- It’s looking like another crowded weekend at the Hong Kong box office this weekend, with at least 4 wide releases. Debuting at the top is the Hollywood musical Mamma Mia, which opened on 34 screens for an opening day take of HK$395,000. This is likely to attract more adult audiences as the holiday weekend rolls around, so it’s looking to do fairly well. In second place is the Thai horror omnibus 4BIA, which made HK$214,000 from 27 screens on opening day. Not opening so well is the Japanese doggie film 10 Promises with My Dog, which made just HK$206,000 from 35 screens. The distributor is likely hoping that it’ll do solid long-term business like A Tale of Mari and Three Puppies did earlier in the year. Rounding out the wide releases is the Simon Yam-produced Ocean Flames, which made only HK$80,000 from 26 screens. Some multiplexes have already panicked and reduced the number of daily showings for over the weekend.

Actually, two major Hong Kong releases were scheduled to come out for the holiday weekend - Jingle Ma’s Butterfly Lovers and Alan Mak/Felix Chong’s Lady Cop and Papa Crook. However, both films were moved to October, with Mei Ah citing that they never officially scheduled the September release date (despite the fact that they ran promotions with the September date in mind), while Mak and co. citing that their film needs further post-production tweaking. Hence, another holiday weekend goes to waste for HK cinema. More when the numbers are out on Tuesday.

- Japan has announced that they will be sending the recent award-winner Departures (or Okuribito) to try for the Best Foreign Film award at the Academy Awards this year.

-It’s reviews time! First, the Daily Yomiuri’s Ikuko Kitagawa has a review of Departures, then Japan Times’ Mark Schilling has the likely first English review for Tetsuya Nakashima’s latest Paco and the Magic Book, and Variety’s Robert Koehler gives his take on Rian Johnson’s The Brothers Bloom, which is included here because Rinko Kikuchi has a supporting role in the film.

- Johnnie To/Wai Ka Fai’s Mad Detective has picked up another award, this time the Audience Award at the 2nd annual Changmuro International Film Festival. Hur Jin Ho’s Happiness also picked up the Discovery Award.

- This year’s big Japanese pop hit Soba Ni Iru Ne just won’t go away, as now it has been recognized by the Guinness World Record as the song with the most cell phone downloads.