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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Tale Of Two Rainie
Rainie Yang
The length of Taiwanese singer Rainie Yang’s hair is a good indicator of what her album will be like. The shorter and more chic her bob, the more grown-up and sophisticated her music sounds.
And the good news is that her do is looking short and sharp.
Her first album with new label EMI Music harks back to the adult pop of Longing For (2011) and firmly leaves behind her cutesy image and offerings of yore.
The Lala Hsu-penned Lightly Touching The Water is a poignant ballad that lightly touches upon a soured relationship: “Wish to continue being good to you/Don’t mind the disruption like a dragonfly touching water/Only afraid that I’m a disruption to you.”
Yang shines on the mid-tempo numbers as she gently tugs at the heartstrings without resorting to piercing notes or dramatic flourishes.
Another highlight here is the plaintive yet hopeful track penned by sodagreen’s Wu Ching-feng, Is That You At The Next Turn: “When will my dream not be fruitless/Will you be at the next crossing.”
Romantic happiness might not be on the cards in this album but her music dreams are coming to fruition here.
(ST)

G.E.M. is the only singer of note from Hong Kong to break out in the world of Chinese pop in recent years. Before her, one might have to reach back to Hong Kong-based Khalil Fong, who made a significant impact on the scene. And he made his debut back in 2005 with Soul Boy.
(Born in Shanghai, G.E.M. moved to Hong Kong at the age of four and is now based there.)
In particular, her path to regional success via a China television show, I Am A Singer, reflects how the centre of the pop world has shifted over the years.
The paltry number of widely popular Hong Kong artists is a striking turnaround for the territory, which was once the epicentre of Chinese pop.
Cantopop hit its golden age in the 1980s and 1990s and its stars were seen beyond its shores as trendsetters and the epitome of cool. Leslie Cheung was melancholy on Wind Blows On (1983) and suave on Stand Up (1986), while Anita Mui was the bold shape-shifter on the cover of records such as Temptress (1986).
The likes of Cheung and Mui did have Mandarin releases, but their focus was very much on their home market. They were Cantopop artists, first and foremost, who would dip their toes into Mandopop every now and then.
The influence the territory exerted was so strong that it was in Hong Kong that Beijing-born Faye Wong launched her music career in 1989, even if it was not exactly by design. Still, she built a substantial body of work in Cantonese before releasing her first Mandarin album, Mystery, in 1994.
Hong Kong was so dominant that its Four Heavenly Kings – Andy Lau, Jacky Cheung, Aaron Kwok and (Beijing-born) Leon Lai – held sway in the world of entertainment, from music to movies, from the 1990s well into the 2000s.
Gradually, Taiwan began catching up in the sophistication of its pop machinery and it became the new hotbed of Chinese music. The likes of A-mei, who debuted with Sisters in 1996, and Jay Chou, who released his debut Jay in 2000, enjoyed, and still enjoy, massive success in the Chinesespeaking world.
Taiwan attracted Singapore artists such as Stefanie Sun and Tanya Chua to launch their Mandarin music careers there. In contrast, just a little earlier, Kit Chan was straddling both Taiwan and Hong Kong with her Mandarin and Cantonese releases in the 1990s during the transitional period.
Meanwhile, as the China market began to open up, it grew in importance, given its large size. A singer could really be a regional star only if he or she was big in China as well.
In this regard, Mandarin-speaking artists from Taiwan had a language advantage over their counterparts from Hong Kong. It is not a coincidence that Fong releases his albums in Mandarin and G.E.M. sings in both Mandarin and Cantonese on her discs.
China is increasingly part of the equation in how success is defined, not just with its huge market, but also due to the widespread influence of its popular TV talent shows such as Voice Of China and I Am A Singer. The country is starting to be a tastemaker and not just a passive consumer of trends and stars created elsewhere. It is also producing talent who are making inroads abroad, including Golden Melody Award winner for Best New Artist Li Ronghao.
And that is the route taken by G.E.M. In doing so, she has broken out to a wider audience than she could have if she had remained focused on only Hong Kong.
There are Hong Kong artists who continue to put out mainly Cantonese fare and, among those who stick to that template, the most successful include Joey Yung and Denise Ho. And yes, their popularity does extend beyond the territory.
Tellingly though, Yung’s concert at the Max Pavilion in Singapore Expo in 2009 was a one-night engagement, as was her gig at the similarly sized Compass Ballroom at Resorts World Convention Centre in 2013.
That is nothing to sniff at for sure. But it also underlines G.E.M.’s sparkling achievement of a three-night run at the Max Pavilion.
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Genesis
JJ Lin

Aiyo, Not Bad
Jay Chou

It is the battle of the male Mandopop heavyweights as Singapore’s JJ Lin and Taiwan’s Jay Chou go head-to-head with their new releases.
Lin seems to have received a boost of confidence after finally nabbing the prestigious Golden Melody Award for Best Mandarin Male Singer for his 10th album, Stories Untold (2013).
Instead of simply remaking that winning record, he goes for an ambitious themed disc here, with the title Genesis, suggesting that he is at the start of something new.
Lead single Brave New World, mixing R&B and dubstep, is a cautionary tale about where we might be headed. It is timely, given the recent reports on how 2014 was the hottest year on record. He mourns over a steady beat: “I wake in the wasteland of Earth/New York is in a corner of the sea/ The sun has turned the landscape into a desert.”
Fans need not worry that he has abandoned his trademark ballads. The Gardens is a lush counterpoint to Brave New World and blooms – but only in a dream: “Fragrance still lingers in the gardens there, daffodils dance in the wind.”
His two guests on duets here are high-profile ones: Hong Kong’s G.E.M. on the love ballad Beautiful and American singer-songwriter Jason Mraz on inspirational English track I Am Alive. The pairings are decent without being exceptional, though the line “I am loveable; I am invincible” on I Am Alive feels a little too baldly needy. Actually, the album is strong enough to stand on its own without their addition.
Lin is at a stage of his career where it would be all too easy to coast but instead, he continues to explore the wide world of music.
While Genesis is a more exciting offering than Aiyo, Not Bad, Chou remains the undisputed Mandopop King on home ground. He has topped the G-Music album chart for three weeks, with Lin at No. 2 for two of them.
Chou’s opening salvo was Extra Large Shoes, a kiddyish number which conjures up the circus and images of cartoon shenanigans. Drawing inspiration from the iconic American comedian Charlie Chaplin, he professes: “If life needs a smile, just look at me/And forget all your troubles.”
The thing is that he has been down this vaudeville path before on Mr Magic from the 2008 album Capricorn and on Exclamation Mark (2011). Much of Aiyo, Not Bad is in a familiar vein. Far-Away Passing Traveller is the latest iteration of the China-style ballad and What Kind Of Man Are You is the calculated crowd-pleasing ballad.
No wonder Chou has been accused of making the same album over and over again. It is a testament to his skill as a songwriter, though, that when you listen to the record as a whole, you can still think, “Okay, not bad”.
But he might want to take a leaf from Lin who advises on Brave New World: “Can’t keep repeating the same tune.”
(ST)

White Bird In A Blizzard
Gregg Araki
The story: When Kat (Shailene Woodley) was 17, her mother Eve (Eva Green) disappeared one day. It was no secret that Eve was disdainful of her husband Brock (Christopher Meloni), but did she just up and leave? In addition to coping with the loss, Kat is also dealing with her burgeoning sexuality and a suddenly disinterested boyfriend Phil (Shiloh Fernandez). Based on the novel of the same name by Laura Kasischke.

Indie film-maker Gregg Araki is closely associated with the movement dubbed as New Queer Cinema.
Actually, his characters run the gamut of sexual orientation in edgy works such as The Living End (1992), Totally F***ed Up (1993) and The Doom Generation (1995), and often, a sense of dread and nihilism pervades them.
A domestic drama, instead of being an unlikely fit for him as it might seem, turns out to be a good match for his off-kilter sensibility.
Instead of being a straightforward crime drama about the vanishing, the focus here is very much on Kat and her perception of the world around her.
The urgency of the question of what happened to Eve is blunted by the fact that it does not seem surprising for her to leave. In flashbacks, we see her as an increasingly unhappy wife who cannot even bother to hide her contempt for her husband.
There is an iciness to Green (Sin City: A Dame To Kill For, 2014) that makes her perfect for the role of distant wife and mother. It is as though she is a parody of a housewife, a fate that she is condemned to but has absolutely no interest in.
Then there is her erratic behaviour leading up to her disappearance.
She seems to be jealous as Kat blossoms into womanhood and a competitive dynamic creeps into the mother- daughter relationship. Eve wears barely there negligee and body-hugging outfits and all but flirts with Kat’s boyfriend Phil.
But is Kat a trustworthy narrator? How much of what she remembers is rationalisation of, or a defence mechanism against, her mother’s abrupt disappearance?
Nevertheless, Kat’s struggles with her hormones and growing up in a constricting small town are compelling.
Even as she deals with an on-off boyfriend, she finds herself drawn to the manly detective (Thomas Jane) assigned to the case.
Kudos to Woodley – star of a major film franchise, the young-adult dystopian The Divergent Series – for taking on more unusual projects.
The deadpan dialogue brings a welcome touch of humour (Kat intones: “My virginity disappeared, just like my mother”) and the dead-on music references including Depeche Mode and Joy Division are exactly what a moody teenager might be listening to in the late 1980s.
While White Bird primarily works as a character study, it also offers closure for its central mystery. Think of it as a movie that kills two birds with one stone.
(ST)

Li Ronghao
Li Ronghao
Thanks to a clutch of nominations at last year’s Golden Melody Awards last year, eventually winning Best New Artist, China’s Li Ronghao vaulted from obscurity into the limelight.
He has capitalised on that with a quick follow-up release.
His self-titled second album has successfully broken him into the Taiwanese market as it hit No. 1 on the authoritative G-Music album chart.
It might have been a speedy turnaround, but it is no rush job.
Like his sterling debut Model, his self-titled record is packed full of mid-tempo, classy pop.
The songwriter also had a hand in creating nine of the 10 tracks here.
Pretty much everyone sings about love in Mandopop, but Li stands out with his soothing, lightly husky pipes and unusual perspectives.
King Of Comedy adds a dark comic twist to the subject courtesy of lyrics by Hong Kong’s Wyman Wong: “Why do I get dumped for all the world’s romances/ Be a part-time actor for all tragedies/My guts are spilling out, I bawl exaggeratedly, like a made-in-Hong-Kong flick.”
The ballad Unsuited, about the failure to meet one’s romantic match, has been making its way up local radio charts.
Li ponders: “Still don’t understand, how to be most at ease/What counts as forgetting one’s manners, is it wearing the wrong laces?”
He can also rock out though, when the occasion calls for it and he cuts loose on a loose-limbed cover of iconic rocker Cui Jian’s Quick Let Me Behave A Little Badly On The Snowy Ground.
Even when he is behaving badly, Li remains a compelling class act.
(ST)

Into The Woods
Rob Marshall
The story: To lift a curse of barrenness cast by the next-door Witch (Meryl Streep), a baker (James Corden) and his wife (Emily Blunt) have to go into the woods and gather four items. Meanwhile, Jack (Daniel Huttlestone) has to sell off his friend, a milky-white cow; Little Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford) is off to visit her grandmother; Cinderella (Anna Kendrick) longs to go to the festival; and Rapunzel (MacKenzie Mauzy) is locked away in a tower. Their paths cross in unexpected ways in the forbidding woods. An adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s Tony Award-winning Broadway musical of the same name.

Into The Woods is easily feted composer and lyricist Sondheim’s most accessible work. The characters here are all familiar ones from fairy tales we have all grown up with and some of the songs have a nursery-rhyme simplicity, even as he imbues them with his usual wit and depth of feeling.
Part of the fun is seeing how the various characters and stories collide and ricochet off one another in this intricately plotted brand-new tale, scripted by James Lapine, who had also penned the book for the original musical.
Which is why when Rob Marshall was slated to direct the big-screen adaptation, my first thought was: Please don’t screw this up.
Although his adaptation of Kander & Ebb’s Chicago (2002) won the Oscar for Best Picture, its sins included the casting of Richard Gere as a smooth-talking lawyer, who was silver-haired, not silver-tongued, and the cutting of the hilarious highlight number, Class, from the proceedings.
Happily, Marshall does a better job here. The film is beautifully staged, like a richly drawn storybook come to life.
Most of the actors here – including some pleasant surprises – can act and sing. Blunt, unexpectedly, shows a lovely set of pipes after we last saw her kicking butt in the science-fiction thriller Edge Of Tomorrow (2014). Crawford and Corden both have Broadway experience. Kendrick had already wowed us with her singing in the musical comedy Pitch Perfect (2012).
It is with some of the biggest names that casting falters a little.
Streep does not quite measure up to actress Bernadette Peters’ indelible Broadway take on the Witch. For one thing, she cannot keep up with the pacing of her opening number and ends up letting the music lead her instead of the other way around. But at least, this is a better setting for her to chew scenery than in the family drama August: Osage County (2013).
Johnny Depp, who had starred in a previous Sondheim adaptation, the macabre Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street (2007), just seems to add a touch of campiness to every role he takes on these days, including as the Wolf here.
Quibbling aside, the fun and charm of the musical remain intact. Marshall does a great job playing up the comedy number Agony as two princes (Chris Pine and Billy Magnussen) pine for their respective beloveds at a dramatic waterfall setting.
He also tightens the pace by dropping musical numbers such as First Midnight, Second Midnight, Ever After and No More – with no harm done. There remains plenty to savour in Sondheim’s wise and poignant songs.
Fairy tales often paint a black-and-white picture, but Sondheim points out that “Witches can be right/Giants can be good”. In a world filled with shades of grey, we have to rely on one another for strength and support.
“No one is alone” is both an encouragement and a reminder that there is always another side to the story.
There are lessons here, and not just for children.
(ST)

Blackhat
Michael Mann
The story: Computer expert Nicholas Hathaway (Chris Hemsworth) is released from prison to help track down a brilliant villain. American agent Carol Barrett (Viola Davis) makes sure he stays on the straight and narrow while juggling the limits of cooperation with the Chinese side. Chen Dawai (Wang Lee Hom) is the People’s Liberation Army officer on the case and he ropes in his sister Chen Lien (Tang Wei). As they chase the shadowy mastermind from Los Angeles to Hong Kong to Jakarta, the stakes get higher and higher.

There is no way of saying this nicely: Blackhat is a big steaming pile of bulls***, which is an especially shocking conclusion given that director Michael Mann has been feted for his work from historical epic The Last Of The Mohicans (1992) to crime thriller Collateral (2004).
One of the key challenges with a cyber thriller is: How do you make lines of code look sexy and exciting? The solution here is to cast hunky Hemsworth as an unlikely programmer. Not only is someone of Hathaway’s calibre needed to point out simple facts of logic, but the genius is also conveniently primed for action and even joins in on a police raid.
The top-notch line-up also flounders in this draggy and literal movie.
Hollywood star Hemsworth has been heating up the screen as god/superhero Thor, while Davis and Tang are well-regarded award-winning actresses. Wang is better known for his singing than his acting, but at least he is popular.
Because of the sprawling cast, there is a long and convoluted set-up just to get everyone in place. Yet, much of the characterisation and reasoning is just plain lazy. A China military officer needs someone he can trust on the operation? Who else but his sister who just happens to possess some specialised skills, which are ultimately rather underwhelming.
All this on top of a script saddled with a deadly combination of cliches and gaping plotholes. Despite being in the middle of a major crime operation, Hathaway and Chen Lien manage to operate independently – just so they can make googly eyes at each other.
It is the kind of movie in which an ex-convict can work at a top-level security outfit, a wad of magazines can stop bullets and police forces are shockingly inept (a cavalier cop ventures into a high-risk raid in a sleeveless top).
For all the globe-trotting and jet-setting, the movie is deadly dull. The characters chase clues in some mockery of a treasure hunt that viewers are forced to go on. When the mastermind is finally unmasked looking like a British couch potato, it feels like a booby prize. In the annals of villainy, he must be one of the lamest ever.
The trailer had promised a fast-paced thriller. It lied.
(ST)

Wake Up Dreaming
Jacky Cheung
It is the Cantopop God of Songs’ first new Mandarin album in seven years and the accompanying fanfare has been tremendous.
The first single, Use The Rest Of My Life To Love, is a track that plays to his strengths.
Lush and dramatic, with a cascading chorus, it fits the bill as the ballad his fans have long been waiting for (the opening phrase “Use how much time, keep waiting, for one love” might well be describing how they felt).
Indeed, Wake Up Dreaming on the whole is not about breaking new ground but very much about giving people what they want – which would be mainstream ballads such as Time Has Tears.
While there is the perky I’ve Fallen In Live With You about the simple joys of falling in love, it sounds a little too teeny-bopper for Cheung at this point.
Elsewhere, he professes his passion for singing.
He declares on I Just Want To Sing: “I just want to sing, until I bust my throat one day.”
And again on the title track, he professes: “Only in my dreams, not afraid to shout till my throat is ragged.”
We get it, he really, really wants to sing.
Surely, it is unbecoming for his voice to actually break during the phrase.
One expects more subtlety from the God of Songs.
Between Wake Up Dreaming and his previous Mandarin album, 2007’s By Your Side, he released the excellent Cantonese disc, Private Corner (2010).
There, he immersed himself fully in the jazz idiom and proved that he could swing it in that field.
It was a far more interesting proposition than his new Mandarin effort, which ends with the track Not Bad.
Should Cheung not be reaching for more than that?
(ST)

Mr Turner
Mike Leigh
The story: During the first half of the 19th century, J.M.W. Turner (Timothy Spall) was a controversial figure in the British painting community. He had a showman’s flair and was well-regarded by his peers but could also be stubborn and gruff. His personal life was messy as he fathered daughters he neglected and he used his housekeeper Hannah (Dorothy Atkinson) to satisfy his sexual needs. He later takes up with the widowed landlady Mrs Booth (Marion Bailey).

Writer-director Mike Leigh made his name with socially conscious realist dramas including Hard Labour (1973), High Hopes (1988) and All Or Nothing (2002), which are known for their depiction of the British working class.
So, the choice of a Romantic landscape painter at first appears to be a strange one for him.
Make no mistake, though, Mr Turner is very much a film about class.
An artist could move easily between the different stratas of society, from rarefied highfalutin’ circles of rich and/or noble clients, to his own, more modest household, to the everyday folks he comes across, including prostitutes, landladies and merchants.
Leigh brings it all to vivid life, whether it is the stately drawing rooms, bustling markets with pig’s heads displayed on tables or filling scenes with giddy girls, toadying sycophants and struggling artists.
He also has fun skewering the snobbish rich, some of whom conduct a hilarious, painful and interminable exchange on gooseberries which Turner is forced to sit through.
A word of caution: There are thick soupy accents here that you want to dip a piece of bread into and soak up. Without the aid of subtitles, they are definitely a challenge to decipher.
For his fine and funny turn, Spall has been showered with accolades, including for Best Actor at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival.
It probably helped the film that he and Leigh had worked together in the past, including in Topsy-Turvy (1999) and All Or Nothing (2002).
One might imagine that a painter who paints the light with such delicacy would himself be a sensitive soul, but instead, we get a heavyset man with a gruff manner.
Some of it could well be an act and we also get to see his warm relationship with his father (Paul Jesson) and Turner’s generosity towards a fellow painter, Haydon (Martin Savage).
Part of the reason he is drawn to Mrs Booth is because she sees that he is “a man of great spirit and fine feeling”.
Leigh, though, does not whitewash the less savoury aspects of Turner, including his deplorable treatment of many of the women in his life.
The actor’s wonderful array of grunts and snorts conveys everything from reluctant acquiescence to outright disdain.
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Bring Back The Dead
Lee Thean-jeen
The story: Jia En (Jesseca Liu) loses her seven-year-old son, Xiao Le, in a car accident and she withdraws from the people around her, including her husband (Jacko Chiang). When nanny Madam Seetoh (Liu Lingling) offers to help bring the boy’s soul back, Jia En readily agrees. But strange things begin to happen soon after and she starts to wonder if it is really her son who has returned. Based on the short story Bringing Back The Dead by Wong Swee Hoon.

This marks a good start to a year that has a bumper crop of local films slated for release.
Writer-director Lee Thean-jeen’s third feature film after the comedies Homecoming (2011) and Everybody’s Business (2013) is easily his best work to date. He keeps a tight focus here, effectively dispensing with the back story in sepia-tinted flashbacks over the opening credits.
The characters are quickly sketched out and introduced: Jia En can be a stern mother, but she loves her son and losing him on his birthday hits her hard; her husband tries to be supportive, but is soon defeated by her overwhelming grief. Madam Seetoh is something of a wild card, appearing almost a little too conveniently just when she is needed.
Doing well to carry the movie on her shoulders alone as Jia En, former MediaCorp star Jesseca Liu goes through grief, desperation, hope, suspicion and mounting terror, taking the audience along on her roller-coaster of emotions.
Bringing back the dead involves a ritual with all manner of instructions to follow strictly and any detail could easily go wrong.
Most crucially, Jia En asks: “How will I know if he returns?” “You’ll know,” is the short answer from the medium.
Horror flicks often require one to suspend disbelief because of too-convenient or ludicrous plot twists. Not in this case – the story logic is impeccable and devastating.
Lee does not go for cheap scares, instead he builds tension with quiet moments and assured pacing. He wants to fill audiences with dread of a malevolent spirit, but he also wants them to be emotionally invested in the story.
For, ultimately, Bring Back The Dead is a moving tale of parental love and the twisted lengths it can compel one to go to.
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The Theory Of Everything
James Marsh
The story: This biopic of famed theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking (Eddie Redmayne) spans from his days as a brilliant student at Cambridge University to the onset of a debilitating motor-neuron disease and his international success as a scientist. Adapted from the memoir Travelling To Infinity: My Life With Stephen (2013), by his ex-wife Jane Wilde, played in the film by Felicity Jones.

Even for those whose knowledge of science remains a yawning black hole, the work A Brief History Of Time (1988) by Stephen Hawking might well elicit a flicker or two of recognition.
It is a publishing phenomenon that has sold more than 10 million copies and helped to explain concepts such as the big bang and black holes to the man in the street.
The picture of Hawking on its cover is probably the mental image most have of him: a man whose body is crippled, but whose mind is brilliantly uncaged as it probes the mysteries of the universe.
What this film shows us, with great warmth and honesty, is not just the wheelchair, but the man in it.
The film begins in 1963 in Cambridge and Hawking is a physics geek with an endearing smile. He is attending mixers, hanging out in pubs and coxing and all these everyday activities seem poignant, given the disease that is lurking and waiting to trip him up.
What might merely be klutziness in another seems like a sinister sign of his body’s impending betrayal.
It is also clear that he is very intelligent as he speaks rapturously about a single unified equation that would explain everything in the universe.
Thanks to the considerable charms of Redmayne (Les Miserables, 2012), equations on a board have not looked this compelling since the John Nash drama, A Beautiful Mind (2001).
At heart, the film is also a moving romance between Hawking and Wilde.
As smart as Hawking is, theirs is very much a relationship between equals; Wilde’s strength of character is remarkable when she eventually learns what she has to deal with.
That relationship is brought to vivid life, thanks to the sensitive characterisation and the wonderful, breakout performances of Redmayne and Jones (Like Crazy, 2011).
Not everything is conveyed with words. When Hawking’s condition deteriorates to the point he needs to sit in a wheelchair, she does not say anything but merely brings it out one breakfast.
Hawking is no saintly figure here. He experiences doubts and frustrations, displays his humorous side and, yes, has sexual desires as well – he subscribes to Penthouse magazine and his nonplussed caregiver (Maxine Peake) has to turn the pages for him.
Despite Wilde’s best attempts to keep their family together, the cost of doing so takes its toll on her. At one point, she ropes in her choir teacher Jonathan Jones (Charlie Cox) to help out. He becomes a family friend, an additional pair of hands and another man about the house.
Things become complicated but unfold with a remarkable lack of melodrama. And being in a wheelchair does not mean that one is immune to falling in, or out, of love.
James Marsh – who won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature for the fascinating Man On Wire (2008) about Philippe Petit’s illegal high- wire walk between New York’s Twin Towers in 1974 – has taken an extraordinary story and turned it into a gripping and relatable drama. And this is possibly the best use ever of the well-worn device of time rewinding at the end of a movie.
Remarkably, Hawking, now 72, has long outlived the dire prognosis of his disease and continues to do research.
(ST)

The year can only get better for local singer-songwriter JJ Lin. He was punched by a man at an autograph session in Taipei on Jan 1. According to China Times, Lin was taken to the hospital in an ambulance and then the trooper returned to the venue to continue with the autograph session.
Unfortunately, he is not the only Asian star who has been assaulted. Who knew entertainment was such a risky business?

1. Stefanie Sun
The homegrown songbird has been attacked not once, but twice.
While promoting her debut album Yan Zi in Taiwan in 2000, a man tried to take her hostage with an air-gun at an autograph session. He was arrested.
Then there was the controversial incident in Egypt in Feb 2007, where she had gone to film two music videos for the album Against The Light. It might not have been an attack exactly but there were murky claims of guns, guards and extortion attempts.

2. Jam Hsiao
In Oct 2013, Taiwan's Jam Hsiao escaped being hit by a container of faeces flung by two men. Instead, the excrement landed on his driver. For the poo attack, four men were later charged with intimidation and public insult.

3. AKB48
Two members of the mega Japanese girl group AKB48 were hospitalised after being attacked by a man wielding a 50cm saw at a regular meet-the-fans event in Takizawa last May. Rina Kawaei, 19, and Anna Iriyama, 18, received emergency surgery for broken bones in their right hands and they also suffered cuts on their arms and heads.

4. Girls' Generation
Towards the end of a performance by the Korean girl group of Run Devil Run at the Angel Price Music Festival in Seoul in April 2011, a man walked onstage. He headed straight for Taeyeon and then pulled her offstage. He was quickly stopped and no charges were filed. The incident can be seen on YouTube.

5. Eric Tsang
The popular Hong Kong entertainer was attacked by three men wielding torchlights, ash-trays and glass bottles at a private club in Kowloon in July 2001. He suffered serious head injuries and received at least 20 stitches. The attack was said to be triad-linked and at one point, singer Joey Yung was arrested in connection with the case.
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Serena
Susanne Bier
The story: George Pemberton (Bradley Cooper) is a lumber baron with an operation located in the North Carolina mountains in 1929. He marries the unconventional Serena (Jennifer Lawrence) and soon, she begins to clash with his right-hand man Buchanan
(David Dencik). When Serena learns of George’s past indiscretion, she turns to the skulking Galloway (Rhys Ifans) to help her wreak terrible vengeance. Based on the novel of the same name by American author Ron Rash.

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

Opus 2 Jay 2014 World Tour
National Stadium
Last Saturday

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Miracle
Valen Hsu

Love In Songs
Rachel Liang

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

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

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

Super Slipper Live Part 3
Various artists

No. 10
New Taiwan Recreational

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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