-Let’s start with those Thursday opening day numbers from Hong Kong. Following suit from America’s surprise success, 300 opened huge on Thursday with a HK$1 million from 33 screens. This will probably be one of Warner Bros’ biggest opening weekends in the region when it’s all said and done.

Too bad the same can’t be said for anything else opening, even Japanese blockbuster Dororo, which was so heavily promoted that even the rumored romancing stars showed up to Hong Kong for the premiere, opened only with HK$60,000 on 18 screens. Maybe business will pick up by the weekend, but I believe the fork is almost stuck into it already. Even cheap Hong Kong horror flick The Haunted School (produced by shitmaster Andrew Lau), which opened with HK$50,000 on 14 screens, got a higher per-screen average!

Some of the better (and I only mean that in a relative sense) openings include Hannibal Rising, which made HK$200,000 on 21 screens (look for it to get past the HK$10,000 per-screen this weekend), and Pan’s Labyrinth (which I think they should’ve opened before the Oscars) got HK$60,000 on 4 screens for the best per-screen in limited release right now. Last week’s champ Ghost Rider looks to suffer a heavy drop with only HK$ 190,000 on 34 screens.

- Speaking of hits, looks like after a string of failed foreign runs, The Host has finally become a hit in China, where it topped the box office in its opening weekend and praised by critics (it was praised by critics in the States too, so what’s with that crappy opening weekend?). Meanwhile, Variety Asia has a more solid report on its financing process and just how big of a hit it really is (for an Asian film to have a net profit of double its production cost is pretty damn amazing).

- I found a funny Youtube clip last night of a commercial featuring Kimura Takuya and Babel star Rinko Kikuchi (whose nude scenes were deemed too “sexually explicit” and cut by the Chinese censors, deeming that entire section pointless. Yay for destroying films.). Basically, the screen looks so nice that the moon on the screen was enough to turn KimuTaku into a werewolf.

- What happens when you can’t make a sequel to your hit film because your talents won’t commit? Animate them! The hit fantasy film Storm Riders is getting the sequel treatment through the magic of 2D and 3D animation. Directed by Dante Lam (who co-directed the masterpiece Beast Cops but also responsible for the huge pile of shit called The Twins Effect), it will presumably follow the natural progression of the story as set by creator Ma Wing Shing. It’ll open in 2008 (which is probably the trailer is pretty crappy so far), and there were so many mistakes in that trailer with the English narration that I don’t even have time to go into it. I just hope the final product isn’t as boring.

- Speaking of trailers, Twitch also introduces the trailer for Lovedeath, the latest by Ryuhei Kitamura (Azumi, Versus). The trailer isn’t promising more than style over substance (what is up with that stupid two-gun twirl? And what’s up with that horribly written exchange at the end where the woman offers sex? It feels like it’s written by a third-year student of Japanese), which is pretty much what I’ve expected from Kitamura after the tolerable but overlong Azumi and the style-for-style’s sake hit-and-miss Versus.

- Variety Asia, in their continuing coverage of the Hong Kong Entertainment Expo (the more I read it, the more I want to go), has posted a preview of the first ever Asian Film Awards. But why it is on a Tuesday, I have NO idea.

- Like many Hollywood actors, Oldboy’s Choi Min Sik is heading to the stage for the play The Pillowman after announcing that he would not be appearing in any more films (nooooooo!) until South Korea restores its screen quota. Sounds like it should be another intense performance.

- There are two new members to the pop collective (it’s a better name than record-company-built cute young girls pop group) Morning Musume, and they’re Chinese (dun-dun-dun!). One of them actually auditioned to be on one of those pop idols show in China, and Japan Probe has the clip. Well, we can forget about her being the one with singing skills (the judge at the end, by the way, says that she sings like a child. No kidding).

- Lastly, Variety has posted a review of The Godfather (yes, that Godfather). Of course, a review now would use words like “masterpiece” “and “classic” (which I agree with), and not words like “overlong” and “confusing.” That’s because this review was written in 1972 when the film first came out. I wonder if that critic ever changed his mind about it eventually.

Just some leftover comments from the Oscars last night (and apparently my entry afterwards brought in double the page visit counts):

- Those over at Mobius (whom I believe to have some of the best insights on Asian films out there simply because, well, they know more than me) have a thread on the “Infernal Affairs is from Japan” flub by the announcer last night (although the responsibility probably goes to whoever wrote and didn’t fact-check that script). There’s even an interesting opinion on how the media reports that the Oscars have decided to award “homegrown films,” despite The Departed being a remake (and maybe the first Asian remake to win best picture).

- Speaking of the announcer flub, Daily Dumpling seemed to have made the mistake saying that it was Oscar winner Helen Mirren who made the mistake. No, it was announcer Gina Tuttle who did it. (The only reason that I made the comment here is because I didn’t want to sign up for Wordpress just to follow the usual HK-er comment about Infernal Affairs being better. In my humble opinion, it wasn’t. And don’t be bitter - Hong Kong did submit it to the Academy Awards for best foreign film, it just didn’t get considered, boo-ya!)

- A little off-topic, but a blog I read, Hongkie Town, has a pretty good round-up of the commercials by HK broadcaster TVB during its Oscar broadcast. I downloaded their broadcast of the Oscars when I was studying in Japan, and for some reason, it didn’t include any of the announcements for the presenters for some odd reason.

- Alright, I promised Hong Kong box office numbers. On Sunday, the rankings pretty much stayed the same, with Night At the Museum taking in HK$1.84 million on 45 screens for a HK$31.2 million total so far. It might hit that big 40 mil mark by the end of its run, since the Pang Brothers’ The Messengers being only its biggest competition this weekend. Derek Yee’s Protege, meanwhile, is showing signs of weakness with only a HK$1.06 million take from 40 screens on Sunday for a HK$21.85 million total so far. As I predicted before, it should hit the HK$25 million mark, becoming the highest-grossing Lunar New Year movie since 2004’s Fantasia.

As for the other Hong Kong films, Ronald Cheng’s It’s a Wonderful Life is near its death rattle with a HK$320,000 gross from 33 screens for a HK$7.04 total. It might just make it to the 8-million mark. Lastly, the Twins’ Twins Mission (website finally working!) manage to make HK$300,000 on 26 screens for a HK$5.27 million total, and it might just have a chance of hitting the 6-million mark. It may also mean that this is the end of the Twins franchise, considering at the heights of its popularity, Twins Effect managed to make HK$30 million.

As far as Oscar winners go, best foreign film The Lives of Others managed a healthy HK$30,000 on 2 screens and should be packed again next weekend in light of its Oscar win.

Source: mov3.com

- Japanese box office rankings are also out (numbers will hopefully come tomorrow), and Oscar loser Dreamgirls actually took the top spot after debuting at 2nd last week. Dororo drops down one to second, and the kind of-big debut this week Sakuran (which is getting good reviews. More later) opens at 7th. It may not seem very strong, but it’s also not a very wide opening (while Bubble He Go! gets 28 theaters in the Tokyo area, and Dororo gets 27, Sakuran is only on 13). More on the results tomorrow when I have solid numbers in my hands.

Source: Movie Walker (for those screen counts), and Eiga Daisuki!

- Hoga Central has a roundup of some of the positive reviews for the Japanese films that opened this past weekend - Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Retribution, Sakuran, and the new film by the director of Linda Linda Linda. Yes, she actually has the title of the film whose kanji I couldn’t read. Here it is.

- A set of solid numbers I do have are those Japanese drama ratings, and TBS’s anniversary drama Karei Naru Ichizoku tumbles to its lowest ratings of the season with a 21.1 rating, while the Flower Boys surpassed it with a 22.7 rating. That’s right, Japan is so into its metrosexual boys that a drama featuring 5 of them would beat an epic-scale drama about a rich family in 70s Japan. TBS isn’t aching, though, they can now brag that two of the highest-rating dramas are on their network.

Meanwhile, the two Monday dramas recover from getting their lowest ratings last week, and Haken no Hinkaku continues to get above-average ratings with a 20.2 rating, down very slightly from last week.

- Variety also has the numbers for Letters From Iwo Jima’s international performance (i.e. outside Japan and the US). It’s a really long article, so I’ll just quote the important stuff:

“‘Letters From Iwo Jima’ launched best in France with $744,500 at 153, while the pic’s soph sesh in Spain declined only 15% to $316,000 at 69, the U.K. debut took in $129,000 at 38, and the Australian opening grossed $104,000 at 24. “Letters” has grossed $47 million overseas, including $42 million in Japan.”

In case you want to know how Ghost Rider did overseas (I honestly don’t care), here’s the article.

- South Korea also had a pretty strong weekend. I don’t know much about the films opening and playing there (of course I know the foreign films, I mean the Korean films, although I review a lot of it for my freelance work). So I’ll let Korea Pop Wars do the job for me.

- After Chen Kaige’s The Promise was given the ultimate sarcastic middle finger by the Chinese internet community, the government is now imposing new rules for film crew in order to protect the environment. Maybe next they can try and get rid of pollution so smog will stop traveling to Hong Kong.

Source: Variety Asia.

- Hong Kong’s Sundream Pictures (whose logo looks like a mainland Chinese film studio from the 70, or worse, Raymond Wong’s Mandarin Pictures) is planning on expanding its work to international distribution and video production. Details from Variety Asia is here.

Lastly, I apologize for not getting back to comments as quickly as I had hoped to. I didn’t enable the comment notification option, and by the time I found the comments, it’s already been a week or two. I’ve activated that feature now, and comments are open to everyone (subject to not very strict moderation by yours truly), so go for it.

Lots n’ lots of surprises tonight - some good, some bad.

- Pan’s Labyrinth lost to The Lives of Others for best foreign film. Now I’m definitely watching it this week.

- In turn, Pan’s Labyrinth is on the winning side of an upset by beating Children of Men, and it was flat out highway robbery.

- Babel wins only one award, shame

- On the other hand, The Departed wins 4, yay. Oscar count: Infernal Affairs - 0, The Departed - 4. And Hong Kong actually submitted Infernal Affairs for its best foreign film pick, so which one’s better now?

(Why Hong Kong chose to submit The Banquet for its best picture over After This, Our Exile, I have no idea.

- In Asian films, Letters From Iwo Jima wins best sound editing. whoo…….

Now notes on the show. (in reverse order of the show)

-Way too many montages, even though I liked the Michael Mann one. And the popularity contest known as “In memoriam” is ridiculous. Hold your applause til the end, people.

- Brad Grey gets screwed over for The Departed producing credit, yikes. Will Brad Grey be this year’s Bob Yari?

- The original three amigos excuse for bringing out Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg to give the Oscar to Martin Scorsese was cute, but it kinda ruined the surprise.

- Alan Mak must be pissed, having been snubbed by Scorsese at least twice in his acceptance speeches.

- Since when does screaming equate to singing? I’m talking to you, Dreamgirls.

- Good job on getting the trailers guy to do the announcing. But why the hell is Infernal Affairs touted as a Japanese film? At least Monahan and Scorsese get it right.

- Best Ellen quote: “People say that the children are our future. This year, they’re our competition.”

- Great job by Ellen overall, including bringing Snakes on a Plane to the Oscars and the digital camera gag with Clint Eastwood and Steven Spielberg.

Very enjoyable ceremony overall, and well-deserved winners….well, mostly, but you can’t please everyone.

Tomorrow we have more news, Hong Kong box office (maybe UK numbers for Letters from Iwo Jima), and Japanese drama ratings.

I could be watching E!’s 2-hour long coverage on the red carpet, but I honestly couldn’t care less about who’s showing up with who and who’s wearing what. Turner Movie Classics is showing Casablanca ’til 4:45 or so, and then maybe I’ll watch the rest of the pre-show. If I get tired of that, I just picked up 2 DVDs today, one of which can keep me entertained for a bit. Just no more red carpet, please.

And because it’s Hollywood’s biggest night (and also the fact that it was Sunday in Asia), there’s not really much news.

- The thing about Hong Kong entertainment news is that they only report celebrity matters. I knew Miki Mizuno is in Hong Kong shooting a movie with a Sam Lee and a bunch of B-list stars, but the news never mentions what type of movie or who’s directing (although the costumes looked real chessy). Now Ryuganji provides the details that it’s a new version of the “Female Convict Scorpion” series, and it’s a Japanese-Hong Kong co-production by Artport (who also did Dog Bite Dog, whose shooting process is described in a book by producer Sam Leung Tak-Sam that I bought in Hong Kong). Joe Ma is directing, which cannot be a good sign for the film.

Miki-san has a blog, and she writes about her shooting process in Hong Kong (which includes a Cantonese lesson on beer-drinking) here.

- Time Asia has an interview with Oscar nominee Rinko Kikuchi. Not much new information, but it’s a nice interview anyway.

- Jason Gray has some news on a few upcoming high-profile projects by directors Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Kore-eda today. He also announces that the release for the well-received Strawberry Shortcake will have Japanese subtitles (he knows that because he did the subtitles himself).

- I’m not a big fan of the cri English site because they stole one of the articles I wrote for Yesasia. But Lovehkfilm forum’s Dimsum99 provided a link about the beginning of shooting for the new Peter Chan film “The Assassination of Ma” starring Takeshi Kanshiro, Andy Lau, and Jet Li. So here, and I hope they didn’t steal that story from anyone else.

- Variety has a review for the first Finnish martial arts film Jade Warrior. Apparently it even did pretty well in China.

- As for the Oscars, instead of predicting who’ll win, I’ll just say who I want to win. a * means that I haven’t watched all the films in the category, so it’s a matter of personal preference. But it also means I’ll only comment on the categories where I’ve seen at least 3 of the films

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY*

Children of Men

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY*

Children of Men

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Pan’s Labyrinth

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS*

Adriana Barraza - Babel

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR*

Mark Whalberg - The Departed

BEST DIRECTOR

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu - Babel (although I want Scorsese to win, but not because of his work on The Departed)

BEST PICTURE

Babel

I’ll be posting thoughts and results later tonight, but until then, I’m hoping Ellen is better than Chris Rock (not a hard task at all).

Was watching the Independent Spirit Awards, where Little Miss Sunshine bagged at least 4 awards, including best picture and best director(s) because it might just be one of the few films those people actually saw when they voted. Even though I liked it immensely, it may be the next most undeserved best picture winner if it wins the Oscar tomorrow night. Just a fair warning.

And can Sarah Silverman just start hosting every film award show from now on with no bleeping?

Anyway, slow news day, but just as important.

- Pop singer/actress/part-time musician Candy Lo has uploaded her latest song on her website. Actually, the link for the download is what the entire website is, and it’s not bad at all.

- This is why there needs to be a free flow of information on the internet: A Hong Kong blog has an expose on Hong Kong’s so-called hottest MTV director, nicknamed “Jacky” (who has done MTVs for mostly EEG artists). In an interview for Easyfinder, he talks about his MTV for Yumiko Cheng’s single “Up and Down,” which is outright copied from Goldfrapp’s Strict Machine MTV. This is a (translated) excerpt about his “creative process”

“A lot of dance songs are just pure Music Video (earlier in the article, he mentions three types of music videos - pure music videos, ones with story, and ones for advertisements), because inserting a story would just be hackneyed. I use a lot of graphics and abstract color tones to package it. The record company already decided that Yumiko would wear Chinese-style red and green clothes to dance. I felt that the clothes is like a kaleidoscope, so I found a lot of vintage toys to create that kaleidoscope effect.”

Yeah, I’m sure he’s that much of a genius.

the blog entry is here (The pictures on the left are from the Goldfrapp video while the ones on the right are of Yumiko Cheng’s)

- YTSL, a writer for the site Hong Kong Cinema: View From the Brooklyn Bridge, has posted a top 10 list for 2006 Hong Kong films on her blog here. She amazingly includes McDull the Alumni, which I’ve always contend is Hong Kong’s answer to the Monty Python films and comes even with a hell of a monologue by Jim Chim.

- Twitch has a link to the 6-and-a-half minute trailer for Takeshi Miike’s film adaptation of the game Ryu Ga Gotoku (or in American better known as Yakuza). I’m not a huge fan of Miike, but might this actually be good?

- So the panel investigating the natto TV scandal in Japan has now found even more “undesirable content” in the program from the past. Blah blah blah.

- And a final piece of news just for gossip’s sake, Daily Dumpling has a report on why the Chinese people don’t like their biggest star at the moment - Zhang Ziyi. *Gasp!* People don’t like Zhang Ziyi?! Lies, all lies!

Tomorrow, Oscar predictions, but only the major one because I’m too lazy to predict them all.

This weekend is Hollywood’s biggest weekend, with the Independent Spirit Awards on Saturday and the Oscars on Sunday. What does that have to do with this blog? Absolutely nothing, but i’ll be busy this weekend anyway watching these, writing 4 reviews, and watching Karate Bullfighter tonight on IFC. Awesome weekend coming up? oh, you betcha.

- The troubled Bangkok Film Festival (which Grady Hendrix’s Kaiju Shakedown once chronicled) is officially back in July, but with a limited budget and no American dictators running things from LA. Apparently, the new focus will be Asian cinema and a festival more friendly to Thai audience. Hmm…Bangkok film festival, Bangkok is in Thailand, Bangkok film festival more friendly to Thai audience…that makes sense! Why didn’t they think of that in the first place?

- I don’t watch much Thai films, honestly, so you can’t blame me for not catching SARS Wars, although it does sound real wacky in that good way. Now the director Teewewat Wantha is back with a new work, and it sounds wackier than ever. Honestly, with a title like The Sperm, how can it not be wacky? Twitch has posted a teaser up, and it may be the funniest teaser I’ve seen in a while. Don’t worry, I don’t speak Thai either, and I thought it was funny, so there.

- I was once a huge fan of director Kwak Jae Young (note, imdb does NOT have his complete filmography) - I, like every other Asian American college student who had an internet connection, loved My Sassy Girl (don’t worry, I discovered it on a legit Hong Kong VCD). I even liked most of The Classic, which had great camerawork and directorial flair. But then he made Windstruck, one of the most uneven and intentionally emotionally manipulative Korean films I’ve ever had to sit through (and that’s say quite a bit). Now he’s back with another one those “My Girl is____” films (maybe he’s making a trilogy) with his Japanese debut “My Girlfriend is a Cyborg.”

More information from Ryuganji is here (I don’t want to steal his compiled links, so go check it out)

- Japan Times’ Mark Schilling really likes movies. He’s been giving quite a few 3.5-4-star reviews to films lately. But now he finally loves movies, particularly the personally-anticipated Sakuran directed by Mika Ninagawa (featuring the music of the amazing Shiina Ringo). It finally opens tomorrow local time in Japan, and Schilling has given it 5 stars.

Japan Times even posted two feature stories on the film, one an interview with director Mika Ninagawa, and another an interview with star Anna Tsuchiya. Both are well worth the read, and the official full-length trailer even has three Shiina songs in it.

As mentioned yesterday, it will also screen at the Hong Kong International Film Festival.

- Japan Probe has more information about the new film written by infamously conservative Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara. That’s right, much like my own governor, Tokyo has a leader that also dips into the world of film. “Ore Wa, Kimi No Tame Ni Koso Shini Ni Iku” (For You, I Go to My Death) is a touching tale about young kamikaze pilots during World War II through the eyes of a restaurant owner who watched over them.

Yup, another nationalistic war movie that tries to paint the Japanese troops as kind souls who just want to protect their country that will also serve as a guilt trip device for current generation for not learning about the war “properly.” I’m not saying if this film will be any good or any bad, but didn’t Hollywood do these kind of movies some 20 years ago already?

Considering this is the man who makes statements such as this, I wonder what the movie is going to be like.

- Oricon Style offers a music video of personal favorite Utada Hikaru’s latest single Flavor of Life (theme song for that drama with the Flower boys). It’s only the “ballad version,” but even as a fan, I have to say it’s easily the worst Utada Hikaru single ever released. The only appealing part is the chorus, while everything else sounds like it’s written randomly. There’s no rhyme or reason to the melody nor to the arrangement. It’s plain flat J-pop, and it’s no good. And I even defended Exodus, for crying out loud.

And no, it has nothing to do with the fact that it’s the theme song to a drama I refuse to watch.

- And now, some Oscar news:

Hollywood Elsewhere reports the voting habit of one voter. The movies this year aren’t THAT bad.

And Borat will not be making an appearance as a presenter. Not so niiiiiceeeee.

I should say I won’t be posting much this weekend, but considering I even spent an hour writing this entry on a slow news day, who knows what’ll happen?

Update’s a little late today, but that’s ok.

- Updating late enough means I caught Hong Kong’s Thursday box office numbers. Sometimes I think I need to live in Hong Kong to understand release patterns. Case in point - the Hugh Grant/Drew Barrymore romcom Music and Lyrics have been on the top 10 since Valentine’s Day. Not very good results (actually the bottom spot among the new Lunar New Year films), but still respectable. But now it’s overtaken everything except Protege and Night at the Museum to take 3rd spot on its official opening day. It earned HK$450,000 on 31 screens for a HK$3.20 million total already.

As mentioned before, Night at the Museum and Protege continue to own the box office, taking in HK$2.18 million and $1.25 million respectively. Protege seems to be showing a bit of a slowdown, but business should pick up this weekend again, and at a total of 18.02 million so far, it’ll at least reach the 25 million mark, which would make it the Hong Kong film to beat for the rest of the year. Meanwhile, It’s a Wonderful Life closes in on the HK$6 million point with HK$410,000 on 33 screens on Thursday, and Twins Mission does HK$370,000 on 26 screens to get past the HK$4 million mark.

According to today’s Oriental Daily (no link because content changes daily)Gold Label’s head honcho Paco Wong is satisfied with It’s a Wonderful Life’s mediocre performance since it’s only Ronald Cheng’s directorial debut. Right, Paco, it has nothing to do with quality at all, I’m sure.

Source: mov3.com

- Speaking of Protege, Kozo at Lovehkfilm posted his long-awaited review, and simply said: it’s good. Not great, but pretty good.

- What I want to discuss more though, is his own Lovehkfilm 2006 awards. I didn’t come up with a top 10 for 2006 because 1) it was too late by the time I came back from vacation, and 2) As a film studies major trying to finish his degree in film studies, it’s tough to catch up on new films (although this is the first year in a long time that I’ve actually caught all 5 of the Academy Awards best picture nominee. More on that on Sunday).

Anyway, agreed on most of the top 10 (only mostly because I have yet to see My Wife is a Belly Dancer, and I’m only half way through After This Our Exile). Can’t agree on bottom 10 because I’ve only seen two of those (but no Love@First Note? Too charitable, I say). Most agreed on the special award to Gold Label (”For the dubious achievement of somehow making EEG look good”), and agreed on the best overacting award. Make your own judgments from there.

- Twitch has discovered a new database for those who just can’t seem to remember the faces of those HK actors that appear in every other movie. I say they need one for Korean films….

- I love the Hong Kong International Film Festival. They get all kinds of movies that I would not be able to catch here in the States (or in the case of my experience at the HKIFF, movies I couldn’t catch during my year in Japan). Too bad I live in San Francisco, not Hong Kong.

Anyway, this year’s lineup has been announced, and it seems like there are so many films that they can’t even fit in a closing film. I have a few personal picks myself - the opening films (Eye in the Sky and I’m a Cyborg, but That’s OK), Bubble Fiction: Boom or Bust, Sakuran, Woman on the Beach, Love and Honor, and almost everything in the Hong Kong Panorama section. They even have Berlin winner Tuya’s Marriage, and a Herman Yau tribute featuring the infamous Untold Story and Ebola Syndrome. I’m not saying I want to see those two, I’m just saying they should be very interesting screenings.

- It’s been floating around for a couple of days, but I didn’t want to report it because it’s such bad news. But now it’s been confirmed by auteur Rob Cohen (excuse while I vomit) that Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh will be in The Mummy 3. Jet Li will play a head mummy of the Terracotta Army. Excuse me while I go vomit some more.

- Personal favorite Shiina Ringo has a new album out that I posted an external review for a few days ago. Better news is that it debuted at number 1 on its first day of release. I’m gonna be ordering a copy of this myself when I dig up the 30 bucks needed to buy it, but rest assured, I’m gonna love it too.

- Oops, they did it again. Another Japanese TV station has admitted to presenting false data. Same old, same old.

- Top Japanese studio Toho’s chairman Isao Matsuoka will receive the lifetime achievement award at this year’s Showest convention. How about honoring him by putting more Japanese films on American screen?

Source: Variety Asia.

- If you haven’t checked out Japander, you really should. It features Hollywood star in all kinds of Japanese commercial ranging from awesome to strange to just plain mediocre. I mention this because Japan Zone has announced that Madonna will be advertising for some new apartment complexes set to open in 2009. Other stars mentioned in the report include Jean Reno, Leonardo Dicaprio, and Ken Watanabe. I myself saw one featuring Richard Gere in a subway station in Tokyo.

- Hoga Central just announced that the blockbuster Genghis Khan: To the Ends of the Earth and Sea (just not as catchy as Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World or Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, or Norbit: From Unfunny to Plain Disgusting) has had its distribution rights sold to 60 countries, including Iraq (a film about a conqueror that wants to rule the world. hmm……). Of course, none of this is any indication that it’ll be any good.

- The Saturn Awards (Or Academy Awards for fantasy films) has recognized quite a few Asian films. For instance:

BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM

Apocalypto (Buena Vista)
The Curse of the Golden Flower (Sony Pictures Classics)
Fearless (Rogue / Focus)
The Host (Magnolia Pictures)
Letters From Iwo Jima (Warner Bros.)
Pan’s Labyrinth (Picturehouse)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY A YOUNGER ACTOR

Ko A-Sung (The Host) (Magnolia Pictures)
Ivana Baquero (Pan’s Labyrinth (Picturehouse)
Jodelle Ferland (Tideland) (ThinkFilm)
Tristan Lake Leabu (Superman Returns) (Warner Bros.)
Mitchel Tate Musso (Monster House) (Sony)
Edward Speleers (Eragon) (20^th Century Fox)

BEST COSTUME

Joan Bergin (The Prestige) (Buena Vista)
Yee Chung-Man (Curse of the Golden Flower) (Sony Classics)
Penny Rose (Pirates of the Caribbean:
Dead Man’s Chest) (Buena Vista)
Judianna Makovsky (X-Men: The Last Stand) (20^th Century Fox)
Nic Ede (Flyboys) (MGM)
Sammy Sheldon (V For Vendetta) (Warner Bros.)

A complete list is here

- Twitch also reports today on the societal impact of recent Korean blockbuster 200-Pound Beauty.

- Lastly, Variety has posted its review for David Fincher’s Zodiac. It’s sounding more and more like Memories of Murder, and that’s alright with me.

Whew, that was a lot of news. That should make up for the delay.

With the new year holidays coming to an end in Hong Kong, it’s time to get back to the down and dirty. That’s right, it’s box office round up time:

- Tuesday numbers (or the third day of new year and the last day of the public holidays) indicate that Night at the Museum overwhelmingly wins the battle with a HK$2.94 million take on Tuesday from 45 screens for a HK$19.94 million total (even though it got a $2.5 million head start with previews). On the Hong Kong side, Protege trumps its competitors by a mile with a HK$2.07 million Tuesday take from 40 screens for a HK$14.94 million total. Note that in multiplexes, it’s playing on smaller screens (because Night at the Museum took the one large screen in these theaters), and with a really good word-of mouth, it’s gonna do pretty well in the long run.

As for the other Hong Kong films, Ronald Cheng’s “directorial debut” It’s a Wonderful Life (review by LovehkFilm here) scored HK$810,000 on Tuesday from 33 screens for a total of HK$4.71 million total after 7 days. It’s the obligatory “fun lunar new year movie,” so expect business to be brisk past this week, but it will finish under $10 million, which is nowhere near the success of Dragon Loaded 2003, but still better than last years’ Lunar New Year offering The Shopaholics.

Not doing so hot are those cute Twins, whose Twins Mission (website still not working!) found HK$640,000 on 26 screens for only a HK$3.24 million total after 6 days. However, looking at per-screen average, it’s actually doing better than the Gold Label gang, so who knows?

Family films Open Season and Charlotte’s Web did acceptable business on Tuesday (HK$530, 000 on 27 screens and HK$560,000 on 28 screens, respectively) and are tied at HK$2.38 million for totals. And in limited release, Borat continues to be huge with HK$60,000 on 2 screens, and a HK$1.06 million total.

(US$1=HK$7.8)
Source: mov3.com

- South Korea also had its new year holidays, and according to Variety Asia (specifically, the always-reliable Darcy Paquet), box office is actually down overall, while Mark Russell over at Korea Pop Wars report the drop is attributed to new years being on a Sunday. Anyway, Mark’s analysis is here.

- In Japan, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications has concluded that Japanese Variety shows need more fact-checking in a report about the investigation into the research process of such shows. Details from Variety Asia are here.

- On that note, the new years installment of TVB variety show Beautiful Cooking is up on Youtube (I’m not condoning piracy here, I’m just taking advantage of the free flow of information). Essentially, it’s a show where three females celebrities go on the show and test their cooking skills (or often, the lack thereof) for the male judges. Of course, it features the same old canned laughter and lame musical segments that only TVB can think of. Most amusing is Alex Fong Lik-Sun lip-syncing to the theme song to It’s a Wonderful Life, except he even lip-synced to Tony Leung Ka-Fai’s line.

Through further research on Youtube, I have found a long-running Japanese variety show called “Ai no Apron” (or the Apron of Love), and it’s basically where the cooking skills of female idols are tested for a male judge…wait a minute, that sounds like exactly what Beautiful Cooking is! This Wikipedia entry in Japanese shows that it at least goes back as far as 2005 (Beautiful cooking debuted in fall 2006)And here are those poor posters of Asian Fanatics Forum believing that TVB has come up with something original. Unless TVB’s got the rights to it, they better start preparing for a lawsuit.

This is why there should be free flow of information on the internet.

Note: looking up “Ai no Apron” or “愛のエプロン“( Japanese name) will not get you any result on youtube because of the copyright claims by Japan’s copyright people. Sorry.

- Back to more positive things, Twitch has a great interview with director Kiyoshi Kurosawa (whose new film Sakebi is coming out soon in Japan). But the interview isn’t about his new film, but rather about Japan’s response to Clint Eastwood’s critically acclaimed Letters From Iwo Jima (which has finally made its way to the imdb top 250!). It’s very informative, and I recommend it wholeheartedly.

- According to Hollywood Elsewhere, Shakespeare in Love has been voted by British voters as the most undeserving Oscar best picture winner. I partially agree, since it should’ve gone to Saving Private Ryan, easily. But what about Chicago? Crash? even Gladiator (which I really love, but even I gotta face the truth some time)? Hell, what about Forrest Gump? or Driving Miss Daisy?

The point is the Academy Awards often make wrong calls more often than right ones. It’s not the first, it won’t be the last. It took me a while, but I got over Crash winning….eventually.

- A congratulations to Yee Chung Man for his winning the Costume Designers Guild award for Curse of the Golden Flower. The multi-talented Yee is a director, production designer, art director, and of course, a costume designer who made the enjoyable And I Hate You So and Anna Magdalena, but has also worked on dozens of Hong Kong films.

Source: Variety Asia

- Thank heavens for RSS feeds. I just got the news that the Japanese blockbuster Dororo is now headed down the trilogy road. According to Ryuganji, 2 back-to-back sequels for Dororo has just been green-lit and is set for a 2009 release with a 6 billion yen budget (that’s US$50 million, very huge for a Japanese film). The original hasn’t even made that much yet!

- Oh, and the Resident Evil 3 trailer is up. Looks like Mad Max crosses The Mummy. blah.

Lastly, visits have been going way up, and I would like to thank Hoga Central, r@sardonicsmile.com, and my friend Jason for linking the site and bringing more visitors over. You guys rule.

Let’s fly over to Japan first to see what’s going on out there:

- Japan weekend numbers are out, and as I mentioned last time, Dreamgirls debuted in second place with 200 million yen, which according to Eiga Consultant, is 72% of Chicago (also written by Bill Condon and made 3.5 billion yen) but 171% of the painful The Producers (which made 1 billion yen). Pending positive word of mouth, its total should come in around 2 billion yen, and be a solid little hit for Dreamworks/Paramount, even if they didn’t get those major Oscar nods.

Meanwhile, those pesky Dororo and Pursuit of Happyness are finally showing signs of waning, each dropping more than 30% after making tons of money. Surprisingly, last week’s newcomer Bubble Fiction: Boom or Bust has some staying power, losing only 17% of its business, showing the second least decrease out of all the films in the top 10. The least decrease of the top 10 goes to the Japan-Korean co-production “26 Years Diary,” based on the true story of a Korean man who gave his life to save another on a train platform.

- Eiga Consultant also analyzes the performance of best foreign film nominee The Lives of Others (which is doing very good business in limited release in the States), currently showing in one theater in Tokyo. Its first three days, all holidays, brought in 3032 people, totaling a 4.49 million yen take (120 yen=1 dollar). While solid, it’s also only 94% of what Brokeback Mountain did in its first 3 days in that same theater, and unlike The Lives of Others, it didn’t open during a holiday weekend. Still, German films don’t exactly bring in as big a crowd as an English film would, which makes this start pretty good as it is.

- Now kind of to Hong Kong, where a Twitch columnist has posted her own review of the Fearless director’s cut, and she likes it a lot more than the theatrical cut. I haven’t seen it myself, but skimming through it, I agree it turns into a much different film - more of the ambitious epic that it aimed to be than the tremendously entertaining theatrical cut. I don’t know if it’s better yet, I’ll let you all know when I see it.

- Kind of halfway back to Hollywood, Hollywood Elsewhere has a link to an interview with The Departed screenwriter William Monahan, who also wrote the great Kingdom of Heaven, whose director’s cut is one of the greatest films that never got discovered. He answers questions about what he thinks about the original films, kind of hints about whether there’ll be a sequel, and why it won’t based on the original prequel/sequel combo. It’s a good interview, even when he’s not talking about Infernal Affairs or The Departed.

- I loved Children of Men. No doubt about it. And I love the brilliant cinematography even more. That’s why I’m so happy to see Variety reports that its cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki has won the top feature film award at the American Society of Cinematographers award. Good for you, man. I’m pulling for him to win again at the Oscars this week.

- Lastly, Variety also posted its review of Hot Fuzz. Yeah, we know it’s gonna be good, we just like posting good news, is all.

Tomorrow, hopefully things are back up and running out in Hong Kong so we can get some box office numbers. It’s gonna be huge, just you see.

Happy new year to all my Asian brethren out there. I did promise a break, but it seems like there are quite a few news that I missed out on yesterday, so I’ll keep it short:

- Edison Chan, aside from being a rich pretty boy who, despite his aristocratic roots in Canada (note: not the birthplace of hip-hop), has promoted street culture by wearing and selling clothes that are probably too expensive to be worn on the streets, is now also a CEO!

That’s right, after constantly spelling out the word C-L-O-T in his musical appearance (at first I thought it was just to show his spelling abilities, but it’s actually his overpriced clothing store in Hong Kong), he has now started Clot Media Division., as in if you shelled out money to buy clothes at my store, you may have a blood clot in your brain.

Anyway, the report from the Daily Dumpling is here.

Better yet, why don’t we have our homeboy EDC himself tell you? I dare you find 5 grammatically correct English sentences in that entry. Yeah, son, ya best peep and represent.

- The Berlin Film Festival has come to an end. And a (seemingly Chinese censors-sanctioned) Chinese film takes the Golden Bear. That’s right, it’s not “Lost in Beijing,” it’s “Tuya’s Marriage,” a drama about a Mongolian women’s search for a new mate after her husband becomes disabled that scored the Golden Bear. The controversial, but critically acclaimed “Lost in Beijing,” on the other hand, did not score anything.

Meanwhile, Park Chan-wook finds his first overseas success for “I’m a Cyborg, but That’s OK” by winning the Alfred Bauer Prize for innovative prize. According to a more detailed report by Twitch, Park asks her wife for forgiveness for being a director. “When I get home, I hope she will tell our friends, ‘My husband is a director but that’s OK,’” Park says in his acceptance speech.

That’s certainly more romantic that this touching statement.

Source: Variety

- A Shiina Ringo fan blog, who seems to know everything and anything about Shiina’s music, has released a review of Shiina’s latest album (also serves as a pseudo-soundtrack for Sakuran) Heisei Fuuzoku. It’s a positive review if you don’t listen to Shiina’s concerts, because the reviewer obsessively goes into how the arrangements for some songs are carried over from her previous concerts. Anyway, I look forward to the album when it comes out the 21st.

That’s it for today. Gong Hei Fat Choy to everyone out there in the blogosphere!