Music Obsessions – May 2023

Welcome to (a slightly delayed) Music Obsessions! We continue on with our focused look at Cantopop as this time we turn over to a female singer, Miriam Yeung that I actually watched her step into fame when she came in as first runner-up at the 1995 Hong Kong New Talent Singing Awards. While her career started out with its share of issues, over the many years, she has garnered a certain level of professional attached to her work both as a singer and as an actress. Of course, we’re looking at the singer elements as I dive into a few songs that I’m a big fan of mostly from the start of her career but also looking up some newer songs that have caught my eye.

抬起我的頭來 Lift Up My Head- 楊千嬅 Miriam Yeung

We’re going through Miriam Yeung’s discography in order of release this time to see the growth that she’s had as well as how I’ve been introduced to her music through certain songs. The first song that hit my radar was this one which was not part of her debut album but in the Summer Story album launched four years after the singing contest. You can hear the potential in her voice and the youthfulness but there still lacks a certain polish. This song is very optimistic and encouraging in its lyrics and its one of the reasons why I liked it a lot when it was first released.

姊妹 Sisters – 楊千嬅 Miriam Yeung

To me, my favorite album that solidified Miriam Yeung as a singer to keep an eye out for was her album Miriam in 2001 which I personally own and has a lot of good songs. While there’s no doubt that the hit of the album was Wild Child and I do love that song a lot, I’m a big fan of this song, Sisters. It seems to be mentioned much less but its such a great song both in the music elements but also the lyrics.

假如讓我說下去 If You Let Me Finish Talking- Miriam Yeung 楊千嬅

Much like this song which I translated roughly but this is by far my absolute favorite song of Miriam Yeung’s. I’m not quite sure why but it might have to do a lot with teenage angst back in the day. I do come back to this song every so often and still feel like its rather underrated and do believe that it still holds up with how good it is. Especially the build-up part for the final verse, it gets me every time.

勇Courage- Miriam Yeung 楊千嬅

Released in 2002 as the theme song of a action comedy that she was a female lead, marking something of a debut to her acting career in Love Undercover, Courage is probably one of Miriam Yeung’s most popular songs and rightfully so as it delivers a positive message about courage in life reflecting the film really well but also to young women at the time it was released. Its one of the songs that has stuck around with the general public, probably only two or three other songs really meet that same level of familiarity like Kisses Everywhere and Too Bad I’m Not An Aquarius.

滾 Get Out!- 梁漢文 Edmond Leung/ 楊千嬅 Miriam Yeung

A big fan of this song which I believe is part of Edmond Leung’s discography BUT this song really leaves a strong impression since its the rare song where the song itself is a conversation and argument between a couple of a husband suspecting his wife of cheating on him. The suspicions and the doubts in a relationship all gets put to the forefront in their argument throughout the song. It has such a nice pacing to the whole song. The play on words of the title of the song is always a little tricky since it can be interpreted as “Get Out!” or “F**k Off” but is also the word for Cheating in Cantonese. I’m not quite sure how long this focused discography of Music Obsessions will last but if it lasts for a while, we will definitely get to Edmond Leung eventually.

還有事情可慶祝 There Are Still Things Worth Celebrating- 楊千嬅 Miriam Yeung

Every time I choose these singers, I always choose the last song as their latest release or a newer song that I’ve discovered recently. Despite the many love ballads about heartbreak and such, Miriam Yeung’s discography has been relatively cute and positive. Its obvious this was released during the pandemic or as the tail end of it as an encouraging song that even in the hard times, there’s always something to celebrate. Its also a nice showcase of the start of her singing career to now, she’s really polished and refined her voice into such a powerful and soothing one.

That’s it for this Music Obsessions!
What have you been listening to?

Hidden Blade (無名, 2023)

Hidden Blade (無名, 2023)

Director (and writer): Er Cheng

Cast: Tony Leung, Yibo Wang, Chengpeng Dong, Zhou Xun, Eric Wang, Huang Lei, Mori Hiroyuki, Shuying Jiang, Jingyi Zhang

Follows the story of underground workers who risked their lives to send intelligence and defend the motherland, set after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor when the Wang Jingwei regime declared war on Britain and the U.S. – IMDB

The last chapter of Bona Film Group’s China Victory Trilogy (which feature separate stories), Hidden Blade is a World War II espionage thriller. The film is structured from scattered events throughout the Japan-China War of Resistance from the bombings of Guangzhou to Japan’s surrender. Structured in a scrambled timeline of events, the espionage thriller right away implicates that there will the unknown elements of which character is secretly working for their own forces while on the service the characters all work for Japanese espionage agencies performing at times some brutal moments. Between the director’s intricate script and the outstanding cast selected for this film, Hidden Blade delivers a great thriller and will keep the audience keeping its detective hat on to spot who is not who they appear to be.

Hidden Blade is a visually stunning film. Er Cheng crafts a film where every scene is set up beautifully. There is a wonderful and atmospheric use of lighting and the cinematographic grasp of each scene from where the characters of placed all add to the suspense. The artistic element sets its tone right from its first scene with darkened space and Tony Leung’s character sitting on a chair with nothing much around and he just turns to the camera. With that said, the structure of the scrambled storyline is one that relies on having a decent knowledge of what happened between Japan and China with the Chinese Communist Party and Japan’s invasion. While that’s the case, it does give common knowledge like the attack on Pearl Harbor for wider known events which gives a good point of reference for that timeframe.

The script does touch a few details to give it the basic foundation but knowing more does help with grasping how the timeline moves back and forth through different events and scenes. It does help that the film makes the effort to add in the necessary timestamps to make it easier to grasp. Once the different scenes are set up at the beginning, it does become easier to figure out the sequence and follow the story. While the scrambled storyline takes a little bit of time to adjust to, it does help to create the suspense for the characters and their actions. There are certain hints like drops of blood and a newspaper on the table to help hint towards certain events but a lot of the reveals are cleverly written to give its twist in the final act. Another great element of the film is the language it uses and even for Chinese audience, it will still require subtitle reading as it moves between Mandarin, Japanese, Shanghainese and Cantonese.

The cast is a highlight with Hong Kong veteran actor Tony Leung, most notable to the Western audience from In The Mood of Love and more recently, in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. For those familiar with his filmography, this is right up his alley as he has done films before from this era as well like Lust, Caution but also excels in a variety of genres, much like his work in Infernal Affairs. There is no doubt that Tony Leung is the headliner for this film. However, China’s rising young celebrity Yibo Wang is one that does a fantastic job as well. Multitalented musically as his boyband debut in South Korean band Uniq as their rapper and dancer, his recent years of acting has opened up a lot of opportunities, most notable for popular TV series The Untamed (which is currently available on Netflix Canada and Youtube). Hidden Blade is probably the most sophisticated role he has taken on and proved that he is capable of delivering both a subtle character but also not afraid for the action scenes. While his role as Mr. Ye is mostly paired with his partner Mr. Wang, played by Eric Wang, there are some pivotal plot points that deliver some well-choreographed action scenes. The leading cast between these two are very deceptive for the majority of the film.

The supporting actors are also pretty big names. Eric Wang, Huang Lei and Chengpeng Dong are all renowned actors in China. These three all have rather significant roles in Hidden Blade and each has their own twists and reveals. Its as much as praise again to the intricate script and in turn, the character design as none of the characters are what they seem. Its a strong male cast in this film and reasonably so due to the decade and era that its set. However, the limited female cast also gets very little screen time which is most surprising with Zhou Xun as Ms. Chen who is one of the biggest female actresses in China. While Ms. Chen doesn’t have a big role, her character is embedded in a few plot points in Hidden Blade. Unlike her, actress Shuying Jiang mostly known for TV series like The King’s Avatar (currently on Netflix Canada) and Nothing But Thirty who has one scene in Hidden Blade as an alluring character called Ms. Jiang who we can only wish had a bigger role as that one scene was very memorable.

Hidden Blade is a well-executed espionage thriller. It has all the pieces to put together a thoughtful and clever story set in a significant part of history especially for China as they were oppressed by foreign powers. It focuses heavily on the Japanese espionage agencies inner working with its various characters and spends the film making the audience wonder who is not what they seem. Packed with an exceptional cast, visually stunning cinematography and a well-constructed non-linear thriller, Hidden Blade is definitely a great addition to Chinese cinema.

*Screener provided by Well Go USA*

Music Obsessions – August 2022

Welcome to this month’s Music Obsessions! The last month was pretty fun as a lot of new music videos landed and others popped up on my list from various shows and whatnot. All Chinese music from different spaces and styles but all very fun stuff! Let’s check it out!

最偉大的作品 Greatest Works of Art – 周杰倫 Jay Chou

Jay Chou is basically my youth seeing as he got famous in the prime of my post-secondary days around 2003 and he became the center of a lot of conversations and his songs became the focus of karaoke days back then as well making him an musician that I’ve been following for a long time (with some gaps in the middle) and I’ve shared quite a few songs of his. I should really considering doing a focus post on him when we get a slower month. This month, he dropped this one which the song itself is nice but the video is one that is even better, especially for those who watched his J-Style Trip on Netflix where you see some of his best friends pop up in this music video as well as he travels through time, performs a few magic tricks while recreating the art masterpieces.

一格格 Frames – 衛蘭 Janice Vidal

There’s a chunk of Janice Vidal’s discography which is an empty space for me when I stopped listening to Cantopop for a while (or at least the new stuff over a decade as I lost a little faith in what was coming out) and now its a lot of catch-up. This popped up mostly because of the Chinese singing variety show and their really good rendition but the original very nice. The whole chill vibe really suits the song and is such a feel good song in general.

賽勒斯的愛 Cherlas – 張敬軒 Hins Cheung

Its been a long time since I have looked up Hins Cheung’s new music. Funny enough he is rather underrated since he went onto the music scene fairly quietly and had a few hits but no one really knows him that well (at least in my circle of friends). This one oddly popped up my recommended videos recently. Somehow I found it rather catchy. The story is well portrayed in the music video as well. The lyrics are decent as well.

隆里电丝 Lonely Dance – KEY.L刘聪/ICE杨长青/盛宇DamnShine/Ricky

My latest variety watch is the latest season of The Rap of China Season 4 or something. I’m not an avid watcher of this variety show but this season is a competition of the best of the best or something so some pretty cool competitors in competition show. While I don’t really share a ton of variety show stuff, this one did get released as a single by one of the performers here but I still prefer the performance version more, mostly because I really do like ICE as a rapper and the whole guitarist Ricky is a super nice addition. Its a fun funky rap song which is kind of how I like hip hop music or just the fact that rap itself can be incorporated into so many different styles of music. This is a great example of it.

最後一堂課 Graduation – Eric Chou 周興哲
(“Mom, Don’t Do That!” End Theme)

I’m not sure if people actually watch Taiwanese series, even if they are Netflix series but I’ve had my eyes on them for a while and slowly catching up with it. The recent release of Mom, Don’t Do That! Is where this song is from. I do like Eric Chou quite a bit as well and he is diving into acting as he takes a cameo role in the series. The song does match certain parts of the series pretty well.

That’s it for this Music Obsessions!

Music Obsessions – May 2022

Welcome to this month’s Music Obsessions! I think the big takeaway from April is that I survived yet another year of it! This year was especially challenging. Luckily, there was two newly added TV show on Netflix for a fun Chinese Drama with a decent soundtrack and a martial arts world newly released Tencent one and a new singing variety show that launched very recently which provided me lots of music to share plus bringing back a lot of nostalgia for Cantopop classics.

Facade 被人 – Joker Xue 薛之谦

For a modern series based on the esports world, Falling Into Your Smile isn’t exactly the best of its recent batch using this setting but the soundtrack for this one still is pretty fun. Of course, I’ve shared a bunch of Joker Xue songs in these Music Obsessions. Its rare to see him doing songs for a TV series OST but this song really blends well with the series. I love his voice and the song itself is pretty good.

Soulmate 第一默契 – Xu Kai 许凯 & Cheng Xiao 程潇
(“Falling Into Your Smile” Ending Theme)

Continuing on with the soundtrack for Falling Into Your Smile, it seems suitable to add in at least one of the theme songs especially since it includes a duet from the two main leads which had pretty good chemistry. It brings me back to when I was talking about Cheng Xiao earlier this year when I shared the duet for The World of Fantasy. This music video also captures the TV series pretty well especially the romantic chemistry element. This time, Xu Kai is a much more seasoned actor so probably in terms of singing its not quite as good but it still captures the vibe of the show.

无双 Wu Shuang – Liu Yuning

The latest Chinese series to land on Netflix is Who Rules The World which actually is getting some pretty impressive ratings as its airing in China right now. It probably has to do with the main leads Yang Yang and Lusi Zhao who are in a lot of TV series which has pretty high profile. However, its nice to see them in this sort of martial arts/fantasy world where they do fit so very well together. The script itself is done really well and the chemistry behind them including the world building is so far is good. Plus, the main theme here is by one of my fave up and coming singers, Yuning Liu. I mean, I share a ton of his music here already.

Infinity and Beyond 声生不息 – Performance Favorites

One of my favorite music variety shows to land this while is Infinity and Beyond. In commemoration of the 25 years of Hong Kong Handover, the show invites both Mainland China and Hong Kong singers to group together in men and women team in a competition format ranging from new to veteran singers to battle against each other. Every competition evening includes 2 top choices along with the winning team and audience performance which will eventually be compiled to a soundtrack for the show at the end. Its a pretty neat idea especially since it takes a lot of the Hong Kong classics and gives it a new life for the newer generation. Plus, most of the show doesn’t feel like a competition and just a bunch of good and great singers gathered together to share some good performances. It was pretty hard to narrow down what I liked since there’s quite a few but I didn’t want to overload everyone since a lot of this has to do with nostalgia.

初恋 First Love – Mike Tsang 曾比特

卡拉永远ok Forever Karaoke – 魔动闪霸

海阔天空 Boundless Oceans Vast Skies – Women Team With Audience

That’s it for this month’s Music Obsessions!
What have you been listening to lately?

Schemes in Antiques (古董局中局, 2021)

Schemes in Antiques (古董局中局, 2021)

Director: Derek Kwok

Cast: Jiayin Lei, Xian Li, Zhilei Xin, You Ge, Tao Guo, Mei Yong

Adapted from Ma Boyong’s novel of the same name, the film tells the story of a series of adventures that occurred when the descendants of the five veins made a wish to find out the truth about the Buddha head of Wu Zetian Mingtang in the Tang Dynasty. – IMDB

It’s always nice to have a film that delivers exactly what it says. Literally. Schemes in Antiques is exactly a plot revolving schemes in antiques. This Chinese film is a treasure hunt adventure which touches on a little bit of Chinese history and antiques. While the structure of the plot isn’t exactly novel, the approach using the Chinese antiques and following the characters to solve the puzzles to go to the next clue to find the elusive Buddha head that caused the main character’s family history to be tainted, leaving him in the undignified state that he lives in. There are secrets and twists and adventure plus a bit of family drama in the backstory that works well together.

Schemes in Antiques may seem like very straightforward just from its title alone and probably taking away a bit of the mystery itself. However, it has its own sort of fun elements. Its a plot which centers around a race to finding the truth behind this artifact that was supposed given to Japan but turns out to be fake. As two descendants go on this hunt, their different strengths lead them in different pacings on the trail. Both of these two characters have their own family legacies to fight for with the main character Xu Yuan having a much more direct motive: to find out the truth behind whether his ancestors did disgrace their family name.

The cast itself is pretty decent. The main character, Xu Yuan played by Jiayin Lei is pretty well-casted. While I haven’t seen this actor other than in variety shows, he does capture this role which floats between the constantly drunk electronic store owner with an exceptional antique knowledge living in the shadows of his disgraced family name from his grandfather and the neglect from his own father. However, his encounter with the daughter of one of the members of the antique society becomes an alliance that takes them for quite the dangerous adventure. In a film full of men, this character shines out played by Zhilei Xin who has her own motives to prove that a woman can also amount to purpose to break his father’s old-fashioned mindset. Their competition or opposition is played by Xian Li, the only cast here that I am familiar with especially after his burst of fame after Chinese TV drama series Go Go Squid! (one of my absolute favorite Chinese series as a side note) which has opened up the doors to a huge variety of roles in the past few years. He captures this role pretty well as his character straddles a line throughout as someone with ulterior motives but remains relatively mysterious right up to the end.

Overall, Hong Kong director and screenwriter Derek Kwok’s venture into the China market with this film is a pretty fun one. The runtime is a little wild at over 2 hours and at times feels a little lengthy but the adventure and action is pretty well done and adds in a little bit of comedy, which primarily is in the beginning. The film does build up a certain level of tension by the end and adds a decent twist to the plot in terms of character and the treasure hunt turnout for this antique. With a decent cast and a focus on the Chinese history and adventure based on some puzzle-oriented clues with some Chinese origins as well, it gives the film a unique angle to a fairly basic treasure hunt adventure film.

*Screener provided by Taro PR*

Music Obsessions – October 2021

Welcome to this month’s music obsessions! The past month has been quite interesting. Looking back, there hasn’t been a lot of new music that I’ve discovered since I’ve been watching a lot of variety shows and stand-up comedy shows. However, fret not, just enough fun music to share this time around! As usual, some fun extras from variety show Singing With Legends at the end.

Let’s go!

不超级的马里奥 Mario Is Not A Superman – Ma Ye 马也

I love funky music like this that plays on video games or other pop culture stuff in their own twist. The whole song has some really fun lyrics about how Mario isn’t super in his pursuit for Princess Peach and whatnot which breaks the norm and its fairly entertaining over with its rhythm and music.

你不適合兩個人 You Aren’t Suitable for Two People – Sunnee 楊芸晴

While I never followed Rocket Girls 101 much, I actually do like Sunnee a lot whether its from her appearances in variety shows or her performance ability. I’ve been going back to listen to some of her singles and they all are pretty good. This is her latest single (I think) and while the music video has some awkward overacting, the song itself is pretty good. The whole thing is pretty simple but somehow Sunnee’s voice is one that I find so soothing to listen to.

違背的青春 Against Youth – Joker Xue 薛之謙

I don’t really actively follow Joker Xue’s music normally but whenever his music pops up wherever I always end up searching up the music since his voice is very unique mostly for how he sings. This time its from the new season of Singing With Legends where he performs this song. The performance itself is also pretty good (even if something funny happens) but there’s nothing better than sharing the original so here we go! Its also a different song from previous songs that I’ve shared before of Joker Xue’s songs as its not about love but more about youth and life itself.

不良少年 High School Punk- Lil Ghost小鬼王琳凯

I’ve shared a good few Lil Ghost’s songs at this point. Its pretty nice to see that as he develops his music career, he has proved that he is a great rapper and hip hop artist but also equally capable in other styles of music. The last few songs that he’s released has broken away from the usual hip hop style from when he started and has changed slowly but its always very upbeat and fun songs.

Pull Up- Panthepack

Panthepack has definitely been releasing their song’s very regularly now. The last few weeks had a few new releases. Jackson Wang creating this hip hop group really is quite interesting especially after I recognized the other three artists. One of them being more familiar as he was a mentor in Listen Up Season 1. Either way, their songs and music videos have pretty decent budget behind it and really good production value. I do like this one a lot as it does feature a lot of different hip hop artists from the Chinese entertainment industry in the video. Plus, its super upbeat and full of positive and happy vibes. Its like the joy of having fun with friends. Good times overall.

Extras from Variety Show “Singing With Legends Season 3”

I absolutely love the Chinese variety show Singing with Legends. At Season 3, this season has some of my favorite singers gathered together so suffice to say, I can’t give up a chance to share some of George Lam’s duets. Both songs are basically Hong Kong classics. The favorite is a mesh of Danny Chan’s song with a little snippet from Rod Stewart’s Sailing. Its a great new rendition.

The second is from their performance after the group’s have been formed in A Team for George Lam and Fox Hu. George Lam is one of my favorite singers even if I don’t listen all time. This song of his is one of my easily Top 5 favorite songs ever. This rendition definitely didn’t disappoint. Its hard to imagine that George Lam is 74 years old and still sings so incredibly good.

That’s it for this Music Obsessions!
What have you been listening to recently?

Music Obsessions – September 2021

September is here! Next Music Obsessions is here as the first weekend arrives! This month has been a decent mix. Its mostly songs that I’ve found through different variety shows and TV series. Considering there’s a lot of variety shows I’m watching that are music-oriented, so its pretty fun overall.

我只能離開 I Can Only Leave – Renzhong Yan 顏人中

While I have my opinions on Chinese drama A Little Thing Called First Love and should get a TV binge out for it at some point this coming month, this song is really good. I always catch music by Renzhong Yan here and there but never can pinpoint his music specifically. However, I do like his voice overall. Its pretty unique. Plus, this song worked really well in the series in terms of the lyrics so it was a memorable one.

3189 – 焦迈奇 Maiqi Jiao

3189 is an absolutely unique song. The most random song ever if anything right from the lyrics to the music video itself. Something about getting sleep back and happiness and a bunch of odd things and yet, somehow there’s this very catchy element of all the conversation where it feels somehow relevant to what its about as it pulls in Mary Had A Little Lamb but a flipped version of it but its all about trying to go to sleep, counting sheep and stuff..at least that’s my interpretation but then its a little bit more and somehow I find some of it feels relatable. Its just really random and I like odd stuff so this is right up my alley.

With that said, I found this while watching the cover from the performance on “Call My By Fire” by one of my fave groups there with Jordan Chan, Michael Tse, Jerry Lamb, Julian Cheung, Edmond Leung, all big names in Hong Kong. Either way, you can find their performance here also which has a pretty fun twist to it.

The Oath of Love 余生，请多指教- Andy Yang 杨紫 & Sean Xiao 肖战
(Tencent TV series “The Oath of Love” Main Theme)

The Oath of Love finally is launching on Tencent in September. Consider me happy. Big fan of the two main leads who also sings this duet. This duet makes me anticipate the series even more as they seem to have fantastic chemistry. Maybe finally have a series that will follow the wonderful dynamic of the leads following Go Go Squid!. I’m getting carried away but nice sweet song overall.

再見，少年 Farewell, My Lad – 梁靜茹 Fish Leong
(“Farewell, My Lad” Main Theme)

I honestly think that Farewell, My Lad is the upcoming film that will be a family of stories that follows Better Days. I mean, look at the typography they use. Either way, just a small thought on this new Chinese film. I’m hoping that this film will be available. Big fan of Fish Leong. She’s probably one of my top 5 favorite female singers and this song is just so good. I do think the whole scenes from the film does fit the song a lot also.

Let’s Do This! – Cacien Team
(“Girls Like Us” Performance)

I usually don’t post up performances for any of the variety shows as their own part but most of my playlist right now is from performances from “Girls Like Us” Chinese female hip hop competition. Cacien’s group is very unique and the songs that they make is super positive. This performance is pretty good plus the song makes me feel happy so its a good one to wrap up this month’s music obsessions.

That’s it for this Music Obsessions!
What have you been listening to?

Music Obsessions – August 2021

It’s August and time for the next music obsessions! Plus, its a little break from all the film reviews lately as we jump into some of the music that I’ve discovered in the past month! Let’s go!

DNA – Panthepack

Jackson Wang’s Team Wang is definitely growing as it starts bringing in other artists and such starting with his promotion of Panthepack and their new song DNA for the past while. Of course, I’ve only heard it recently because of the new Tencent hiphop competition show Girls Like Us where he performs this song.

泊 Anchor – Corsak

Corsak has definitely been finding his groove lately. His last few songs have been very fun. Anchor is really relaxing to listen to and his vocals are pretty on point. There’s something really soothing about the whole song here from its lyrics to the tune itself that has a nice balance. Its a pretty meaningful song overall.

WULEI – Yanqi Zhang

Honestly, I don’t have a lot to say about this one. I’m a big fan of the latest competition show Girls Like Us because it gives a highlight on the female hiphop artists in China especially as they are rather talented and gives them a voice. However, I’m also really happy that they got Yanqi Zhang, who is a former R1SE member and the trainee from Produce Camp 2019 that I liked right from his first preliminary stage as he is a fantastic hip hop artist with both his producing skills to his rapping skills, to host the public performances for the show. I think this performance really shows his abilities and I just really like it a ton.

Woman – Yico Zeng 曾轶可

I told you before that I’m a big fan of the show so other than Jackson Wang, I think the biggest discovery for myself is a Chinese female singer Yico Zeng who has a fantastic sort of style. I like this type of unique creative which takes a very different approach and her new song performed on the first episode as her entrance is called Woman which matches the show so much. The lyrics and the whole tune and rhythm is so different from the other mentors that are part of this show. Next mission is to start going through her discography. I’ll report back in the future with more of her songs, I’m almost positive.

對峙 Confrontation – Nicholas Tse
(‘Raging Fire’ Main Theme)

Raging Fire is hitting theatres at the end of August and its a movie that I’m absolutely looking forward to see since its Donnie Yen and Nicholas Tse. Anyone frequent here may know that I’m a mega fan of Nicholas Tse almost since his debut. He’s just gone through so much and worked so hard to create change and his latest songs have been all so meaningful. Either way, there’s not much to say about this one but it doubles as a trailer of the upcoming film.

That’s it for this month’s Music Obsessions!
What have you been listening to?

TV Binge: Use For My Talent (我亲爱的小洁癖, 2021)

Use For My Talent (我亲爱的小洁癖, 2021)

Director: Cong Cai

Cast: Yue Shen, Jasper Liu, Yunfan Dai, Charles Lin, Yanan, Mengdi Su, Sirui Huang, Quan Tan, Ran Xiao

Because of his incomplete family, Gu Ren Qi has a closed up personality and mysophobia. Shuang Jiao used to have a happy family, but later lost her mother in a car accident, and became a slovenly person. The two became acquainted when Shuang Jiao becomes an employee in Gu Ren Qi’s cleaning company. The two became closer as they get to know each other. Under each other’s influence, they began to heal from their wounds. – MyDramaList

Watch on: Mango TV (Youtube & App) & Netflix

Use For My Talent is a Chinese adpatation of 2018 Korean series Clean With Passion For Now. Let’s just get this out of the way right now that I’m not a big fan of Korean series so I usually don’t go and watch them so I haven’t seen the original of this series. However, Use For My Talent landing on Netflix was such a treat although it does have Shen Yue who is on another Netflix series, Meteor Garden (a Mainland China modernized remake of the 2001 Taiwanese series both directed by the same director Angie Chai) and Jasper Liu in Taiwanese Netflix series Triad Princess and Korean/Taiwanese collaborated variety/travel show Twogether (review). These two main cast members are no doubt talented in their own regards and great to see them together especially as Jasper Liu seems to have moved his focus into Mainland Chinese series now and making a more frequent appearance.

Running at 24 episodes (my favorite length for these types of romantic comedy-drama series), Use For My Talent is a fun one to watch. There’s a good balance of humor, drama and romance that blends together to create this one. It does get a little peculiar in parts but the characters are done pretty well. Not only the main couple, Ren Qi and Shuang Jiao is fun to watch but the two other supporting/secondary couples are also very fun to watch and each having their own dynamic which gives a good variety. Plus, it takes time to look at mysophobia that Ren Qi has and dives into that angle to give it its own drama moments but also using it as some parts of humor especially when encountered with his polar opposite Shuang Jiao who opens up his eyes to slowly accepting the world and treatment to be able to get closer to her. I’m sure some of this stuff is either exaggerated or simplified for the drama’s purpose but it does expose an element of this phobia which leads to using the cleaning company while having a focus on how technology can’t necessarily replace the human element of some services.

Having touched on it a little before, the characters here are absolutely a treat. The main leads played by Shen Yue and Jasper Liu are really great. Shen Yue is probably one of my top favorite young actresses in the last few years as most of her series and roles have been both fun and believeable especially as she gradually moves into TV series set outside of the school setting. I’ve seen most of her shows (even if I never got around to the review). She has this natural and down to earth essence to her that makes her really believable in her roles and carries the emotions really well. The same applies for Use For My Talent where she plays as Shuang Jiao and the character is pretty decent. Funny how things turn around as this show adapts from a Korean series and earlier this year, Korea adapted a Chinese series that was her debut role in A Love So Beautiful (review). On the other hand, as popular as Jasper Liu is, I haven’t seen him outside of two variety shows but there’s something about him that is very charming and he does have pretty good acting skills as well. The chemistry between the two worked really well and came off fairly natural even by the end when he would do the very sappy/cringy sweet talk. It was hard to not cringe but also secretly like it just a little especially as it was a nod to a conversation from a prior part of the series.

Of course the series isn’t just about them but also has some colorful characters. Another couple is RenQi’s assistant DongXian who is very slow and unromantic but ends up with a popular lifestyle streamer QianQian. They are a little fun to watch especially since DongXian’s character is rather hilarious overall but has a little bit of a sad backstory (like a lot of the main cast). Aside from them is ShuangJiao’s little brother JunJie who ends up chasing up her sister’s best friend Yan who has their own sweet moments. The process for both of these having a similar dynamic but pretty funny and entertaining. No series is complete without some sort of love triangle and that brings in Yunfan Dai’s character Lu Xian, a psychiatrist that recently returned to China for 2 purposes: one to repay a debt that ShuangJiao’s mom offered him at a young age (which leads him to falling for her) and the second to act as the consultant for RenQi’s phobia and hopefully control and cure him to a certain extent. His character is pretty decent as well. In most Chinese series, family is also a big part and here the two leads family can be considered opposites of each other and on one side very comedic in dynamic and on the other side, very strict and maybe a little intentionally frustrating.

If there was something to nitpick a little, it definitely would be regarding the choice of melodrama that they used to break the two apart which is an inevitable part of these series but how is always where it works or doesn’t. What they used is always a frustrating choice although props to the two leads for being able to create some genuine sad feelings for this break-up.

Overall, Use For My Talent is an absolute treat. In terms of pacing, comedy and romance, everything works really well. The ending is a little odd with the whole melodrama but thanks to well-connected characters, despite the situation set up, they still manage to carry through the heartwrenching breakup feeling between the two. Its a rather impressive one which highlights some of the talent in the Chinese market.

With all that said, next mission…catch up on Jasper Liu’s series. Anyone have suggestions from the Netflix available ones? Please let me know.

TV Binge: Love Scenery (良辰美景好时光, 2021)

Love Scenery (良辰美景好时光, 2021)

Director: Zoe Qin
Cast: Lulu Xu, Yi Lin, Bing Hu, Harry Hu, Danni Zhong, Yuwei Jiang, Ting Wang, Cheng Wang, Rong Wang, Zheng Zhong

Liang Chen is devoted to bringing good music works to the listeners, expressing the idea of being kind, real, and perfect. Lu Jing loves computer and big data research. He is highly recognized in the academic field through studying complicated human behavior and psychology, thus influencing the classmates around by his solid specialty literacy. They are strangers first but then brought together by big data and they become closer in the journey of pursuing dreams. – MyDramaList

Watch on: iQiyi

Love Scenery is a Chinese romance drama that rolls in very familiar territory. In the recent while, Chinese dramas have had two hot topics for story telling or adaptations: romances involving women older than their guy love interest and marriage before love/contractual marriage. Love Scenery falls in the former one where in reality the cast itself also has this age gap so it makes it all the more believable. Running at 31 episodes, the series does take a turn somewhere in the last 10 episodes or so that almost feels like its a bit forced and gets a little boring to watch, almost feeling like the characters become empty.

Looking at pacing and plot, Love Scenery starts off pretty strong with a popular female singer Liang Chen (Lulu Xu) and smart and handsome university student Lu Jing (Yi Lin) who is also a popular game streamer called Herman as his idolization of her ended up using one of her songs as for people who would lose the game and causing her to be invited to a streaming showcase. Because of this, she asks for help from her friend and unpopular actor Ruibin (Harry Hu) who gets fed up with her lacking gamer skills and refers her to Lu Jing, both hiding under their gaming profiles. The whole part of jumping in game and their interactions at the beginning leading to a lot of comedic and embarrassing moments are all pretty fun to watch. The game scenarios are brought to life and adding in how they figure out who each other are and then realizing the feelings for each other is a good progress. The bad gamer versus good gamer with their different priorities and silly situations all have a lot of comedic value and makes it a lot of fun. Plus these parts have a lot of action as they play a first person shooter so there’s a lot of fighting and gunfights and such which definitely adds to it. Even after they both individually figured out who each other are but trying to test or dodge the situation (depending on the character) has its fun moments.

Where the series starts falling apart has to do with the story progression and how the characters don’t seem to fall a little flat over after the whole romance happens or at least the acknowledgement that they do like each other with not only the age element but as a result, the celebrity and university student influence in the eyes of the public. There’s a lot of frustrating moments once that happens that makes the situation really drag on at parts. Not to mention that while the settings of romantic moments are done well, the two main characters chemistry are a little lacking for the most part. It might have to do with some of the acting is not too good especially when you consider that Yi Lin is a rather young actor and this role while somewhat fitting in some parts and draws some opposites from a previous series, Put Your Head On My Shoulder (review) which was his debut, this one had a lot more drama and it seems that capturing drama still feels like it falls a little short in terms of how he emotes. When he is doing the happy and youthful things, he captures that well but he lacks deeper emotions in general especially if he lacks chemistry with Lulu Xu. Its not saying that nothing lands as some of the scenes are designed to capture them well and builds up the atmosphere well enough.

On the contrary, in terms of romance, the secondary leads between Ruibin (Harry Hu) and a lonely actress Shanshan Ma (Danni Zhong) is a lot more fun especially as the chase is one that lasts the whole way and her character has a lot to discover in terms why she is the way that she is and gradually opens up. The two are a lot more enjoyable as there’s a lot of silliness going on especially for the character of Ruibin, who always does the wrong things or timing with good intentions especially in his chase for Shanshan.

Of course, the story is more than just romance. Its also about chasing your dreams. For the university student bits, its about moving forward as he goes through university, joining competitions. The focus isn’t really there as its more on Liang Chen as she tries to change her style from the romantic ballad style singer to taking a chance and switching to being a rock singer and going back to her roots despite the challenges and risks of it all. These parts are decent since the soundtrack is pretty good. Although, once things start slowing down in the last bits, the challenges seem to be a little rinse and repeat and nothing extremely exciting.

Overall, Love Scenery started out really strong and eventually fell short the further it went along as the pacing, story and characters starting feeling a little emptier the further that it went along. The main issue probably being that 31 episodes was a few episodes too many for the story that it wanted to tell and sometimes it hit the melodrama moments a little too hard. If it had kept up with the beginning half’s pacing and tone, the series would have been a lot of fun. In a nutshell, not bad but not great.