Conversations With
Ruth Kueo
The debut EP from 22-year-old local singer Ruth Kueo is a promising charmer. Styling-wise, she goes for young and hipster, but the songs suggest a greater maturity.
Opening track Wait is breezy fare that is easy to like. She sings brightly and hopefully: “There are obstacles on the way and unhappiness sometimes/ But believe there’s a Mr Right/If true love comes/ Don’t reject him at arm’s length.”
Ballad There’s A Love and the mid-tempo Metamorphosis showcase her chops as a singer as she navigates the emotional journeys confidently.
She wrote all of the lyrics and had a hand in composing all the music – a good sign that she has more to say in conversations to come.
(ST)

Rigor Mortis
Juno Mak
The story: A former actor in vampire movies, Chin (Chin Siu Ho) moves into a derelict public housing block. Washed-up and alienated from his wife and son, he plans to kill himself in apartment 2442. His attempt is interrupted by the other denizens of the block, from cook/exorcist Yau (Anthony Chan) to kindly old Auntie Mui (Nina Paw) who lives with her husband Uncle Tung (Richard Ng). Chin later meets the distraught Feng (Kara Hui), who keeps hanging around 2442. When evil is awakened, Chin finds himself battling vicious ghosts and a powerful zombie.

The Hong Kong vampire movies of the 1980s such as Mr. Vampire (1985) were often a campy mix of comedy and horror.
Singer-turned-director Juno Mak might have been inspired by them, but Rigor Mortis is a different creature altogether.
His directorial debut not only revives a moribund genre, but it also does so in a way that is unexpected.
For starters, there is an atmosphere of chill and dread that pervades the movie.
From the dreary palette of greys to the oppressive setting in a crumbling building, Mak, who also wrote the script, builds the suspense gradually.
And thanks to great make-up, costumes and some nifty special effects, he manages to pull off some creepy moments – no mean achievement in an age where genuine scares are few and far in between.
Mak’s affection for the genre also comes through in the way the movie is steeped in vampire movie lore and in the gripping action sequences, particularly in the epic showdown between Chin and gang and a powerful zombie.
While movies about ghosts and the undead tend to fall short when it comes to characterisation, Rigor Mortis deftly balances a large ensemble cast and actually makes the various stories mean something.
Auntie Mui (an excellent Nina Paw) and Uncle Tung (Richard Ng) are a couple relying on each other in their old age. They bicker sweetly and she is forever helping out the other residents with little favours.
It makes the horror of what subsequently unfolds more powerful because you come to care for Mui in particular.
Feng, meanwhile, is trapped in her own private nightmare and only her son, Xiaobai, keeps her tethered to this world.
And then there is Chin playing Chin, a washed-up actor facing all manner of evil even as he battles with demons of his own.
The world of Rigor Mortis is a dark one, but Mak finds moments of kindness and tenderness in it, and handles them with an effectively light touch.
And then right at the end, he delivers an enigmatic ending that will keep you guessing.
Is Rigor Mortis a meta movie about the hopping vampire genre? Or did you just witness a distinctly Hong Kong version of hell?
What it is, without a doubt, is a gonzo piece of film-making that is Hong Kong cinema at its best.
(ST)

Beautiful World
Where Chou Hui
In the early noughties, Taiwanese singer Where Chou Hui’s sweetly mellifluous voice fronted hit ballads such as Really Wish To Love You Well. After all these years, she still sounds great and there is perhaps a touch more depth and maturity in her singing here and on her last album Own Room (2011).
The title track Beautiful World points to a rocky journey but there is also a show of optimism here. She sings: “Even if there are misunderstandings and arguments/When I turn around, I still wish to hold hands and share everything.”
Apart from her trademark balladry, Chou also dips her toes into dance territory here. It is not that Who Cares About Your Love or Thank You, Liar are terrible tracks, but Chou just comes across as Jolin Tsai-lite on them. It can be a beautiful world even without a jolt of electronica.
(ST)

Commitment
Park Hong Soo
The story: After his father is killed on a mission in South Korea, North Koreans Li Myung Hoon (Choi Seung Hyun, better known as T.O.P from boyband Big Bang), and his younger sister Hye In (Kim Yoo Jung) are sent to a prison labour camp. To save their lives, he becomes a spy in the South in the guise of a high-school student and becomes friends with outcast Lee Hye In (Han Ye Ri), who shares his sister’s name.

See T.O.P run, see T.O.P fight, see T.O.P look cool riding a motorbike. Fans of the dashing K-popster will be thrilled just to have their idol front and centre on the screen.
Alas, this is a feature film and not a music video, which means that attention also has to be paid to the pesky attendant details of story and character development.
For a spy thriller, Commitment is shockingly boring. Stretched to an overlong two hours, it fails to build up much excitement or tension or even make one care very much for the characters.
The high school scenes sit oddly with the ones of T.O.P getting all assassin-y and could have been played up for greater contrast. It could have been fun to delve into how Myung Hoon balances hitting the books by day and killing off spooks at night.
But in the hands of debut feature director Park Hong Soo, the scenes in school feel perfunctory, with the workman-like purpose of having Myung Hoon making his sole friend.
Meanwhile, the action scenes are linked to some far-removed power struggle in North Korea. It is confusing to know who is on which side, not that it seems to matter very much in the end.
T.O.P does have some natural charisma and he can emote – to a certain extent. Myung Hoon is a young man pushed to the brink but you do not feel the extremity of his situation.
And maybe it is a North Korean thing, but his relationship with his sister borders on being too close for comfort.
Perhaps the film is really an experiment to test the commitment of the K-pop star’s fans.
(ST)

Closed Circuit
John Crowley
The story: The crowded Borough market in London is bombed and Farroukh Erdogan (Denis Moschitto) is arrested as the primary suspect. After his first lawyer dies, Martin Rose (Eric Bana) and Claudia Simmons-Howe (Rebecca Hall) are picked to represent Farroukh in court. The more they delve into it, the less straightforward the case seems.

The argument that unpleasant things have to be done in the name of safety and security is one that cannot be dismissed easily. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks on the United States, this is an issue that has been wrestled with on shows such as the ongoing television drama Homeland.
In this film, the United Kingdom’s MI5 agency is peopled by such a shady bunch that the idea of them given carte blanche to do whatever they need to in the name of national security is downright scary. One of those behaving like a thug is played by Riz Ahmed, recently seen in the more nuanced political thriller The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2013).
It all begins to seem rather far-fetched, but for a good while Closed Circuit is a legal mystery thriller that reels you in.
Two lawyers have to be assigned to the case because the suspect has to stand trial in both open court and closed-door proceedings due to the classified nature of some evidence. According to the rules, Martin and Claudia are not supposed to contact each other during the trial.
Adding to the complicated structure of the case is the fraught relationship between the two as they had had an affair.
Eric Bana (Romulus, My Father, 2007) and Rebecca Hall (The Town, 2010) are both engaging actors who keep the film grounded even as the cloak-and-dagger elements pile up.
And while the truth regarding Farroukh’s role in the bombing does propel the movie, in truth, he is only a minor character seen in a few scenes. Instead, director John Crowley (Boy A, 2007) puts Martin and Claudia in peril.
In order to wrap things up in a fairly brisk 96 minutes, there are some convenient lapses and loopholes in the story but at least you are kept guessing as to whether treachery, or justice, will triumph in the end.
(ST)

Friends
Anthony Neely
After the invigorating pop-rock of his last album, Wake Up (2012), American-born Taiwan-based singer Anthony Neely’s (right) new album feels less vital.
Even the title, Friends, seems a little bland.
Good thing his lightly raspy voice is still engaging on tracks such as opener Everything Is Love.
I am not too enamoured of the repetitive chorus though: “It’s all because of love, that’s love/Can’t let go, except for love, it’s still love/If you don’t love, are not loved/This little existence won’t exist.”
Better yet is Faithball, the theme song of the
2013 Taiwanese baseball movie of the same name starring Neely.
A direct translation of the Chinese title would be The Weight Of Sweat and the song makes strong use of sports imagery.
Over a catchy riff, Neely sings: “But my sweat, has weight, burnt into tomorrow’s sunlight/ Everytime I fall, I get closer to the earth of dreams, take a bow and raise the bat again.”
The slower songs do not leave as strong an impression. Here’s hoping he hits a homerun the next time out.
(ST)

REAL
Kiyoshi Kurosawa
The story: Through a procedure called “sensing”, Koichi (Takeru Satoh) is able to enter the subconscious of his lover, Atsumi (Haruka Ayase), and interact with her. She has been comatose since an apparent suicide attempt and he wants to find out what happened and to try to wake her up. Based on the novel A Perfect Day For Plesiosaur (2011).

Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s (Tokyo Sonata, 2008) Real is a psychological thriller that reveals its mystery slowly.
For a while, it is content to explore the procedure of sensing.
The audience is eased into it from Koichi’s (Takeru Satoh, right, with Haruka Ayase) point of view as he experiences it for the first time.
Plugged into a machine, his mind enters a space that is their apartment.
But this virtual world is not the same as ours: A pen can float leisurely in space and images of gruesome deaths from Atsumi’s dark manga work flash before Koichi’s eyes.
Plenty of questions are thrown up. Why does she want Koichi to search for an old childhood drawing of a plesiosaur? Who is the soaking wet boy that Koichi keeps seeing or is that some side effect of the sensing?
And is the line between what is real and what is virtual being blurred? At one point, Atsumi says: “It’s all in my mind, right? Anything can happen.”
After a while, you get the feeling that Kurosawa is slowly building up to a twist in the tale. It is not that much of a surprise when it is revealed, but at least it makes some sense.
What happens after that, though, is less persuasive.
Real turns into a kaiju (Japanese monster movie genre) flick as Koichi and Atsumi are pursued by a p***ed-off plesiosaur. And the couple have to uncover some incident that took place on Hikone island, where they grew up.
While Ayase (Cyborg She, 2008) has to grapple with the role of the more opaque Atsumi, Satoh (Rurouni Kenshin, 2012) gets to bring a sense of urgency to the role of Koichi.
But because much of the story takes place in a nebulous subconscious world where characters can be hard to read, one feels emotionally distanced from what is unfolding. Maybe this is another of those stories which work better on the page than on the screen.
(ST)

3 Peas In A Pod
Michelle Chong
The story: Singaporean Penny (Jae Liew), Korean Peter (Alexander Lee Eusebio) and Taiwanese Perry (Calvin Chen) are schoolmates at an Australian university who decide to take a road trip together just before graduation. With Penny in love with Peter and Perry having a soft spot for Penny, things eventually come to a head during the journey and no one is left unscathed.

The trailers for 3 Peas In A Pod largely suggest a light-hearted romantic comedy. There is a classic love triangle in which the object of one’s affection is eyeing someone else and the scenario plays out with humour and some choice dramatic moments.
It is a reasonable expectation especially since writer-director Michelle Chong’s debut film Already Famous (2011) was also a light-hearted comedy.
While kudos are due Chong for not treading the same path here, Peas ends up being terribly convoluted in a way that is utterly frustrating instead of clever and satisfying.
In the final act of the film, revelations come tumbling out that cast everything that happened before in a different light. When done well, as in the supernatural thriller The Sixth Sense (1999), such reversals make you want to rewatch the film.
Unfortunately, here, it just feels as though the earlier part of the movie was just one giant sleight of hand, a deliberate act of misdirection.
It did not help that Peter was a self-absorbed, self-serving and possibly manic depressive chap who treats Penny (newcomer Jae Liew) as a doormat and is constantly telling his friends to “speaka Engrishi”. And Perry is largely a cipher until the very end. These are not exactly roles to warm to.
A graduation road trip is a momentous occasion, poised as it is between the world of school and friends and the working adult life to come. But while the characters mouth words to that effect, the impact is not quite there.
The supposed simmering desire is also handled in an oddly chaste fashion. If it is a road trip movie with an honest exploration of attraction and sexuality that you are looking for, try Mexican drama Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001) instead.
The casting for 3 Peas was off too.
Alexander Lee Eusebio, though a former member of K-pop boyband U-Kiss, is unconvincing as swoonworthy hunk Peter. In fact, Taiwanese boyband Fahrenheit member Calvin Chen, playing Perry, was clearly more buff. This made a scene in which the other two are surprised by Perry’s physique seem downright silly.
And fans hoping to see Chong in action as an actress will have to be content with a cameo of her as a hotel staff with a thick Aussie twang.
The big winner here would have to be Tourism Australia, which gets a feature-length advertisement packed with postcard-perfect sun-drenched vistas.
(ST)

JJ Lin Timeline World Tour
Singapore Indoor Stadium
Last Saturday

Surviving 10 years in the music industry is no mean feat. And what has made the journey more difficult for local singer-songwriter JJ Lin is that he has had to accomplish this mostly away from home, in Taiwan.
Two years after his last concert here, the boyish-looking star returns home to mark this milestone in his career. It was also an opportunity to express his gratitude as he thanked his family for all their support over the years.
He said to his parents: “Thank you for the extraordinary love every time I’ve been back and I hope I have not let you down.” He also gave a shoutout to his paternal grandmother, who died from liver cancer while he was in the midst of his Taipei gigs in July.
Clearly, he relished being back and early on, he teased his fans in Singlish after they had just cheered him: “How can like that? You call this loud?”
So what if, unlike Taipei, we did not get to see him serenading singer Hebe Tien?
We got to see Lin, 32, and his elder brother Eugene sing together on the heartwarming ballad Fly Back In Time. They were both enrolled in music company Ocean Butterflies’ Very Singers’ Training Course back in 1999, though Eugene later went into banking.
Lin would go on to release his debut album Music Voyager in 2003 and win the prestigious Golden Melody Award for Best New Artist.
Keeping things in the Singapore family of singers was Lin’s second guest star. The capacity crowd of 8,000 went wild when Stefanie Sun appeared in a short dress to duet with him on She Says. The lyricist of the title track of his 2011 album was none other than Sun.
She joked that she had worn sexy singer Jolin Tsai’s dress to the concert and kept singing his praises as a “sweet guy”.
Another highlight of the show was Lin’s tribute to the late king of pop, Michael Jackson. He even tipped a hat to Jackson’s iconic look by wearing a red military-style jacket. On a stage that was filled with water, Lin danced up a storm and slinked his way through Billie Jean.
The jacket later came off to reveal a black singlet underneath, which he eventually ripped off to the delight of his fans.
It did take a while though for the concert to really kick into gear.
Lin first appeared looking like a futuristic space cadet with a fatal weakness for bling.
True, there were hits peppered along the way including Cao Cao, Never Learn and a fan favourite, Soy Milk And Dough Sticks.
His voice was also generally in fine form, going from tremulous and tender on the ballads to packing a punch on the rock numbers such as The Dark Knight.
And yet, there was not enough momentum built. In part, the intermittent video clips centring on aspects of time did not seem to have too much to do with what was unfolding on stage.
Still, by the time the encore rolled around, Lin was working up a party mood in the hall with energetic tracks You N Me and We Together. The almost three-hour-long concert closed with the groovy hip-hop of High Fashion and his monster hit ballad, River South.
Apart from his parents, brother, aunts and uncles, Lin also has an extended family of fans who have been with him all the way.
On a heartfelt rendition of Remember, a ballad he had written for Taiwanese diva A-mei, the entire stadium of spectators sang along. And when he crooned the final line – “We hold hands together and say we’ll walk to the end together” – his family of fans cheered in approval.
(ST)

Angel vs Devil
Tanya Chua
On her last album Sing It Out Of Love (2011), home-grown singer-songwriter Tanya Chua dealt with the death of her father in 2011 from the side effects of medication for Parkinson’s disease.
This follow-up to that Golden Melody Award- winning work finds her in a conflicted place emotionally – and that is good news for the record.
The album’s title suggest two extremes. On the one hand, there are the ballads with their bruised vulnerability. On the other hand, some of the numbers adopt a more cavalier, devil-may-care attitude.
Love Song To Myself seems defiant, but breaks down in the swirling chorus: “In this calm, blue quandary/I’m shouting and crying hysterically”.
Meanwhile, A Hundred Thousand Teardrops effectively uses hyperbole: “We accumulate a hundred thousand teardrops in our lifetime/Thought that if I finished crying it all, I could exchange bitterness for a good ending.”
No surprise that the lyrics are by Chua’s frequent collaborator Xiaohan, who has professed that she loves to cry.
But the album is not just drenched in tears. On the laidback Pheromones, she teases, “Want to commit a crime for me?” while Easy Come Easy Go with rapper MC HotDog has a more relaxed attitude towards love.
The rock-flavoured title track marries contrasting feelings and finds her confessing: “Afraid of losing love and afraid of being loved.”
There is no need for such hesitation here. With a rich range of musical styles from Chua and engaging lyric contributions from the likes of sodagreen’s Wu Ching-feng, Taiwan’s David Ke and Chua herself, Angel Vs Devil is easy to embrace.
(ST)

Baby Blues
Leong Po Chih
Here is a home-buying tip that will save you plenty of grief and trouble: When you come across a creepy- looking doll left behind by its previous owner, do not hang on to the property. If you are rich enough to buy a house, you are rich enough to get a brand- new creepy-looking doll.
Unfortunately, newlyweds songwriter Hao (Raymond Lam) and blogger Tian Qing (Janelle Sing) ignore that tip. They also pay no heed to the repeated dire warnings of a homeless man camped outside their huge house.
Tian Qing becomes pregnant with twins but one of the boys dies during birth. She then starts treating the doll as a newborn – surely that goes beyond post-natal depression.
It is the doll working its bad juju, which it likes to do while spinning round and pointing its hand out. Presumably, this is to take advantage of the 3-D effects.
Rather than raising scares, though, this infantile movie is likely to induce yawns instead.
(ST)

Enough Said
Nicole Holofcener
The story: Eva (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is a single mum who works as a house-call masseuse. She meets divorced father Albert (James Gandolfini) at a party and they begin dating. At the same party, she also meets Marianne, a new client who becomes a friend. Things get a little complicated when Eva realises that Marianne (Catherine Keener) is Albert’s ex-wife.

James Gandolfini will forever be associated with the acclaimed crime drama The Sopranos (1999-2007). His turn as the self-doubting and therapy-seeking mob boss Tony Soprano earned him three Emmy statuettes and paved the way for anti-heroes down the road such as Breaking Bad’s Walter White.
Sadly, he died from a heart attack at the age of 51 in June.
Beyond the Mafia series, his range of roles run the gamut from a gay hitman in The Mexican (2001) to an impulsive Wild Thing in the fantasy Where The Wild Things Are (2009).
One of his last films is this sweet and lovely romance which casts him in a very different light and adds to his rich body of work.
He smiles a lot here as Albert and his eyes crinkle and disappear charmingly but it is not exactly attraction at first sight for Eva. In fact, her early description of him to close friend Sarah (Toni Collette) is: “He’s kinda fat.”
Rather than a romantic comedy which dumbs itself down with cliched set-ups and forced repartee, Enough Said feels like an honest exploration of what happens when two adults are tentatively attracted to each other and try to sort out their feelings.
There is awkwardness here – do they kiss or not after the first date – as well as tenderness. There is a scene in which they peer into each other’s mouths that feels more intimate than most movie sex scenes.
Gandolfini’s wonderfully low-key and sunny performance is well-matched by Julia Louis- Dreyfus. Best known for her television work on comedies such as Seinfeld (1989-1998) and Veep (2012 to present), she dials down her comic exuberance for a more nuanced performance that remains very funny.
Eva is all too believably human and flawed. While she means well, she is not the most sensitive person when it comes to respecting boundaries. And so, she dishes out sex advice to her teenage daughter’s friend, makes fun of Albert for his inability to whisper (an admittedly odd trait) and, worst of all, she ends up befriending his ex and hiding it from him.
Writer-director Nicole Holofcener has worked on TV for shows such as comedy Parks And Recreation as well as films such as Lovely & Amazing (2001), an observant drama about female relationships.
Apart from finding the humour and stresses in a burgeoning relationship, she also captures the poignancy and scariness of looking for love at a certain stage in life. And she does not shy away from the difficult things people say to each other.
When Albert tells Eva, “You broke my heart and I’m too old for that s***,” his hurt is real and palpable.
A great cast, a sensitive script and an abundance of heart – enough said.
(ST)

Autumn: Stories
sodagreen
Finally, harvest season is here.
After releasing the luminous Daylight Of Spring and the briskly rocking Summer/Fever in 2009, sodagreen’s ambitious four seasons project hit a road block. Two of the feted indie band’s six members had to fulfil their military service obligations and it was only last year that they were back at full strength again.
In keeping with the season, the mood on this album is autumnal as summer slips away and leaves begin to fall. The use of traditional Chinese instruments such as the erhu and flute lend a sense of melancholy to the record.
Lead vocalist and songwriter Ching-feng’s pristine voice shimmers and aches on When I’m Alone: “When I’m alone, it’s like I’ve dropped into a deep ravine/When I’m alone, it’s like the whole world’s lies have been laid bare.”
The light may be fading as the days grow shorter but that does not mean it is just gloominess ahead.
The Gleaners offers up this intriguing imagery of life’s cyclical nature: “Burning my childhood, burnt my youth, burn out my sunset years/Until we are asleep in the earth, continue to be buried as future roots.”
For a change, bassist Claire takes over vocal duties on the lighthearted Idle Wings, while drummer Wei has a turn at the mic on the more compelling We Walked A Light Year.
There are rich pickings here to slowly savour while we wait for Winter to approach.
(ST)

Passion
Brian De Palma
The story: Advertising executive Christine (Rachel McAdams) always gets what she wants, be it in the boardroom or bedroom. When her subordinate Isabelle (Noomi Rapace) shows her up over an ad campaign and sleeps with her lover Dirk (Paul Anderson), Christine goes all out to take her down. Driven to the brink, Isabelle starts popping pills. Things escalate to the point of murder. A remake of the French psychological thriller Love Crime (2010).

Canadian actress Rachel McAdams has often been cast in the sweetheart role, from her breakout film romantic drama The Notebook (2004) to the recent romantic comedy About Time (2013).
But she actually first came to attention for playing a malicious queen bee in the comedy Mean Girls (2004). Here, she slips easily into the role of the scheming, sexually adventurous and vindictive Christine.
She is unapologetic when stealing credit for Isabelle’s idea and adds: “You have talent, I made the best use of it.”
Later, she kisses Isabelle in the back of a car and tells her that she loves her. How very European.
Noomi Rapace’s Isabelle is harder to read. She is Christine’s subordinate and is clearly envious of her life. To some extent, she falls for Dirk precisely because he is Christine’s lover.
Before the film ventures down the path of dark obsession trod by Single White Female (1992), however, it veers off in a different direction.
The undercurrent of rivalry between the two women surges into outright animosity as Christine publicly humiliates Isabelle and pushes her to the brink.
Director Brian De Palma starts using a different lighting scheme and, suddenly, every scene has striped shadows. Then he goes for a split-screen effect to depict Isabelle at the opera and Christine at home.
All of these signal that something momentous is about to happen, but it is still not fully persuasive when the film suddenly turns into a murder-mystery.
It is also rather trying when De Palma uses the cliched waking-from-a-dream device, not once, but twice, even if he does add a twist to it.
The director is best known for his suspense and thriller films from Carrie (1976) to Scarface (1983) to Mission: Impossible (1996). He has also helmed some duds from the high-profile adaptation The Bonfire Of The Vanities (1990) to the crime flick The Black Dahlia (2006).
Passion, belonging to the latter category, is unlikely to win him much love.
(ST)

S.H.E 2gether 4ever World Tour 2013
Singapore Indoor Stadium
Last Saturday
It was a night when tears flowed freely.
After a filming accident in October 2010 left S.H.E member Selina Jen with terrible burns, she faced a long road to recovery.
In November last year, the Taiwanese pop trio finally released their 11th studio album Blossomy. And with Jen, Hebe Tien and Ella Chen together on stage once more, S.H.E’s comeback is complete.
Jen had to undergo months of physiotherapy before she could even stand and walk. Last Saturday night, she danced and pranced about and commanded the stage with ease and the capacity crowd of 8,000 cheered her on.
The emotions got to her early on during her solo segment when she was singing Dreams. She started crying and could not continue for a while. When the song ended, she said: “I’m sorry, that’s the earliest I’ve cried while singing that song in concert.”
Their world tour started in Taipei in June and has taken them to Malaysia, Hong Kong, Macau as well as several cities in China. Singapore is the last leg of their tour.
After joking that fans could listen to the complete version of Dreams on disc, she thanked her supporters.
“I want to thank my fans for loving my flaws and my round face. When I was injured, your encouragement brought me back from the jaws of death.
“I couldn’t laugh, couldn’t run and jump, but I can do all that now. As long we’re alive, there’s hope, so never give up.”
Jen was later moved to tears again when Chen and Tien surprised her with an early birthday gift.
Jen, who turns 32 on Thursday, was handed a fake award for best television host from the other two. She took the opportunity to thank the important people in her life, from her husband and family to the doctors, who took care of her.
The concert did not just revolve around her though.
For her solo segment, Chen, who got married in May last year, laid to rest her former tomboyish image with a flapper-inspired gold number that showed off her sexy back.
She teased at one point that she had good news to share before adding: “I’m not pregnant yet.”
Among the three, Tien is the one who is a bona fide solo star with two well- received albums to her name. She performed Love and It’s OK To Be Lonely off the album To Hebe (2010) in a bohemian looking white dress with cascading hair to match.
While she was the most reserved on stage, it was also clear that the three women share a very close bond. And from their first album Girl’s Dorm (2001) till now, they have been through thick and thin together.
And through it all, they have been consistent hit-makers. They covered a good deal of ground at the gig from early favourite Underaged Lover to the Jay Chou-composed Tropical Rainforest to the playful Miss Universe.
And with two of the members now married, they seem to be more at ease with themselves and one another. Maybe it is because they no longer have to worry about being sweet young things and maintaining a dream-girl image. They joked about farting and boob size and Chen even kissed Tien and Jen in a bit of tomfoolery.
After all the tears that were shed, the three hour-plus-long concert ended close to midnight on a celebratory note.
The encore kicked off with Blossomy and they sang: “Finally, those you miss reunite/ Finally, all the injuries have healed/The flowers are blooming again, finally/My heart is again full of courage.”
They might have taken the words right out of their fans’ mouths.
(ST)

A Low-Key Life
Sandee Chan
On her last album I Love You, John (2011), Taiwanese singer- songwriter-arranger-producer Sandee Chan showed a more playful side.
Her new work, A Low-Key Life, though, harks back to the darker-themed electronica of If There Is One Thing That Is Important (2008).
While she previously purred about loving John, here, she touches on infidelity on the track, Affair. She sings tenderly in the mid-tempo number: “Oh, we both know in our hearts who is more pitiful/Since it’s Sunday, hastily say a few words of penitence to myself.”
She ponders on Christine how deep love can be: “I shouldn’t fantasise that two people means twice the stability/Winning your heart doesn’t mean your soul is mine.”
It is not just romantic entanglements that occupy her. On Fickle, she has even weightier matters in mind: “When life and death are fickle, we need to rethink everything/Unease and reality are written into a beautiful antithesis.”
The music and vocals are soothing, but there is nothing low-key about the emotions and ideas.
(ST)

Carrie
Kimberly Peirce
The story: Carrie White (Chloe Grace Moretz) is a misfit at high school and she is taunted by the other girls when she gets her first period in the showers. It seems too good to be true when a popular jock asks her to the prom and her deeply religious mother Margaret (Julianne Moore) warns: “They’re all going to laugh at you.” When they do, Carrie unleashes her telekinetic powers to horrific effect. This is the third film adaptation of the 1974 Stephen King novel of the same name.

Many a prom has been ruined by a dubious hairdo or what-was-I-thinking fashion choice. But in the history of disastrous proms, none can top the one in Carrie.
Even if you did not watch the classic 1976 version, you might have come across the unforgettable image of Sissy Spacek drenched in blood from head to toe in her prom dress. There was also a film made for television in 2002.
If not, the trailer helpfully sums up the entire arc of the latest film. The finale is a messy bloodbath in which Carrie unleashes her powers.
The problem is that the lead-up to this all-too- expected ending is simply not very interesting.
Director Kimberly Peirce is best known for the gender-bending romantic drama Boys Don’t Cry (1999), which won Hilary Swank a Best Actress Oscar. But here, she seems to have little idea of how to move the story forward. Everything is just too one-note.
Margaret is a sexually uptight religious nutjob and you know she is crazy because her hair looks like it is in desperate need of some tender loving conditioning care.
Her idea of mothering is shutting Carrie up in the “prayer closet” and filling her head with dark talk of sin.
Julianne Moore (The Kids Are All Right, 2010) makes her creepy, but there is something almost cartoonish about the role.
The rest of the characters are pretty much just plot devices from b****y mean girl Chris (Portia Doubleday) to Sue (Gabriella Wilde), who tries to make amends by getting her boyfriend to ask Carrie out.
At least Chloe Grace Moretz (Kick-Ass 2, 2013) makes you care for Carrie as she blossoms from awkward to pretty, and you just wish she could be freed from her mother’s clutches.
Perhaps the most disappointing thing about the film is that it barely registers on the scare scale. Maybe telekinesis is too tame in this day and age.
Flying books and cracking mirrors do not offer much thrill when special effects are routinely employed to more dramatic effect in films these days.
Even when the ante is upped at the end with half the school getting butchered, the outcome still falls short of being truly terrifying.
(ST)

Escape Plan
Mikael Hafstrom
The story: Ray Breslin (Sylvester Stallone) is a security expert who escapes from prisons to point out the flaws in them. For his latest assignment, he is planted inside a top-secret facility. Ray soon realises he has been incarcerated for good and will need the help of fellow prisoner Emil Rottmayer (Arnold Schwarzenegger) to make his escape.

The action genre does not seem like a particularly kind one for older actors, given its rigorous physical demands.
And yet, SylvesterStallone, 67, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, 66, continue to shoot them up in cinemas as though it were the 1980s.
Recent titles featuring them such as The Expendables (2010) and The Last Stand (2013) served up action with a self-aware tone which poked fun at their ageing with references to aches and pains.
There are no such subtleties here.
Escape Plan is essentially a B-grade thriller with a straightforward high concept: Watch Sly and Arnie bust out of a state-of-the-art prison, which is as high concept as it gets for these two.
The cells are transparent and the inmates’ every move is monitored by cameras.
There are no openings to the outside world and they have no idea if it is day or night. The guards are masked and heavily armed. In the cramped isolation cells, they get blinded by blazing artificial light.
Yet there is never any doubt Arnie and Sly’s characters will escape. Still, there is a certain pleasure in watching how the carefully set-up hurdles are overcome one by one.
Just do not quibble too much over the plot details.
One of the challenges facing Sly, as security expert Ray Breslin, is that he has to figure out where the prison is located.
So he manages to improvise a sextant from a pair of spectacles and a pen which, miraculously enough, provides a detailed and accurate reading even though he had nothing to calibrate the rough-hewn instrument with.
This should definitely make it to the list of skills every camper needs.
What was also fun was watching the two veteran stars play off each other as they team up against the silkily menacing warden played by Jim Caviezel, currently one of the good guys on TV’s surveillance thriller Person Of Interest.
Swedish director Mikael Hafstrom (The Rite, 2011) does a decent job with the pacing. He is also canny enough to give fans what they want, which means Sly and Arnie get to throw punches and also mow down the baddies with machine guns at some point.
It means you will not have to plot your own escape from the cinema hall before the movie is over.
(ST)

Fragile
Tizzy Bac
On their last album The Tell-Tale Heart (2011), Taiwanese indie band Tizzy Bac looked to master of the macabre, writer Edgar Allan Poe, for inspiration. This time around, it is the fragility of life that serves as muse.
There is a sense of urgency on synth-pop number One By One Oh We’re Gonna Die as lyricist and vocalist Chen Hui-ting warns “Don’t take it for granted and squander your youth and entire life” and “The colour of the story in the end will depend on the choices you’ve made”.
Existential angst is explored on This Is Because We Can Feel Pain: “Sometimes, standing in the face of terror/We need to get a grip and push on forward.”
The band are no one-note doomsday purveyors, though. Fragile is a rich and epic album that celebrates life as well.
Against a lush orchestral arrangement, gorgeous opener Tonight, Tonight, Tonight holds out an irresistible offer: “We can run away tonight, tonight, tonight/In the darkest night, the stars remain brilliant.”
Its sentiment is echoed in the closing number Armstrong’s One Small Step (I’ll See You In My Dream): “No matter how clamorous the world/Lift your head and you’ll reach the universe/In that vastness, I am a shimmer of light.”
May Tizzy Bac shine on.
(ST)

Plush
Catherine Hardwicke
The story: Plush frontwoman Hayley (Emily Browning) copes with the death of her brother and bandmate by writing songs about him. But the response to Plush’s new material is tepid. She works with replacement guitarist Enzo (Xavier Samuel) to give the songs some edge and their growing intimacy eventually turns sexual. Hayley, who is married with two young children, starts to pull back, but Enzo has other ideas.

This could have been a kinky little movie about sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll. But director Catherine Hardwicke tries to pack in too much and keeps shoving in the trappings of a thriller here.
Musical cues suggest something ominous is about to happen – and then nothing does. It gets a bit tiring after a few false starts.
For a while, Hayley’s downward spiral keeps one hooked. She might be married with children, but her behaviour is anything but wifely or maternal. Touring again to support a new album, she slips back into a hedonistic rock ’n’ roll lifestyle of boozing and sexual trysts with the replacement guitarist.
As played by Emily Browning (Sucker Punch, 2011), Hayley is largely a babydoll-faced cipher. Mostly, she exhibits questionable judgment. She even agrees to film an uncomfortably suggestive music video at her home, in the presence of her husband and children.
Given that the film is helmed by Hardwicke, the rather passive female character is something of a surprise. After all, the American film-maker is better known for films with stronger and more proactive women such as in youth drama Thirteen (2003) and in the fantasy Red Riding Hood (2011).
Instead, Enzo is the more fascinating role here, baiting both men and women with his bad boy rocker vibe. One could well imagine Xavier Samuel (The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, 2010) as the charismatic guitarist of some dark indie band.
Like a singer going disastrously off-key in a crescendo, the movie goes all haywire in its final act. The consequences of Hayley’s reckless behaviour come home to roost in a spectacularly ludicrous fashion.
It is so campy and over the top that you could end up laughing out loud. That is not a good sign when the film in question is not a comedy.
(ST)