A Viet film treat pho you
In conjunction with Vietnam’s independence day next month, GSC is screening some gems at selected cinemas during its Vietnamese Film Festival 2018
THE latest rom-com drama from Vietnam, 100 Days Of Sunshine isa remake of popular 2012 South Koreanmovie Never Ending Story. The movie follows Anh Duong, a famous beauty blogger, and Nhat Minh, a carefree gamer, who are both diagnosed with cancer with limited time left to spare.
Together, they plan a fake wedding to fulfil their final wishes.
This poignant movie, together with four others (Yellow Flowers On The Green Grass, Hello Vietnam!, My Girlfriend Is The Boss and 798Ten), will be screened during GSC’s inaugural Vietnamese Film Festival 2018, which runs from Aug23to29.
The festival, organised by the GSC Group of Companies in partnership with Vietnam’s Galaxy Studio, is held in conjunction with Vietnam’s independence day on Sept 2.
EXCITING MIX
Set in New York, Hello Vietnam! tells the story of Ong Tu, who escapes his nursing home to celebrate his wife’s death anniversary.
Together with his friend Ong Nam, they reminisce about the “good old days” back in Vietnam, but generational and cultural gaps threaten to tear Ong Tu and his estranged granddaughter apart.
In My Girlfriend Is The Boss, THE recent Hands International Drumming Festival (Kaleidoscope 5: Unbeatable), which took place at the Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre, was another success for celebrated local drumming ensemble Hands Percussion.
Since 2009, the group has been organising the biennial festival with the aim of showcasing various drumming cultures andtalentsaroundtheworld.
It also features the primal beauty of the drums combined with majestic dance movements and visual splendour that stimulate both the eyes and the ears that Hands has come to be known for.
The evening show began with a dazzling display of drumming from Uzbekistan musician Abbos Kosimov.
A US-based percussionist who has worked with a stellar list of artistes such as Zakir Hussain, Kronos Quartet and Terry Bozzio, he performed on a series of traditional instruments, including the quirky mouth harp and the frame drum called the dorya.
As his set progressed, so did the number of drums he held.
At one point he dextrously performed various rhythmic patterns on three hand drums, which he held to his body, using his fingers, palms and elbows, with his feet providing some bass beats to boot.
There was an exciting circus element to it too. From spinning hand drums and tossing them into the air, while keeping the Uzbek and Tajik rhythms going, it was indeed a wonder to see.
Then it was time for Hands, founded by Bernard Goh, who is also its artistic direc- have been keeping their relationship a secret, as the bank they work for has a strict “No Fraternisation” policy.
They soon arrive at a realisation that for them to marry, one of them has to resign.
When an ATM glitch in Ho Chi Minh city The progressive percussion ensemble in action.
The Little Prince, Unbeatable, Deconstruction and One.
From quiet passages and fragile wavelike soundscapes, courtesy of some light scraping on the drum skins, to reverberating rhythms from the various big drums, the group covered a variety of sounds to entrance.
The group also performed mesmerising tones from the gamelan set and provided magical-sounding moments with Tan Su Yin on the marimba.
Thrown in were some off-beat time signatures and polyrhythms to spice things doles out extra money, these two overachievers race each other to see who is able to recover the money first, becoming the one to keep his or her job.
798Ten is an action-comedy featuring Tam and Bich, who grew up in poverty.
In love, they plan to build their lives together but their dream is cut short when Bich’s gambler dad, Chin, becomes indebted to Trum Ro, a local mobster, and is forced to marry Bich off to him to pay the debt.
To save the woman he loves, Tam recruits a cab driver and his cousin to go on a rescue adventure full of laughter and deception.
The headlining film, Yellow Flowers On The Green Grass, is a critically-acclaimed and award-winning art movie that has been screened at many festivals around the world, including Cannes in 2015.
The five movies will be screened at GSC Mid Valley, GSC Pavilion KL , GSC 1 Utama, GSC Gurney Plaza Penang and GSC Paradigm Johor Baru, with tickets priced at RM10 each. Tickets go on sale from Aug 21. All movies will
up as well. The drumming ensemble was divided into two sections: The capable Hands 1, comprised seven full-time seniors, and the impressive Hands 2, made up of 15 part-timers.
Visually, there were strong drumming movements but they were also interspersed with abstract dance choreography.
At one point, a couple of dancers were clad in wooden branch-like appendages one moving in slow motion while the other proceeded to spin violently.
There were also moments where the drummers caressed and hugged the big drums, at times using them in a choreographed have English and Malay subtitles.
In conjunction with the inaugural festival, moviegoers stand a chance to redeem vouchers and take part in a contest with prizes consisting of flight tickets to Nha Trang, Hanoi and Saigon. dance, which showcased their closeness and passion for their instruments.
After celebrating its 20th anniversary last year, Hands has surely matured immensely and hopefully the progressive percussion ensemble will continue to thrill audiences for many more years to come.
The show then continued with Australian drummer Ben Walsh, who showcased his ingenious ways of looking at percussion performance.
Starting out with simple boxes he produced simple beats. Moving to bigger boxes that were linked to unseen triggers, he literally beat out workable rhythms with child-like glee.
Using a microphone hooked up to a computer which modulated his voice into droning melodies of some kind, he later played a shot ditty by using a real drum kit to accompany the melodies.
But what impressed the most visually was a standing octagon frame, which housed eight drums in a circular pattern, where Walsh drummed out loud and dynamic rhythms. He dedicated the visually arresting piece to the indigenous aboriginal tribes from his homeland.
Theshowthencametoaclosewitha satisfying jam session between Kosimov, Walsh and a selection of Hands members.
The four-day festival run, which included a series of workshops, also featured performances by the U-Hee Company from Korea and Syrian Majd Hass, as well as Malaysia’s Dhol Alliance, Mat Din and Prakash Kandasamy.