Got  free tickets last nite to the above musical , directed by Low Ngai Yuen and written by Yim Mei Choo with musical direction by Penny Low. This is the same group who wrote “Rose, Rose I love you” musical.

First of all, it is sponsored by Honda for the new Honda Accord , get it , No limits…

The cast is somewhat new , like comedian and I believe DJ KK Wong, Mary George , Malik Taufiq , Joanna Bessey and Gloria Ting. Perhaps the most experience actress there is Joanna Bessey, which makes the rest of them seem like amateurs.. .

Because it is a musical , the music and the singing is relative good, acting not spectacular. This would be easy peasy acting for Joanna Bessey (her toughest moment was when the evil KK, gave her multiple memories one minute Britney spears, next Auntie 18 from Kungfu Hustle and the next a temptress) and  there was a moment when her experience shines through like during her love scene with Christopher. The rest of the time, it just seemed like a high school musical act, sorry…The singing by Acapella group , the Stillettos was good , but not stunning. Mary George , just did not bring out her character’s strength and heroism, though her  voice was strong.   Now Gloria Ting as Miss Apple, did the shrewish teacher bit quite well , I must say I’m quite impressed with her diction. Malik Taufiq, gave a new take to ‘kayu’ act with his naive boy with very long white fake lashes which could be seen batting at Joanna Bessey, his love interest (all the way from where we were seated about 8 rows away) making his shy soft character Christopher quite endearing. Btw,those  arms look great on stage , Malik…very sexy against the sleeveless leather vest…he goes to my gym…yeah!

The main spill would be from KK Wong , who interspersed his English dialogue with sarky Cantonese slangs,  funny, but in a sarky, crass, canto -pop way.

Oh-oh, the story line right, well it is about year 2035, a strange magnetic force has caused the world’s population to lose all their memory save for Mary George, who as a scientist escaped the event cause she was caught in her own time warp experience . And when she returned found that she had to do the right thing and give the world their memories back. KK as  the evil assistant turned villain, who objected to her giving back the memory to the people, good or bad as is because that is what is right,  decided to jump ship and make his own machine  to give people perfect or ideal memories. Now NLP practitioners would really relate to him , cause he talks about creating perfect visions, implanting it in and leaving the unhappy past behind, even though argues Dr Q,  peoples’ remembered history tells their past values and they can choose to be whoever they want henceforth. Her argument is that he is playing God, by creating and choosing  people’s memories for them and subsequently abusing his power by  turning people into personal slaves.

There is a clever twist at the end, where we discover he is actually the scientist whose failed experiment was what caused the memory loss , sorry have I mentioned this is sci-fi …    The songs were cute (adapted songs from like Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” when the the two groups fought for what is right, the love duet betwen Kim and Christopher, or Any Winehouses’s “Rehab” lyrics when one character was caught for an implant and refusing to succumb to the villain’s evil ways. An then of course, there was the character of  Ling Chee Kang, who discovered he was a Kung Fu master with a murderous past, gave some pretty original Kung Fu moves like the twisted snake fist and drunken fists which were amusing.

Basically, the dialogue as my friends who were with me said, could be better and since it is a  musical, they really should use better dancers although the costumes were creative and befitting ( leather and tights always do it for me anyway), and the moral of the story is good. I mean , in one of  the dialogues they explain why people need to know their past.  It isn’t the memories that they need but the values that they had will determine the choice in how they live their lives, now that they have seen a better way of living.

Overall , as Randy Jackson (American Idol judge would say), you know, you all look cute, great effort at attempting the First sci-fi  musical in Malaysia, but it was just okay for me, dudes…!!

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