Chloe Chua: Mozart Violin Concertos album review – teenage prodigy's interpretations are balanced and mature
As well as the five concertos we also get three stand-alone movements, two rondos and an adagio – and, most rewardingly, the Sinfonia Concertante, for which Chua is joined by the violist Ziyu He, another Menuhin Competition winner, his mellow-toned lines dovetailing perfectly with hers. Granted, these performances may not stand out dramatically in a very crowded field, but they are certainly worth your time.
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The Guardian
26 minutes ago
- The Guardian
The Narrow Road to the Deep North review
There is an overwhelming darkness to The Narrow Road to the Deep North, Justin Kurzel's adaptation of Richard Flanagan's Booker prize-winning novel. Thematically, this is to be expected: it is about a group of Australian prisoners of war constructing the Burma railway in the mid-1940s, at the tail end of the second world war. It is about the lasting trauma of conflict and imprisonment. It spans half a century, and though it tempers its darkness with a rich love story, it is largely violent, fatalistic and sorrowful. But visually, too, you may find yourself fiddling with the contrast and brightness settings. This very much matches its mood to its palette. Jacob Elordi is perfectly handsome and haunted as the younger Dorrigo, a poetry-loving doctor who is about to be married to the well-to-do and socially connected Ella (Olivia DeJonge). The show covers three timelines, two of which follow closely on from one another. Elordi takes the main shift, Dorrigo as a young man. It opens in the thick heat of battle, going straight into the action. Young soldiers trade barbs with gallows humour, as they joke and tease, and place bets on how long they think they are going to live. Their banter is interrupted by exploding mines, the casualties already considerable, just a few moments in. The survivors are captured and put to work on the railway. It is hellish from the off, a vivid nightmare of torture and a tale of impossible endurance. Forty-nine years later, towards the end of the 1980s, Ciarán Hinds is the older Dorrigo, a successful, wealthy and celebrated surgeon, still married to Ella (now played by Heather Mitchell). Dorrigo is brooding, even more haunted and undergoing a reckoning with his own history. He is also celebrated as a war hero, but he is combative, arrogant, even reckless, in his professional and personal life. He gives a furious television interview, ostensibly about his experiences of war, to promote a book, the nature of which is deliberately abstruse. This enforced reflection causes him to remember what he has tried so hard to forget and, as a drama, flipping between timelines, it builds up a picture of what made him the unhappy, unfaithful man he has become. It does this slowly, convincingly and in great, awful detail. The 1980s storyline, in which Dorrigo's philandering ways are laid bare, provides some respite from the relentless violence. This is visceral, in its truest sense. Kurzel captures the bodily horror of war in an almost confrontationally frank manner. As they hack away at rock and trees, the men are emaciated, filthy, full of malaria and dysentery. The camera nestles in among them, and hovers above, conveying a real sense of their closeness and suffering. At one point, a leg must be amputated. This is a gory and drawn-out ordeal. At least, in the darkness, it is partially obscured, though the audio alone is gruesome enough. For all of its bodily horrors, this is a passionate, full-bodied love story too, a strand that is delicately balanced but just as impactful. Before he is called up, Dorrigo visits his uncle Keith (a small, mighty performance from Simon Baker) and is immediately drawn to Keith's young wife, Amy (Odessa Young). She is intrigued, if not impressed, but when they meet again at a poetry reading in a bookshop, after Dorrigo has become engaged to Ella, that initial spark ignites into a forest fire. It takes time for their mutual attraction to become more than yearning and longing, lingering looks and touches, but the pacing of it is moving and affecting. Compared to the grinding chaos of the jungle, their affair is sad and beautiful, as romantic as it is doomed. This is a literary drama and it makes no apologies for that. Dorrigo loves Catullus and Aeschylus. The men perform Romeo and Juliet for each other in the jungle. Amy cements her attraction to Dorrigo with a fragment of Sappho, which reads, simply, 'you burn me'. At times, its novelistic roots are more obviously on show; some of the dialogue is writerly and elevated, as the characters reflect poetically upon human nature and cruelty. And there is much cruelty to consider. There are so many killings, so many deaths, and one particular execution, in the jungle, is one of the most distressing scenes I have watched on television in a long time. The Narrow Road to the Deep North, then, is not an easy prospect, but it is an immensely powerful one, driven by strong performances and a bracing confidence in its ability to tell this story, at its own pace, in its own way. My only complaint is that I would have liked to have been able to see just a little more of it. The Narrow Road to the Deep North aired on BBC One and is on iPlayer in the UK. It is available on Prime Video in Australia, New Zealand, the US and Canada.
The Review Geek
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Has S Line been renewed for Season 2? Here's what we know:
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Daily Mail
4 hours ago
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EXCLUSIVE I spent $700k on plastic surgery to become a Korean woman... now I'm de-transitioning to a man again
A man who spent $700,000 and got 32 plastic surgeries in an attempt to look like a Korean popstar before transitioning into a woman has revealed that he's now trying to undo all of the procedures after 'finding God.' When Oli London, 35, originally from the UK, moved to South Korea in 2013 to teach English, he became completely enthralled by the world of K-pop music. As someone who had always struggled with identity after being brutally bullied by his peers as a teen, he was drawn to how 'perfect' all the K-pop stars looked... so he set out on a quest to become one himself. Oli forked over hundreds of thousands of dollars and went under the knife dozens of times in his attempts to look like someone from the Asian country. This included having his cheek bones shaved down, chin surgery, and multiple procedures done to try to change the shape of his eyes. But even after he finally achieved his dream look, the 'transracial' star still felt like something was missing. So in 2022, he came out as transgender and underwent a shocking 11 more procedures in one day to try to make himself look more feminine. But when he still didn't feel happy Oli decided to turn to religion and it completely changed his 'perspective.' He has now learned to love his body the way 'God made it,' and is working hard to undo the 'damaging mutilations' he put himself through in pursuit of 'validation.' Oli, who has since de-transitioned back to male, laid bare his shocking journey exclusively with the Daily Mail. Oli explained that he believes his desire to change his appearance stemmed from a slew of insecurities that he developed at a young age. He said he had 'extremely bad acne, a big nose,' and what he described as 'man boobs' as a child, which lead to relentless bullying from his peers during his teenage years. 'I was always very shy and insecure as a child, and when I was at school, I used to get teased and bullied for the way I looked,' he explained. 'It really affected my confidence and shaped who I was to become as an adult.' His obsession with wanting to look like a K-pop star began after he moved to South Korea in 2013 to teach English. At the time, he started listening to K-pop music and became particularly enthralled with BTS member Jimin. Before and after: This included having his cheek bones shaved down, chin surgery, and multiple procedures done to try to change the shape of his eyes 'I saw just how perfect all of the K-pop stars looked and I wanted to become like them,' he continued. Over eight years he got a whopping 32 plastic surgeries to try and achieve the K-pop look, which included three eye surgeries and having his jaw, chin, and cheek bones shaved to make his face V-shaped. 'This procedure left me unable to speak for two weeks. I was unable to eat most foods and only ate liquids like soup and yogurts,' he recalled of the latter. 'And every time I would eat, I would struggle because of the stitches and bandages around my jaw. 'I now have six titanium brackets and 24 titanium screws in my face from these bone surgeries.' He estimated that he spent around $700,000 on the endeavor, which included revamping his entire closet as well. After completely transforming his look, he went on to launch his own career as a K-pop star, releasing a slew of songs and wracking up 45 million views on his YouTube and VEVO accounts. But even after completing his dream of becoming a K-pop star, Oli still struggled to feel happy. 'I felt temporary happiness after each surgical procedure. I'd feel good for a few months and that feeling would fade and I would want to go and get some more,' he explained. He said that as he started posting about his transition on social media, he endured a slew of backlash - which only pushed him to want more surgery. 'I started getting a lot of fans and a lot of support but also a lot of hate - people commenting on my looks, people saying I don't look good, saying I look like plastic, that I look like a robot or I look like an alien,' he shared. 'So this actually drove me to have more surgeries at the time 'cause I was thinking, "If I just do one more surgery, I'll be perfect and people will stop trolling me and stop hating on me." 'I used to get a lot of comments saying that I should die, saying I should take my own life, saying I was ugly or disgusting. 'Some even said I looked like a burn victim, like an acid attack victim, it was really horrible, nasty comments. 'It was tough and it led me into a spiral of depression, I was in a very dark place because of this online hate.' In May 2022, Oli came out as transgender and began transitioning to a woman. He got 11 procedures in one day in an attempt 'to feminize his face.' 'This included shaving my bones, including my forehead and eyebrows, more eye surgery, a facelift, a neck lift, a lip lift, having fat removed from my cheeks, hairline lowering, and multiple other facial procedures to try and make me look like a woman,' he shared. But Oli still struggled with his identity, and later that year, he made a complete 360 after turning to religion and 'finding God.' He became a Christian and announced he was officially done with plastic surgery and began transitioning back to male. 'After struggling for years with my identity and trying to find myself in 2022, I actually became Christian and started going to church and found God and this really helped me have a different perspective on life and also overcome my identity battle,' Oli said. 'I realized that I didn't need to be doing all these changes. I didn't need to keep changing my identity. 'I just needed to be me and focus on the way that God made me so this was a real turning point for me and actually I've been very, very happy and confident ever since making this decision to change my life. 'I quit it all in 2022 and tried to make myself look more like myself, more natural and more masculine. 'I removed all my fillers, I stopped having Botox, I shaved my hair, started going to the gym to build muscle and look more masculine.' He's now in the process of 'reversing' his previous surgeries. 'I [had to] fix my body because I previously had two botched nipple surgeries and a bad gynecomastia surgery,' he said. 'I've had my body fat removed to make my body more masculine, and it's helped me restore my confidence so much I feel great and feel confident enough to take my top off at the beach or even in the gym. I've never been happier. 'Earlier this year, I also had a hair transplant using a special technique called Long Hair Ready. 'With this procedure they actually harvested long hairs from the back of my head to my forehead, so I instantly had long hair after the transplant.' Oli recently underwent his sixth 'and final' nose job, explaining, 'I've now made it slightly wider and more masculine, and now it really suits my face and looks perfect.' Now, the 35-year-old is preparing to 'relaunch his K-pop music career' now that he's become 'the best version of himself.' 'Now that I fixed everything I'm super, super happy and I will only focus on non-surgical beauty treatments going forward,' he vowed. 'I'm so happy and super confident now and I've been doing photo shoots and attending fashion shows recently, and preparing to relaunch my K-pop music career.' Looking back, he said he spent so long trying to be something he wasn't just to fit in, and now he's so glad that he has learned to embrace his true self. 'I was basically trying to fit in, trying to become someone I wasn't and thinking that [plastic surgery] would give me happiness,' said Oli. 'I just wanted to fit in my whole life. I just wanted to look good, to feel good about myself and receive compliments. 'I wanted that positive affirmation. I used to get a lot of trolls and people criticizing my looks so I just wanted people to love me and think that I look beautiful and say that I look like a star or a K-pop star.' In the end, Oli - who recently wrote a book about it called Gender Madness - said he hopes that being so open about his journey will help others learn how to love themselves. 'Live your best life and be happy,' he urged. 'Don't care about what others think.'
