Being Wednesday, hump is being used here as a noun, not a verb.

- Let’s start with some rankings. Today it’s the Japanese Oricon (To answer a question that has never been asked, I only go over the Oricon because it’s the most widely-known easy-access general ranking in Asian music. Of course, I’m only saying that because I know Japanese and I don’t know Korean. Plus, I don’t know much about Taiwanese music anyway to go over rankings there). It was a slow week on both fronts - on the singles side, Glay leads the chart with their latest single, selling only 67,000 copies. By that number, you can tell how badly the rest of the singles are selling.

The album chart was fairly weak this week as well, with rock-pop songstress YUI taking the top spot with her second album, selling 290,000 copies. It’s also her first number 1 album, thanks to weak albums sales overall this week. Unlike the crowded album market last month, only 4 new releases found its way on the top 10, and 3 of them are ranked 5th and below.

- In case anyone still cares, Hong Kong Tuesday numbers are out. Mr. Bean still ruled the Hong Kong Easter box office, and Super Fan still flopped.

Several follow-ups from previous reported news:

- In response to Eason Chan’s comments about Ayumi Hamasaki lip-syncing part of her way through her Hong Kong concert, fans in Hong Kong have suggested they boycott Eason’s albums. Excerpt from Chinese report below:

陳奕迅（Eason）因公然指濱崎步在演唱會「咪嘴」而惹步姐迷不滿，昨日就有網友發起罷買Eason的唱片。

Eason Chan’s claim that Ayumi Hamasaki was lip-syncing at her concert has angered her fans. Yesterday, netizens were initiating boycotts of Eason’s albums.

Eason心情未受影響。但談到步姐和網友發起罷買其唱片，他就顯得很避忌，不欲多談，只強調當日接受訪問，大讚步姐是個聲色藝俱全歌手，其他事情不作回應了，免得事件愈鬧愈大。

Eason’s mood did not seemed to be affected, but when the boycott issue was brought up, he appeared wanting to avoid the issue and refused to comment. He only emphasized that during the interview, he complimented Ayumi as an all-around talented singer. He didn’t want to respond to other issues as to not blow things out of proportion.

Original Chinese report is here.

This isn’t the first time he said the wrong thing anyway. A few years ago, he said among the four Heavenly Kings of Cantopop (Leon Lai, Andy Lau, Jacky Cheung, and Aaron Kwok), he only bought Jacky’s albums, which set off another media/fan storm that eventually blew over. As one of Hong Kong’s top pop acts, I don’t think Eason has to worry about any type of boycott.

- Yesterday, I reported that the United States formally filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization about China’s rampant piracy. In response, China pretty much gives the U.S. a very gentle middle finger.

- Park Chan-Wook’s latest I’m a Cyborg But That’s OK is finally coming to DVD on April 30th. I’ll assume that a Hong Kong edition (that will be wiped out by the legions of screaming Rain fans, including those that didn’t show up for the theatrical release) is coming soon after that as well.

- I hated Kim Tae-Kyun’s A Romance of Their Own. It represented everything that was bad about Korean teen cinema - the posing, the melodrama, the tragic twist. I barely made it to the ending. Asian Cinema - While on the Road has a review of his latest, and it seems like it’s more formulaic melodrama that I would hate. Shame, I thought Volcano High was a solid film.

- On that note, Korean films seemed to have hit a slump for March, taking only 21.6% of the market. But the fact that the big picture shows that Korean films is still enjoying a 55.3% share for the year, the reports may be blowing it out of proportion a little bit. Hong Kong would kill for that kind of number, people.

- Japanese production company Nikkatsu has announced its line-up for 2007-2008. The most notable films include the cgi-animated film of popular 70s toon “Gatchaman,” to be made by Hong Kong firm Imagi and directed by Kevin Munroe, who teamed up for the recently-released TMNT. They also announced the Death Note spinoff film based on the detective character L, which will be shot later this year and distributed by Warner Bros. Japan.

- Japan Probe offers a look at what shooting on Kill Bill Volume 1 might have been like. It even offers a Quentin Tarantino impersonator that’s close enough, as far as Japanese impersonation goes.

- The Hong Kong International Film Festival is coming to an end, with the Hong Kong Film Awards on Sunday (I’ll be watching it on Sunday night on the tape-delay broadcast by the local TVB channel in San Francisco), which means Professor Bordwell is leaving. But before he leaves, he shares a ton of pictures, and even mentions this blog! Thanks, Professor, I enjoyed your coverage of the HKIFF!

- Of course, the big news post-weekend is the fallout from the disappointing opening of Grindhouse. And it’s pretty bad. People blame that there are not enough shows a day, so not enough money, but even with the 3-hour running time, people were projecting 20-25 million. Why? Simple math.

This weekend, Grindhouse grossed $11.5 million, at a $4,419 per-screen average. Divide that number by 3 for the weekend, that’s $1,473 dollars a day. Divide that by 3 again for the 3 shows a day, that’s $491 per show. Divide that again by the the national average ticket price, which is $6.55, that means only there were only an average of 75 people for each showing. That would look pretty empty for the multiplex that put it on their bigger 250-people auditorium, wouldn’t it?

Of course, Harvey comes out and says that the length pushed audiences away, which is true, and bloggers are saying that Weinstein should’ve pushed for Tarantino and Rodridguez to not be so self-indulgent and grind down the running time for each film, which is probably also true. But honestly, who expected it to do this bad when advertising and buzz was literally everywhere on the web? Now the Weinsteins are hoping for word-of-mouth, even though the daily gross actually dropped over the weekend (most films experience a rise for Saturday, then a drop on Sunday). I’ll be watching it this week myself, and LoveHKfilm’s Sanjuro has reviews of the separate films (even one for the trailers). Will the people show up eventually? Probably, but I doubt this will make back its reported $52-million budget (although reports say it’s closer to 70 or even 100 million).

- In other Grindhouse news, Korea Pop Wars confirms that Sponge, who grabbed the film at Hong Kong’s Filmart, will release the films separately in their extended versions.

- No Hong Kong Easter weekend numbers (maybe by tonight, who knows), but we have Japanese audience rankings for the weekend. Night at the Museum and Doraemon hang on again for the first and second spot, respectively. Meanwhile, Blood Diamond opens at third (maybe not at a very good gross, seeing how Night and Doraemon have been around for about a month now), the Japan Times-reviewed Taitei no Ken opens at 8th, and more when the numbers come out.

- Those censors strike again. No, not China (more of those guys later), this time it’s Thailand, who has banned internet video service Youtube after anti-monarchist films appeared on the site. Youtube offers to help the Thai authorities delete the films in question without really going to the point of censorship.

- OK, China, your turn. Remember the Chinese idol show Super Girl that got renamed to Happy Boy? Well, not only does the Chinese government hate girls that are happy, they are forcing the show to follow a strict set of guidelines that include no “weirdness” or “low taste,” allowing only “healthy and ethnically inspiring songs,” and no screaming fans or crying contestants, because god help them if the winner might be popular enough to be the next Premier of the Communist party.

This is the winner of Super Girl. Yes, that’s a girl. Is this the SARFT’s idea of “weirdness” and “low taste?”

- With Super Girl gone, its male counterpart “My Hero!” has taken over the Chinese airwaves. Here, the men not only sing, but also dance and do push-ups to impress the judges. The more amusing part of this write-up by Variety Asia is actually seeing the writer trying to explain what “add oil” in Chinese means in English (It really means “work hard!”).

- Japanese pop queen/suspect outer space alien Ayumi Hamasaki had her sold-out concert in Hong Kong, and with Eason Chan’s tendency to speak his mind, he decided to say that she was probably lip-syncing. Ming Pao has the report, and excerpt is as follows:

Eason形容濱崎步的演唱會是高成本製作，燈光、爆破效果，以至整個演唱會的製作都很好，水準之高是本地演唱會難以做到；不過，他說：「看見濱崎步的勁歌熱舞，懷疑她有三分之一時間是『咪嘴』，而且『咪嘴』功夫很到家。我看麥當娜的演唱會就覺得沒有『咪嘴』，雖然歌聲可能沒有唱片中的水準，但也很好看。」

Eason describes Ayumi Hamasaki’s concert as a high-budget production thanks to the lights and pyrotechnics. That type of quality is one that Hong Kong concerts have difficulty achieving. But he said “Seeing Ayumi Hamasaki’s singing and dancing, I suspect that she’s lip-syncing for 1/3 of the time, and her lip-syncing skills are quite good. I saw Madonna’s concert and didn’t feel she was lip-syncing. Though she didn’t sing as well as she does on her albums, it was still very good.”
對此，主辦單位強調濱崎步並無「咪嘴」，「濱崎步唱得太好，加上所有音響設備都來自日本，才會惹起誤會」。

In response, the organizers insist that Ayumi Hamasaki was not lip-syncing, “Ayumi Hamasaki sings too well, and plus all the audio equipments came from Japan, so that’s why there’s such a misunderstanding.”

Original Chinese text is here.

I’ve seen Ayumi Hamasaki’s live performance videos, and she can’t even hit those high notes when she’s NOT dancing. Plus, from Eason Chan, who still lip-sync some of his TV performances, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is true.

- Then again, it’s hard to tell whether one can trust Ming Pao’s reporting. Yesterday, they reported Professor David Bordwell’s visit to Johnnie To’s set for “Triangle” (which they got from his blog), but they seemed to have gotten some facts wrong, particular in its last section. Chinese excerpts (followed by translation) are as follows:

發覺杜琪㗖喜用手提拍攝，與荷李活所用的路軌拍攝不同，不過用手提拍攝確較靈活。David Bordwell亦認為香港製作有時不夠精細，如電影《放逐》中有一幕講述澳門酒店的場景，原來是在杜琪㗖公司的天台搭景，就嫌太過草率了。

[David] discovers that Johnnie To likes using handheld camera, unlike Hollywood, which favor tracking, but using handheld camera is more flexible. David Bordwell also thinks that Hong Kong productions are not meticulous enough, such as the hotel scene in “Exiled.” Turns out that the “hotel” was a set on the roof of Johnnie To’s production company, and he thinks that it’s too sloppy.

Original Chinese text is here.

The entry that report is referring to is here, and here are the mistakes the reporter at Ming Pao made:

The report writes that Johnnie To prefers handheld, but this is what Professor Bordwell wrote:

“To’s art is furthered by his craftsmanship in shot composition. Composing in anamorphic (2.35:1), nearly always putting the camera on a tripod or dolly, he gets precise results with few lighting units. When I complained that all the new films I saw at Filmart were shot shakycam, Shan Ding reported a neat saying that HK DPs have. The handheld camera covers 3 mistakes: Bad acting, bad set design, and bad directing.”

The report also wrote that Professor Bordwell complained that the hotel set in Exiled shows the sloppiness of Hong Kong filmmaking, but there is no such complaining in his entry. This is what Professor Bordwell wrote in regard to the rooftop set:

“In another echo of old production methods, To’s films sometimes use rooftop sets. Last year the set for the hotel in Exiled was erected on the top of the Milkyway building. Its Demy-like pastels looked very artificial in daylight.”

Any complaining in there? I don’t see it. That’s why Hong Kong Chinese reporting should always be taken with a grain of salt.

- Let’s start with those Oricon rankings today. On the singles side, Kobukuro scored their first number 1 single with Tsubomi, the theme song for Tokyo Tower the drama (it’s a good song worth checking out, just don’t tell anyone I sent you), which jumped up from last week’s second place debut. Meanwhile, new singles from Shibasaki Kou and Bonnie Pink debuted only at 8th and 9th place, respectively. Next week, it looks like Glay’s latest single will come up and dethrone the pop duo, but let’s worry about that next week.

As for the monthly singles chart (for the month of March), the pesky Flower boys continue their invasion of the consuming public with its two theme songs taking over the charts. As expected, Utada Hikaru’s Flavor of Life is number one with nearly 500,000 copies sold, while Arashi’s Love So Sweet is at second place.

On the albums side, Ai Otsuka’s compilation album “Ai Am Best” (ha ha, I get it) knocked Mr. Children of its high horse by selling 350,000 copies, while Mr. Children gets knocked down to second place. Compilation albums don’t have a history of staying strong, so expect it Ai’s to slide down the rankings fairly quickly. Meanwhile, M-Flo’s latest album “Cosmicolor” debuts with an OK 76,000 copies for its first week. Next week, expect young rockster YUI’s album to hit number one.

For the month of March, Mr. Children was obviously the winner, selling 693,000 copies of its latest album. The rest of the top 10 were no slouches, either - Ayumi’s double CD compilation managed to sell a combined 1.3 million copies (roughly 620,000 each), Exile’s latest sold 389,000 copies, and even Shiina Ringo’s latest sold 155,000 copies, about 2000 more than Mika Nakashima’s latest.

- What else do we have from Oricon on this fine day? Those drama satisfaction ratings! The Flower boys are number one with 81.8 points, the long-running 5th series Aibou is in 2nd place with 80.2 points, the family epic/ratings winner Karei Naru Ichizoku is at a close 3rd with 79.5 points, sleeper hit Haken no Hinkaku is in 4th with 77.5 points, and the rest of the ranking is here.

- Korea Pop War returns with the Korean box office from this past weekend, where the 300 ruled again.

- I meant it when I said we have a lot of pictures to look at today. For one, we have three posters/promo materials from Twitch. First, we have the poster for Feng Xiaogang’s The Assembly, which looks…..kinda cheap. Then we have the sales flyer for the Benny Chan-helmed Nicholas Tse-starrer Invisible Target, which looks extremely cool. Lastly, we have Joe Ma (Is this “Love Undercover” Joe Ma Wai-ho?) and his Japaense/Hong Kong co-production of Sasori.

- Speaking of pictures, we also have a picture of Taiwanese pop star Rainie Yang apologizing again for remarks she made about the Sino-Japanese war on a Taiwan TV show, which angered those pesky Chinese netizens. Of course, then she takes it too far and starts reading the history book that was given to her at the press conference. Er…..

- Hong Kong is not only passing out awards at its International Film Festival, where the Malaysian film “Love Conquers All” got the big prize, but also the RTHK award for the best films in light of the 10th anniversary of the handover. Infernal Affairs got best film and best screenplay, while Johnnie To won best director for The Mission (!!!!!). More details over at Variety Asia.

- Hoga News has a report on two new films, one of which is Yuko Takeuchi’s first film after her divorce with kabuki bad boy Shido Nakamura.

- The NHK special I mentioned on Miyazaki showed here in the US on TV Japan last week. It was an episode of the “The Professonials” series where NHK cameras follow a professional something for a while, and this episode happened to be on Mr. Miyazaki. The last 15 minutes I watched featured him watching son Goro’s Tales from Earthsea (which he opposed to Goro directing), complimenting that it was “well-directed in a straightforward manner,” walking out of the screening for a smoke, go to the country to brainstorm his latest (while smoking some more, of course), then as of the beginning of March, drawing Ponyo on the Cliff (his latest film).

Why am I mentioning this? Because Goro’s much-hated (though it made about $80 million in Japan alone) Tales From Earthsea is coming to DVD in Japan in July. What about the US, you say? It’s stuck because the Sci-Fi Channel (the schlockmasters that bring us cheap sci-fi flicks and Stargate episodes) holds the right to the story until 2009, so it won’t be until after 2009 that Studio Ghibli’s Tales From Earthsea can be seen.

- I like Media Asia because they released Isabella and Exiled, two of my favorite films from 2006 that both sadly flopped. But then they also released 2 Become 1 and Confession of Pain, which makes them not one of my favorite film studios in HK. Sadly, because of their wish to be makes of huge blockbuster, they are now losing money and now being bought out by another firm that’s owned by the same guy. Now they’ll become a private company, and maybe make better movies?

- Jason Gray has a tidbit on a part of Japanese cinema that I know nothing about (the films of Tanaka Noboru) and the recently-revived Yubari Film Festival.

- I couldn’t resist a movie with a name like this: Self-Defense Force Zombies.

- Meanwhile, the Korean Film Council seems determined to continue cultivating new talents. Way to go, South Korea! Oh, they want them overseas? Maybe not so good…

- Professor Bordwell is back with another entry from Hong Kong, where he praises Wo Hu as better than Protege and Dog Bite Dog…..whhaaaaa? It’s OK, he’s still awesome.

- China is seeing its first series about homosexuals, good for them! But it might not make it past the censors, although it will broadcast online. I honestly don’t know who would expect them to get past the mainland censors when even Hong Kong people couldn’t accept public broadcaster RTHK’s 30-minute documentary on homosexuals. Good try, though.

- There are two reviews out there for Danny Boyle’s Sunshine, which opens this week in some countries including Hong Kong. One calls it terrific and extraordinary, the other calls it an atmospheric thriller that’s gripping for two-thirds of the voyage.

- Variety also has reviews of the Death Note saga (which I generally agree since he’s watching it at a non-fan perspective like I did) and Bubble Fiction: Boom or Bust, which played at the Hong Kong International Film Festival.

Another month, another new beginning. If you noticed, the profile has been updated.

- The Hong Kong customs have been desperate in catching those Bittorrent pirates. They’ve been trying to save time and money by implementing a new automated system to catch who’s uploading and who’s downloading. This is the result.

- While Johnnie To’s Election series is a masterpiece unto itself, I don’t know why Tartan bought it and thought people would like the second film better. It asks for more patience, it moves slower, and it requires character background. The first film is a mixture of a tight thriller and involving look at triad politics, and it’s a better blend of commercial and the arts. Anyway, it seems like Tartan has decided to release both films at once, at least in New York, where out of five showings, one will be for Election 1, and the other 4 for Election 2.

- Twitch went to the AFI Dallas Film Festival, and Peter Martin has a slew of reviews from it.

- Professor Bordwell has checked in with two new reports - one is film-oriented, the other is not. Both are equally interesting.

- DJ Ozma is known in Japan as the man who managed to make Kohaku (the annual singing extravaganza on New Year’s Eve for who-knows-how-many-years-running) show entertaining by getting all his female dancers into naked body suits and wearing a dildo on stage (more details, including video, here). Apparently, this year the parks of Tokyo are selling said body suits during Hanami (the yearly period when people gather to look at blooming sakura and get trashed like it’s 1999).

- Grindhouse is coming out next week, and the faux-trailer by Hostel director Eli Roth is already online.

- An official release date for the modern-day pink film The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai has been announced.

I took this shot from a TV just above the streets of Shinjuku on my trip. I thought it was weird how they had a random cell phone ad of Cameron Diaz talking on the phone. I mean, considering how much Cameron got paid for the commercial, I’m not surprised why she took it. I guess people would want to use Softbank phones more if Cameron Diaz uses it?

Anyway, Tokyo Times offers another shot, this time on a billboard and I’m guessing that’s Akihabara.

Next, best of the week, and a special song of the day

After posting up all those news yesterday, there’s not much left for today. In fact, it’s mostly Japan news.

- I reported about the opening week result of Akira creator Katsuhiro Otomo’s latest “Bugmaster” yesterday, along with a Hoga Central report. Now Eiga Consultant helps and puts it all in perspective. On its opening day on Saturday, “Bugmaster” made 95 million yen - that’s 44% of Shinobi (Joe Odagiri’s hit film from 2005 that ended up making 1.4 billion yen), and 61% of director Otomo’s previous film Steamboy, which ended up making 1.16 billion yen. Looks like not even Joe Odagiri, Yu Aoi, nor the creator of Akira could get fans of the original comic to show up for a movie about bugs.

- Jason Gray also has some tidbits from the Japanese film industry, including the fate of that Genghis Khan movie (that effectively proved you can’t just shove anything down Japanese audiences’ throats), and what one Japanese actress thought of the latest Rocky movie.

- After Takeshi Miike’s latest “Ryu Ga Gotoku” just came and went in theatres, he’s already hard at work on another relatively high-profile film. Twitch provides us today with a link to the teaser for “Sukiyaki Western Django.” It looks like crazy western fun, but I’m not a huge fan of Miike, even though he can be as crazy as it gets, so we’ll see what happens when it opens in September.

- Speaking of Japanese films, Lovehkfilm updates with a review of Japanese blockbuster (but Hong Kong flop) Dororo. Also up is a review of the latest Milkyway film, Eye in the Sky, which opened the Hong Kong International Film Festival this year. It also have some reviews from your truly, but I’ll just let it go.

- It was just announced last week, but Hayao Miyasaki’s latest “Ponyo on the Cliff” already has a progress report, thanks to the people of Twitch, Ghibli World. and NHK.

- Remember that I reported that the National Association of Commercial Broadcasters in Japan suspended NTV’s membership after the natto scandal? Well, now they just decided to just kick them out of the damn organization altogether. Ouch.

- Oh, and Haruki Murakami’s anthology “Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman,” which includes the original short story of Tony Takitani (great film, by the way), just won a Kiriyama Prize. Yay.

I told you there’s not that much news today. See you tomorrow.

Skipped a day yesterday, which was kind of good because I wouldn’t have had enough news to fill up the weekend anyway. Plus I have a lot of backed up freelance work, so today, a review and a roundup of the last day of Filmart.

Watched 300 last night (regrettably not on IMAX because tickets were gone by the time we got there), and just couldn’t get out of my head at just how much it supported Mulvey’s male gaze. Basically, Mulvey proposed that films are made in the view of a Caucasian male gaze acting as a voyeur, thus women are often shot in more glamorous way in order to appeal to the male viewer. But what Mulvey didn’t (and maybe wasn’t about to find at the time the theory was developed) realize was that the male viewers aren’t necessarily looking for a female image, but that they are also looking for a perfected version of men.

Much like women and their supposed “images of perfection” driving them to strive to match this image, 300 presents a perfected men with warrior figure and ultimate bravery that appeals to men because it’s what they strive for. Its testosterone-driven tone means to boil up the blood of male viewers (I can go into it being meant for a Caucasian audiences, considering it’s a bunch of European Whites fighting an army of various minority races, but I shan’t because it’s more divided along gender lines than race lines anyway) and get them coming out high-fiving each other as they go “hoo-ha” and screaming “Spartans!!!” And for that, it does the job. There were some impressing long takes of battle scenes, and the first battle was particular impressive. Anyone tired of the shaky-cam effect in battle scenes will be happy to see the carnage not only shot with a refreshing relative stability, but in lots of slow-motion as well.

But that’s about it - the slow-motions seems way too showy and “looking cool” just for the sake of looking cool, and even as an action film, it surprisingly breezes past the battles (perhaps due to the budget limitations, I don’t know) so that it felt like the Spartans have been fighting for a while when history shows that it only lasted three days….and actually had way more than 300 Spartan soldiers. The redundant pep speeches and the excessive amount of slow-motions (I think by some unscientific measure that 1/3 of the film’s action was probably played at slower speed), and forget about any type of historical accuracy, although considering it’s more based on the Frank Miller comic than Greek history, maybe it’s not really a complaint.

I suppose in the end it’s a pretty-looking and well-paced popcorn film, but I am honestly surprised that people think anything beyond that (It’s already on the imdb top 250. Which I suppose would make sense considering the number of geek fanboys on imdb). Even producer Gianni Nunnari said in Entertainment Weekly that he would be “surprised if even one person from the audience is watching this movie and thinking of Bush and Iraq. That would be a disaster - it would mean that people were bored.” Well, I did think about Bush and Iraq, and I was bored at points, but fortunate for Mr. Nunnari, 300 was far from a disaster.

And now, news from Filmart:

- The Hong Kong-Asian Film Financing Forum also ended with seven awards handed to Asian filmmakers, and better yet, it came with cold hard cash. Kim Jee Woon’s upcoming western film “The Good, the Bad, and the Weird,” Clara Law’s “The Messenger,” Mabel Cheung’s “Romance of the Three Kindgoms: Red Rose and Black Rose” all got $13,000 awards to go towards production (it sounds like not much, especially for bigger budget films like “The Good, the Bad, and the Weird,” but the buzz the grant comes with is worth more than the money itself). The biggest winner is probably Edmond Pang Ho Cheung, who went into the HAF with no money for his upcoming film “Now Showing,” and now he’s found enough financing to start shooting in June.

- On the other hand, while business was slow for Korean films and Filmart, Korean distributors still managed to make a few deals so they don’t go home empty. However, Korean dramas are hitting the jackpot in the market.

- Five people, including Raman Hui, who worked on the Shrek films at Dreamworks and help solidify Hong Kong’s status in the digital animation world, were awarded the “Digital Person of the Year” awards.

In other news:

- Professor Bordwell has a first-hand look at the set of Johnnie To’s portion of “Triangle” with a very insightful look at To’s special form of cinematography. This just fueled my desire to be in the Hong Kong industry even further.

- Ryuganji has a look at Asmik Ace’s upcoming films, which include some potentially interesting projects.

- In addition to the Asian Contents Market, this year’s Tokyo International Film Festival will also include a market featuring animation showcases.

- Lovehkfilm has two reviews up - one for Ann Hui’s The Postmodern Life of My Aunt by head reviewer Kozo and one for Korean nationalist commercial/critical disappointment Hanbando by Sanjuro.

Tomorrow, news translations from Hong Kong, Japan Times review, and let’s see what else we can come up with.

There’s a bit less news than yesterday, which is good, because it’s taking longer and longer to write this thing everyday lately.

First, round-up from Hong Kong Filmart:

- A new production company has been unveiled, and it’s Big Media, backed mostly by sometimes-film producer but mostly video distributor Mei Ah. The company has announced that it will produce 100 movies in 5 years, which means I better get those screenplays written STAT! It’s too bad the films they’ve announced so far are creatively-drained pseudo-sequels like “Young Man Suddenly in Black” and “Another Better Tomorrow”

- A seminar on talent management of Asian stars crossing over into Hollywood finds a “let’s please everyone” answer of “we need to network…..and network some more.”

- The Digital Forum was also held today in light of the upcoming release of TMNT, which was produced by Hong Kong firm Imagi. The goal of increasing Asian computer animation is apparently telling Asian stories with Western storytelling. What if they can just capture audiences again with simple 2-D animation that the West has chosen to abandon?

- Professor Bordwell has also wrote a new entry, including his experience of watching Twins Mission (why oh why that one movie), getting free stuff from the Korean Film Council (man, I need to get that type of connection….even if it means some 30 years of film scholarship), meeting the incomparable Grady Hendrix and HKMDB’s Ryan Law, and also previews his visit to Johnnie To’s set of his portion of “Triangle” (can’t.breath.due.to.jealousy!!!!!!!!!!).

In other news:

- Ryuganji now has even more details about Kantoku Banzai, the latest from Takeshi Kitano (or Beat Takeshi, I guess). Apparently it’ll be a film more from his comedian side than his art side. My favorite quote? When asked whether the film will be submitted to the Cannes Film Festival, Kitano says, “Well, bits of it are are little embarrassing…”

- “Triangle,” which I thought has finished shooting, actually hasn’t because I saw the report of an opening shooting ceremony and Johnnie To joking that Ringo Lam took too long to shoot his portion on Ming Pao yesterday. Variety Asia has more details on the highly-anticipated project, including who’s gonna be distributing it in China (an HK film being approved for China, to me, is like the HK film version of watering down a movie to PG-13 in America).

- Asian Film - While on the Road has a review of two Kadokawa idol films - Sailor Suit and Machine Gun and The Young Girl who Conquered Time, starring two different idols that actually look quite alike and still do solid work in Japanese films today. It’s too bad I have seen neither, I almost bought Sailor Suit and Machine Gun on my last day in Hong Kong, but thought I already had too many DVDs to bring back. Shame.

- There’s still hope that Jet Li won’t be in Mummy 3! Official reports state that he’s still “in negotiations” to play the main villain in the Rob Cohen-directed cash-milking sequel. Even the original stars haven’t agreed to appear yet!

Of course “in negotiations” in Hollywood means he already said yes, he’s just holding out for more money.

- The problem that the Chinese government has with those idol music shows such as “Supergirl” is the entire idea behind the winners chosen is based on votes. You basically tell your viewers that you may not be able to vote on say, who leads your country or the direction your country is going, but at least you can choose who’ll become rich and famous!

Apparently, that’s not the only problem they have. They can’t seem to get over the fact that the word “super” is used for someone that’s democratically voted, as in someone that is actually liked by the people instead of telling the people who they should like, because “super” has powerful connotations.

So this season, the word “super” is out……so is the word “girl.” Now it’ll be named “Happy Boy” instead. D’oh.

Since I’m writing a little late and by now a lot of news from Asia (particularly film deals from HK Filmart), but I’ll leave them for tomorrow.

- Box Office Mojo’s Japanese box office numbers show their unreliability again as its results are different from the total audience ranking. Their numbers (down from their 117 yen=$1 rate to 116 yen this week) show Night at the Museum at number 1 on 525 screens, Unfair the Movie with a far larger per-screen average at number 2, and the Doraemon movie at number 3. This is because since the Doraemon movie attracts more kids, and kids pay less money for a movie ticket. So while more people showed up to see Doraemon, Unfair attracted a predominantly adult audience, thus it made more money than Doraemon. This, of course, begs the question which ranking is more accurate? Would you want more people to watch your movie, or more money to be made from your movie?

- Another Japanese drama wrapped up last night, and it’s the soon-to-be-adapted-way-too-many-times Tokyo Tower series. Considering that it hasn’t done very well in the ratings, its last episode got an 18.1% rating, up from a 14.2 last week for an overall 14.9 rating. As evident from the success of the Unfair movie, Tokyo Tower the movie should do pretty well at the box office come April.

- My girlfriend also alerted me that one of the main actors in the recently-wrapped Haken No Hinkaku is actually former Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi’s son Kotaro Koizumi.

- Just how serious is Mark Russell at Korea Pop Wars about the Korean box office? He reported it all the way from Hong Kong, where he’s attending Filmart! Good work, Mark! Seriously, I wouldn’t be updating this thing if I get to go cover Filmart.

- Those Oricon rankings are out too, and Utada Hikaru holds on to the number 1 spot for the third week in a row with the single Flavor of Life. As a fan, I’m happy that she’s found this kind of success again, but too bad it’s for a single that’s become less Utada and more J-pop (at least compared to her older works). Meanwhile, Koda Kumi is at a relatively closed second with her latest single, and Remioromen, who became huge J-pop figures after the one-two punch of March 9th and Konayuki, could only muster a third place with their latest. Hikki may have to fight for that top spot next week as NEWS joins in the Spring break fight with their new single.

On the album side, even Koda Kumi’s erokawaii couldn’t beat Mr. Children, whose latest album Home scored first place with a huge sales figure of 690,000 copies. Koda Kumi and Mika Nakashima fought out the battle of second and third place, and Koda Kumi wins the battle barely with 161,000 while Mika managed to sell 153,000 copies herself.

- The Death Note Complete Set is also number 1 on the overall DVD sales chart on its first week with 161,000 copies sold. While this is not as spectacular as Bayside Shakedown 2 (which moved 327,000 copies its first week) and Crying Out For Love in the Center of the World (which moved 174,000 copies), this is the third best-selling first-week sales for a Japanese DVD ever, and also the best sales for a Japanese DVD since Sinking of Japan came out in January.

- I really liked the Japanese film Ping Pong. So much that I bought a second-hand DVD in Tokyo that still cost me an arm and a leg. And now its director has returned for his second film after producing 2004’s Appleseed. Variety Asia reported that Shochiku has picked up his latest film, the animated “Vexille,” about an undercover American military force who enter Japan to stop them from building a dangerous weapon in the year.

Likes: Director
Doesn’t like: animated film.

What to do, what to do….

- Korea Herald has provided the first English review of the first Korean film by Choi Yang Il (or known elsewhere in the world as Yoichi Sai, the director of the violent, but excellent downer Blood and Bones) Soo. Sounds like it’ll be even more intense than Blood and Bones.

Link courtesy of Ryuganji.

- Ever imagined a futuristic war film in the streets of Hong Kong? Your dream is coming true as Singapore have teamed up with an American investor to make the sci-fi futuristic fantasy “The Battle of Hong Kong - Exodus,” about the natives of Kowloon rising up to fight Hong Kong Islanders that have enslaved them. If I were them, Hong Kong islanders would make better rebellion story. The pic will be the most expensive ever made in Singapore….but why is Singapore, not Hong Kong, making this?

- Starting tomorrow, this blog’s is gonna be flooded with news from Filmart, but why not get a personal perspective from someone who’s actually there (honestly, from the news I got today, I might actually be there myself next year. Fingers crossed). That’s why, it’s Asian Film Award winner David Bordwell, who is reporting his trip on his blog (with some very very cool starstruck moments) . He’ll be there until April doing research, so I’m sure he’ll continue to turn in great entries from my favorite city in the world.

Some surprises out there, but still a slow news day. Of course, it’ll still take me forever to write.

- Hong Kong Sunday numbers are surprisingly even. Over the years I’ve been tracking the box office, it’s not very often that I see the top 10 all in at least those 6 figures, but it seems like there was enough diversity in the box office to warrant a healthy take for everyone.

As expected, Ghost Rider takes in an average $990,000 on Sunday for a HK$3.47 million total after 4 days for the number 1 spot. The filmgoing bourgeois showed up for the second weekend of The Queen, commanding HK$350,000 on 14 screens in a far second. It now has a HK$3.27 million total after 11 days. The Lady Iron Chef gain quite a bit from its spectacular failure on Thursday (although it might’ve been just previews) with a HK$280,000 on 26 screens, which is around the amount the last Wong Jing produced film, the spectacularly dumb stinker Kung Fu Mahjong 3, did. With HK$770,000 as its 4-day total, don’t expect it to go far past HK$3 million.

Super-duper blockbuster 300 had its preview showings over the weekend (2 shows a night), and it earned HK$190,000 on 31 screens for a HK$640,000 total after 6 shows. Its official opening comes this weekend, and by the hype from its success in America and perhaps good word-of-mouth, 300 could go far. Japanese blockbuster tearjerker Tears For You earns a better-than-Midnight-Sun gross of HK$110,000 on 9 screens for a HK$420,000 total and probably won’t make it to the $1 million mark. Dreamgirls and Letters From Iwo Jima holds on to their limited release success with HK$140,000 on 10 screens and HK$120,000 on 5 screens, respectively.

- The South Korean box office is also out, and after the boost February gave to local films, March seems to signal a bit of a slowdown. Anyway, Korea Pop Wars have their usual analysis.

- Japanese movie rankings are out as well, and personal favorite (I seem to report on those a lot, don’t I?) and my childhood idol that is not named Aaron Kwok Doraemon’s new movie is in first place. Heartwarming baseball film Battery debuts in second with a strong 185 million yen opening (analysis by Hoga News), as the Genghis Khan movie falls to third (but with a gross that’s probably fairly close to its disappointing debut.). Other than that, until I see those percentage changes, it wasn’t a very exciting weekend in Japan.

- More exciting is those Japanese drama ratings, as the ultra-expensive Karei Naru Ichizoku surges for its second-to-last episode with a 24.9 rating, its highest since the premiere (which makes me wonder why do so many extra people tune in to the end of serial drama, when they hadn’t been keeping up). Those popular flowery boys aren’t weak either, but their ratings dropped just a bit for a 21.9 rating. Nakama Yukie’s drama ended with a whimper this week after 9 episodes with a 11.7 rating (although I’m not sure whether it was cut short, or it was just meant to be this short) and an overall 12.7 rating. I think she’s due for another installment of Gokusen for a popularity boost. Lastly, Haken No Hinkaku goes into home stretch with a consistent 19.9 rating this week (same as last week). As mentioned yesterday, the three major dramas are wrapping up this week. Turns out Haken No Hinkaku may be wrapping up next week instead. Either way, it’ll be huge, huge, I tell you!

- Variety Asia has a profile on Toho’s life achievement award-receiving chairman Matsuoka by Mark Schilling (Critic for the Japan Times). Despite being the chairman of Japan’s biggest studio, he still maintains that Hollywood should be dominating the market with a 60% share in Japan. “That way, everybody wins.” Right.

- I’m a fan of Haruki Murakami. Honestly, he’s the only author I consistently read (that is, if I ever decide to read). I haven’t bought his latest short story anthology “Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman” yet because I’m waiting for the paperback, but now the translation for his latest After Dark is finally arriving. I still have quite a few books to catch up, so maybe I’ll be reading this in 5 years or so.

- Connecting from Lovehkfilm’s Sanjuro’s blog, the big honcho at Lovehkfilm also put up his review of The Pang Brothers’ The Messengers.

- Miss R over at Sardonic Smile has a cool profile of Hong Kong’s hippest MTV director Susie Au, whose latest film MingMing will debut at the Hong Kong International Film Festival this year.

- Variety Asia also has a report on how last year’s Thailand military coup has affected the TV market. Despite reports about how the coup didn’t affect Thailand much (since apparently they get quite a few of these over the years), it sounds more serious than it looks.

- Asian Cinema - While On the Road has a review of the book “Asia Shock,” which I agree I would not read just based on the title alone (I, too, hate the stereotype that Asian films represent some type of carnal or violent extreme). But it seems like the book does pick some good mainstream titles. No, Ichi the Killer is NOT a mainstream film anywhere in the world.

- Variety also has reviews for Shu Qi’s big Korean debut “My Wife is a Gangster 3″ (I wisely stopped watching at 2) and a disappointingly short review for the Japanese horror flick “The Slit-Mouth Woman.” They also have a review for Confession of Pain, but it’s full of spoilers, so forget that.

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.