I Am Me
Joi Chua
Local singer Joi Chua has moved on from her long-time sweet, demure image since 2012’s electronica-tinged Gains from her EP, Perspectives – and she is not looking back.
“I won’t be silent, silent, silent/I don’t want to go along, go along, go along/I don’t care about right or wrong/I just want to be me,” she sings in the mid-tempo title track of her new release, I Am Me, where she had a hand in composing all its eight tracks.
Even as she sports a trendy asymmetric crop on the cover, she still embraces the melodic and lightly melancholic ballads that she made her name with, such as Watching The Sunrise With Me and Waiting For A Sunny Day.
Bystander in the new work is a lovely ballad that plays nicely to her strength. She is smart enough to know that there is no need to chuck out what has been proven to work in the name of a makeover, which includes slightly more uptempo tracks that strike a more unusual note for Chua (the breezy See-saw and the dance-tinged Happiness That’s Late In Coming).
Over an accompaniment of hand claps, she glides into her higher range in the chorus of Happiness: “I believe love is just late a step, it hasn’t lost its way/Don’t be too quick to admit defeat, even if the whole world has started to take note of you.”
She is doggedly keeping the faith even when others have stopped believing.

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Mon Mon Mon Monsters
Giddens Ko
The story: Lin Shu-wei (Deng Yu-kai) gets bullied by his classmates, including a notorious trio led by Tuan Jen-hao (Kent Tsai). In an unexpected turn of events, he joins the gang. When they capture a cannibalistic human-like monster (Eugenie Liu), Tuan delights in torturing the creature. The question is how far Lin will go along with the rest of them. Meanwhile, another monster wreaks mayhem as she searches for her missing companion.

In the follow-up to his debut directorial feature You Are The Apple Of My Eye (2011), Taiwan’s Giddens Ko returns to the high school setting. That is pretty much the only similarity between the two films. Whereas Apple is light-hearted and endearing, Monsters is unrelentingly dark – which is not all that surprising, since Ko is known for his range as a writer.
He has penned stories in diverse genres ranging from romance and sci-fi to horror and wuxia. It would seem he does not want to be pigeonholed as a director who can do only a certain type of film.
But here it feels as though he was given free rein to indulge his excesses. So much so that the film feels unnecessarily drawn out with too many gee-how-can-we-top-this scenes of torture.
What keeps one watching is the fact that the fate of Lin hangs in the balance. Will he succumb to his worst impulses or will he heed his conscience? Deng conveys some of that conflict but he is not quite a breakout star the way Kai Ko was in You Are The Apple Of My Eye.
Incidentally, Ko shows up here in a fun cameo alongside Vivian Sung, star of the hit high school romance Our Times (2015).
Too bad the central question of who the real monsters are here is definitively answered early on.
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It can be tough being a fan of the hit fantasy series Game Of Thrones. The already long wait between seasons has grown only longer as schedules have been pushed back to accommodate winter shooting in European locales such as Northern Ireland and Iceland.
Well, if the show will not come to you soon enough, one option is to go to the show.
It is partly why my friends and I decided to visit Dubrovnik in Croatia. The old city is famed for its spectacular stone walls, which were built between the 7th and 17th centuries. They are 4 to 6m thick and loom impressively up to 25m high. In 1979, the old city was inscribed into the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) list of World Heritage Sites.
More importantly, Dubrovnik stands in for King’s Landing, the royal capital of Westeros and the Seven Kingdoms in Game Of Thrones. Many scenes from the show have been shot in the area and the best way to take it all in is to have a guide take one around.
Enter Ms Tonka Matana, 35, a PhD student in archaeology whose subject of research is none other than Dubrovnik.
Her more crucial credentials are that she is a huge fan of the show, has encyclopaedic knowledge of it and has even appeared in it as an extra in Season 4. Alas, she was cast as a peasant woman and only the noble folk extras got to take part in the death scene of evil King Joffrey at his wedding.
Also, her Tour The Game Of Thrones is ranked No. 2 on TripAdvisor under Tours in Dubrovnik.
She would set out a scene at length, detailing the season it was featured in, its context, the characters involved and even verbatim dialogue. Then she would flash a laminated screen capture to invite us to confirm that, yes indeed, Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage) came through this archway and Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) and Littlefinger (Aidan Gillen) shared a moment here on this ledge in Trsteno Arboretum. Caught up in the moment and encouraged by our guide, we posed for photos in merry imitation of the screengrabs. But it turns out that we were amateurs at this game.
A highlight of the tour was the Jesuit Stairs that connect Gundulic Square to the Church of St Ignatius in the old city. These grand stone steps were where Cersei Lannister started her infamous naked walk of shame (a body double stood in for actress Lena Headey).
As we gathered to take a group picture, Ms Matana said: “Oh, you’re getting photobombed. Wait, he’s taking his shirt off.”
And then we heard the lusty cries of “Shame! Shame!” as a topless man re-enacted the ritual of public humiliation.
In the show, Septa Unella does the trumpeting as she rings a bell while escorting Cersei. But instead of rotten fruit and spittle in the show, the man in real life is greeted with knowing smiles and indulgent laughter.
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Credit cookies, or extra scenes in movies that are gags or teasers for upcoming films, are often not worth watching
Spider-Man: Homecoming has two extra scenes. Airplane! (1980) has one. Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) has five.
Appearing during the end credits, these are called tags, stingers and credit cookies – but not all are worth biting into.
In Spider-Man: Homecoming, which opens in cinemas tomorrow, one of them is related to the movie plot and features a key character. The other is more of a throwaway gag and it could either tickle your funny bone or test your patience.
There has been a noticeable proliferation of these scenes in recent years. Superhero flicks such as Spider-Man are the main culprit,
I mean, main reason, for the spike.
With a Marvel Cinematic Universe of inter-related superhero films, the extra scenes are often teasers for movies to come. In Iron Man (2008), Samuel L. Jackson made a surprise cameo as Nick Fury from the agency S.H.I.E.L.D. and he brought up The Avengers initiative.
After the credits for Captain America: Civil War (2016), we saw Peter Parker (Tom Holland) lying in bed as his aunt, May (Marisa Tomei), asked about his injuries, pointing the way to Spider-Man: Homecoming.
Other times, though, things get a little too complicated.
The extra scene in Avengers:
Age Of Ultron (2015) showed supervillain Thanos (Josh Brolin) vowing to retrieve the all-powerful Infinity Stones himself. It looked towards the two-part Avengers: Infinity War, slated to hit cinemas in the next two years. Unless one was already a fan of the comic books, it was hard to figure out what was going on.
Maybe it is time for a moratorium on these bonus scenes. If they were that integral to the film, they would have made it to the part before the credits.
The extra scenes have spawned
a cottage industry online.
There are websites, such as What’s After The Credits? (aftercredits.com) and MediaStinger (mediastinger.com), that detail credit cookies and what they contain and even explanatory videos on YouTube.
MediaStinger also has a ratings chart to indicate whether the extras are worth staying on for – because, the truth is, few of them are actually that memorable.
How many can you recall? Can you say which was the best one without first heading to the sites mentioned earlier?
What works for me are the playful extras. They are not even necessarily scenes, but a bit of welcome comic relief.
Pixar is particularly good at this. A Bug’s Life (1998), for example, featured bloopers by the cast of insects. But, of course, there is no such thing as a bloopers reel for an animated film and each “outtake” has to be scripted and computer-animated from scratch.
Another animation company, Illumination Entertainment, also did well with Despicable Me (2010), in which a trio of the mischievous minions hammed it up during the credits as they competed to see who could stretch out farthest into the audience – a cute gag that also showcased the 3D effects.
Best of all are the outtakes in action superstar Jackie Chan’s movies. They are nothing less than an institution – where you witness the blood, sweat and tears, sometimes literally, that go into the insane stunts that he attempts for the sake of entertaining audiences.
In Armour Of God (1986), we see the accident that almost took his life when a tree branch he leapt onto broke and he plummeted 5m to the ground. He is carried off on a stretcher, amazingly enough still conscious, while holding up a piece of cloth to the right side of his head to staunch the bleeding.
Now, that definitely stings.
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The Servile
No Party For Cao Dong
The Servile is the sound of Taiwan’s disenfranchised youth venting their frustrations and it has struck a chord in their homeland.
At the recent prestigious Golden Melody Awards, the indie rock band No Party For Cao Dong took home three awards from six nominations, including Best New Artist and Best Musical Group.
Singer-songwriter Kay Huang, head of the Golden Melody judging panel, hailed their work: “They’re the explosion of a smothered generation.”
Their track Da Feng Chui (Simon Says), which won Song of the Year, is a scathing criticism of society’s obsession with material goods and the need for one-upmanship.
Using a simple everyday example, frontman Wu Tu sings without heat: “Cry, shout, ask your mother to buy a toy/Hurry to school and show off, child, make some friends/Aiyaya, look at what you’re holding/We’ve long disdained that, hahaha.”
That equanimity is shattered at the end when he tears into the chorus with a lacerating howl.
A sense of helplessness pervades The Reluctant (Yong Gan De Ren) as the singer rails: “Those cheap tears, don’t hang them by your mouth/Nothing has changed, nothing will change.”
The mood is bleak down to the final track Qing Ge (literally Love Song, but officially titled as Mottos, Bygones in English).
“I’ve sold my home town, lied to my lover/But the setbacks and terrors remain,” sings Wu Tu.
The album, which is seamless, stops short of feeling oppressive as the songs are powered by electric guitars and searing honesty, with disco beats and grunge influences thrown into the mix.
The band took their name from Cao Dong Street in Taipei’s Yangmingshan – a favourite hangout of their members, who include Chu Chu (guitar), Shih Hsuan (bass) and Fan Fan (drums).
They began selling out gigs in 2015 on the strength of their live performances and singles such as Lan Ni (Wimpish) before the release of their debut album in March last year.
Yet on Lan Ni, the band wrestle with self-doubt: “What I want to say, others have said before me/ What I want to do, people with money have already done.”
That sentiment is unwarranted – there is no question that No Party For Cao Dong have a voice that is distinctly their own.
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In This Corner Of The World
Sunao Katabuchi
The story: Suzu (Non) grows up in the seaside town of Eba in Hiroshima and later moves to Kure after marrying Shusaku (Yoshimasa Hosoya). A dreamer who loves to draw, she does her best to keep the household running in the midst of everyday challenges in a Japan at war. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking down to the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima on Aug 6, 1945.

Aside from the blockbuster bodyswopping fantasy Your Name, In This Corner Of The World was another anime that did well in Japan last year.
It has grossed more than 2.5 billion yen (S$30.6 million) and has also been showered with awards, including the Japan Academy Prize for Animation of the Year.
In terms of style, Your Name is highly detailed and vividly coloured, while In This Corner Of The World, based on the award-winning manga of the same name (2007-2009), features charming hand-drawn animation, as though harking back to the earlier era of the film.
But even with simpler drawings, writer-director Sunao Katabuchi – who helmed feminist fairy tale anime Princess Arete (2001) – convincingly conveys what life was like in wartime Japan for ordinary folk.
Suzu has to learn to stretch the limited rations she can get hold of into a meal that can feed a household. And when she accidentally runs out of sugar, she learns of the existence of a black market that caters to every need and want – at exorbitant prices.
Even in adverse times, life goes on. The cicadas continue to cry and good-hearted Suzu – voiced with a provincial homeliness by Japanese actress-model Non – finds little pockets of happiness, such as the affection she shares with her husband.
The war that Japan is waging in the region appears to have little to do with her personally, even though her life and everyone else’s are intimately bound up in it.
She is so distanced from it that when she gets chastised by the secret police for sketching warships, it comes as a bit of a jolt.
But the spectre of combat and destruction keeps inching closer to her life. Her husband is eventually drafted and then the air raids begin. Homes are levelled and lives lost.
In a poignant and masterful stroke, Suzu imagines the explosions in the sky as a colourful abstract painting, the only way she can process what is unfolding.
Looming over everything is the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and the horrors that will be unleashed.
Like the wrenching anime Grave Of The Fireflies (1988), In This Corner Of The World is ultimately an anti-war protest.
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Spider-Man: Homecoming
Jon Watts
The story: Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is a geeky 15-year-old student who is eager to prove his worth as Spider-Man to his superhero mentor Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr).
He sets out to take down Vulture (Michael Keaton), a working-class guy who turns to peddling alien material-enhanced weapons.
On top of that, Peter has to work up the courage to tell his crush Liz (Laura Harrier) how he feels.

When news of the latest Spider-Man reboot broke, many were sceptical, including myself.
Tobey Maguire had played the web-slinger in three films from 2002 to 2007 and Andrew Garfield had donned the suit for two outings in 2012 and 2014. In the space of merely 15 years, a third actor, Holland, was stepping into the role of Spidey.
It is a shrewd move to prevent the studio from being held ransom to any one actor’s salary demands, but it also means there is a danger of fans not feeling committed to the movie franchise.
To Holland’s credit, he makes the role his own. The English actor has already shown that he can act in tsunami drama The Impossible (2012), as a boy overwhelmed by grief and fear at first, and then blossoming as he finds he can help others in the aftermath of the disaster.
His Spider-Man is very much a teenager – impatient, impulsive and jonesing for his next big mission after joining the rest of the Avengers in battle in Captain America: Civil War (2016). We even get a shot-onPeter’s-mobile phone point of view of events that smartly recaps what happened previously while conveying his sense of awe and excitement.
Peter is also innately decent. For instance, he is repulsed by the idea of an “instant kill” mode in his souped-up-by-Stark suit.
Filipino-American actor Jacob Batalon is a great foil for him as his best friend Ned. When he learns of Peter’s secret identity, he lets loose with an endless volley of questions, including: “Do you lay eggs?”
Thankfully, there is no retread of the origin story of how Peter came to be Spider-Man, beyond a snappy exchange between the two friends.
The sense of humour, which is welcome, is also evident in a series of public education videos featuring Captain America. These are clips Peter encounters in the course of school life, highlighting the gulf between his identities as a regular student and a masked vigilante.
By making Spider-Man younger than before, Homecoming smartly sidesteps direct comparisons with previous incarnations of the superhero. The idea of an underaged superhero is not groundbreaking – Chloe Grace Moretz was just 13 when she played Hit-Girl on superhero comedy Kick-Ass (2010) – but director and co-writer Jon Watts (Cop Car, 2015) has a good grasp of Peter’s teenager world.
The villain here is not some madman or egomaniac, but a man who turns to crime as a result of the destruction wreaked by the Avengers in Civil War. The fact that actions have consequences is something most blockbusters blithely ignore. Bonus points for the cheeky casting as Keaton goes from Batman (1989) to baddie.
There are some nice twists as well and they keep Homecoming from turning into a mere retread of past successes.
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Much Feeling Little Thinking
Ivana Wong
On the album opener Starry Sky, Hong Kong singer-actress Ivana Wong croons intimately: “A dream is like plucking a star or plucking starlight, is it a question or an answer/What’s fake becomes real, what’s real panics.”
She teases apart dualities and finds riddles and conundrums. The song itself is always beguiling, with the pairing of Lin Xi’s probing lyrics and her pretty tune.
The surprising number starts as a piano ballad and then veers into electronica territory as her voice is manipulated and distorted. She is so confident of it that the second track is a piano-accompanied version that highlights the tenderness and yearning in her voice. It has been some time since such an enchanting Cantopop ballad came along.
We They is another collaboration with Lin in which dichotomies are dissected to intriguing effect: “How does grey judge black and white/How does the middle critique left and right/Who are we, who are they/Who’s knocking at the door, who’s willing to answer.”
The album feels a little too sprawling at 14 tracks and the narrative of Minor Surgery, for one, feels a little out of place. Included as well are a handful of Mandarin tracks, including the lilting Zhi Hu Zhe Ye (All Greek To Me).
While the title suggests that it is either one or the either, this record proves that Wong can make music that engages both the heart and the head.
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Okja
Bong Joon Ho
The story: For 10 years, Mija (Ahn Seo Hyun) has been living an idyllic life in the mountains of South Korea with her grandfather and her giant pig companion Okja. But Okja is actually the property of a multinational company headed by Lucy Mirando (Tilda Swinton) and she wants it shipped back to the United States to be crowned winner of a super pig contest.
Mija is determined to save her friend and gets some unexpected help from animal-rights activists, including Jay (Paul Dano) and K (Steven Yeun).

The bond between man and animal (real or imagined) has been explored recently in the family- friendly fantasy Pete’s Dragon (2016) as well as in Singapore-born film-maker Kirsten Tan’s whimsical drama Pop Aye (2017), in which an architect reunites with his childhood companion elephant.
Okja, which was in competition for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival last month, falls on the fantasy side of the spectrum.
The titular creature is a giant pig, one that sometimes resembles a hippopotamus, but with soulful eyes that suggest a strong connection with her human caretaker.
When Okja is threatened, Mija’s anger, fear and desperation are palpable. Ahn (The Housemaid, 2010) is compelling and will have you rooting for her.
The film is most satisfying when it dwells on their bond. The bucolic existence of a girl and her pig in a verdant and bountiful land, beautifully filmed by South Korean writer-director Bong Joon Ho, feels like a fairy tale.
Yet its shifting tone – from drama to comedy to thriller – is jarring.
This is disappointing, coming from Bong, who has produced excellent work, from the gripping thriller Memories Of Murder (2003) to the wrenching drama Mother (2009). And the superior creature feature from the film-maker remains 2006’s The Host.
When Okja is not a creature feature, it is bogged down by the other stuff, from the controversy over genetically modified food to corporate greed and deception.
Worse, Swinton’s performance is mannered and Jake Gyllenhaal’s exaggerated portrayal of an insecure television personality/zoologist comes across as gimmicky.
At least the activists are endearing in their reluctance to hurt any living thing, even their human foes.
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Mad World
Wong Chun
The story: After he is discharged from a mental health institution, Tung (Shawn Yue) moves in with his estranged truck-driver father (Eric Tsang). The former financial analyst tries to get a job and reaches out to his former fiancee, Jenny (Charmaine Fong). But the cloud of his mother’s (Elaine Jin) accidental death and his decision to go off his medication prove to be a potent combination.

There is a fine tradition of socially conscious films from Hong Kong, such as Ann Hui’s Boat People (1982), about Vietnamese refugees, and Cageman (1992), about the horrific living conditions of the territory’s destitute.
That mantle has been passed to a new generation of film-makers, such as Jevons Au and Kiwi Chow (dystopian Hong Kong portrait Ten Years, 2015), as well as Wong Chun, whose compassionate debut feature Mad World takes on the topic of mental illness.
To his credit, this never turns into a preachy “issues” film.
He depicts the malady of intolerance and fear towards mental illness, but does not pretend there are easy remedies. Mad World is an indictment, but it is not a didactic prescription about what should or should not be done.
Instead, the work is grounded by solid performances.
Tsang is a guilt-ridden father trying to make amends and finds himself confronted with difficult questions as the sole caretaker of his son: What is the right thing to do? What is the loving thing to do?
Yue plays a bipolar disorder sufferer trying to make his way in a world in which empathy and kindness are so hard to come by – proving there is more to his range than the laidback Jimmy he has played in the hit romantic comedy series that began with Love In A Puff (2010).
Even when Tung strikes up an unlikely friendship with a precocious little boy who lives in the same tenement unit, that connection eventually becomes fraught.
Jin as Tung’s pain-ridden, embittered and combative mother and Fong as the ex-fiancee struggling with forgiveness are portrayals that also ring true.
The deeply humanist film has been racking up accolades, including Golden Horse Awards for Best New Director and Best Supporting Actress for Jin; and Hong Kong Film Awards for Best New Director, Best Supporting Actress for Jin and Best Supporting Actor for Tsang.
It sold out three sessions at the Singapore Chinese Film Festival earlier this year and has now been picked up for general release.
The difference is that audiences will watch it in dubbed-over Mandarin, instead of the original Cantonese.

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Despicable Me 3
Pierre Coffin, Kyle Balda
The story: Evil-turned-good Gru’s (Steve Carell) nemesis here is a bitter former television child star, Balthazar Bratt (Trey Parker), who is determined to relive his glory days in dastardly ways. Gru also finds out that he has a twin brother Dru (Carell), who looks exactly like him – but with a full head of blond hair to his bald pate. And Dru wants them to team up to snatch a huge diamond that Bratt has stolen.

Three movies in and this series has settled on a nice mix of breezy tone, funny gags and sweet moments.
The opening sequence alone is enough to raise some smiles as Bratt pulls off a heist to the soundtrack of Michael Jackson’s irrepressible hit, Bad. The period details of the 1980s child star’s get-up are perfect, from the flat top mullet haircut to the over-the-top shoulder pads.
His army of weaponised figurines is jokily christened Bratt Pack, a reference to the Brat Pack – a group of young actors including Rob Lowe and Emilio Estevez who frequently appeared in coming-of-age movies in the 1980s.
Parker, creator of the no-holds- barred animated series South Park (1997 to present), has a ball voicing the petulant villain and so does Carell as he plays with the dynamic between the twin brothers: one who has given up a life of crime and one who is dying to dip his toes into shady business.
Director Pierre Coffin, who helmed the previous two instalments, pairs up with a new co-director, Kyle Balda, here. The two had worked together on the spin-off flick Minions (2015), the titular querulous, yellow creatures being the breakout stars of the Despicable Me series.
But while carrying an entire movie might have been a tad much for the little critters, they are still a blast in little, manic doses. The side story of their incarceration is a hoot as they wrest control of the jail away from the tough guys and eventually break out of prison.
The sweet moments involve Gru’s wife and fellow crime-fighter Lucy Wilde (Kristen Wiig) learning to be a mother to his three adopted daughters.
But not to worry, things don’t get too saccharine. In fact, the complicated relationship between Gru and Dru suggests that sibling rivalry could be on the cards for the next movie.
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Million Songs Hill
Xu Jun
Apart from Guo Ding, Xu Jun is another Chinese singer-songwriter who has found favour at the prestigious Golden Melody Awards.
His debut album, Million Songs Hill, has been nominated for Album of the Year and Best Mandarin Album. The results will be announced on June 24.
He took part in the second season of the reality television contest Sing My Song in 2015, but missed out on the Best Mandarin Male Vocalist category, in which Guo is up against familiar names such as Jay Chou, Yoga Lin and Khalil Fong.
The opening track, Shot By Love’s Gun, starts with a hymn-like organ introduction before Xu’s raspy voice paints a violent picture: “I was caught off-guard and shot by love’s gun/Collapsed in a pool of blood, but I’ve never thought of resisting.”
It is as though, in the face of a maelstrom of emotions, resistance is futile. But the chorus holds out hope: “I’ve tried hard to cross over these boiling waters and this door of anger.”
There is some variety, from the light-hearted Mess Around to the sole English number, Feathers, which Xu co-wrote with Australian singer-songwriter Hayley Aitken and Swedish writer-producer Ollipop. One can almost imagine him busking on the streets of Stockholm, where the album was recorded, with a guitar as he sings: “And as we go, go along, long this road/Passing people by/Like a leaf in the wind, we will rise and we will fall again.”
On the strength of this record, I would say that this is his time to rise.
(ST)

At points, it was the largest KTV room in Singapore, as the crowd of about 7,200 sang along fervently. At others, it was the largest Mandopop disco as the beats throbbed, the lights danced and the audience boogied along.

Taiwanese diva A-mei moved effortlessly from one scenario to the other at the Singapore Indoor Stadium on June 9, equally at ease belting out ballads or firing up the high-octane dance numbers in her World Tour 2017 concert that was almost three hours long.

It took a while though before her vocals warmed up fully.

On the opening string of fast-paced tracks, her voice seemed quite ragged and the energy level wasn't quite there.

Given that her previous show here was at the National Stadium just last January, there was also a certain familiarity to the proceedings as she blew kisses and exhorted her fans to "give me your hands".

An early standout number was Bloody Love Story. While it was perhaps rather literal to bathe the stage in red, it was also effective in creating a macabre mood.

Things picked up further when the dreadlocked A-mei started singing I Hate I Love You. Her voice took centre stage as she crooned to the accompaniment of a piano, and it was warm and powerful. This was followed by Have You Heard Lately?, Truth and Want Nothing, the fans' chorusing growing louder with each hit.

The gig also marked the singer's 20th anniversary milestone and she had a few surprises up her sleeve. (Strictly speaking, her debut album Sisters came out in 1996, but who's quibbling?)

She sang the moving Listen To Me as a tribute to her "good teacher and friend", Taiwanese singer-songwriter-producer Chang Yu-sheng, who died in 1997 after a car accident. The song was released when he was in a coma fighting for his life and because of the painful associations, she has rarely performed it.

There were other, happier memories.

A-mei turned back the years in a time travel segment in which she performed one song each from every one of her 16 albums, starting with the reggae-influenced Jamaican Betel Nut off Amit2 (2015).

On the track Rainbow (from 2009's Amit), she waved around a rainbow flag and said: "I'm cheering on every kind of love." She dusted off the almost forgotten Journey (2001) and later recalled that she had filmed a music video in Singapore for the ballad Early (from 2000's Regardless).

During Hand In Hand (1998), the crowd clapped along; during Thinking Of You (from 1997's Bad Boy), they waved their hands in the air as one as A-mei urged the audience to set a high bar for the following night's almost sold-out show.

It ended at the beginning with Sisters, the title track of the 1996 album that made her name. She sang the 2016 slowed-down version, as though taking a moment to reflect on far how she has come - and how far her fans have travelled with her.

By the end of the night, my voice was starting to get ragged. A-mei sounded like she could sing for another 20 years.

(ST)

x

The Silent Star Stone
Guo Ding

Chinese singer-songwriter Guo Ding is breaking out with his album The Silent Star Stone.
He has six nominations at the prestigious Golden Melody Awards, including for Album of the Year, Best Mandarin Album and Best Mandarin Male Vocalist. The results will be announced on June 24.
This is his third record after his self-titled debut in 2005 and Wei Wei (Slightly) in 2009, but listeners here are unlikely to be familiar with the Hunan-born musician, given his songs have not gotten much airplay here.
Well, better late than never.
His voice is a mesmerising instrument that pulls one in from the get-go.
He has a richly resonant set of pipes with a slight drawl that hints of both intimacy and attitude, one that is magnetic at the lower end of the register and equally persuasive on the higher reaches.
Guo is up for the Best Composer and Best Lyricist gongs with the opening track Qi Mei Di (The Fog Space), which begins with the evocative couplet: “I used to be unsettled river waters/Winding through the forest to enter your heart by mistake.” It builds up to an unabashed declaration of love: “Hey, wait till I find you/Probe your gaze/Embrace with no distractions.”
This is lush and swoonsome pop, propelled by a pulsing beat and urgency of feeling.
Ballad Shui Xing Ji (Mercury Records) is another standout, with its delicacy of melody and mood and a chorus that tugs at the heartstrings: “How much further before I can enter your heart/How long before I can get close to you.”
It is nominated for Best Music Video and the clip puts a sciencefiction spin on the loss of a loved one.
Some influences here are unusual for Mandopop, but Guo makes them all sound natural and cohesive, from the bluesy Luo Di Zhi Qian (Before Hitting The Ground) to the disco-tinged You Shen Me Qi Guai (What’s So Strange).
Three years ago, Chinese singer-songwriter Li Ronghao was named Best New Artist at the Golden Melody Awards and he has proven himself to be a major new force in Mandopop.
It looks like he might be getting some company from a fellow countryman very soon.
(ST)

God Of War
Gordon Chan
The story: General Qi Jiguang (Vincent Zhao) is tasked to deal with the scourge of pirates menacing coastal China during the Ming dynasty in the 1500s. One group of invaders has even taken over Cengang in Zhejiang province. It turns out that masterful Japanese strategist Kumasawa (Kurata Yasuaki) is pulling the strings behind these attacks. He and Gen Qi engage in a battle of tactics as he launches attacks on three different fronts.

Given that Hollywood blockbuster Pirates Of The Caribbean: Salazar’s Revenge is now showing, God Of War could easily be dismissed as “the other pirate movie”. That would be a pity, for there is quite a bit to treasure here.
At its helm is Hong Kong director Gordon Chan, who can be hit-or-miss, responsible for helming the overly CGI-heavy fantasy flick Mural (2011) as well as hit Stephen Chow comedy Royal Tramp (1992). Here, he delivers layered storytelling, gripping battle sequences and an even more exciting battle of wits between Qi and Kumasawa.
Things are more complicated than they appear to be at first glance. The pirates are a front for Japanese samurai keen on making money for military adventures back home; Qi has a reputation for being unbeatable, but the truth has been bent for the sake of propaganda; and Zhejiang governor Hu (Wang Ban) – Qi’s superior – could be corrupt or merely practical.
The characters are treated with some care.
Zhao delivers a convincing performance as Qi, who is heroic without being bland. For one thing, the general occasionally submits to his wife, a strong-willed woman who is capable of taking up arms when enemies attack. Chinese actress Wan Qian, from 2014’s Taiwanese drama Paradise In Service, acquits herself superbly in the role.
Unusually, the Japanese villains here are not caricatures – Yasuaki brings a certain dignity and pathos to wily strategist Kumasawa, who has to contend with an impatient and rash young master (Koide Keisuke).
God Of War’s engaging storytelling is a pleasant surprise, given that there are four names credited for its screenplay: Xiong Zhaozheng, Maria Wong, Frankie Tam and Wu Mengzhang. Happily, the proverbial broth is not spoilt by the many cooks.
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Lucky Boy
Boris Boo
The story: Lin Yu (Wang Weiliang) seems destined to always be No. 2 in whatever he does, coming up just short every single time. When he meets Qingqing (Venus Wong) as a little boy, he carries a torch for her that burns for many years even as they are kept apart by circumstances and the other men in her life.

Wang Weiliang broke out as Ah Beng soldier Lobang in the national service-themed ensemble Ah Boys To Men films (2012-2015) with his swagger and assured screen presence.
He gets the chance to be the leading man here but, unfortunately, in a role that calls for him to be mousy and timid most of the time.
Even worse: While the idea is for this to be an epic romance in the vein of Taiwanese hits You Are The Apple Of My Eye (2011) and Our Times (2015), the vibe between him and pretty but bland Hong Kong actress Venus Wong (King Of Mahjong, 2015) is more amicable than passionate.
The will-they-or-won’t-they premise drags out for far too long.
The movie could have done with a much-needed trim, especially the jarring jump from light-hearted comedy romance to melodrama in a teary rooftop scene between Lin and his father (Chew Chor Meng).
The attempt to add some heft by incorporating real-life events from the Hotel New World collapse in 1986 to the Sars outbreak in 2003 does not really work.
These momentous episodes are reduced to the equivalent of movie wallpaper populated by a cast stuck in underwritten roles, including local 1980s television star Chen Xiuhuan as Lin’s over-protective mother.
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18
Z-Chen Chang
Malaysian singer Z-Chen Chang’s last studio album of original material, In Love With... (2011), still lingers on my mind with his moving take on the ballads Invaluable Advice and Met Too Soon, both of which were penned by Percy Phang.
Bruises, the opening track from the new album, also composed by the Johor Baru-born, Taiwan-educated Phang, is not quite as effective. Listen instead to the bruising emotions of Walk Away, composed by Zheng Yujie, who was also behind the title track of Rainie Yang’s 2016 album Traces Of Time In Love: “I walk away, carve my memories into a memorial/I walk away, break free of these surging tears.”
The following Fight For Love, music and lyrics by Phang, offers a welcome change of pace and a more pro-active stance: “If you really love someone, you will fight for love.”
On the whole, though, 18 is less memorable than his earlier effort. Maybe Chang needs to fight for more distinctive material.
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29+1 (PG)
Kearen Pang
The story: Calorie-counting and vitamin-popping executive Christy Lam (Chrissie Chau) gets a promotion at work, but she starts to question what she wants in life on the eve of her 30th birthday. When she is forced to move from her apartment, she ends up in the charmingly and whimsically decorated home of Wong Tin Lok (Joyce Cheng), who turns out to share the same birth date and is on her dream vacation to Paris.

Rat-race fatigue is not exactly new or unusual and Christy’s story – which writer-director Kearen Pang first staged as a one-woman play in 2005 – feels a little too familiar to be revelatory.
Perhaps a stronger actress would have made the role more sympathetic. Chau, who remains better known for her pictorial books than acting chops, is adequate here, but not quite compelling enough.
Things get more interesting with the entry of Tin Lok.
Carefree and cheerful, the unambitious record store assistant is the polar opposite of Christy.
Cheng is very good, admittedly in a role that is easier to like. There is a joy and sweetness to her performance that lights up the screen and there is nice rapport between her and Babyjohn Choi, who plays Tin Lok’s best friend.
Pang draws parallels between the lives of the two women and, intriguingly, Christy starts to imagine herself as Tin Lok. It feels a little jarring here because Chau and Cheng are physically so different.
One cannot help but think that this conceit would have worked better in the one-woman play, when Pang slipped in and out of both roles.
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In the recent Chinese suspense thriller The Mysterious Family, a mother was confronting her daughter’s rapist in an emotionally charged scene, when the subtitles suddenly took centre stage and wrested attention away from what was happening onscreen.
“You have the nuts to do it, why not have the balls to admit it?”
In Mandarin, the line went: “Ni you zhong zuo, wei shen me mei zhong cheng ren?” A simpler and more effective translation could have been: “You had the guts to do it, why don’t you have the guts to admit it?”
Mixing nuts and balls is clearly a case of a subtitler gone rogue.
Subtitles for a movie should be like that old adage about children – seen but not heard, or draw attention to themselves.
They play an important role in broadening the audience for a work, but they should be subservient to the movie.
At least in The Mysterious Family, there was effort expended on the subtitles, misguided though that line was.
That cannot be said for the awful errors in other films.
In the local horror comedy, The Ghosts Must Be Crazy (2011), a character is described as a “sicklish chicken”. A spellcheck would have revealed that there is no such word as “sicklish”.
The Korean drama, Natali (2011), billed as the first erotic movie shown here in 3D, thrust ungrammatical Mandarin and English subtitles in the audience’s faces rather than sexy shenanigans.
And the Chinese adventure flick, For A Few Bullets (2016), undermined the charms of its rakish leading man Lin Gengxin with subtitles that were rife with errors, including this: “Some warlords forces used violent mechanic to destroying the tomb.”
These films have a production budget, but no one thought it was worth spending some money to get right something as basic as the subtitles.
I am far more forgiving when it comes to fansubs – these are subtitles done by fans for which they are not paid. Even when the English is laboured – as though chunks of dialogue had been dumped into the input column of Google Translate and the results simply copied and pasted from the output column – I am thankful.
After all, without their labour of love, I would not have access to the likes of Thai-language television dramas.
The hard work of these fans is sometimes recognised by the actors themselves and getting that acknowledgement by one’s idols must be such a thrill for them.
On the Facebook page for the Thai drama, Part Time The Series – about university students who work to make ends meet – there is a photo of lead actor Luangsodsai Anupart (also known as Ngern) holding up a handwritten thank-you sign to the subtitles team for the show.
Once in a while, one gets reminded that these amateur subtitlers have lives outside of their time-consuming hobby.
There was a plea – in subtitles in an episode I watched – for viewers not to hound them for new, captioned episodes as they were having exams and that they would get to it when they had the time.
In another show, the subtitler was so involved with the drama that he berated a character for his behaviour in comments generously sprinkled with exclamation marks.
It was like a special DVD running-commentary bonus feature – except that this could not be turned off.
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Love Off The Cuff
Pang Ho Cheung
The story: In this sequel to Love In A Puff (2010) and Love In The Buff (2012), Jimmy (Shawn Yue) and Cherie (Miriam Yeung) are living together happily. But this state of affairs gets shaken up by the appearance of Jimmy’s “godmother” (Jiang Mengjie), a childhood friend who asks a big favour of him, and also by Cherie’s father (Paul Chun) getting remarried to a younger woman.

Hello again, old friends.
Moviegoers have watched Jimmy and Cherie banter, bicker and fall in and out of love. Five years after their last big-screen outing, it is a pleasure watching them go at it again.
There is quite a bit of fan service here, from the way Cuff opens with a seemingly unrelated story – similar to the earlier two films – to all the references to events that took place previously, such as Cherie’s supposed fling with actor Ekin Cheng, who played himself in part two.
Credit again goes to director and co-writer Pang Ho Cheung for crafting funny and incisive dialogue that makes the characters come alive, whether they are chatting about childhood television memories or Cherie discussing with a friend the problem of white pubic hair.
The characters are lived-in and their situations feel intimately real.
In a way, Jimmy and Cherie keep circling around the same issues: She thinks he is too immature, he does not understand why she makes a big deal of things.
Despite the best of intentions, they do not solve a problem once and for all.
It comes back in different guises in an ongoing relationship and they keep having to work through it.
Still, each time, the characters learn a little more about each other and keep you rooting for them.
In a nice touch, they get good advice from the unlikeliest of people and that seems to be a reflection of the film’s sweet-naturedness – even minor characters are treated with affection.
Yue and Yeung slip so easily into their roles that it is easy to mistake them for Jimmy and Cherie. But make no mistake, this is unaffected acting at its best. (For comparison, see Yue’s contrasting performance in 2016’s Mad World, a moving drama about mental illness.)
Whereas the obstacles in the second instalment seemed too obvious – Jimmy and Cherie were paired with people they were clearly not meant to be with – this time around, they strike closer to home as Cherie faces her deep- rooted fear of abandonment.
The “godmother” subplot is more of a stretch, but it does nudge the couple to think about marriage and children.
At its core, the Jimmy and Cherie series is a traditionally minded romance, one that is believably contemporary and done well with plenty of heart.
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