[Theatrical Show] The Mongol Khan Gala Night at Sands Theatre, Marina Bay Sands

 The highly anticipated theatrical drama, The Mongol Khan, is now showing in Singapore for a limited season until 3 November 2024. Jayce and I had been looking forward to watching it ever since we last attended the production and graphic novel launch event back in June. Read post here. 

Proudly presented by Base Entertainment Asia, following a sold-out run at the London's Coliseum, The Mongol Khan is a highly acclaimed production born from a collaboration between world-renowned international artists and creatives. 

Official Photo - The Mongol Khan by Katja Ogrin

Official Photo - The Mongol Khan by Katja Ogrin

Official Photo - The Mongol Khan by Katja Ogrin

Official Photo - The Mongol Khan by Katja Ogrin

Official Photo - The Mongol Khan by Katja Ogrin

With performances offered in both English (Mandarin subtitles) and Mongolian (English and Mandarin subtitles), this epic performance brings together over 70 actors, dancers and musicians are involved in this large-scale production featuring lavish sets and costumes, ensuring an authentic and engaging experience that resonates across cultures. 

The cast of The Mongol Khan includes Hollywood talents Ron Yuan as Archug Khan, Mark Dacascos as the Chancellor and Leonard Wu as Achir Prince alongside producer and international actress Bayra Bela as Queen Tsetser with performances in English. Renowned Mongolian stars Dulguun Odkhuu and Zana Gankhuyag add depth as The Consort and Khuchir Prince, respectively with performances in Mongolian.  

I'm thrilled to attend the Gala Night of The Mongol Khan held at The Sands Theatre, Marina Bay Sands with Jayce again. As it was an 8pm show, we had some sushi dinner in the office after work before making our way down. We spotted some familiar faces and celebrities, and there was even an official photographer stationed to take photos. The gala night was truly exciting.

As the gala night performance was in Mongolian, I had to rely on the English and Chinese subtitles displayed on the screens. I sometimes struggled to keep up with the translations during captivating scenes. Overall, the performance was simply awesome, offering a unique glimpse into Mongolia's rich cultural heritage and history that engages the senses.

The 160 minutes (with intermission) show is a mesmerizing theatrical adaptation of Lkhagvasuren Bavuu's three-act tragedy, set in ancient Mongolia 2,000 years ago. Combining dazzling costumes, high-energy dance, acrobatics, puppetry, soulful songs, and passionate acting, the fictional story of ruler Archug Khan unfolds amidst a backdrop of jealousy, rage, betrayal, adultery, all brought to life by breathtaking lighting effects and elaborate stage set, making this a truly captivating play. 

Highly recommended for anyone interested in culture, history, and breathtaking entertainment - 'The Mongol Khan' is a must-see! Check out the Marina Bay Sand's website for the full synopsis of this show. 

PERFORMANCE INFOMATION

Performance Season: From 17 October to 3 November 2024

Performance Venue: Sands Theatre, Marina Bay Sands

Performance Schedule (Singapore Time): 

Tuesday to Friday: 8:00pm

Saturday: 2:00pm and 8:00pm

Sunday: 1:00pm and 6:30pm

Performance Duration: 2 hours 40 minutes including intermission

Performance Ticket Booking Links:

Marina Bay Sands: https://www.marinabaysands.com/entertainment/shows/the-mongol-khan.html

SISTIC: https://www.sistic.com.sg/events/mongolkhan1124

Klook: https://www.klook.com/en-SG/activity/114570-the-mongol-khan-at-sands-theatre-singapore/

XOXO

[MOVIE] Gala Premiere - At Cafe 6 《六弄咖啡館》

At Cafe 6 was initially an online novel which later got published into a book due to overwhelming readership. In 2014, it garnered the highest votes in Taiwan as the "Most Anticipated Novel to be adapted into Movie". Neal Wu, the author of this popular novel thus turned into a first-time director for this movie.

AT CAFE 6 OFFICE TRAILER

It can't be helped that most of us would compare this movie to Our Times (2015) or You're The Apple of My Eye (2011) after watching the movie trailer which does bears the same trend of a high school romance plot. However, this is definitely not your typical surgery sweet movie and if you expect a sweet happy ending, you will be in for a big disappointment. Be warned to bring some tissue paper in to the cinema.

At Cafe 6 focuses a lot in giving audiences some food for thoughts about growing up and life. The first part shows days of having a secret crash in school to finally having the courage to admit it to the smartest girl giving extra tuition to the most playful guy and to both of them falling in love. This is what happened to the two main leads - Guan Min Lu (Dong Zijian) and Li Xin Rui (Cherry Ngan) in the movie

However, the plot went on to talk about how these two main characters get posted into different university in different states of Taiwan and started a long distance relationship. Maintaining a long distance relationship is not just the physical distance but also the maturity difference. Like what Xin Rui said to Min Lu, "you seems to have forgotten to grow up."

I like the friendship between the two guys. It's the kind of lasting friendship that can withstand everything, especially time. 

What the movie never states was how the cafe got its name of 六弄咖啡館 and I got the below extract from the online novel (Link)

　六弄人生：人生，像走在一条小巷中，每一弄都可能是另一个出口。也可能是一条死胡同。生在一个与一般人不同的家庭中，是我人生的第一弄；爱上了你，是我人生的第二弄；注定般的三百六十公里，是我人生的第三弄；失去了你，是我人生的第四弄；母亲的逝去，是我人生的第五弄；在这五弄里，我看不见所谓的出口，出现在我面前的，尽是死胡同。该是结束的时候了，该是说再见的时候了，再见，世界，是我人生的第六弄。

AT CAFE 6 THEME SONG

A lot of the movie scenes can also be found in this Stefanie Sun 孫燕姿《半句再見》MV too. She was invited to sing the theme song for this movie and we can finally hear her voice again. The lyrics is written by Neal Wu himself.

Thank you CF Chai for bringing me along to the Gala Premiere of At Cafe 6. I really enjoyed watching this movie and it nearly makes me cry.

RATING: 4/5

The main actress Cherry Ngan from Hong Kong also flown over to promote this movie. We were seated in the second row and could really get a good view.

XOXO

[MOVIE] Gala Premiere of The Faith of Anna Waters

The Faith of Anna Waters appears to be an intimidating horror movie from the poster and trailer. I was expecting to jump a few times from my seat but the movie falls short from my expectation in terms of the elements of horror. Directed by Kelvin Tong, this is Singapore first Hollywood horror movie and in USA, the movie title was known as The Offering.

SYNOPSIS OF THE MOVIE

The movie started with an exorcism taking place between a priest (Father Da Silva), a possessed man and another guy. We were told that the possessed man has died after the exorcism was complete. Nothing was further explained.

Scene changed to journalist Jamie Waters (Elizabeth Rice), who upon receiving the news that her older sister, Anna Waters has committed suicide under a mystery circumstances, decided to travel to Singapore to investigate this sudden death.  

Together with Anna's husband, Sam (Matthew Settle) and Anna's daughter, Katie (Adina Herz), Jamie discovered a few other mysterious suicides that are somewhat similar to Anna's circumstances and even involve the strange allusions to the rising of Tower of Babel that was reflected in the paintings.

Father Da Silva (Colin Borgonon) and Matthew (Adrain Pang) came into the picture as Matthew see signs of apocalypse when several church website was hacked into and also on the rising Tower of Babel.

The movie ended with an exorcism taking place again, this time between Father Da Silva, Katie (who was the one being possessed), Jamie and Sam. It seems like the demon has been cast out this time round and the risen Tower of Babel dropped back to the original height but was slightly risen again towards the last part.

RATING 3/5

REVIEW OF THE MOVIE

As mentioned in the beginning, this movie falls short of my expectation in terms of the horror element. There's one or two fake/jump scenes that did make me startled but overall I gave this movie a 3 out of 5 because the movie did stick with me for a long time as it makes me read up more on the Tower of Babel and exorcism which I felt is not very common in Singapore. 

The deaths in the movie were all associated with this strange symbol (I can't remember what it's called, but I think this is the single common language they are referring to?). All of those who committed suicide were found with this symbol and different form of sickness in them and they believed that they will return back in 7 days as a healthy person. 

For Anna, she had Huntington, a neurodegenerative genetic disorder that affects muscle coordination and leads to mental decline and behavioral symptoms. She suffocated herself to death. Another guy medical record shows that he will gradually be blind and it was shown that he dug out both his eyes and died. So there was a lot of gross scenes involving people digging out the organs that was found to have some kind of disease. 

  

Now back to the story of the Tower of Babel. 

The people of Babel said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth." (NIV). The descendants of Noah all spoke a single language. The story of the tower of Babel explains the origins of the multiplicity of languages. God was concerned that humans had too much freedom to do as they wished, so God brought into existence multiple languages.

This is the confusing part to me and I'm not so sure how it relates to all the deaths but apparently it is related. As after each death, we see the Tower of Babel in the painting risen. It could carry a deeper meaning with the Faith in God? Like those who don't have the strong faith in God therefore listened to the demon and end their life? 

Overall, a movie that keeps me thinking in terms of the spiritual side. Thanks Jessie for bringing me to this Gala Premier. 

XOXO

[MOVIE] Gala Premiere - Return of the Cuckoo 《十月初五的月光》

Very looking forward to attending the Gala Premiere of the movie Return of the Cuckoo. This is the sequel from the well-loved Hong Kong Drama of the same name back in 2000 called 澳门街 in Chinese! It's a 15 years difference. I did not watched that drama series back then but Jessie, who brought me to this Gala Premiere did and so she roughly told me what the story is about while we were making our way to RWS to attend the red carpet. Thanks!

Even the movie ticket is so special and nice.

 This movie is directed by Hong Kong renowned director Patrick Kong 叶念琛，featuring lots of Hong Kong's biggest stars such as Julian Cheung (Man-Cho), Charmaine Sheh (Kwan-Ho), Nancy Sit (Aunty Q), Michael Tong (Kam Sing) and Joe Chen (Kiki) from Taiwan.

Can't really see much of the stars at the red carpet session.

Much better view of the Hong Kong stars in the theater! So good to see them close up in real life! The main characters of the drama series continued to act in this movie. It was mentioned that Charmaine Sheh took one week to consider whether to take up the role or not but I guess if she don't, the movie won't be the same anymore.

FLASHBACK SCENES WITH TRAILER



For those of you who've not watched the drama series back then, it would be good to watch this video of some flashback scenes and trailer with the Cantonese theme song 祝君好 sang by male lead Chi Lam as the background song. I really fall in love with this song after hearing it the first time.

In the drama series back then, the show ended with Kwan-Ho getting married to Szto Lai-Sun and it was a big disappointment to a lot of fans who have wished that she would be together with Man Cho. So in this movie, the director sort of granted the wishes of the fans by arranging the plot such that Kwan Ho returned back to her hometown and that her husband, Lai Sun and the kids were all killed in a car accident. Kwan Ho was suicidal and Man Cho took up the duty to take care of her and their romance re-ignites.

I was quite disappointed with the story line as I felt that the director could have included some flashback scenes from the drama to reinforce the significance of some of the actions that Kwan-Ho and Man Cho would do. Like the piggy back scenes as well as the blowing of whistle. Couldn't really feel the connection between them.

An additional role to the movie, Kiki is a refreshing character to watch. She is born a mute and in the movie had to expressed her emotions through sign languages and expressions. Her role was there to let the audience know that the last 10 years while Kwan Ho was away, Mun Cho also has a companion but while Kiki has fallen for him, he still loves Kwan Ho. So after rejection, the director cut this character away from the scenes too.

There were a lot of scenes portraying how Man Cho took great care of Kwan Ho. Drinking on her behalf, rushing down to her place whenever something happened, losing sleep over a few days, and even accompanying her to bungee jump which I felt is very touching for a guy to do that. Giving his time without any conditions.

This bungee jump scene was film at the Macau Jumping Tower between the two main lead characters. In reality, Charmaine was supposed to jump but hesitated due to old injury and fear of height thus a substitute was used for the scene.

Even towards the ending, when Man Cho found out that he has a blood clot in his brain and need to do an operation which may cause memory loss, we still see his jovial side. The last part, we see Man Cho opened his eyes after the successful brain operation and saying, "君好，我没事。" It was later revealed that he was actually reading from a note that he was holding. Thus, it was implied that he might have already lost part of his memory.

Personally, I felt that a drama series would be more enjoyable to watch. Thus, I would only give an average rating.

RATING: 3/5

XOXO

[Movie] Gala Premiere - Triumph in the Skies 衝上雲霄‬

Triumph In The Skies (衝上雲霄‬) is a movie adaption of the popular TVB drama series by the same name. The main casts of this movie includes Julian Cheung 张智霖 (Jayden A.K.A Captain Cool), Francis Ng 吴镇宇 (Samuel Tong), Louis Koo 古天乐 (Branson), Charmaine Sheh 佘诗曼 (Cassie), Sammi Cheng 郑秀文 (TM) and Amber Kuo 郭采潔 (Kika). 

Thanks Mig.me for the Gala Premiere invites and Clover Films for the tickets. Right before the movie started at the Mastercard Theatres, Sands Theatre at Marina Bay Sands was the Red Carpet event. We managed to catch Julian Cheung and Charmaine Sheh at the Skating Rink. Look at the crowds and the numbers of cameras and phones in the air! That's the power of the two celebrities. 

A short Q & A session with Yes 93.3fm DJ Jiafa as the host for the event.

More photos of them from the big screen.

Photos taken before the movie starts. 

Promo Trailer with "歲月如歌" by 陳奕迅 as the music.

Triumph in the skies officially opens on the first day of Chinese New Year (19th February). Although the whole theme of this movie is more suitable to be a Valentine's movie, it also makes a good Chinese New Year movie as one can expects lots of laughter in the theater.  It's basically a romance and comedy movie with sweet and happy ending. 

The movie revolves around 3 different kind of relationships between the 3 couples. One feedback was that the 3 love stories were not linked together and a lots of jump scene but I actually like it this way. I felt that as long as the flow of the 3 relationships is complete, it doesn't really have to be link in the movie.   

WATCH TRIUMPH IN THE SKIES FOR THE 3 DIFFERENT LOVE STORIES

Nostalgic Sweet Love

The love between Branson and Cassie was a rekindled one. The couple was forced to break up many years ago as Branson has to move to New York to take over his father's airline business, Skylette. They met again and realized that they still have feelings for each other. Eventually, they get together again and didn't waste this chance that they have again. 

Fun and YOLO Love

Jayden met the Kika during a flight party event and the young Kika captures Jayden's attention. It was during the height of their romance that Jayden realized a big secret behind Kika's YOLO attitude. 

Rocker Style Love

In an effort to rebrand Skylette, Branson invites rock idol TM to star in an upcoming commercial and appoints Sam to be her flying consultant. This odd couple gets off on the wrong foot in the beginning but as the shoot progresses, they slowly discover each other's merits and develops into a strong mutual attraction.

WATCH TRIUMPH IN THE SKIES FOR THE BEAUTIFUL SCENERIES

All these scenes are so beautiful and romantic. You would start to imagine yourself there with your loved ones.  

WATCH TRIUMPH IN THE SKIES FOR THE MANY FUNNY MOMENTS

This most unforgettable funny scene is when Sam and TM have to perform this "Hit Wall" dance moves for the commercial. Everyone just burst out laughing during this scene. There's many other scenes that makes me burst out laughing too and some cold jokes.

Thanks for reading, Happy Chinese New Year. Remember to catch Triumph in the Skies in cinema!