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Web-only Exclusives
November 30, 2000

From Our Correspondent: Hirohito and the War
A conversation with biographer Herbert Bix

From Our Correspondent: A Rough Road Ahead
Bad news for the Philippines - and some others

From Our Correspondent: Making Enemies
Indonesia needs friends. So why is it picking fights?

Asiaweek Time Asia Now Asiaweek story

ENTERTAINMENT


Off Target

Broken Arrow

John Travolta, Christian Slater
20th-Century Fox

AS A RENEGADE MILITARY pilot who threatens to detonate two nuclear weapons unless the Pentagon meets his financial demands, Travolta does his damnedest to act like a disreputable psycho. He delivers his lines through clenched teeth, and he struts around the desert with insanely purposeful bravado. But his character is just a villain out of a Steven Seagal picture, a one-note megalomaniac. The movie is even shakier than its star: It's a big, loud action bash that keeps blowing things up because it doesn't know what else to do. Hong Kong director John Woo's trademark bravura is scarcely in evidence. It's not just him who gets swallowed up by the mechanics of big-budget mayhem. It's the audience, which pays for a sleek, dark thriller and gets recycled pulp instead.


No Happy Ending

Rajkumar (Prince)

Madhuri Dixit, Anil Kapoor
VIP Films

SUPPOSEDLY THE MOST EXPENSIVE Hindi movie yet made, Rajkumar was released with unprecedented hype and hoopla. Its budget of over $27 million bought a movie set that's a city replete with a castle. Its plot is similarly fairy-tale stuff: a do-gooder prince (Kapoor), evil courtiers, warring fiefdoms and a princess (Dixit) mixed up with plenty of computer magic and make-believe. Director Pakuj Parasher hired a seven-member computer graphics team to create the effects. With that kind of spending, the film has to be a blockbuster just to break even. But so far it looks like a bomb. One viewer quipped: "What special effects? All I saw was Madhuri. She is the most special of all the effects." Both Dixit and Kapoor need a hit to revive their sagging careers. Rajkumar is not it.


Memory's Voice

Kaddish

Towering Inferno
Island

NAMED AFTER THE JEWISH prayer for the dead, Kaddish is an ambitious, experimental album about the horrors of the Holocaust that blends an array of styles, including classical, industrial and even heavy metal. Sparse piano lines and Hebrew chants drift solemnly through the mix, only to be consumed by militant beats and Nazi speech samples. Sobering and utterly engaging.


Cool Copycats

Hunk

Hunk
Geffen

IT WAS ONLY A matter of time before some enterprising group tried mining alternative gold by copying a Beatles copy. But on its superb debut, this New York quartet adds a dash of Queen's power pomp to its Cheap Trick-inspired ironic lyrics and coolly abrasive melodies. From the gorgeously melodramatic "Lie to Me" to the electroshock beat of "Rain or Shine," here's a band unafraid to rock like punk never happened.


Slick Newcomer

Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite

Maxwell
Columbia

ENDOWED WITH A FLUID falsetto and a masterful ear for songcraft, R&B singer Maxwell details a single passionate encounter over the course of his sophisticated debut. While he can't yet claim the throne occupied by Marvin Gaye, he smoothes hip-hop's and soul's edges, proving that black dance music doesn't automatically mean ghetto culture.


All Mine

Lode Runner Online

Sierra On-Line
CD-ROM for PC


This edition's table of contents | Asiaweek home

AsiaNow


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TIME:

COVER: President Joseph Estrada gives in to the chanting crowds on the streets of Manila and agrees to make room for his Vice President

THAILAND: Twin teenage warriors turn themselves in to Bangkok officials

CHINA: Despite official vilification, hip Chinese dig Lamaist culture

PHOTO ESSAY: Estrada Calls Snap Election

WEB-ONLY INTERVIEW: Jimmy Lai on feeling lucky -- and why he's committed to the island state



ASIAWEEK:

COVER: The DoCoMo generation - Japan's leading mobile phone company goes global

Bandwidth Boom: Racing to wire - how underseas cable systems may yet fall short

TAIWAN: Party intrigues add to Chen Shui-bian's woes

JAPAN: Japan's ruling party crushes a rebel ì at a cost

SINGAPORE: Singaporeans need to have more babies. But success breeds selfishness


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