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!

Back from a very long vacation to find a few shocking things happened in the Asian film world:

- The death of Grady Hendrix’s Kaiju Shakedown. This is probably one of favorite sites on the net, and major news outlet for this blog. Grady, I hope you’re on the way to bigger and better things as I type. Rest assured, though, the news reported on this website should not decrease by much, thanks for strong sites such as Twitch and the newly discovered Variety Asia. The link section will be duly corrected.

- The choices for This year’s Hong Kong Critics Society Awards seems rather strange, with a Mainland sweep of the acting awards, and some strange omissions of excellent films such as Isabella and My Name is Fame (for Confession of Pain and Wo Hu instead?)

- Marie Antoinette getting second place in the first weekend’s box office in Japan with the highest per-screen average for a wide release (The Departed may be the box office winner, but it’s in a limited 61-screen release). It’s also doing very well in limited release in Hong Kong, where I watched a 2:50 pm show on a tuesday afternoon in an almost-full house. As of Tuesday the 23rd, it’s earned HK$440,000 after 4 days of release on 4 screens.

That’s it for now. Tomorrow, some reviews of the 8 movies I saw on this trip, and some more number crunching.