If you know me, you probably wouldn’t think that I’d be a fan of Milk@Coffee, why? Because Milk@Coffee is happy poppy simple music. My friends think it sounds like children’s music. Obviously, they have that certain vibe because the female part of this duo, Kiki, sounds like a little kid singing, and the music in itself sounds very playful and catchy. However, looking into the songs, they reveal a certain maturity.
Of course you’ve got catchy favorites like Wo Bu Shi Rock n’ Roll (I’m not Rock n’ Roll), the wacky Curry Coffee, or Burn! Little Universe, and Yi Qi Lai (Together). However, there’s also songs like The Older the Lonelier – you gotta admit that’s a really REALLY sad title – or Accustomed to Loneliness. How about the most off-beat of their songs? The Zhongguo Feng-styled (traditional Chinese sounding) Die Lian Hua.
In this new single titled No Time — the album will be out by September… in a mayor label, so Milk@Coffee is no longer indie –, they seemed to have struck a balance with that maturity and the catchy. Yes, No Time sounds like a kid’s song, but it talks about a thing kids will never mind until they grow up a bit. How many of you keep telling the people you know that you don’t have enough time to do something. It’s a tale as old as… well, time.
The begins with a minute of various celebrities saying what they lack time for. “I am __” they say, “I have no time for ____”. These neglected activities include listening to music, dating, losing weight, studying abroad, visiting relatives, having kids, and so many other commonplace ones that every listener should hear one they too pushed back at one point. The spoken introduction ends abruptly with Laure Shang saying: “My name is Shang Wenjie. I have no time to record whatever this is for you”.
Hi, some American [and Peruvian] distributor, you should totally buy this.
Newsweek has a very interesting article on Xiaogang Feng and his latest IMAX flick, Aftershocks (aka. After Shock, Aftershock), which has just beaten James Cameron’s Avatar in the biggest Chinese opening for a film. Aftershocks is the first ever non-American IMAX film… so of course Aftershocks opened in more than 4 000 screens – which is also a first – and it only made about $5.3M on a day, but it is still a feature. I mean, not everyone pays $15USD to get into the theater.
So when I think of IMAX… I think National Geographic under the sea films, Star Wars, and The Dark Knight. But let me tell you, Aftershocks is playing a complete different game. Aftershocks is a drama… it’s a tear-jerking, heart-tugging drama. It depicts the story of a family that was forever affected by the 1976 7.8 magnitude in the city of Tangshan, which had a reported death toll of 240 000 people.
When I first heard about Aftershocks, not being familiar with Feng’s style, I thought “Oh, China is making their big Hollywood Disaster Film on IMAX” and boy, was I wrong. Sure, the film counts with a luscious (and devastating) sequence that last several long minutes of the 7.8 magnitude earthquake… which felt like a mega-earthquake on screen. However, after that scene, which pretty much starts the film, it aptly turns into a drama telling the struggle of a mother that had to choose between her daughter and her son, and the hurt of a daughter that believes to have been abandoned.
The film lasts about 2hrs, and I was possibly in tears in the first few minutes as the earthquake struck, and the audience immediately feels connected to the mom and her kids. It instantly reminds me of writers telling me “You need something big so your reader believes the connection can happen,” and for the viewers watching Aftershocks, this big event is the devastating earthquake.
When you thought the worse of the crying was done, a brand new wave came over you and you were at it again. I think I was bawling for a good 1.30hr of the film. LOL
A good solid 4/5
Oh how I wish this opened in America so there could be ANY nomination for actress Fan Xu, though the whole cast was remarkable.
At last! I had seen this video about 2 weeks ago and was waiting for Typhoon to upload it because the version I had seen was a TV capture and it was fullscreen.
In Chan Mian Jing, Bibi is all eclectic again. I think her hair is really great, she has had great hair since she moved to Typhoon – why are we discussing this? Well, because we already know Bibi can sing. She can’t dance, but she can sing. So Bibi’s biggest obstacle is looking and acting like an idol. I really suggest Typhoon moves away from this. Yeah, make her look sleek… I even admitted she looked really great on Canned Fish without the glasses and the long hair, but I also said she didn’t look like Bibi. So I appreciate that Typhoon let Bibi use her dark-rimmed glasses for this video, but the eclectic look doesn’t go with it.
So keep Bibi’s hair styles and colors, keep the glasses… and please, put Bibi on a well-tailored suit with a Motown sound. Her voice can deal with it.
As for the music here? I liked it, the song is one of the highlights in style from an album that has a LOT of types of music. She experimented a lot with different sounds. It feels you’re going through different music eras when you listen to it. For instance, there was a song that sounded so much like Stevie Wonder, and then I Miss U Missing Me sounds very late-90s, while Canned Fish sounds early 2000s and One-Way Mirror sounds mid-2000s LOL.
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