February 28th, 2008
The Golden Rock - February 28th, 2008 Edition
- Courtesy of the informative EastSouthWestNorth is an entry from Danwei about the current state of Chinese cinema. Yes, it’s making money, but where is it headed?
- Jason Gray has a advance review of Gururi No Koto, Ryosuke Hashiguchi’s first film in six years. The teaser on the website (click on the link next to “information”) doesn’t say much, but that, along with the review, has gotten me fairly excited about the film now.
By the way, the film stars Lili Franky. Yes, the Lili Franky who wrote Tokyo Tower - Me, Mom and Sometimes Dad.
- Actress Takako Matsu, usually seen in TV dramas and films, just picked up the Best Actress Award at the Yomiuri Theater Awards for her performances in two stage productions.
- Even though I’m a bigger fan of another author named Murakami, it’s worth reporting that Ryu Murakami’s novel Coin Locker Babies’ film adaptation, which has been on-and-off for years, may still be happening……eventually?
- Watch out, Oricon, the Billboard charts is heading to Japan. It will be compiling data from radio airplay from 33 radio stations and sales figures from 3,000 retailers to make a top 100 chart that will likely differ from the weekly Oricon singles sales chart.
- It may seem strange to those who don’t really know the Japanese film industry, since you may expect a film studio to so something like this instead: major television network NTV has announced its slate of film for the 2008 fiscal year, which will range from the latest film from Hayao Miyazaki to a crime film starring Takeshi Kaneshiro as a killer in 1949 Japan. Most mainstream films in Japan are actually at least partially financed by major television networks. NTV, for one, have made a ton of money from the Death Note films (including the currently-in-release spinoff L: Change the World).
- Japanese actress Youki Kudoh, who was last seen in L: Change the World, will be in her second Jim Jarmusch film, about a “mysterious loner working outside the law.” Whatever that means.
- Lastly, Variety’s Derek Elley gives a brief review to the hit Korean handball movie Forever the Moment.