelian is stuck in, fighting on year after year to no avail.
At the same time, it also reminds one of a peephole, one that peers into the murky heart of Chinese bureaucracy.
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Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk
Lee Ang
The story: Specialist Billy Lynn (Joe Alwyn) rushes to the aid of sergeant Shroom (Vin Diesel) under a flurry of Iraqi fire and is hailed as a hero. Shipped back to America, he goes on a celebratory media tour with his Bravo squad mates, including the no-nonsense sergeant Dime (Garrett Hedlund). The tour ends with them taking part in an over-the-top half-time show at an American football game. Based on American novelist Ben Fountain’s 2012 novel of the same name.

Much of the buzz surrounding feted director Lee Ang’s new film is for its groundbreaking format of a high frame rate of 120 frames per second, 4K resolution and in 3D.
Unfortunately – or fortunately – audiences here will get to see only the regular version, which is in 2D and at 24 frames per second.
So its success boils down to the film itself, shorn of its high-tech coat.
There is much going on thematically, including an exploration of courage, the idea of patriotism and the tendency for the media to over-simplify things.
Billy remarks that he is being honoured for the worst day of his life, but no one seems to care. Indeed, he seems to be sucked into a situation in which almost everything is out of his hands. Up to the moment it happens, no one in Bravo squad knows what it is that they are supposed to be doing for the half-time show.
At the same time, this is also a meta-movie about the movie industry. Quick-talking Albert (Chris Tucker) is the guy trying to make a film deal for the Bravos and his comments often undermine what is happening in Billy Lynn the movie.
He says that “there’s always a girl” – and sure enough, there is a cheerleader, Faison (Makenzie Leigh), who catches Billy’s eye. And after a confrontation between Billy and the slick businessman Norm Oglesby (Steve Martin), Albert remarks that “that’s what we call a real movie moment”.
In other respects, Lee does not make it an easy watch by doing away almost completely with a music score until the very end. There are also too many close-ups, making the film feel static.
It is a pity because the issues examined here are pertinent, bolstered by a solid cast – newcomer Alwyn, soldiering on in the maelstrom of the celebrity machine; Kristen Stewart as his concerned sister; and Vin Diesel as a zenmaster-like sergeant.
Hedlund is a standout, making the cliched tough-on-the-outside- caring-underneath Dime totally believable.
While Billy Lynn does not quite come together compellingly, you cannot fault Lee for having an ambitious vision and trying his darnedest to realise it.
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Death Note Light Up The New World
Shinsuke Sato
The story: If you write the name of a person while picturing his face into Death Note – a supernatural notebook – the person will drop dead. At the end of Death Note 2: The Last Name (2006), both Kira, who used a Death Note to execute his brand of justice, and L, the brilliant detective hunting him, had died. Ten years later, a rash of new Death Note murders takes place. Tracking down the notebooks are task force member Tsukuru Mishima (Masahiro Higashide) and Ryuzaki (Sosuke Ikematsu), an investigator who has inherited L’s DNA. Meanwhile, Kira appears in a computer virus video, raising doubts about his death. Based on the Death Note manga series by Tsugumi Ohba.

The crux of the Death Note movies has always been the battle of wits between Kira, originally an ordinary college student named Light Yagami, and L.
They were protagonist and antagonist, light and dark, villain and hero – although it was not always clear who was which.
After all, wasn’t Kira using his power for good by rooting out the unsavoury elements of society?
With Kira and L out of the way, this new instalment, to keep the story going, goes for the bigger and more complicated.
But it is less inclined to dwell on the philosophical conundrums presented by the existence of Death Notes.
There are now six such notebooks and it takes a while to account for who possess them.
Then there is the computer virus and the question of who is behind it, while suspicion is also cast on L’s successor Ryuzaki.
With so much story to get through, it is no wonder the film feels so busy.
Worse, without a clearly defined rivalry along the lines of Light versus L, Light Up The New World seems more scattered.
Still, one does get caught up in the story as it develops.
The twist at the end is quite a whopper and it leaves the door wide open for the next movie chapter.
For those who miss the Kira vs L dynamics, the American live-action remake of Death Note is out next year.
But given Hollywood’s track record with manga adaptations – um, Dragonball Evolution (2009) or Oldboy (2013) anyone? – an English-language Death Note could well be a tough sell.
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Your Name
Makoto Shinkai
The story: Taki (Ryunosuke Kamiki), a high-school boy living in Tokyo, has a crush on a senior colleague at an Italian restaurant where he works part-time. Mitsuha (Mone Kamishiraishi), a restless high-school girl living in rural Itomori, performs rituals for the family shrine. Their lives start to intersect in a mysterious way that confounds them and the people around them. Based on the 2016 novel of the same name by Makoto Shinkai.

It is easy to see why Your Name has been such a big hit in Japan – it has a compelling story told in an unusual way and the visuals are lovely.
As of Oct 23, it has been No. 1 on the Japanese box-office charts for nine weeks.
It is the first anime movie to earn more than 10 billion yen (S$132.6 million) that is not from the vaunted Studio Ghibli, whose acclaimed hits include Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989), Spirited Away (2001) and The Wind Rises (2013).
A product of CoMix Wave Films, an animation outfit whose credits include the well-received mecha romance Voices Of A Distant Star (2002), Your Name is one of those movies that work best the less you know about them.
There is a sense of dislocation when the film opens, with Taki and Mitsuha dogged by the feeling that they are searching for something or someone. Yet, the answer is just out of reach, like a dream that is forgotten the moment one awakes.
It is only 30 minutes in that the characters realise what is happening – at the same time that audiences find out. The question of why it is happening remains a mystery for a while longer.
Along the way, the movie deepens from a light-hearted high- school comedy into a kind of existential mystery that seems to be linked to the impending appearance of a comet.
There is humour, romance, excitement, poignancy and a gentle rumination on time through the Japanese tradition of braiding cords.
The animation is lovely, beautifully drawn and vividly coloured.
One needs only to look at the gorgeous autumn scene in which Mitsuha, along with her grandmother and younger sister, make their way through the woods – the trees ablaze in red, orange and yellow – to know that the competition is heating up for Studio Ghibli.
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What Love Has Taught Us
Eric Chou
Taiwan’s Eric Chou, who impressed on his 2014 debut album My Way To Love with his smooth vocals and songwriting skills, has since shown that there is more to him than just crowd-pleasing love ballads such as the hit Let’s Not Be Friends Anymore.
Now 21, he is an in-demand songwriter for others, including Eve Ai, whose sultry R&B number Talk is an indication of Chou’s versatility.
The new album’s opener is a slinky electronica number -1 Minute, where he sings: “Let another me completely change me.”
Let It Go shimmies into dance territory as he cajoles: “Follow me, fling your troubles away/So we let it go, go, go, go, go, go.”
It takes a certain amount of confidence to name a track Let It Go, given the popularity of the song of the same name from the huge animated hit Frozen (2013), yet Chou pulls it off – you will probably be too busy moving your feet to dwell on the association.
Unlike Singaporean singer-songwriter Tanya Chua on Aphasia (2015), however, he has not gone full-tilt into electronic territory.
The ballads are still here and his lovely vibrato and warm tone make How Are You and Wish To Return To That Day come across as deeply felt. He lingers over a past relationship in How Are You and pleads: “Can you continue to cry at me, laugh at me, be good to me/Continue to let me think of you, be crazy for you, grow old with you.”
Even the English-language number No One Like You manages to charm with its breeziness, despite cliched lines such as: “Baby, baby, in my eyes/Oh, you are paradise.” Given that he spent his formative years between 12 and 18 studying in the United States, one expects better lyrics from him.
Still, this is a consistently listenable album with some surprises along the way.
It is a worthy follow-up to My Way To Love, one that suggests Chou will not be easily pegged – and that he has lots more up his sleeve.
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American Pastoral
Ewan McGregor
The story: Swede Levov (Ewan McGregor) and his wife Dawn (Jennifer Connelly) seem to have the perfect life. But when their daughter Merry (Dakota Fanning) turns to violence for her political beliefs at the age of 16 and then disappears, their world collapses. Based on the 1997 Philip Roth novel of the same name.

American novelist Philip Roth is having a bit of a moment on the big screen.
Recent adaptations of his works have included erotic comedy The Humbling (2014), starring Al Pacino as an ageing actor whose life gets messy; and drama Indignation (2016), which addresses the role of religion in school and the boundaries of personal liberties.
Things continue to fall apart in American Pastoral. At its heart, it poses a question that, unfortunately, continues to resonate today: How is an extremist made?
Merry comes from a loving, well-to-do family and yet she is drawn to the philosophy of violent revolution in a tumultuous period of American history as anger and frustration erupt over the Vietnam War.
Her parents wrestle with guilt even as they are left bewildered and devastated over her actions.
Chameleonic actor McGregor as the grieving father who refuses to give up on his daughter is the emotional centre of the film. As Dawn, Connelly (Requiem For A Dream, 2000) has the tougher arc to pull off, as she goes from grieving mother to brittle socialite.
McGregor, in his directorial debut, does well to juggle both the family drama as well as the bigger events playing out in the background without resorting to preachiness or a need to tie everything up neatly.
But by sticking to the framing device in the book – Roth’s alter ego Nathan Zuckerman attending his high-school reunion and learning about what happened to Swede from his brother Jerry Levov – there is a sense of distance from the events that unfold.
The film recalls a story in The Guardian about mothers in North America and Europe whose children had volunteered to fight for the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria – including one who said poignantly that she did not even know what the word “radicalisation” was before finding out that her son was dead.
You can raise children in a loving environment and yet have absolutely no idea how they will turn out.
In other words, American Pastoral is also a horror film for parents.
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I Hear The Sound Of Dawn
Liang Wern Fook
In his first record since 1992’s Go East, xinyao leading light Liang Wern Fook performs in his inimitable style, that modest, homespun charm still intact as he speaks and sings Xin Yao Li Shi Wai Zhuan (Unofficial History Of Xinyao), a reworking of fan favourite Eve Before The History Exam (1987), in which he namechecks the creators, singers and songs of the home-grown Mandarin music movement.
There is also an update of the 1990 classic, Singapore Pie, which takes into account developments such as MRT train breakdowns and the sky-rocketing of certificate of entitlement prices.
These are songs that chart the ups and downs and growing pains of Singapore. No one does it like Liang, who taps into people’s collective memories – be it goggle-box viewing in Watching Television or listening to the radio on New Flame Meeting Old Love.
Ren Sheng Wu Suo Wei (Life – Fear Not) not only marks the first time that Liang sings a TV series theme song and the breezy track for the long-running series of the same name (2015-2016), but it also fits in a reference to Sang Nila Utama.
This new release was not conceived as an album with a cohesive vision; it is a collection of mostly recent material from the past few years, as well as a few tracks that date back to 1999.
Inevitably, it is thematically disparate, with songs as different as Hear Tomorrow Singing (an ode to teachers) is from Carefree Suzhou (an ode to the Chinese city).
Nevertheless, Sound Of Dawn is a collection of works written by Liang that demonstrates his range as a songwriter, who, apart from crafting social observations, can also compose evocative ballads such as Wish To Tell You. It was penned for the xinyao- themed TV series, Crescendo (2015), and ably performed by local singer A-do.
Unusually, there is one song here which was not composed by him. He wrote the lyrics for Jacky Cheung’s 1999 hit, She Came To Listen To My Concert, while Huang Mingzhou penned the music.
It is a poignant track about the relationship between a singer and his audience and how songs accompany one throughout one’s life. It was a special treat when Liang performed it at his long-overdue first solo concert in April last year.
And now, people have it for posterity.
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Inferno
Ron Howard
The story: Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks), professor of symbology at Harvard University, wakes up in a hospital in Florence with a head injury and no memory of how he got there and what happened in the last few days. When an assassin shows up, his doctor, Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones), helps him get away. Together, they need to solve a series of clues to reach a deadly pathogen that could wipe out half of Earth’s population. Based on Dan Brown’s 2013 novel of the same name.

One of the pleasures a Dan Brown film adaptation offers is allowing viewers to watch the characters traipse about beloved landmarks and institutions and/or cavalierly handle all manner of cultural treasures – the Louvre’s Mona Lisa in 2006’s The Da Vinci Code (a replica was used) and the Vatican in 2009’s Angels & Demons (although filming did not actually take place there).
In Inferno, viewers get to see Hanks and Jones worming their way through crawlspaces and secret passages in Florence’s monumental town hall, Palazzo Vecchio, and the death mask of Italian poet Dante getting swiped as easily as candy in an unmanned shop.
Dante is the author of the 14th- century epic, Divine Comedy, of which part one is titled Inferno. The movie taps on his idea of hell to present unsettling images of extreme pain and suffering and also, a drawing of it contains the first riddle that Langdon has to solve.
Thanks to veteran director Ron Howard’s sure hand, one gets engrossed in Langdon and Brooks’ race against time in an elaborate game.
Details start to niggle only when one starts to think about them.
Langdon’s head trauma seems at first to be a good idea for the story – it means that the hero is compromised. But as with the recent thriller, The Girl On The Train (2016), the director makes use of a far too convenient plot device: what the protagonist forgets, or remembers – and when.
Also, does one really need a professor of symbology to make sense of the clues? As Brooks deftly demonstrates in one scene, a Google search could be just as helpful.
Then again, that would not make for a popcorn flick that people would want to watch.
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Head Over Heels
Angela Chang
If Taiwan’s Angela Chang had a signature song, it would be Invisible Wings. The ballad from her third album Pandora (2006) has a message of hope and encouragement that resonates strongly with fans.
The opening track here, I’m Not Afraid, is in the same vein. It starts with Chang musing on the universality of pain (“Everyone is struggling/Everyone has somewhere they wish to go”) before she soars with the imagery of flight (“I’m flying through the dark night/Searching for that starlight that is mine/Though I know that honesty will get you hurt/I’m not afraid, I’m not afraid”).
The sentiment is familiar, but the track still works, thanks to its memorable melodic riff and her full- blooded delivery. Perhaps such songs strike a chord with Chang personally, who had to overcome a very public and unpleasant splitting of ways from her mother in the late noughties.
Another strong number here is the power ballad, Before Goodbye. She croons: “I’ve made it through those few years of utmost pain/All those familiar people, every face makes me reminisce.”
In contrast, the peppy joy-of-falling-in-love title track feels a little out of place here. But her fans should be happy to see this buoyant side of her.
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