Album Review: Wang Lee Hom 18 Types of Martial Arts
October 3, 2010 Leave a comment
Okay, this will be the THIRD consecutive post i’ve had about Lee Hom Wang…I swear, this time there will be SOME content, instead of me being a fan girl.
I will be reviewing both his movie, “Love in Disguise” and his new album, “18 Types of Martial Arts.”
First off, the album:
“18 Types of Martial Arts” is a continuation of Lee Hom Wang’s “Chinked out” music, which started with his “Inner Sun and Moon” album. As with usual, his album did not disappoint me at all–I love it. The classical Chinese instrumental elements can be heard clearly in most if not every song. As with his last album, Lee Hom’s love for language manipulation can be seen in this album as well in the song “Du You Love Me”–I believe that this song was mainly made for his movie, cause the main character (played by Wang himself) was named Du Ming Han, and thus the title track for mister Du Ming Han was “Du you love me” because of the play on the first character. In his last album (i learned this from an interview), he had fun with the track “Ai De De Ti” (roughly translated as Loving Grandly/with Mannerisms)–“De Ti” also sounds like “Dirty” pronounced with a slang, which changes the WHOLE meaning of the title to “Loving Dirty-ly”. Clever Wang.
Some notable tracks include “The Things You Don’t Know”, “Bo Ya Jue Xian”, “The Daily Necessities of Life”, and “The 18 types of Martial Arts”, and “Needing Company”. There is a total of 5 music videos out right now, with four of them directed by Mister Wang himself. He had said that he titled this album “18 Types of Martial Arts” because he was trying out a lot of new things in music, so the phrase “18 types of Martial arts”, which I believe is supposed to allude to a diverse set of talents/skills, seemed to fit. For those who didn’t know, Mister Wang was working on the album, producing, writing, composing, directing the music videos, in ADDITION to starring and directing his very first movie–“Love In Disguise.”
Anyway, I digressed. Back to the tracks.
“The Daily Necessities of Life” was composed by Wang but written by Vivian Hsu (yes, the singer) and it’s a very meaningful ballad about a very simple life that the singer wishes to have with his loved one. It might as well have been the chinese theme song to the animated movie, “Up” because it fit so well. It’s a very cute song, the lyrics are very simple–it’s just beautiful.
“Bo Ya Jue Xian” is a collaboration between Ah Xin from MayDay and Mister Wang–second one since “Zai Mei Bian”. It’s proof that they work extremely well together. This song is another theme from the movie Wang directed. Bo Ya and Zi Qi are two mythical beings from ancient China who were both men. Bo Ya was very good at playing the GuQin, and Zi Qi was his “zhi yin” aka, SOMETHING along the lines of soulmate in the sense that Zi Qi really enjoyed Bo Ya’s music, to the extent that listening to it would give him illusions. Bo Ya was really happy to find someone who appreciated his music so much, so he played all the time. Eventually, Zi Qi died and Bo Ya was devastated, who would he play his music for now? Out of grief, he snaps off the strings of his GuQin and never plays again. This story was one of the theme of the movie and a theme for this song. This song focuses more on how hard it is for someone to find a soulmate or someone who really appreciates and understand you. It’s a very interesting mix and it’s the only song whose music video was NOT directed by mister Wang himself.
“The 18 types of Martial Arts” is the title track. It’s quite catchy and you can hear the chinese influence distinctly in the song. I don’t really have too much to say about it other than that…
“The Things You Don’t Know” is another theme from his movie. This is a very beautiful ballad (jason chen on youtube has done a cover on this song quite well, so check it out if you have time 😀 ). The first few lines are so poetic: “Butterflies have to blink a few times before they can learn to fly, the night sky is filled with stars but only a few will fall” I know, everyone’s first question is “Wth? Butterflies blink?” This concern was addressed in the movie! It’s personification (or SOMETHING along the lines of that) and it’s damn beautiful! haha
“Needing Company” is another ballad of Mister Wang–he believes that ballads are the bread and butter (or should I say, “rice”) of the taiwanese music scene. It’s a very sad one that talks about his loneliness and desire for company as an artist because he is often alone. The music video, though directed by him, is too explicit for me to handle. I couldn’t stand watching him pretend to have sex with a woman. It looked too real for my liking, but the song itself is sad and heart breaking.
There is another notable song off this album called “Mei” aka, “Beautiful” and it’s so friggin catchy. It’s looping in my head right now. However, it sounds very justin bieber like to me, so i’m a little embarrassed to admit that it loops in my mind. The mv is baller–he looks like a total pimp–decked in a fur coat and all too!
Overall, I LOVE this album and I DO plan to PURCHASE it, as soon as I find a hardcopy at the store. 😀
Now…onto the movie:
Love In Disguise:
This is a very cliche love story about a star who falls in love with a very plain girl. The twist to this one is that Crystal plays the Bo Ya equivalent to Lee Hom, who plays the Zi Qi in here. He falls in love with her GuQin playing because her music is able to bring him illusions. As a result, he disguises himself as a country pumpkin and goes to the music school to find her. He is convinced after hearing the story of Bo Ya and ZiQin that they are the 21st century version of the pair (keep in mind both Bo Ya and ZiQi are guys…) and that he solely admires her music and is attracted to her music and not her. Nonetheless, in an effort to help her pursue her crush, he ends up realizing that he likes her. They share a romantic evening together under a tree and the next day, Lee Hom’s manager finds him and kidnaps him back home. Crystal realizes that he was just a star playing with her, a plain jane and is heart broken. However, Lee Hom returns at the end to help her father advertise for the classical music dept at the college to encourage enrollment rates, and as Crystal listens to him sing, she realizes that the roles have switched–She is now Zi Qi and Lee Hom’s singing skills is like Bo Ya’s GuQin skills. They end up happily ever after!
The acting (on Lee Hom’s part) was only so so–I love Mister Wang Lee Hom, but his acting could use some improvements. The directing–I had some issues on certain scenes and certain things with it. Overall, it’s an alright movie–it’s quite short, only 1.5 hours. It’s definitely one of those movies that Lee Hom fans SHOULD watch, and it’s kinda like an advertisement for his new album since all the songs in the movie are from the album.
I give it a 3.5 out of 5. 0.5 added because of Lee Hom’s hotness.
Upside down, bouncin' off the ceiling! 