Music Obsessions – February 2021

Welcome to this month’s Music Obsessions! The past month of crazy work phase was mostly music and TV that offered a lot of background company so suffice to say, there’s a lot that I want to share but then I’ve picked the highlights of my faves. Let’s check it out!

《无华》 No Extravagance- 张靓颖 Jane Zhang &摩登兄弟刘宇宁 Yuning Liu

While I haven’t gotten back to Legend of Fei (but will soon), this ending theme for the series is one of my absolutely favorites of this year so far. I love songs like this plus some of the lyrics and singing really is my cup of tea. Plus, I do like Yuning Liu quite a bit as a singer. Plus, the lyrics itself is fairly romantic and does match the series rather well.

哥本哈根的另一個我 My Doppelgänger in Copenhagen – Fiona Sit 薛凱琪

In recent years, Fiona Sit has definitely showed off the musical talent that she has. Its not saying that she didn’t have it before but when she first started, it was a very cute sweetheart sort of song singing about writing love letters to Keanu Reeves and all that cute stuff. The last few years, whether its the song she chooses to sing and the music videos that she puts together is much more mature (and it makes sense since she is older now) and it matches her so well.

Love Can Change Our Ways – Raffy

I don’t follow a lot of French-Canadian bands but I had caught Raffy at least a decade ago (if not more) and from then, I’ve been following them on and off. Recently, I’ve found them on Twitch live shows and its been a ton of fun which makes for some uplifting way to spend my Thursday and Saturday evenings. It also lead me to discover a song that had slipped through my radar called Love Can Change Our Ways which has such a positive vibe to it and its absolutely awesome.

玩家 Player -曹楊Young ft. 派偉俊 Patrick Brasca

Patrick Brasca seems to always be featured in someone else’s song. His own music is not too impressive in my opinion however, he does pair up with good singers and in some great songs like when he started off in Jay Chou’s Love Confession or in the Kung Fu Panda 3 song and now, his most recent is with Young Cao, a singer that I actually don’t listen to a lot of but he does have a decent voice. This song is pretty cool overall. I like the rhythm of the whole thing.

Blue – Justin 黄明昊

My latest fave is Justin Huang’s Blue. Its really odd because when Justin was in Idol Producer, I didn’t really think that he deserved as much popularity as he got. I think he ended the show ranked in 2nd but after that, he really shines through the variety shows he picks (and he is in a lot of them) and then still has time to make music and even in another variety show shared how he was accomplishing his dream of creating his own clothing brand. For someone that’s only 20 (or 21, I can’t remember), that’s pretty impressive. With that said, his songs are really hit and miss at times. The last few definitely more hits though. This one is super chill in rhythm, almost like in a relaxing lounge and then the lyrics are really good (and some of it fairly young love sort of cute).

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

Music Obsessions – February 2018

Its February and right in time for the Valentine’s special! So we’re going to do some romantic songs here. Honestly, my past month has been quite reminescent in catching up with Hong Kong pop music from singers that I’ve listened to before. I’ll have some other fun stuff as usual 🙂

Let’s go!

This Girl – Hunter Hayes 

Fun and energetic is what I love about Hunter Hayes’ songs. His love songs are always so positive and its really a nice and happy time to listen to.

真命天子 The One – Sammi Cheng

One of my ultimate favorite singers is Sammi Cheng. To me, she’s quite the queen of 90’s Hong Kong pop music. She is fantastic and within her tons of songs, I remember really love this one because of how happy it is especially when it was the theme of a 20 episode Hong Kong TV series that I really enjoyed a lot. She sings about the feelings of meeting and being with “the one”. I love how she uses heartbeat sounds to start the song.

你的男人 Your Man -Andy Hui

Quite the coincidence that I’ve always recently been listening to Andy Hui and catching up with his music. He also happens to be Sammi Cheng’s husband and their careers started in the 90’s at about the same time and their love story is quite something as they were together for a long time, broke up and then went back together and are married since a few years back. However, this song actually starts at around the 1:30 point as the story here is about a man growing out of his bad habits to be his girlfriend’s man and be able to save up to propose and get married debt-free. Andy Hui sings really  nice love songs and I’ve always been a fan.

最後最後 Last Dance -Fiona Sit

Probably the song that I’ve been listening the most on repeat in this month’s selection and one that is somewhat of a bittersweet story told by this music video about the song Last Dance. I can’t say that Fiona Sit is my favorite singer because she never had this very impressive vocal talents but her music is very catchy especially when one of her breakout songs translated is called Letter to Keanu Reeves and its incredibly cute. I’ve been reminiscing and listening to that one when I saw this song pop up in the recommended and its a newer song but her vocals are really quite good now and the song here is beautiful about the last dance of a couple that broke up over a stupid argument and the guy comes back after a few years for a last dance before he leaves to go back home.

手望 – Hins Cheung & Ivana Wong 

I’ve been a fan of Hins Cheung since the release of his first album. I can’t believe how long its been since he’s been in the business. Time sure does fly by. Before I stopped listening to Cantopop for a while, one of the last songs I listened to a lot was this duet between him and Ivana Wong (who is vouched by Jacky Cheung, who happens to be a king of the industry in 90’s and is one of the best singers ever in my opinion). This song is quite romantic. Unfortunately, there is a pun element to the title so I’m not exactly sure how to translate it. However, their vocals and the tune is just so awesome.

For the additional fun bit:

Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir – Free Dance ‘Moulin Rouge’ Canadian Skating Nationals 2018

I used to watch the Figure Skating Nationals and Olympics and everything all the time with my dad. After he passed, I actually stopped for whatever reason. I saw a post on this on Facebook the other day. Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir are amazing and got a perfect score for this routine. You could feel the beauty in their dance and coordination and it did feel like they were so in sync. It helps that they chose one of my favorite soundtracks, Moulin Rouge, which I listen to all the time.

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

2 Young (2005)

2 Young is one of my most favorite recent Hong Kong movies.  To me, its a hidden gem because it does nothing to attract the audience in the first place but I like to root for the underdog and pick up weird movies.  This one features Jackie Chan‘s son Jaycee Chan and I’m completely interested in how his career has been.  This is not my first viewing but its been 2-3 years since I last saw it.

Director: Derek Yee

Cast: Jaycee Chan, Fiona Sit, Eric Tsang, Anthony Wong, Teresa Mo, On-On Yu

Fu (Jaycee Chan) is a young 18 year old in night school trying to complete his high school diploma while his family is not very well off.  Nam (Fiona Sit) is the complete opposite: She is a 16 year old private school student whose parents are known lawyers in Hong Kong who are rich and have no time for her.  Fu is attracted to her and looks for her outside her school every day from a distance until one time, Nam approaches him and asks him to take a chance to sneak in at the school’s annual Christmas party.  After that, when they went camping together on New Year’s, they decided to have sex and few months later realizes that she is pregnant.  Against both of their parents’s wishes, they run away and try to take care of themselves, be together and eventually take care of their future baby.  With no help, no education and no money, they are forced to take things as it comes.  Question is: will their young relationship be able to tough it out?

I’ve seen this movie since its release about 3-4 times.  Every time it impacts me as its the first time I’ve seen it.  Young, innocent, naive and reckless love happens all the time, so why does this impact me so much? 2 Young has a lot of pedigree.  First off, we have Derek Yee, who is an amazing director.  I haven’t reviewed much of his newer work but 10 years before this, he did Full Throttle and you can see the review HERE. He knows how to get the right shots and use the right tone.

Second of all, he has a great cast.  I’m going to start off with the more renowned supporting cast.  Eric Tsang is an Golden Horse Best Actor (Hong Kong equivalent of Oscars).  He’s is a phenomenal actor.  He is in the very famous Infernal Affairs, for example. This guy plays the father of Fu in this one.  A poor, uneducated but morally correct man who wants to just love his wife and take care and protect his family.  Playing opposite him is an actress who reappeared in the business with this movie, Teresa Mo used to be in a bunch of Stephen Chow’s movies and she does a great job and playing the common housewife and caring mother and supportive wife.  The two mesh so well together.  Then we come to an even more popular actor possibly: Anthony Wong.  He plays the restricting and overly controlling and protective father of Nam who really just loses how to be a father and a husband at the same time as being a successful lawyer.  Most of the time in the movie, I wanted to push him in the face to wake him up.  That means he did a good job because I think that stubborn act really came through perfectly.

Third point is the unexpected factor.  Back in 2005, Fiona Sit was cooling off a bit from her pretty successful pop star career and really I never expected much from her in this one but she has her charm. This was her first movie after a Hong Kong police drama.   Jaycee Chan is Jackie Chan’s son so a lot of people have their eyes on how his future will turn out.  He had already dipped his feet in a movie before (that I didn’t see) and also a bit into a singing career.  He was completely new to me.  What captured me was the storyline itself but these two had amazing chemistry and they acted the hell out of their roles.  Maybe its because they are also young and they can somewhat relate to the pain, suffering but bittersweet love.  They can feel their generation better so they fell right into the roles but they were downright amazing, tugged at my heartstrings and I loved them both so much.  Let me just saying, my respect for them grew quite a bit after this.

I’m definitely going to recommend this.  2 Young is directed well, has wonderful and believeable characters to reflect on a social issue of young love and its consequences that shows that its not only sweet but tough.  Its not only the view of the young ones but also parents. With a phenomenal cast from the young main actors and the renowned older ones as supporting roles, this movie successfully pulls the audience right in from the start and lets you experience a heartwarming and at times, heartbreaking journey.  Its a well-executed story about young and reckless love and whether they can learn to take care of themselves and support people they love.   As much as it seems like a romance, I’d say its more along the lines of coming of age story. If you ever come across it,  its well worth your time.