Took the three hours to watch Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End yesterday. Surprisingly, the 165-minute length went by fairly quickly, maybe because everyone was double-crossing each other the first hour and a half. Unlike Dead Man’s Chest, which sprinkled bits of action moments throughout to keep the audience pumped(including the Krakin beast thing that I have a personal affinity for, though it didn’t appear much in At World’s End), At World’s End is really one big setup for a somewhat underwhelming final battle that feels much like the second half of a huge 5-and-a-half hour film. This one really tests the audiences to see whether they actually care about the plot or not by stuffing as much into the journey between point A to point B as they can. It’s still very entertaining with the silly sense of humor and penchant for excess still around, but Verbinski and his writing team of Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio take the whole thing so seriously that Verbinski actually went as far as trying to channel Sergio Leone in a pre-showdown scene, Western music and extreme close-ups and all.

As expected, Johnny Depp steals the show as Jack Sparrow, even though he doesn’t appear until about 30 minutes in. While the Elizabeth Swann and William Turner plot line’s resolution was better than I expected, they are still the usual straight characters that were obviously misconceived when the writers wrote the original characters, not knowing that Depp’s performance would be so over-the-top. Chow Yun-Fat was great to see on the big screen, but that’s only because of the man’s reputation in my mind; he really doesn’t get much to do. The special effects are…..special, especially the Davy Jones character design. The credits showed at least 5 different special effects firms worked on the film, and it shows how much work they put in to make everything look real nice. Essentially, with all the money and audience love it’s gotten (which I honestly admit I’m a little baffled by, though I think a large percentage of the audience go purely for Johnny Depp and/or the special effects without even caring about the mythology and the plot), this movie is critic-proof. So go catch up with the second movie on DVD (trust me, you’ll need to), sit yourself in a movie theater with a good setup (I watched it in digital projection myself), and just enjoy the hell out of it. Word of warning, though: This movie is the most violent of the three, with people getting stabbed and shot in the head (though no blood). So don’t let the Disney label fool you into thinking it’s a kids film.

Note: Do stick around for past the credits. The post-credit scene this time actually matters, unlike the one in the second film (I had predicted the post-credit scene in the first movie mattered in the resurrection of Barbossa - it didn’t), because it wraps up a pretty important plot line. While I admire the team’s effort to make people watch the credits to recognize all the people’s hard work, it’s already been 160 minutes by the time the credits start. Just show what you need to show and let people go home.

- In Hong Kong, Pirates already seems to be slowing down a little bit. On Thursday opening day, Pirates made only HK$1 million on 88 screens for an 8-day total of only HK$25.85 million. One can argue that reduced running time means less shows, but I blame it on the ticket increase (theaterowners added HK$15 to the ticket price because of the length) and people just kind of balked at a 3-hour long movie. I don’t see this going past $HK40 million, which King Kong managed to do under the same condition.

In opening films, Hong Kong romantic comedy Single Blog (which actually claims in its trailer that 99% is not created, but rather situations taken from Hong Kong people’s blogs…someone should ask for royalties) made HK$220,000 on 25 screens, which is bad, but could have been a lot worse. Premonition starring Sandra Bullock makes HK$100,000 on 15 screens, Disney’s Bridge to Terabithia makes only HK$60,000 on 19 screens, and the weekend is just looking pretty yawn-y.

- Borat opened on 31 screens in Japan this past weekend, and it did pretty well in at least one of them. A theater in Shibuya is reporting that the film got off to an extremely good start, with hip people from their 20s to their 50s attending, and that people are taking advantage of the Monday discount….except the theater gives no official numbers, and no one knows how it did in the other 30 theaters. According to Box Office Mojo, it only made 7.3 million yen, for a not very good per-screen average of 237,000 yen (US$1=121 yen). But considering that it’s playing in small art house theaters that sit only about 150 people (at most 200), the houses are definitely getting filled….just not as filled as some might suggest.

- When my friend told me about the ridiculousness of this, I thought he was behind about 2 months, because I thought Norika Fujiwara’s wedding already happened. Turns out they held a Western wedding reception, and for some reason, Nippon TV thought it was important enough to broadcast it live. Then viewers thought it was important enough to tune in. In the Kansai area, where Fujiwara is from, the ratings for the wedding actually reached 40%. It didn’t do too shabby in Kanto, either; it reached 24%.

- In Europe, authorities report that they seized 23.2 million copies of entertainment goods such as DVDs, CDs, and software. And they’re blaming China, reporting that 93% of what they seized came from there.

- Taiwanese music channel Channel V is signed on to broadcast on the Hong Kong pay network Now TV. The thing is, Channel V was already in Hong Kong when Star TV was still playing in Hong Kong before joining Now TV, so how is this news? I know, I’m wasting your time too.

- There’s a sales poster up for Johnnie To’s romance Linger. Is that what passes for a poster of a Johnnie To movie nowadays? And that title, “Butterfly Fly?” This might be the first time I’m actually avoiding a Johnnie To movie.

- Japan Times has a feature on Japanese cinema’s newest hero Naomi Kawase, who won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival with her drama “The Mourning Forest.” They also have a feature about the making of the film as well, including her frustrations of working with foreign investors.

- Seems like the New York Asian Film Festival is running into some troubles after sponsor Midway Games decided to pull out of the festival. Now things are being rescheduled, but the festival is still on. I won’t be able to attend (due to the fact that i’m on the opposite end of the country), but I wish them mucho luck.

- Australian screenwriter/director Tony Ayres’ autobiographical film The Home Song Stories, starring Joan Chen and her daughter Irene, won a A$15,000 prize for its screenplay.

- Sai Yoichi, the Korean-Japanese director who made the brutally powerful Blood and Bones, made his Korean directorial debut with Soo, a violent revenge action thriller that sounds really promising. It’s coming to DVD on June 15th.

But then today Twitch’s Todd posted a fairly negative review that now has me wondering whether it’d be any good. I’ve read positive reviews of the film as well, so perhaps it’ll be one of those love-it-or-hate-it films that I might end up liking.

- The Galaxy Award, held by the Japan Council Better Radio and Television (there should be a council like that everywhere), was recently given out. I’ve never heard of this award, but since it’s in its 44th year, it must mean something. Notable winners include drama “Dr. Koto’s Clinic 2″ and actress Ryoko Shinohara for her several roles (including her lead role in drama Haken no Hinkaku).

- For anyone that wants to know more about the Japanese pop music world, Japundit has a really long feature on the infamous Japanese talent management firm Johnny’s Entertainment. Sounds a bit like Hong Kong’s EEG too.

That’s it for today, more over the weekend.

Cannes finally comes to a close, meaning that those who don’t really care can now rest easy. Of course, if all goes well, we’ll doing it all over again for Venice and Toronto later this year.

On the general awards front, the Romanian film “4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days” won the Palme D’or, Julian Schnabel won best director for “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” Gus Van Sant won the special 60th Anniversary Award for “Paranoid Park,” Fatih Akin won the best screenplay award for “The Edge of Heaven,” and Konstantin Lavronenko won best actor for the Russian film “The Banishment.”

On the Asian films front, Naomi Kawase’s “The Mourning Forest,” which screened on the last full day of screening in competition, won the Grand Prix (which is like a glorified 2nd place award). Variety and Hollywood Reporter critics usually don’t work on weekends (even during Cannes, apparently), so there are no reviews from them yet. However, we do have a review from Screen International’s Lee Marshall, who calls the film one of great emotional impact with a vision that is equal to Terrence Malick. Meanwhile, Mike D’Angelo has a short review on ScreenGrab, and he didn’t like it as much (it’s a short review, just scroll down. Thanks to Green Cine for the link).

Also, Jeon Do-Yeon won the best actress award for Lee Dong-Chang’s “Secret Sunshine,” which ups the awards count for Asian films in competition to two this year. Then again, the competition seems pretty heavy this year, so Asia should be glad that it represented itself quite well.

- Moving on, Danny Boyle’s Sunshine, which has unfortunately not been doing very well anywhere it’s playing so far (it has open in most major territories in the world and has only made US$27 million). Now, Fox has moved up the North American release to July 20th from its second release date in September. This might be a good move, since it’s only going against John Travolta in drag (courtesy of The Movie Blog) and the new Adam Sandler comedy, which just got the R kiss of death from the MPAA.

- Everybody is finishing up their trilogies in recent years, from Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s “Death Trilogy” to Gus Van Sant’s…..other “Death Trilogy” (apparently death at the hands of stranger is what he calls it) to Park Chan-Wook’s “Revenge Trilogy. Apparently, even Takeshi Kitano has been doing a trilogy from “Takeshis’” to “Kantoku Banzai!”. Now he’s planning to finish up this “self-exploratory trilogy” with a movie about the life of an artist from success to ruin that will feature his own paintings. Parallel to Kitano’s own directorial career is still unknown, depending on the reviews for “Kantoku Banzai!”.

- Japanese studio Toei and America’s Colombia Music are teaming up to make a series of short films for TV, DVD, and internet that will hopefully somehow lift sales by crossing CDs with DVDs. Their first film is called Metal Samurai. Good idea? Bad idea?

- Argentina and China are working on a deal to build a studio complex in Argentina. In addition, there are talks under way that would allow Chinese and Argentinean co-productions and other cinematic goodies.

- There’s a pretty ho-hum poster out for Feng Xiaogang’s The Assembly. Am I the only one that’s no really excited about this?

- There’s a law in China that bans all materials that deal with the supernatural. Films and books that deal with the supernatural are often banned, though there are ways around it, as evident in the recent thriller The Matrimony. The latest victim of this ban is the popular Japanese comic/animated series/films Death Note. Authorities in China finally got off their asses and seized over 2400 copies of the comic and 360 copies of what is probably the animated series or the films on compact discs. Thanks to the popularity of the comic, kids are also buying up the mock version of the Death Notebook (In Japanese, the word for notebook is “no-to,” or just “note.” So Death Note actually means Death Notebook), freaking out other kids by writing their names in it. Now that’s just plain mean.

- Since we were on the subject of law, Japan has finally passed a legislation in its parliament that bans the video recording of film in movie theaters. The fines are pretty heavy too, so think twice before bringing in that camera for the Death Note spinoff movie; keeping up your otaku cred isn’t worth that much.

- Oh, there’s also a teaser poster for Kim Ji-Woon’s The Good, the Bad, and the Weird, currently in production. What the hell is that thing Song Kang-Ho is wearing?

- Since this is the summer of the sequels, Professor David Bordwell wrote about a virtual roundtable he had that discussed the possible merits of sequels in his blog.

Off to finish the second part of Clint Eastwood’s Iwo Jima saga. Yup, that means a feature tomorrow, right on time for Memorial Day.

In light of Ryuganji’s, EastSouthWestNorth, and Lovehkfilm’s recent shout-outs to this blog, It’s probably a good time for me to acknowledge some, if not all, of the links I have on my right here as well.

Film Philia seems to be a new site, and updates about once a week-2 weeks with news and trailer links that are short and to the point.

Like him or not (he hate Lord of the Rings, but loves Michael Mann and Babel), Hollywood Elsewhere is an enormous informative column/blog about the movie business. Jeffrey Wells is indeed a bit opinionated for some people’s taste, but he’s a columnist, not a reporter. So what else can you expect?

I don’t think I have to profess my love for Lovehkfilm anymore, or I’d just seem like huge suck-up. Plus, they have a really talented reviewer that seem to really like the Hong Kong defunct rap group LMF….

Ryuganji doesn’t update his site often enough, but his page’s feed to all news Japanese films may just make this blog’s existence a waste of internet space. Good thing I know a thing or two about Hong Kong cinema too.

TV in Japan is just kick-ass. Even if there’s no context to the clips sometimes (Japanese TV is not especially weird; it’s just as sensational as any other mainstream TV industry, but in another culture), it never ceases to provide hilarious clips that I somehow never caught when I was there. The reason I don’t mention it in my post is because the whole thing is about entertainment, and they update it as frequently as I do anyway.

A Pity I’m an Aquarius is an interesting photography blog, even if it doesn’t have much film stuff in it. Plus she was one of the first people to link to The Golden Rock, and I’m more than happy to return the favor.

Asian Cinema - While on the Road is by Brian of brns.com. As a programmer for the New York Asian Film Festival, he gets to watch a lot of Asian films that I wouldn’t be able to get my hands on.

I don’t do much celebrity gossips on this site. I leave it to Daily Dumpling to fulfill all of your Asian celebrity news instead.

Professor David Bordwell and Kristen Thompson’s blog is always informative for an aspiring filmmaker and those interested in film as an art form. As a film studies major who almost went into film research for grad school, it’s always an enormously rewarding reading experience for me, especially those entries about shot lengths.

There are not enough words (at least in my limited Japanese vocabulary) to describe how thankful I am for a blog like Eiga Consultant. I didn’t think anyone cares about box office statistics as much as I do until I found this blog. It’s been very very useful for this site, for what I wanted to do with this blog, and for satisfying my own curiosity with having to know the box office statistics of everywhere I’ve lived before.

And Hoga News was the how I found Eiga Consultant in the first place. Providing translations of Japanese film news and box office statistics, Hoga News was also the first major site that linked to the Golden Rock, and I am eternally grateful for that.

Old school Hong Kong martial arts movies aren’t my cup of tea (I just didn’t get to grow up with it, and I have no time to catch up with it now), but head over to Hong Kong and Kung Fu DVD News and Reviews if they are your cup of tea.

Jason Gray provides an interesting inside look at Japanese cinema - both mainstream and the lesser known stuff like Pink films - that you can’t find in the news.

r@sardonicsmile just has a really cool pop culture blog that seems to share similar sensibility as I. Too bad she doesn’t update very often.

Fellow Lovehkfilm reviewer Sanjuro shows so much knowledge in comic and early contemporary cinema cultures in Ronin On Empty that I honestly feel a little behind on everything. No, I haven’t seen any of the Rocky movies, but he has, and even reviews all of them! Like the previous link, I wish it’d be updated a little more often, but it understandably isn’t because of his schedule.

Web of Significance is a blog that’s about a bit of everything, and it’s always informative. Of course, I’m especially attracted to the movies stuff, but it’s all good anyway.

Just added is Hongkie Town, a blog I’ve been following for over a year now about the adventures of a foreigner living in Hong Kong. It doesn’t have much movie stuff (a review here and there), but it’s still immensely rewarding with fun stories from Hong Kong and abroad, music stuff, and political observations.

Also added is EastSouthWestNorth, a blog that mostly cover Hong Kong, China, and Taiwan political news with translations and links. Extremely useful for anyone interested in seeing how the media work in these three places. Even crazy enough to link to this blog twice within a week. Extremely honored, I am.

And I just realized that I never put Korea Pop Wars on the blog list, even though I use it every week to look at the Korean box office. Shame on me. That glaring error has now been corrected.

Thank you all for the knowledge I have picked up from your sites, and if you happen to read this as well, thank you for your support as well.

The Cannes Film Festival has been going on for about 6 days now, which means it’s time for a bit of roundup. Variety says that the festival has been pretty mellow so far, with the Coen Brothers’ “No Country of Old Men” and the grim drama “4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days” as the frontrunners for the Palme D’or.

On the other hand, the Cannes market has been very healthy, with the North American rights for Wilson Yip’s “Flash Point” already sold.

I posted a link to Twitch’s review of the film “Dai Nipponjin,” which had its premiere on Saturday. Already there are distributors from ten different countries hoping to snatch up the film, which means we can see oversea releases pretty soon.

Kim Ki-Duk’s Breath, starring Chang Chen, is getting pretty good word-of-mouth as an in competition film. It’s also attracting quite a few buyers at the market as well.

- As expected, Spiderman 3 crossed the HK$50 million mark on Sunday in Hong Kong. The sequel made another HK$1.8 million on 65 screens, and has now made HK$50.73 million after 20 days of release. Of course, next weekend sees the opening of the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie, so it should die down right about then all around the world.

As for other films, the Korean blockbuster 200-Pound Beauty perked up by quite a bit, making HK$500,000 on 21 screens for a 4-day total of HK1.48 million. Herman Yau’s Gong Tau and Whispers and Moans (both category III, meaning no one under 18 can be admitted) made HK$210,000 and HK$70,000 on 25 and 5 screens, respectively. Gong Tau has now made HK$1.3 million after 6 days plus previews, while Whispers and Moans (which Twitch just recently reviewed as well) has made HK$360,000 after 4 days. Leon Lai-starrer The Matrimony made only HK$50,000 on 15 screens, while Audrey Tautou-starrer Priceless actually saw an increase in business with HK$150,000 on 7 screens.

(For reference: US$1=HK$7.8)

- In Japan, the latest box office ranking shows that most of the film on the top 10 last week stayed where they are, except in two spots - the sequel Pacchigi - Love and Peace lands on 7th place, while the Will Farrell-starrer Stranger Than Fiction lands on 10th. More numbers tomorrow.

- In South Korea, Spiderman again led the pack, but it’s counter-programming film Unstoppable Marriage that’s taking the spotlight. Also, Japanese films are suddenly performing really well there, with Memories of Tomorrow’s strong opening last week and the surprising 4th place opening for the pop-song-inspired “Tears For You.”

- This week’s Japan drama ratings are doing a bit better(See here for all the drama introductions), with Proposal Daisakusen, Sexy Voice and Robo, Bambino, and quite a few more dramas seeing higher ratings. Proposal Daisakusen is pulling its lead with a 16.6 rating average to be the current leader with no other drama close by. On the other hand, Yuji Oda’s Joudan Janai freefalls from its stable 14 rating range the last two weeks to a disastrous 11.7 this week, marking the drama’s lowest rating yet. This season just isn’t much for dramas.

- When India is a huge movie industry with production number matching Hollywood, it’s natural that they would start making movies of similar scale, right? And it’s also no surprise that Indian producers would eventually put their money into Hollywood.

- In fact, now Bollywood filmmakers are beginning to stray from the traditional formula, meaning less songs or different formulas. Apparently it’s a pretty huge deal if a 107-minute movie only has one song.

- On the other hand, Chinese producers are still hanging on to the martial arts/period epic formula to make money (with the somewhat disappointing showing of The Banquet and Curse of the Golden Flower, I was hoping it’s starting to end), and here is another example. Honestly, I haven’t been so indifferent to a huge Chinese period epic since…A Battle of Wits. Maybe it’s an Andy Lau thing.

- Some Westerner wants to do a biopic of Mao Tse-Tung, and he’s looking for the Chinese government approval to get production support. “This is a very positive portrayal of Mao,” the producer said. That’s Chairman Mao to you, foreign devil.

- Jason Gray has seen Takeshi Kitano’s “Kantoku Banzai,” but has sworn to secrecy. So good luck trying to decipher his response, completely done in Japanese smiley faces.

- How can you get your movie into China without having to worry about blackout dates and import quota? Engage in an artistic battle royale with your fellow filmmakers at the Shanghai International Film Festival, and you shall get your wish.

- What i love about the English stations of the two free broadcasters in Hong Kong - TVB and ATV - is that they would show Japanese dramas every week. It’s a good alternative to the same old melodramatic series on the Chinese channels, and they even sometimes pick pretty good American dramas too. This is all thanks to a flexible schedule, which means not having to worry about TV seasons or sweeps.

- The Stephen Chow-approved Japanese spinoff of Shaolin Soccer “Shaolin Girl,” has started shooting for a while, and apparently there’s a blog on its website, although I have no idea who’s writing it. It has already written about shooting the cameos by a couple of the Shaolin Soccer guys.

The Cannes Film Festival rolls on, as Twitch now officially has reviews to the more interesting films at the festival. At least interesting to this blog.

They now have probably the first English review to Hitoshi Matsumoto’s “Dai Nipponjin,” which sounds hilarious, and also the first English review to the animated film “Vexville” by Ping Pong director Fumihiko Sori, which sounds interesting, even though I’m not a big fan of animation.

Variety, on the other hand, reviews the omnibus “To Each His Own Cinema,” comprised of 33 3-minute films by directors who have gained recognition at Cannes over the years, including Wong Kai-Wai, Tsai Ming-Liang, Takeshi Kitano, Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige, and Hou Hsaio-Hsien. Out of all the films by Asian filmmakers, the review only mentions two - Zhang Yimou and Takeshi Kitano - at short lengths.

Chinese director Li Yang’s Blind Mountain was also shown in competition after Chinese censors forced Yang to make 20 cuts just to let it be allowed to travel overseas. Hollywood Reporter likes it, calling it a moving drama that retains enormous social impact, despite the cuts. Meanwhile, Variety didn’t like it, undermining the film as one that is low on drama and originality and high on deja vu.

There are also a few Japanese films that already opened in Japan, but saw its premiere in Cannes and their first reviews from Variety. One is For Those We Love, the controversial war drama that have been criticized as glorifying war before it even opened. The other is I Just Didn’t Do it by Shall We Dance director Masayuki Suo, about a man accused of molesting a young girl on the train and is forced to go through the tedious Japanese legal system.

- For Those We Love is so controversial that it’s even a target in the new Japanese film Pacchigi - Love and Peace, where one of its characters, a Japanese national of Korean heritage, becomes an actress who sees her big chance through a role in a nationalist film about kamikazes. Love and Peace, considered an independent film because it’s not distributed by “the big three,” opened on Saturday on 184 screens (as opposed to the original, which opened on 100 and expanded to 300 eventually), and the distributor is already expecting the film to make the 1 billion yen mark (considered the mark of success in Japanese box office).

- Shanghai, surely still not very happy that Disney chose Hong Kong over them (or seeing how it turned out, maybe they got over it already), will get their consolation by getting an MGM Studio World….except it’s not a theme park, but rather an indoor complex with all types of entertainment, ranging from a cinema to a nightclub. Well, I would rather get one of those than Disneyland, but that’s just me.

- Hong Kong seems like a perfectly free society…until they start enforcing laws you didn’t even know exists. A 14-year-old blogger was recently arrested because he blogs about his life in the triads. In Hong Kong, it’s illegal to even profess or claim to assist in “the management of a triad society.” Looks like Ekin Cheng has a long jail sentence ahead of him, then.

- Under “bad taste but nice try” today, the Japan censorship board has rejected the Japanese title for the mockumentary Death of a President, which supposed a world in which George W. Bush is assassinated. The rejected title? “The Assassination of Bush.” That automatically takes away any chance of me making a movie named “The Assassination of Lincoln,” then.

- Wow, what took so long? The Japanese government has finally decided to offer multiple incentives, including the allowing film to be limited-liability partnership and offering grants to multi-national co-productions, to help the film industry. Hong Kong government can offer $38.5 million, and Japan can only offer 16? Hmm….

- Jackie Chan and Jet Li are currently filming The Forbidden Kingdom, another attempt to bastardize the Journey to the West story to Western audiences. Jackie recently posted on his blog about his fight scene with Jet Li, which sounds good and all, but the movie still sounds crappy to me.

- After Paris Je T’aime (which is in American theaters now, and I highly recommend it), its producers has gotten quite a lineup for its follow up New York Je T’aime, including Oldboy’s Park Chan-Wook, Mira Nair, Zach Braff, and Allen and Albert Hughes. Sounds good to me.

- Remember Happy Male Voice, the revamped version of the talent show Super Girl in China? Apparently, people are quitting due all kinds of dark music industry stuff.

- It’s been a long time since a Gordon Chan movie made me excited (sadly, the last one was A.D. 2000, which was not worth the excitement). And this one continues the streak.

Instead of The Song of the Day today, it’ll be a special feature on the current Hong Kong hoopla about the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

After a small break yesterday, it’s time to catch up - in a big way.

- As always, let’s start with box office reports. Japan had the beginning of its Golden Week holiday this past weekend (Tuesday and Wednesday are technically business days, but people take them off anyway), so obviously numbers are gonna be pretty huge. However, Box Office Mojo doesn’t have their charts updated yet, so I’m relying on audience ranking for now. The big battle for this Golden Week weekend is the highly anticipated-Babel (due to the Academy Award nominated performance of Rinko Kikuchi) and the classic cartoon adaptation “Gegege Kitaro.” And the winner is…..neither. Conan the child detective film won the weekend at number 1, while “Gegege” does win the duel at number 2, and Babel still manages a number 3 opening. All the other top 10 movies stayed pretty close to their rankings last week, but expect Spiderman 3, which already opened today Japan time, to come and wipe them all out this coming weekend. Hell, its first day already attracted 400,000 people, which far surpassed the opening days of the last two films (248,000 for the first film, 301,000 for the second film). That’s OK, Babel was never meant to be a crowd-pleasing hit anyway.

- Speaking of Babel, after the negative press it got earlier in the year when the deaf community in Japan rightfully complained the lack of Japanese subtitles made the film hard to understand for them, the film is under fire again for making people sick. In one theater in Nagoya (funny how the press is only covering one of the some-300 screens it’s playing at), several moviegoers complained of feeling sick during the club scene, which features strobe lights. I rewatched the film recently, and having seen it on the big screen, I can see why that scene would be a problem, especially for those sensitive to such effects. But when I got uncomfortable, I just turned away for a second, which I think any sensible person would do….right?

Of course, it’s funny to see how comments on various Japan blogs that carry the story would go off-topic and take the opportunity to blast the film.

- Another weak weekend at the South Korean box office, as Paradise Murdered rules again. My Tutor Friend 2 (which I hear has nothing to do with My Tutor Friend 1, which I wished I enjoyed more, but didn’t) is a flop.

- I had thought that Election 2 (renamed Triad Election in the United States) would not do very well, even in a cinephile city like New York. But look - at 71st place, it actually made a very impressive $10,811 on just one screen! I wonder if the theater is counting Election and Election 2 as one film, and since the two films require separate admission, it just happened that people stuck around for both films, thus inflating the gross? Who cares, the numbers look good either way.

- The Tarantino/Rodridguez flop Grindhouse was originally going to be released as a double feature in many European regions (apparently, Asia doesn’t “get” the idea of double features.). Looks like the Weinsteins are changing their tune now.

- Someone correct me if I get this wrong, but looks like both the big Japanese comedies expected this summer - Takeshi Kitano’s “Kantoku Banzai” and Hitoshi Matsumoto’s “Dai Nipponjin” - are both going to Cannes. “Kantoku” was previously reported to be in competition, and “Dai Nipponjin” had just been invited into the Director’s Week lineup. According to the report, Matsumoto was not intending to join the Cannes lineup, but seems to be changing his mind now.

- Twitch reports 2 upcoming DVD releases - the region 1 DVD for Katsuhito Ishii’s A Taste of Tea, which I marked down as a film I should have saw when I was in Japan, but just couldn’t get the motivation to rent the damn thing (or was it because the rental DVD didn’t have English subtitles?) on July 3rd, and Danny Pang’s Forest of Death (LoveHKFilm review) on May 10th.

- The Udine Far East Film Festival wrapped up on Saturday, and the Korean film No Mercy For the Rude won the audience prize, with After This, Our Exile at 2nd place and Memories of Matsuko at 3rd.

- With that, Variety Asia also covers the Udine Far East Festival as part of a trend that’s seeing Asian films penetrating into the mainstream market in Europe.

- File this under “idiotic Asian pop decisions”: The huge Taiwanese boy pop group F4 (the F stands for Flower), which got its name from their drama Meteor Garden, which was based on the Japanese comic Hana Yori Dango anyway (still following me?), is now changing their name to…..you ready for this? JVKV. The new name is comprised of the first letters of the members’ respective names - Jerry, Vic, Ken, and Vanness (which is a name I’ll never take seriously, seeing how we have a Van Ness Ave. in San Francisco). Just because I filed this under humor, don’t think that I made it up. I totally didn’t.

- And file this one under “bad gimmicks”: The second trailer for Takeshi Miike’s so-called “Sukiyaki Western” film “Django” is on the website (I suggest watching the Windows Media Player version), and it honestly looks pretty bad. The trailer itself is ridden with horrible English narration (I swear it sounds like it comes from a mock Grindhouse trailer), and the trailer shows that the film is actually completely in English (The problem lies in that the film has an all-Japanese cast). Yikes.

- Professor David Bordwell and Dr. Kristin Thompson go to Roger Ebert’s Overlooked Film Festival (which apparently will be renamed Ebertfest next year), where Ebert himself made an appearance, despite his recent condition. Oh, and they watch a couple of movies too.

- This is nothing new, but the U.S. decides to remind which Asian countries suck at protecting copyright.

- Daniel Wu and the alive boys really DID show up at the San Francisco International Film Festival. And SF360 has an interview with them that the Hong Kong media might have a field day with.

An interesting thing to note - there were quite a few Chinese people at the After This, Our Exile screening on Sunday, but at 22, I think I was the youngest person in the entire screening. As I was leaving, the line for The Heavenly Kings rush tickets, which was to be shown in about half an hour after that, was forming. Instead of the mature crowd that was at my screening, the people in line were much younger in comparison. I could see it already: screaming ABC girls as Daniel Wu comes out to introduce the film. That wouldn’t have been very pleasant. Who knows, there’s still one more chance to see the Alive boys….nah, probably not.

Instead of the song of the day, there will be a feature coming up.

- The San Francisco International Film Festival is coming around the corner, and the local San Francisco newspapers have been running features for a while now, so I figure I should probably at least link one of them. From the San Francisco Bay Guardian, there’s a feature dedicated to Daniel Wu’s recent award-winning mockumentary The Heavenly Kings. Too bad I haven’t seen one mention of Patrick Tam’s After This, Our Exile in these features, considering that it’s the heralded return of Wong Kar-Wai’s mentor.

- Remember, Johnnie To’s Election and Election 2 us currently under a 2-week run at New York’s Film Forum. They even decided to add one more showing of Election starting tomorrow, Friday the 27th! Greencine has a round-up of reviews around the net, which seems to be generally positive, even though no one seems to be picking up the political implication in especially Election 2.

- Jason Gray writes about his recent contributions to Screen International, all of which I will actually link to the Variety or Hollywood Reporter version (sorry, Jason!). He also has some new tidbits about Japanese cinema, including a new title for “For You I Go To My Death,” and even a shoutout to this here blog.

- As Jason mentioned in his entry, Shochiku is sending three more films over to the Cannes market - a horror movie, a romantic drama from the director of “Trick,” and most notable for me: A film based on the songs “Mirai Yosouzu” I and II (it’s misspelled in the Variety report) by the pop group Dreams Come True. Probably thanks to the success of “Nada Sousou” (Tears for You), looks like Shochiku decided to cash in on Toho’s idea with a hit “pop song adaptation” of their own with Hiroshi Chono making his feature debut. Look at The Song of the Day to see why this is such a big deal to me.

- The other news in Jason’s entry, and obviously good news again, is about the first Doraemon film to ever be shown legally in China. The comics have been hits for years in the region (I myself own all the comics from the Hong Kong version when it was still called “Ding Dong.”), but the films have never gotten a decent release in China. Finally, someone got off their ass and decide to actually release one of these things in Chinese theaters come July. Too bad it’ll be the movie from last year, not the recent hit.

- It was previously thought that Asian films might be a tad underrepresented this year at the Cannes Film Festival. Well, turns out Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s latest film “Looking For the Red Balloon” is getting a chance by opening the Un Certain Regard Section. It’s only kind of an Asian film, seeing how it’s more French than Asian and it stars Juliette Binoche, but hell, we’ll take what we can get.

- It has nothing to do with Asian films, but since we’re writing about Europe, and this happens to be an European film I liked, it’s worth talking about. Apparently, there’s a debate going on in Germany about the critically-acclaimed film The Lives of Others. The film portrays a captain for East Germany’s secret police that becomes sympathetic to the man he’s assigned to investigate, but a former Stasi member has come out and criticize the film for portraying something that couldn’t possibly have happened. Of course, while that takes away some of the credibility of the film (at least in the latter half. The stasi member still praises the film’s first half as being an accurate portrayal of the former communist government), but The Lives of Others is still a great movie worth watching.

- Back in Asia, Korea Pop Wars have the latest box office chart for last weekend. Paradise Murdered, as reported earlier, tops the chart, and Danny Boyle’s Sunshine continues its disappointing Asian run with just 68,100 viewers nationwide for its first weekend.

- Another film with a disappointing run pretty much all over the world is the prequel that no one asked for - Hannibal Rising. According to Eiga Consultant, the film opened with 150 million yen for a 5th place opening (wow, Box Office Mojo has a pretty comprehensive ranking this week). While that’s a sad 46% of Red Dragon’s opening (another Hannibal Lecter film), it’s still 126% of the opening weekend for the Black Dahlia, which earned 650 million yen in Japan. It’ll make a decent 800 million yen or so, but it’s definitely not a hit.

- Poor Hong Kong Disneyland - it was made fun of as the smallest member of the family, it was overcrowded with tourists who don’t know what “no spitting” means, then employee scandals popped up all over the place. That’s OK, Hong Kong Disneyland is actually still quite popular - in fact, people enjoy it so much that they’re buying up annual passes.

- The first two Pirates of the Caribbean films were banned in China, and the third one was threatened with banishment as well (you’d think Disney would stop trying by then). But lucky for them, it’s looking like it’s passed the censor board (though it didn’t come out unscathed) and will open in China in June. Disney sure isn’t worried about people not getting the film - its audience probably saw the first two films on pirated discs already! Anyway, Chinese report excerpts as follows:

昨日網上有消息指出，此片終於拿到公映許可證，暫定6月15日於全國各大戲院。就此事求證香港迪士尼發行部，負責人表示仍未收到批文，當收到落實批文後，必會正式向外公布。

Reports on the internet last night say that the film has gotten a permit to screen and is tentatively set to open nationwide on June 15th. When asked for confirmation from Hong Kong Disney, the spokesman says he hasn’t heard the news. Once he can confirm the news, he will officially report it to the public.

而發行商為免重遇第2集被禁的命運，一度刪減了部分的內容作遷就。

The distributor, in order to avoid the fate that fell upon the first two films, has made cuts as a compromise.

Original Chinese report

Not that Pirates of the Caribbean should be mistaken as “art,” (you know it’s a cash cow meant to show off the latest digital effects Hollywood can offer and how crazy can Johnny Depp act without seeming like he sold his soul to Hollywood) but it’s always a shame to see films get censored.

- Twitch has a teaser poster for the remake of Tsubaki Sanjuro. Why just a teaser? The film isn’t even opening until December.

- First, some sad news to report in the Asian cinema blogsphere. Hoga News, run by Michi Kaifu, will no longer be updated. Hoga News has been a great source for news even before this blog started, especially for someone who can only understand maybe about half the Japanese cinema news stories out there. Michi has been there to put things into perspective (and not to mention English), and Hoga News’ presence on the Japanese news front will be missed by all. Hopefully, my Japanese is still good enough to read Eiga Consultant’s entries, whose links I originally got from Hoga news. Best of luck to you, Michi!

- Speaking of Eiga Consultant, he’s been tracking the results of the two big animated films that opened this weekend - Conan (again, the detective, not the barbarian) and Crayon Shinchan. Both films, despite performing fairly well at 450 million yen and 300 million yen, respectively, are somewhat under-performing. In Conan’s case, the opening is only 85% of the last film, which opened around the same time last year. However, since last year’s installment was the 10th anniversary film that performed 141% of its previous installment, this installment is actually performing at the series average. As for Crayon Shinchan, it should actually performing better since it’s the 15th anniversary film. Instead, it made 91% of the last film’s opening weekend, which made 1.38 billion yen total. It should still be at the series’ range of 1.28 billion yen to 1.45 billion yen, but for an anniversary film, it’s still kind of disappointing.

- On to the real Japan box office numbers, which is at a higher exchange rate this week (last week: US$1=119.304 yen. This week: US$1=118.725). It’s not much of a difference, but it was enough to put Tokyo Tower at 4th place, even though audience ranking puts it at 3rd. And the change in exchange rate means it shows the film dropping 19.4% in revenue when the film really lost about 20%. Of course, since Tokyo Tower appeals to an older audience, it just means more lower-priced tickets were sold. Meanwhile, Music and Lyrics still opened at 8th place (flop!), and even the well-received Blood Diamond (it’s at third at the satisfaction ranking I just linked) lost 35% of its business.

- Under the “bad idea” label today, they’re making a second sequel to the South Korean hit “My Boss My Hero” franchise. Under the “worst idea” label today, it’s going to be made with a brand-new cast.

- Back in March, I might have written Twitch’s entry on a cheesy-looking Japanese action film called “Midnight Eagle,” which looks like the most manufactured Hollywood action film ever made (According to its website, it’s about “orientals” who places an explosive device within a Japanese military aircraft). Now we find out that it’s actually a $10 million (pretty huge budget in Japan standards) blockbuster thriller that is actually co-produced by Universal Japan, who made a whole lot of money with Dororo earlier in the year. I certainly hope it’ll be better than its teaser trailer is suggesting.

- Also good to see Japan (kadokawa Pictures) and South Korea (CJ Entertainment) getting together to make movies - too bad it’s another generic horror movie set for a summer release. At least the poster looks really groovy, man.

- Hey, America, you ain’t so bad, with your formal complaints and shit. We Chinese already have pirated copies of your most anticipated movies a week and a half before anyone else is supposed to see it. Of course, it’s probably a scam set to cash in on the hype cheating the poor bastards who think they lucked out, but still, how about them apples?

- A reminder to people in New York that Johnnie To’s masterpiece Election 2 (renamed Triad Election in the states) is opening tomorrow for a limited run. You can also catch the first Election film during its one showing a day. I find it interesting that the theater’s website have to assure people that “Triad Election” can be perfectly enjoyable on its own, although I personally don’t necessarily agree. Let’s just say you won’t be too lost watching just Triad Election, but you’re doing yourself a disservice if you don’t watch the first film as well.

- Now to the folks in Tokyo, Jason Gray recommends the latest Japan Foundation Film Series, which features classic films at a discounted 600 yen AND English subtitles. Trust me, you’re not gonna be able to get the subtitles at your local Japanese video store. What do you think was stopping me from renting Kurosawa movies there?

- Paradise Murdered, the latest hit in South Korea, has taken the top spot at the box office again, even though it’s DVD release has already been announced. Too bad other Koreans films aren’t doing so hot.

Today I get rid of all the news I’ve been holding since Friday, but there are a couple of surprises along the way too.

- I don’t like Tokyo’s nationalist governor Shintaro Ishihara, and I don’t look forward to his new film “I Go to My Death For You” (he’s the producer and writer), about Kamikaze pilots during World War II. It looks like Kazuyuki Izutsu, the director of the acclaimed film “Pacchigi!!” and its upcoming sequel, doesn’t like it either. In his protest of the recent trend of nationalist Japanese film that seem to glorify war, he warned at a press conference that films like Ishihara’s might create “warlike people.” Of course, star Yosuke Kubozuka has some strong words for Izutsu too.

- I posted a link to Twitch’s report of Ryuhei Kitamura’s latest Lovedeath a while ago. Now a second trailer that looks even sillier (and more violent) is out. Too bad it only got a PG-12 rating (Battle Royale got R-15), which usually shouldn’t be an indicator of how good a film is, but it only seems like an appropriate indicator for this film.

Just in case you missed it like I did, trailer 2 is actually under trailer 1 on the website.

- While Sony’s PS 3 continues to underperform pretty much everywhere, its PS 2 actually ruled the console sales chart in North America last month. Too bad that PS2’s price is only 21.5% of PS3’s.

- Speaking of ratings, Herman Yau’s latest horror film Gong Tau got the category III in Hong Kong. Considering it has no big stars and a cult director at the helm, that pretty much seals the deal in terms of box office.

- There was a hearing in the Hong Kong legislative body about just how the newly-established film council and the $38.5 million film fund will work. Too bad many of those on the government side don’t really watch movies, and the fund is limited to only commercial films with a certain number of Hong Kong workers.

- An English review of the possible hit film (look here for context) Tokyo Tower is finally up thanks to the Daily Yomiuri. Looks like it might actually be good, despite an overload of this story in Japanese pop culture right now.

- Grady Hendrix explains why the controversy surrounding Oldboy and the Virginia Tech shooter is very misguided. It would be nice if the press that reports it have actually seen the film and realizes that Oldboy is a film that’s about the futility of revenge rather than a film that glorifies it.

- In Grady Hendrix-related news, Asian Cinema - While on the Road reports at the end of a recent entry that Grady and Kaiju Shakedown is on the way back. Yes!

- So remember over the weekend, Shochiku announced that the opening day box office was so high for the film version of Tokyo Tower that they expect it to surpass Kimura Takuya X Yoji Yamada’s 4 billion yen hit “Love and Honor?” Well, the Japan box office numbers are out, and Eiga Consultant can’t see how that’s possible. On its opening day, Tokyo Tower made only 196 million yen, which is 90% of the 1.41 billion yen-grossing Shinobi. In fact, its opening day gross was only 65% of what Love and Honor made on its opening day. You can compare the results yourself for Love and Honor and Tokyo Tower with those links. My own calculation (following the exchange rate BOM used for the respective weeks) actually showed that Tokyo Tower only made 53% of Love and Honor’s opening weekend, but that only furthers the point that Shochiku is lying out of their asses. This isn’t the first time Japanese distributors overestimated final grosses anyway; remember the Genghis Kahn movie? Exactly.

Elsewhere on the top 10, Blood Diamond seems to be hanging on thanks to word-of-mouth, and Sunshine opened weaker than I thought with only roughly $500,000. Otherwise, it’s been a pretty quiet weekend in Japan again.

- Meanwhile, South Korea had a fairly quiet weekend at the box office as well, with The Show Must Go On falling a sad 58% in its second week.

- The South Korean box office isn’t really looking all that bright for the summer either, with Hollywood offering Spiderman, pirates, and transformers, while Korea is offering horror flicks and….D-War?!

- The big news out of Hong Kong is not only Lau Ching-Wan’s best actor win at the Hong Kong Film Awards, but also fellow nominee Chow Yun-Fat withdrawing from John Woo’s epic The Battle of Red Cliff. It’s another “he-said-he-said” (there’s no she in this story) type of situation - producer Terence Chang said that the financiers can’t acquiesce to Chow’s request to pay his salary of US$5 million at once (which is reportedly 3 times the salary he got for Curse of the Golden Flower), while Chow’s side says that he got the script too late, which meant he couldn’t prepare early enough for a role that requires him to speak in Mandarin (Chow’s native tongue is Cantonese). He also said he already took a pay cut for not demanding a raise after the decision was make to split the films in two (um….they’re shooting it at the same time anyway). This is the second major blow to Woo’s ambitious US$70-million project after star Tony Leung Chiu-Wai dropped out due to the 6-month shooting schedule. Of course, the bigger question is whether Chow’s withdrawal will affect Woo and Chow’s legendary friendship.

- I read about this about a week ago in Oriental Daily, but I don’t remember reporting it. Anyone waiting for a Shaolin Soccer sequel can release half their breath. The good news is that there is a Stephen Chow-involved sequel being made, the bad news is that it probably won’t have anything to do with the first film. Fuji TV has teamed up with Chow to make a pseudo-sequel called “Shorin Shoujo” (Or Shaolin Girl) starring Ko Shibasaki as the title character and Bayside Shakedown helmer Katsuyuki Motohiro directing. It’ll be about a young girl returning from Japan after training at the Shaolin Temple and ends up helping out a college Lacrosse team. Shaolin Soccer co-stars Lam Chi-Chung and Tin Kai-Man will appear, Chow will apparently not. While in anyone else’s hands, this might be a bad idea, but I like Robot Productions and Motohiro enough that it might turn out to be a good popcorn flick.

- The big news coming out of Tokyo is the world premiere of Spiderman 3. Honestly, the only interesting part about the report is how making sequels actually keep down marketing costs and allow the studio to leave that for the production instead. Other than that, there’s no advance review out yet.

- Reading Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” (for a Comparative Literature class) and Kobo Abe’s “Woman in the Dunes” in the same quarter put me in a huge existential crisis. In other words, it was one of the greatest academic periods of my life. Anyway, I mention this because Criterion is releasing Teshigahara’s surprisingly faithful adaptation of Woman in the Dunes in July on DVD as part of a Teshigahara boxset. Anyone looking to get into an existential funk should check out this surreal classic.

- Like Warner Bros. in Japan, 20th Century Fox has struck a deal with Showbox (who distributed The Host) to finance and distribute South Korean films. This comes as no surprise to me since my Kick the Moon DVD was actually released by Fox already. Is this good news or not? Look at what Warner Bros. did in Japan and you might have an idea.

- Professor Bordwell is back from Hong Kong, and his first entry since returning tackles a subject that I, as a wannabe filmmaker, is actually immensely interested in. Many film viewers may not notice, but for me, the toughest part of editing a film is dialog scenes. Editing rely on a capturing a certain beat, and shooting dialog scenes are particularly tough because when you only have one camera, you have to shoot the scene many times at different angles, which can be tough for actors AND directors. Then when you have all that footage, you have to decide when to cut to which angle without ruining the pace of the scene. The cutting-in-between technique in dialog scenes is called “reverse shots,” meaning you start on one angle, then you cut to where the opposite angle where the camera shows where the initial shot was from.

Anyway, Professor Bordwell goes into how certain directors don’t use reverse shots. For me, it’s fascinating. Maybe for me only though.

- I’m sure many have heard about the Virginia Tech shooting allegedly committed by a disturbed neutralized South Korean student (please let it be known that he is a naturalized American citizen, not just some foreigner that went crazy on Americans) that killed 32 people, including himself. At one point, the Chinese press got a hold of reports that a Chinese student actually did the deed and ran with it (the local Chinese papers I saw today all have it on their headlines). During that time, the Chinese press ran into chaos, trying to decide whether to run the story or not, while the netizens reacted very quickly on the message boards. This is their story.