Several things:

- I struggled for a bit, and since I won’t have time to write any real reviews for a while, I might as well link to my freelance reviews here. So here are this months’ reviews:

Lump of Sugar (South Korea)

Eason Chan - What’s Going On…? (Hong Kong music)

Ivana Wong - Picturesque (Hong Kong music)

Note: I actually ended my Ivana Wong review with the word “boring,” but the truth is “underwhelming” is a better word to describe a boring album that I liked, since “boring” would imply that I didn’t like it.

- The opening numbers for the last Japanese cinema hope at the box office Ooku is in, and it’s definitely not a TBS-sized disaster. In fact, it made 240 million yen, a 111% of Nakama Yukie’s “Shinobi.” While it’s by no means a great feat, it’s a pretty good number considering it’s an adaptation of a drama about internal bickering among Japanese royalty women.

- I’ll be on vacation starting tomorrow, off in Japan and Hong Kong until January 11th. Hopefully, it’ll mean good food, good shopping, and of course, lots of good movies. I will continue to try and report on the latest news (which is looking more possible while I’m in Japan more than while I’m in Hong Kong.).

Until the weekend Hong Kong numbers come in, Merry Christmas and happy new year!

Many people through Martin Scorsese’s The Departed would’ve featured Brad Pitt because the rights were bought by Brad Pitt’s production company Plan B. According to today’s Oriental Daily in Hong Kong, Plan B may be interested to repeat its success by buying the remake rights to Andrew Lau and Alan Mak’s Confession of Pain.

The question is why? Confession of Pain is part of the murder mystery genre that Hollywood has done over the years. Then again, I haven’t seen it yet, so maybe that’s why I haven’t seen one reason why anyone should buy remake rights for a story Hollywood has probably done before.

Edit: Just realizing that the page will be gone to make way for tomorrow’s newspaper, I’ll post the original Chinese text that mentions the news here:

畢 彼 特 前 年 買 下 《 無 間 道 》 版 權 拍 成 電 影 《 無 間 道 風 雲 》 ， 此 片 最 近 更 威 盡 美 國 的 「 星 獎 」 ， 據 知 ， 畢 彼 特 食 髓 知 味 ， 對 劉 偉 強 新 作 《 傷 城 》 亦 感 興 趣 ， 記 者 就 傳 聞 向 電 影 公 司 求 證 ， 發 言 人 承 認 確 有 荷 里 活 片 商 斟 洽 《 傷 城 》 版 權 ， 但 就 未 肯 透 露 詳 情 ！

And a rough, non-professional translaton by me here:
http://p202.ezboard.com/flovehkfilmfrm19.showMessage?topicID=105.topic