Six years after his directorial debut Secret (不能說的祕密), Mando-pop star Jay Chou (周杰倫) returns with The Rooftop (天台), a hyper-ostentatious musical in which he realizes the dream of every straight boy by becoming a kung-fu hero and winning the lady’s heart.
But unlike the well-crafted Secret, a simple but satisfying puppy-love story, Chou’s ambitious second feature has gone too far in its pursuit of technical excellence and loses sight of its purpose of telling a relatable story.
Set in the fictional city of Galilee, the movie centers on Wax (Chou) and his buddies, a carefree bunch who while their youthful days away riding around town, getting into trouble and helping out at Dr. Bo’s (Hong Kong veteran Eric Tsang, 曾志偉) Chinese medicine pharmacy, where they learn kung-fu from the jolly old Bo.
Photo courtesy of Chuang Ying Picture
By night, the friends return home to the titular Rooftop, a ramshackle settlement built on top of an old building in the seedy part of town. Though penniless, the rooftop’s dwellers are a cheerful gang, ready to burst into song and dance at any time and take care of each other like a big family.
Wax’s blithe life changes when he meets his dream girl Starling — played by newcomer Li Xinai (李心艾) from China — who has been forced into the entertainment business by her gambling father (Hong Kong’s Chung Chun-to, 鍾鎮濤).
Wax soon wins the belle’s heart, but their innocent love doesn’t last long. Facing the rich and corrupt movie star William (Taiwanese singer Darren, 邱凱偉), who salivates over Starling’s beauty, and a band of much more sinister mobsters, the hero must prove his mettle and save the girl from falling into the hands of the wicked.
Photo courtesy of Chuang Ying Picture
Credited as director, scriptwriter, actor and songwriter, Chou successfully creates a visually opulent fairy tale bursting with retro sensibilities, with a little help from his top-notch international production crew including cinematographer Mark Lee (李屏賓).
Vintage cars, disco colors and hippie-inspired fashion fill every frame, while the meticulous work of multi-award winning costume designer Wu Li-lu (吳里璐) renders the movie a male version of Sex and the City.
The same amount of effort is invested in crafting the movie’s atmosphere. From the bright neon lights at Bo’s pharmacy, to the romantic backdrop on the rooftop that recalls Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge!, the ornate sets by the internationally acclaimed art director Akatsuka Yoshihito from Japan — whose works include Kill Bill I and Seediq Bale (賽德克巴萊) — firmly root the movie in a fantastic realm with all traces of reality removed.
Photo courtesy of Chuang Ying Picture
A spectacular example is the night market scene at which the love between Wax and Starling buds. Built from scratch in a scenic area in Greater Tainan, the bustling night market looks like a glittery mirage floating on a lake, accessible only by swan-shaped paddleboats.
To Chou’s credit, the movie is not short on audiovisual wonders, which are part of any musical’s allure. The musical numbers are masterfully choreographed and occasionally show off Chou’s well-trained biceps. Sometimes, stunning visual effects are not created with a computer, but by ingenious camera work and clever art design.
The technical perfection, however, cannot make up for the absence of genuine emotions and feelings necessary for keeping viewers engaged and moving along with the melodramatic flow. The Rooftop is essentially all about Jay Chou, the Mando-pop king. His part doesn’t demand much acting: Chou plays himself and spends considerable screen time wooing the girl, who doesn’t do much except smile sweetly, and hanging out with his real-life buddies such as Devon Song (彈頭). The rest of the movie is Chou’s fantasy come true: He is the martial-arts hero who beats up bad guys and saves the beauty. Unfortunately, neither the star nor his fantasy is particularly interesting.
With hackneyed plots and wooden performances by the two leads, Chou’s The Rooftop remains a glossy confection, impressive at first sight but quickly forgotten.
The latest military exercises conducted by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) last week did not follow the standard Chinese Communist Party (CCP) formula. The US and Taiwan also had different explanations for the war games. Previously the CCP would plan out their large-scale military exercises and wait for an opportunity to dupe the gullible into pinning the blame on someone else for “provoking” Beijing, the most famous being former house speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August 2022. Those military exercises could not possibly have been organized in the short lead time that it was known she was coming.
From an anonymous office in a New Delhi mall, matrimonial detective Bhavna Paliwal runs the rule over prospective husbands and wives — a booming industry in India, where younger generations are increasingly choosing love matches over arranged marriage. The tradition of partners being carefully selected by the two families remains hugely popular, but in a country where social customs are changing rapidly, more and more couples are making their own matches. So for some families, the first step when young lovers want to get married is not to call a priest or party planner but a sleuth like Paliwal with high-tech spy
When Portugal returned its colony Macao to China in 1999, coffee shop owner Daniel Chao was a first grader living in a different world. Since then his sleepy hometown has transformed into a bustling gaming hub lined with glittering casinos. Its once quiet streets are now jammed with tourist buses. But the growing wealth of the city dubbed the “Las Vegas of the East” has not brought qualities of sustainable development such as economic diversity and high civic participation. “What was once a relaxed, free place in my childhood has become a place that is crowded and highly commercialized,” said Chao. Macao yesterday
The world has been getting hotter for decades but a sudden and extraordinary surge in heat has sent the climate deeper into uncharted territory — and scientists are still trying to figure out why. Over the past two years, temperature records have been repeatedly shattered by a streak so persistent and puzzling it has tested the best-available scientific predictions about how the climate functions. Scientists are unanimous that burning fossil fuels has largely driven long-term global warming, and that natural climate variability can also influence temperatures one year to the next. But they are still debating what might have contributed to this
RSS