My Top 10 of 2008

It's the time of the year! This list is purely based on personal taste and bias and it's not in particular order.

十字架 - 謝安琪 --- Album: Binary

每個人都會 - 方大同 --- Album: Orange Moon

分手要狠 - 吳雨霏 --- Album: Lady K: Transformation

幸福合作社 - 范曉萱 --- Album: They Kiss Again OST

愛不疚 - 林峯 --- Album: Your Love

周大俠 - 周杰倫 --- Album: Jay Chou 2007 World Tour Concert Live

夢非夢 - 容祖兒 --- In Motion (Mandarin version unreleased)

深深愛過你 - 薛之谦 Album: 深深愛過你

不吐不快 - 張敬軒 --- Album: Urban Emotions

復刻回憶 - 薛凱琪 & 方大同 Album: It's My Day

Besides my top 10 of the year, I also compiled my top 4 [fill the blank] songs, for the sake of being mean for once. Suggestions for the blank: scratch-head, what-the-bloody-hell, cringe-worthy, laughable...you name it...

- 中華冷面 - 鄧麗欣 => Stephy is cute, there is nothing wrong for once with her singing and the melody is catchy but the lyrics are WTH. "Where did you get your noodles" bwahaha

- 連帶關係 - Twins => I feel bad to put them here since I don't know if there's a chance to see them back together in the future. Unfortunately, I remember myself rolling eyes at the scratch head lyrics when I heard this song since the beginning of the year. Song written by Jay Chou and it's rapped Jay Chow....hmmm...

- 水果大聯盟 - 裕美 => A song that should not be taken too seriously and it's targeted for kids, fine...but I swear once you hear it, the singing and the lyrics are unforgettable!

- 大開色界 - 劉美君 => It's Prudence Lau's comeback song and it's...cool...BUT I always have chills in a bad way whenever I hear this song. Maybe I still can't accept the boldness of the song...

Butterfly Lovers

Butterfly Lovers Synopsis: (from Yesasia)
Life is fleeting as the butterfly, beautiful yet transient. As legend has it, a pair of butterfly lovers re-appears once more after having gone through three lifetimes of repeated pain and tears. This time, they find each other in the world of martial arts. Liang is highly skilled in martial arts and resides in the mountains. When his Master tasks him to take care of Zhu, a girl from a wealthy family who dresses as a guy to hide herself from a revenge, it sparks off the painful journey that they must go through once again. Zhu’s father, in order to repay the kindness shown to him, has betrothed her to a General Ma although Zhu is in love with Liang. Love can fester into hate in some while in the selected few, it can lead to undying love that survives one lifetime after another.


My comments:
I read a lot of criticisms regarding this version of Butterfly Lovers. I didn't think it was that mediocre but it isn't wonderful as well. I was into the story, I cried at the end but I wasn't as moved as I should be as I thought it was a bit shallow. There are a few laughs here and there but the biggest comedy effect was Harlem Yu dubbing his own voice in the Cantonese version. I swear how he delivered his lines are just so LOL hilarious because it's so heavily accented and so Mandarin that I have rely on the subs (similar to Jay Chou's case in Initial D).

The love between Charlene Choi and Wu Chun was cute to watch, they had good chemistry and they were passable in their roles, so was Hu Ge. I thought that He Ge had a meatier role than Wu Chun and I had sympathy for Hu Ge until he slaps Charlene for refusing to marry him, he did love Charlene but just over passionate in the wrong way. Harlem Yu was very likeable too.

My problems with this movie: there are some random dialogues that seem so out of place that is laughable, check out what were the dialogues after Wu Chun and Hu Ge's bloody duel at the end. (~roll eyes~) Next, the part with the fake death pill, it's so Romeo and Juliet. Although the legend of Butterfly Lovers share some tiny similarities with Romeo and Juliet but they are two completely different things therefore, by using this important aspect of Romeo and Juliet, it made this adaptation unoriginal.

Khalil Fong - Orange Moon

Wow, it's been a year already since Wonderland! I got my copy of Orange Moon yesterday and I'm still listening while typing this. It's so LOVE! It's so laid-back, smooth, relaxing and romantic, suitable for the holidays mood. Orange Moon didn't give as much surprise compared to Wonderland but I admire its simplicity and the arrangement of each song is worth checking out. I don't have a track that I feel like skipping. I'm 200% positive that there will be a 2nd edition with a bonus DVD...wanna bet anyone?

My 5 favorite tracks (very hard to choose though):

- Singalongsong => A simple and heartfelt song. When I heard the first 2 lines, I thought it will be Love Song's lyrics in English. Khalil singing in English is just so dreamy...

- 小小蟲 => I didn't feel much when I heard it at first but when I read the lyrics, it scores extra points. The lyrics are written by Fama, it's just so cute!

- 黑白 => one of my top 3 favorites of the album, reminds me a bit of 每天每天 but more jazzy. Just listening to the melody is romantic enough.

- 黑洞裡 => Romantic and the lyrics are so beautiful!

- 每個人都會 => I've been listening to this song for half a year and it's easily one of my top 10 of the year. The lyrics are just so heartwarming.

At around 16 minutes of the last track, there's a hidden track called Orange Moon, which is the demo of Eason Chan's 倒帶人生...

Jay Chou concert @ Toronto

I joined the Jay Chou concert tour to Toronto just to watch the show...I do consider this a chance of a lifetime to see him live since I've been a fan for 7 years. It was totally worth it despite that huge snow storm in Ontario that delayed a lot of things and that I have to work the next day...

The concert lasted about 2 1/2 hours and the crowd was pretty high. I was in fangirl mode by screaming and singing along out loud too! I managed to shoot clips of every song and as always, I complain that my camera just sucks at shooting in the dark...so the pictures were not too satisfying; they are either blurry or you see a minuscule Jay...sigh...

Concert ticket, booklet and glowstick...I was part of the 'mountain peak crowd'...

Jay playing GuZheng!!! I wish that the quality of this pic is better!

Concert rundown:

- 黄金甲

- 無雙

- 最後的戰役

- 不能說的秘密

- 安靜

- 聽媽媽的話

- 黑色幽默

- 最長的電影

- 說好的幸福呢

- 牛仔很忙

- 千里之外

- 青花瓷

- 本草綱目

- 夜的第七章

- 夜曲

- 迷迭香

- 稻香

- 雙截棍 (acoustic happy version)

- 彩虹

- 開不了口

- 陽光宅男

* Encore (the best part of the concert!!!):

- 周大侠

- 髮如雪

- 霍元甲 + 雙截棍

***Youtube has lots of clips of the concert, wow, a big thank you to the uploader so I can relive back!

Playlist of early December

- 鑽禧 - Shirley Kwan => Themesong of TVB's Gem of Life, which I'm not watching obviously but as a song, it's just super cool.

- 天國的微笑 - Fiona Sit => A song that sounds like standard pop but it isn't and that needs a few repeats to warm up but I see improvements in Fiona's singing.

- 小酒窩 - JJ Lin & Charlene Choi => A saccharinely sweet karaoke friendly duet but I like it and find myself humming after listening to it once. Surprised at JJ's Canto pronounciation...

- 今夕是何年 - Hacken Lee => The last time that I really like a Hacken song was probably 六呎風雲; although there is still the trademark Hacken singing here, there is a fresh feeling in this song.