Usually, I would separate the box office report into its own entry, but there are so little news out there that I decided to cram both into one

- Since my usual box office source hasn’t updated its latest box office figures, we’ll just have to predict what’s going to happen when someone updates some figures. Thursday opening day figures put Beowulf on top with a solid-but-unspectacular HK$630,000 on 40 screens. However, I have no idea whether that includes the 3D and IMAX numbers. Nevertheless, it should do sizable business over the weekend, despite its final gross now dependent on word-of-mouth.

The Wong Jing-written/produced action flick Bullet & Brain managed to make HK$200,000 from 27 screens, which means it might stay at second place. Of course, that would only happen if Tokyo Tower doesn’t see a jump from a fairly strong opening day gross of HK$146,000 from 12 screens. There’s also Lust, Caution, which is heading to the HK$45 million mark and may have already reached it by today.

Down for the count is Derek Kwok’s The Pye-Dog. Despite the “we have a good movie on our hands!” advertising campaign (which is actually true, according to the boss), the film only made HK$80,000 on 28 screens and looks to disappear from Hong Kong screens by next week. We’ll leave everything else for when the numbers come out.

- In Japanese attendance rankings, the teen relationship drama Sky of Love takes the top spot again, with Resident Evil III, Always 2, and Bourne Ultimatum holding on to their spots. But don’t let the rankings fool you, though: Bourne Ultimatum’s opening is actually 124% of the original’s and 158% of the second film, so expect it to be an over-1 billion yen hit. The only new entry is Saw 4 at 7th place, which is on par with the franchise’s take in Japan.

- In South Korean box office, Le Grand Chef tops the box office for a third week in a row, Once is a limited release hit,  Seven Days couldn’t get the huge opening it might’ve wanted, and a Korean film with 400-screen release could only muster a 5th place opening.

Korea Pop Wars also has a write-up of the October music charts, except I don’t listen to Korean music and have no idea who those artists are.

- It’s Japanese drama ratings time! Not much has changed in the fall 2007 - Galileo is still a big hit with a 22.9 rating average, Iryu 2 is now slumming in the mid-10’s (although it rebounded to a 17.6 from 15 rating last week), and Hatachi No Koibito continues its seemingly endless freefall, hopefully without dragging down Masami Nagasawa’s career along with it. At least Yukie Nakama’s Joshi Deka is keeping it company with its own failing ratings, and Dream Again featuring Takashi Sorimachi managed a small rebound just when it seems to be going down that path as well.

The hit network of the season is again Fuji TV, who not only has Galileo, but also the Saturday 11pm drama SP, which has been scoring in the mid-10s, a fairly impressive figure in that time slot. Then again, who wouldn’t want to watch a drama that has an end credit sequence that starts with a slow-motion jump kick done to a boy band pop ballad on Saturday night at 11 pm?

(Check out Tokyograph for all drama sypnosis)

-  On the other hand, TBS has the biggest flops of the season, which doesn’t look too good for a network that has experienced a decline in advertising income for the first half of the fiscal year (which started in April).

-  Two Chinese TV stations are jointly producing a 100-episode animated series based on Confucius’ life. I hope at the end the philosopher doesn’t come to a realization that media censorship and communism are great things.

- Bae Yong-Joon has suffered an injury while filming a big fight scene for his hit drama Taewangsasingi that he’s currently “treating” with painkillers and tape supports because of the tight shooting schedule. Despite his reputation, Yong-sama still sounds like a bad ass.

- Let’s first go over the Japanese box office numbers. Takashi Miike’s Crows Zero was quite a hit, making 397 million yen over the first two days from 259 screens, which was way more than enough to knock Hero off the top spot after holding it for 7 weeks. The drama adaptation is no slouch, though - it only lost under 18% of its business and is still on 475 screens. This is probably Fuji’s way of trying to push it to the 1- billion yen mark.

The other newcomers all found spots in the top 10, with Jigyaku No Uta (also known as Happily N’ever After) starring Miki Nakatani and Hiroshi Abe opening somewhat disappointingly at 8th place on 147 screens. Even more disappointing is Neil Jordan’s The Brave One starring Jodie Foster, which found only a 5th place opening after opening it on 294 screens and a big Hollywood-size premiere in Japan.

- The blog is now leaving the Oricon charts reporting to Tokyograph’s weekly reports because it seems like people don’t quite care about analysis of Japanese music charts. I care about numbers, but I deliver what people want, and I skip what people don’t. So, Bump of Chicken has two singles on the top 10, and a Morning Musume compilation album can only muster a 6th place debut.

- It’s reviews time! All from Variety this time are Russell Edwards’ review of the Tokyo International Film Festival opener Midnight Eagle, which is supposed to open day-and-date in Japan and North America, though it sounds kind of crappy. There’s also Robert Koehler’s review of Ryo Nakajima’s This World Of Ours, which is revealing plot details I’ve never heard of. Lastly, Derek Elley has a review of the Korean blockbuster May 18.

- Twitch has more about Danny Pang’s latest film In Love With the Dead. After reading the convoluted plot description, I honestly wonder if it’ll be able to top brother Oxide Pang’s The Detective.

By the way, I couldn’t get the trailer to work, but good luck to you.

- Just like The Forbidden Kingdom, Jet Li would like to tell you that The Mummy 3 may not be a very good movie.

- I know i should not judge a book based on its title, but why would anyone give $40 million for a film with a title like Laundry Warriors? I think it was the “We will deliver a stylized, partly anime feel, with the techniques of ‘300,’ but a look that is brighter” line that inspired their confidence. Their confidence, not mine.

Anyway, they’ll be shooting this thing in New Zealand.

- NHK will be airing a special of actress Takako Matsu’s singing career. For Hong Kong Japanese entertainment fans, Takako is known as half of the golden duo (with Kimura Takuya) that started the Japanese drama fever in the late 90s with the drama Love Generation. Perhaps that’s why I can’t really buy the idea of her being a singer.

- Kaiju Shakedown writes about Japanese director Masato Harada’s two latest movies. One of them happens to be that suicide song movie from earlier in the year that had advertisements in Japanese toilets.

- After the live-action franchise has proven to be a hit (though not very good in quality), Capcom and Sony will be working on a CG 3D feature animated film based on the Biohazard franchise set to be released in the second half of next year. For those not in the know, Biohazard is better known as Resident Evil outside Japan.

- Last but not least, director Senkichi Taniguchi, who directed several screenplays written by Akira Kurosawa, has passed away at 95.