Jay Chow Goes Yueju

Don't be mistaken by the heading; Jay Chow is NOT singing Yueju. However, recently (actually it has been almost half a year already), a netizen by the name of "Wei Ye Na" had did a cover of Jay Chow's "Ju Hua Tai", but instead of making a parody out of the lyrics, he actually sang it in the style of Yueju music, complete with a rather authentic Zhejiang accent. Take a look at the video clip before and you'll see what I mean.



I personally quite like this version, a rather nice fusion of "classy pop" with traditional Yueju. The person doing the cover has got a rather nice vocal tone too, and I wonder if he was even at least an amateur Yueju performer himself. Of course, being someone who had quite watched Yueju quite extensively, I found his singing a little less authentic; he was singing in Yin-style almost throughout the whole song (excluding the chorus part of course), but at one particular section, he suddenly broke into the Xu-style, an act no Yueju actor would do unless for special dramatic reasons according to the context of the script.

Yueju Crossover - Parody Version part 3

This is the last of the 3 Yueju crossover sketch, titled "The Arrogant Princess". The role of Li Junrui (Princess) was crossdressed by Peter, while Tao Hai acted as the Empress. Luu-style huadan actress Chen Shi took on the role of the Emperor while Huaiju (a major opera genre from Jiangsu province) Qingyi actress acted as Princess Consort Guo Ai.

Yueju Crossover - Parody Version part 2

This is the second Yueju sketch for the same series, which was recorded together with the rest for the New Year's celebration (I supposed it's for this year's). This second sketch is "The Pearl Pagoda". The leading roles of Fang Qing and Chen Cui'e were taken on by Jin Jing and Jin Hong respectively. Jin Jing is a popular Qi-style actress who is famous for her potrayal of pitiful female characters like Zhu Yingtai, Du Shiniang and Bai Suzhen (Madam White Snake). Jin Hong, if you can still recall in my previous posts, is a laosheng actress famous for her solemn-faced or sly characters on stage. In this performance, Jin Jing crossed over to act a xiaosheng while Jin Hong took on a huadan role. The roles of Chen Peide and Fang Duohua (Chen Cui'e's parents) were acted by Peter and Tao Hai.

In between various segments of the sketch, video clips of excerpts from various versions of "The Pearl Pagoda" (including Yueju version, Xiju version and Huajixi version) were also featured. One thing to note is that in one of the clips, "Prince of Yueju" Zhao Zhigang also did a crossover. Not in the sense that he acted as a huadan, but he actually sang Xiju, and I felt that his performance was not bad.

Yueju Crossover - Parody Version part 1

Remember my previous posts about a Yueju crossover performance by various Yueju celebrities? That performance is meant to showcase the other unseen sides of popular Yueju stars which one rarely got to see in regular performances. This time round, I'm going to show you another series of Yueju crossover performance, but this is unlike the previous one. This series of Yueju crossover performance is in a form of comedy sketch, which is part of a variety show in one of Shanghai's TV stations featuring Chinese opera music videos and interviews with Chinese opera celebrities.

Thie first sketch I'm going to present is "Romance of the Western Chamber". Taking on the role of Cui Yingying was Xu Biaoxin, one of the up-and-rising male Lu-style xiaosheng in the Yueju scene, and Zhang Jurui was acted by female Zhang-style laosheng Wu Qun. The roles of Hong-niang and Old Madam Cui were impersonated by Tao Hai and Peter respectively, who are popular TV hosts in Shanghai and are passionate about Yueju as well.