Fridae

Fifteen years on in his singing career, Emil Chau has decided not to appear in his latest music video, instead, two of Taiwan's most promising young actors take centrestage.

In this remake of Chau's late-80s ballad Song of Sadness, director Tsao Rui-Yuan renders a fresh interpretation to the song with a gay love story that takes place in two contrasting periods, 1937 and 2003.

Tsao was the centre of much controversy early this year. He directed Crystal Boys, a popular Taiwan Television Corporation series based on a bestselling novel about the gay community in Taipei in the 1950s.

Since its publication more than three decades ago, the novel by Pai Hsien-Yung has been regarded a classic by many readers.

No other writing has come close to his depiction of gay culture amid the social milieu in the last few decades before any homosexual character has even appeared in a mainstream book or film in Taiwan.

Public outcry over the appropriateness of certain intimate scenes resulted in having two different versions of the television series broadcast at prime time and late hours. In the television series, Wing Fan and Yang play a pair of schoolboys whose friendship turned into affection. Yang is also starring in a new gay romantic comedy Sweet Heaven Seventeen.

The crew involved said that Fan and Yang broke out of the awkwardness that was felt during the making of Crystal Boys.

Director Tsao said in Mandairn, "When you observe each of these guys, you see just good-lookers; put them together and you have a piece of art."

Parts of Emil Chau's new MTV was shot in the same locations used the television series. The video also featured the same actors who dwelled in the neighbourhood.

For Taiwanese viewers, the MTV is a delightful reprise to the series that touched many hearts, but this time with a contemporary twist. The director is leaving little doubt as to the nature of the love that goes on between the two protagonists.

Emil Chau has just launched his 3-disc album, Beginning of a New Cycle, a compilation of the favourite Chinese and English tracks from his early days as a folk and ballad songwriter-singer.

A complete 10-minute version of the Song of Sadness music video will be aired in a television feature to promote Chau's latest song compilation.