"fried rice paradise, nasi goreng very nice, that's a speciality, ninety-nine varieties!"
I think I've known this song since I was a student in secondary school... back in the days when everybody knew Dick Lee as the Mad Chinaman and the composer for local productions like Beauty World, Snow Wolf Lake, Hotpants, Sing To The Dawn, etc. Nowadays, youths will probably recognise him as judge on Singapore Idol and composer of a couple of National Day songs and creative director of the National Day Parade on a few occasions.
Recently, I read the review of Fried Rice Paradise on Berita Harian and the writer made comparisons with Dick Lee's Beauty World which was re-staged in 2006. I didn't manage to catch the latter back then but I did watch it on television during the President's Star Charity in 1998, with Evelyn Tan, Sharon Au and Jacintha in the lead roles. Comparisons are inevitable since both are Dick Lee musicals which are rooted in Singapore culture and made use of plenty of Singlish in their libretto and script. Beauty World, I guess, is a more polished piece of work, having been around a little longer and since it's been re-staged a couple of times already, the one more commercially successful.
I think however, Fried Rice Paradise stands on its own, apart from Beauty World and although I never knew what the original Fried Rice musical was like, the re-working to update it to a 2010 audience, headlined by Singapore Idol 2004 winner Taufik Batisah, is a good, calculated move. Of course, opening during the fasting month is not such a great idea, considering the fact that Taufik, Rahimah Rahim and a few others of the cast are Malay Muslims. A mid-September opening would have been alot better.
I concede that the plot is very predictable, the songs are not as memorable as those in Sing To The Dawn, and the frivolous story is a far cry from the epic Forbidden City: Portrait of an Empress. But the only similarity to Beauty World is in its innocent, virginal heroine, the disco/nightclub scenes and the ah-beng hood-turned-good hero. Err.. maybe that's
alot of similarities.
Fried Rice Paradise tries (too hard, perhaps?) to reflect Singapore's multi-racial background by having Rahimah Rahim, Hatta Said and Jacqueline Pereira as secondary characters. Unfortunately, I feel that they are non-essential to the main plot and are mostly around to provide comic relief. Even Taufik's character, Johan, is rather one-dimensional, and his "unrequited love" subplot, had no resolution whatsoever. Furthermore, from my vantage point at circle two, his voice seemed to blend too well with the 'live' orchestra and as a result, there were times when he sounds abit too soft or too muffled. Ok.. so maybe that's the fault of the sound engineers for not amplifying the actor's voice. Another flaw is the rushed finale which seemed very... rushed. Then suddenly, the protagonists have fallen in love and everyone's singing the title song.
I don't mean to sound critical and the show does have its redeeming factors. For instance, Taufik has one moment of glory within the show (hehe..) when he sings a lovely RnB ballad and his smooth as silk vocals really shine. We are once again reminded that he is an accomplished pop performer, but not really having the chops to be a Broadway star. Sebastian Tan and Denise Tan (or was it Celine Rosa Tan, the alternate, that I was watching that day? I really can't tell them apart...), though unconvincing as a pair of youths in love, have voices suited for singing musicals and their comic timing is impeccable. The secondary characters (Rahimah, Hatta, Jacqueline)
do have their funny, memorable moments while the villains of the show are also commendable, such as Darius Tan's nasal, over-the-top portrayal of night club owner Ricky Goh and Amanda Tee's hilarious interpretation of Campari, the night club hostess. She reminded me of an ah-lian version of Fran Drescher. The real surprise of the show was when Lim Yu Beng opened his mouth and sang.. I didn't know he could! And he had a very pleasant baritone too.
All in all, Fried Rice Paradise, like its protagonist, is an innocent crowd pleaser, with no noble aspirations and epic drama. It's family entertainment that is good enough to be enjoyed for an evening (though parents must know there are quite a number of rude dialect words being used) but probably not memorable enough to warrant a second viewing. With that said, Singaporeans
should try to support local talent.---
my ratings: 3.5 / 5 stars!
ps. I wrote a similar entry almost five days earlier and thought I had successfully posted it using BlogPress on my iphone but unbeknown to me, there was a technical glitch and was never published. So that original entry is lost forever and a new one had to be posted.
