January 11th, 2008
The Golden Rock - January 10th, 2008 Edition
A fairly short entry today, since this blogger is still recovering from the trauma that was Johnnie To’s Linger.
- Though To’s latest Linger is not likely to see any festival play, another seemingly finished film of his (I say seemingly because he’s been shooting the damn thing for years), Sparrow, will be heading to the competition section of the Berlin Film Festival. Another Asian film heading there is Yoji Yamada’s latest Kabei. The festival will run from February 7th to the 17th, and this blog will of course follow any news from the festival.
- Apparently there are at least a million people who aren’t creeped out by Japanese singer/songwriter Hideaki Tokunaga’s covers of pop songs by female artists: his latest cover album has now sold more than 1 million copies.
- Variety’s Derek Elley reviews the twisty Korean thriller 7 Days, starring Lost’s Kim Yun-Jin.
- Japanese film magazine Kimema Junpo has announced their list of the top 10 films of 2007. To no one’s surprise, films like Soredemo Boku wa Yattenai (”I Just Didn’t Do It) and Sad Vacation are on the list, but one inclusion that did surprise me is the quiet comedy-drama Shaberedomo Shaberedomo, which I reviewed here. I thought Sakuran is a more accomplished film (Despite its weakness in storytelling), but I guess they’re a conservative bunch.
It was also good to see Zodiac and Babel on the foreign films list as well.
- Strong sales for both the Nintendo DS and the Wii (thanks to the Wii Fit) has helped sent video game sales to a record high in 2007. The way this keeps going, I might have to buy a DS myself.
January 12th, 2008 at 12:37 am
Aiyah, I did try to warn you (guys) about “Linger” in my bc magazine review! ;(
January 12th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Indeed you did, but I think the Johnnie To name blinded us.
I was surprised that the Cantonese dub was put into all the theaters at last minute, while you got to see the Mandarin version. It wasn’t a huge problem, since the film takes place in Hong Kong, and a lot of the Milkyway regular spoke in Cantonese anyway.
January 14th, 2008 at 10:43 pm
I’m surprised too that the put the Cantonese dub into Hong Kong cinemas. Maybe test audiences reacted really badly to the Mandarin dub? The bad thing is that my review looks bad as I made quite a big deal out of the film being in Mandarin (yet set in Hong Kong)!