You know when I said the Hong Kong box office was really quiet last week? If the figures on Thursday opening day hold up, then get ready for an even quieter weekend in Hong Kong. This week sees 5 new movies opening, with only two of them wide releases. Neil Jordan’s The Brave One, starring Jodie Foster, opened with the number 1 spot. The bad news is that it only made HK$190,000 from 30 screens for that top spot. In fact, Pang Ho-Cheung’s Exodus actually also made HK$190,000, but since it was from 33 screens, that means it just didn’t do as well as Jodie Vigilante. After 8 days, the art film has made HK$2.5 million.

The week’s other wide release is the Disney film Underdog. From 20 screens, it made just HK$110,000, although business is expected to pick up over the weekend since kids don’t go to the movies until the weekend. As for the limited release, Jiang Wen’s The Sun Also Rises made HK$30,000 from 5 screens. Starring Hong Kong actors such as Anthony Wong and Jaycee Chan, the Mainland Chinese art film may see bigger business when we go over the Sunday box office. Also, in two theaters is the Japanese animated film 5 Centimeters Per Second, which made roughly HK$10,000 from its opening day. The only opening film missing is the Japanese film Udon, which is playing in just one theater after it sold out at the summer edition of the Hong Kong International Film Festival.

- After Park Chan-Wook’s Oldboy and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance got relatively wide releases in Japan, his latest I’m a Cyborg but That’s OK is seeing only a limited release in Japan. However, that didn’t stop fans of those involved, as the film managed to attract 821 people/1.26 million yen on opening day, meaning all 6 shows were over full house. With Sunday added, the first two days earned the film 3 million yen on one screen alone. With 2680 advance tickets sold, could this be the year’s limited release hit?

- Those Japanese box office numbers finally came out. However, they are only for the two-day weekend of Saturday and Sunday, which means it didn’t include the holiday on Monday. Anyway, it shows the TV drama adaptation Hero dropping only 18.4%, and apparently it’s total gross has already sped past 3.3 billion yen. This will be on track to be the biggest Japanese film of the year, but will it surpass Umizaru 2?

The only discrepancy between the attendance ranking and the numbers is in the film Free and Easy 18. On the attendance ranking, Free and Easy 18 is in 6th place, above Sukiyaki Western Django, Ocean’s Thirteen, and Transformers. However, when it comes to earnings, it actually dropped all the way to 9th place, and Ocean’s Thirteen even got bumped up above Sukiyaki Western.

Everywhere on the top 10 only suffered small drops, thanks to the holiday weekend.

- Just to fill up the box office report, let’s look at the Hong Kong Tuesday numbers. Just like the Sunday numbers, 1408 is on top again, making just HK$270,000 from 27 screens for a 6-day average of HK$2.67 million. Pang Ho-Cheung’s Exodus, amidst really bad word-of-mouth (more on the news entry), is already seeing a drop in its gross, making just HK$260,000 from 33 screens for a 6-day total of HK$2.07 million. Everything else is kind of ho-hum, but that’s the way it goes at the Hong Kong box office.

I was going to do one of these last night, but since it was close to the end of the weekend, might as well just do the weekend box office today.

- Hong Kong box office was pretty quiet on Sunday, with the Hollywood horror flick 1408 leading the pack with HK$590,000 from 27 screens. Considering it’s just John Cusack, and that a Japanese film with a similar name opened last weekend, this is a really impressive gross. After 4 days, the Weinstein company film has made HK$2.18 million. At second place wit ha so-so HK$450,000 from 33 screens is Pang Ho-Cheung’s Exodus. Probably helped by Friday’s headlines about the film’s curse words (category III-worthy Cantonese curse words in a category II-B film?!), the audience-unfriendly black comedy has made HK$1.55 million after 4 days.

With a better per-screen average is the Hollywood comedy I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. It also made HK$450,000, but from 27 screens. Staying pretty close behind is the Jet Li b-grade action flick War/Rouge Assassin, which made HK$430,000 from 29 screens, and a 4-day total of HK$1.46 million. For some reason, the other weekend opener - Tokyo Friends, starring J-pop star Otsuka Ai - did not get into the top 10. Anyone know how it did?

In holdover, Hollywood musical Hairspray is still strong in the per-screen average department, making HK$290,000 from 17 screens for a 11-day total of HK$2.95 million, which is not bad, considering that its daily average has more than HK$10,000 per-screen. Lastly, score another disappointment for Hong Kong films, as Carol Lai’s teen horror film Naraka 19 made only HK$50,000 from 16 screens for a 11-day total of HK$1.85 million. Ouch for Ah Gil and co.

HK$7.8=US$1

- In South Korean box office, The Bourne Ultimatum came out on top with an OK-485,000 admissions. It’s also pretty amazing to see 7 Korean films taking the top 10 slots, with D-War and May 18 still hanging on that top 10. However, apparently two of those Korean films are looking to be flops.

-Speaking of Korean films, Dragon Wars, aka D-War, is now the highest-grossing Korean film in the US after getting a 2000-screen release this past weekend (how an independent company managed to book that many screens is beyond me). It’s in 4th place, but it only managed to make US$5.3 million for a US$2,363 per-screen average, which is not very good. However, it seems like a Korean newspaper has already managed to make it sound like good news (courtesy of Asian Popcorn)

It was a public holiday in Japan today, so expect numbers to not come in until tomorrow or Wednesday.

I was going to do one of these last night, but since it was close to the end of the weekend, might as well just do the weekend box office today.

- Hong Kong box office was pretty quiet on Sunday, with the Hollywood horror flick 1408 leading the pack with HK$590,000 from 27 screens. Considering it’s just John Cusack, and that a Japanese film with a similar name opened last weekend, this is a really impressive gross. After 4 days, the Weinstein company film has made HK$2.18 million. At second place wit ha so-so HK$450,000 from 33 screens is Pang Ho-Cheung’s Exodus. Probably helped by Friday’s headlines about the film’s curse words (category III-worthy Cantonese curse words in a category II-B film?!), the audience-unfriendly black comedy has made HK$1.55 million after 4 days.

With a better per-screen average is the Hollywood comedy I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. It also made HK$450,000, but from 27 screens. Staying pretty close behind is the Jet Li b-grade action flick War/Rouge Assassin, which made HK$430,000 from 29 screens, and a 4-day total of HK$1.46 million. For some reason, the other weekend opener - Tokyo Friends, starring J-pop star Otsuka Ai - did not get into the top 10. Anyone know how it did?

In holdover, Hollywood musical Hairspray is still strong in the per-screen average department, making HK$290,000 from 17 screens for a 11-day total of HK$2.95 million, which is not bad, considering that its daily average has more than HK$10,000 per-screen. Lastly, score another disappointment for Hong Kong films, as Carol Lai’s teen horror film Naraka 19 made only HK$50,000 from 16 screens for a 11-day total of HK$1.85 million. Ouch for Ah Gil and co.

HK$7.8=US$1

- In South Korean box office, The Bourne Ultimatum came out on top with an OK-485,000 admissions. It’s also pretty amazing to see 7 Korean films taking the top 10 slots, with D-War and May 18 still hanging on that top 10. However, apparently two of those Korean films are looking to be flops.

-Speaking of Korean films, Dragon Wars, aka D-War, is now the highest-grossing Korean film in the US after getting a 2000-screen release this past weekend (how an independent company managed to book that many screens is beyond me). It’s in 4th place, but it only managed to make US$5.3 million for a US$2,363 per-screen average, which is not very good. However, it seems like a Korean newspaper has already managed to make it sound like good news (courtesy of Asian Popcorn)

It was a public holiday in Japan today, so expect numbers to not come in until tomorrow or Wednesday.

- The Thursday Hong Kong box office was very quiet, considering that it’s the first opening day since the school year have started. I don’t know why they moved a youth-oriented film like Nakara 19 to this weekend, but it did top the box office. However, it only made HK$220,000 from 30 screens to become number 1, which should say a lot about the rest of the chart. The second-biggest opener is the Hollywood musical Hairspray, which made HK$170,000 from 17 screens on opening day. From ticket sales, it should have a healthy per-screen average this weekend.

A film that surprisingly got a higher per-screen average is the Alfred Cheung “romantic” comedy Contract Lover. On only 10 screens (it was on 27 last week), the film managed to break the HK$10,000 per-screen mark to make HK$110,000. After 8 days, the Mainland-targeted comedy has made HK$1.64 million.

Back to the rest of the openers - the Japanese horror film Apartment 1303 (not to be confused with the Hollywood horror film 1408, which will be showing here soon as well) made a weak HK$70,000 from 10 screens; The Last Mimzy made only HK$50,000 from 11 screens (maybe it’ll pick up in the weekend with the kids audience); and the chick flick Evening made HK$40,000 from its 5 screen limited release. With 7 openers, that leaves 2 movies out - the Korean horror flick Arang and the Japanese romance Heavenly Forest. Both films opened on 9 screens and made less HK$40,000. They’ll be gone in a few days.

- Outdated by a few days, but let’s talk Japanese box office numbers. Rush Hour 3 only took a 37% plunge to drop from 1st place to 6th place; Tengoku De Kimi Ni Aetara actually saw a 7% rise to get up to 2nd place. In fact, all the other movies moved by so little that Rush Hour 3 and Taxi 4’s drops seems larger in comparison. Hell, even Harry Potter managed to lose just 7% of its audience in its 7th week. Was it that good?

No news post today, but at least a Song of the Day is coming up. Sorry, but there are just not enough news this weekend to go around.

- The Thursday Hong Kong box office was very quiet, considering that it’s the first opening day since the school year have started. I don’t know why they moved a youth-oriented film like Nakara 19 to this weekend, but it did top the box office. However, it only made HK$220,000 from 30 screens to become number 1, which should say a lot about the rest of the chart. The second-biggest opener is the Hollywood musical Hairspray, which made HK$170,000 from 17 screens on opening day. From ticket sales, it should have a healthy per-screen average this weekend.

A film that surprisingly got a higher per-screen average is the Alfred Cheung “romantic” comedy Contract Lover. On only 10 screens (it was on 27 last week), the film managed to break the HK$10,000 per-screen mark to make HK$110,000. After 8 days, the Mainland-targeted comedy has made HK$1.64 million.

Back to the rest of the openers - the Japanese horror film Apartment 1303 (not to be confused with the Hollywood horror film 1408, which will be showing here soon as well) made a weak HK$70,000 from 10 screens; The Last Mimzy made only HK$50,000 from 11 screens (maybe it’ll pick up in the weekend with the kids audience); and the chick flick Evening made HK$40,000 from its 5 screen limited release. With 7 openers, that leaves 2 movies out - the Korean horror flick Arang and the Japanese romance Heavenly Forest. Both films opened on 9 screens and made less HK$40,000. They’ll be gone in a few days.

- Outdated by a few days, but let’s talk Japanese box office numbers. Rush Hour 3 only took a 37% plunge to drop from 1st place to 6th place; Tengoku De Kimi Ni Aetara actually saw a 7% rise to get up to 2nd place. In fact, all the other movies moved by so little that Rush Hour 3 and Taxi 4’s drops seems larger in comparison. Hell, even Harry Potter managed to lose just 7% of its audience in its 7th week. Was it that good?

No news post today, but at least a Song of the Day is coming up. Sorry, but there are just not enough news this weekend to go around.

We apologize for skipping yesterday’s entry, but school and movie stuff reared its ugly head at the same time, and this blogger chose to write a 3-page script for school than a really long entry in a news blog not enough people read. Plus waiting almost 3 hours to not be able to get Eason Chan tickets this morning really pissed us off. But we’ll make it up in a bit.

- Let’s go over the Oricon charts really quickly. On the single chart, L’Arc~en~ciel’s latest got its number 1 debut, selling over 110,000 copies. The second and third places were close, with Exile finally winning out Utada Hikaru’s latest by only 1,700 copies in total weekly sales. Exile (which really is just two guys singing and a bunch of people dancing) sold 95,299, and Utada Hikaru sold 93, 518. See how close that was? Next week, expect me to possibly not report the number 1 debut of Arashi’s latest single.

As expected, pop rap group Ketsumeishi (imagine a hybrid of reggae, hip-hop, and pop influence blended into one) saw yet another huge debut for their 5th album on the album chart. Selling 430,000 copies (this might be a decrease from their previous album), this makes the group’s 4th number 1 album debut in a row. Hell, I’ll eventually pick up a copy too. Meanwhile, rock-pop group Porno Graffiti’s latest did an impressive 140,000 copies, but could only muster a second place when up against the Ketsumeishi boys. Hideaki Tokunaga’s cover album continues to sell well enough to drop by just one spot. Next week, expect Dragon Ash’s two compilations (I really hate this new trend of releasing one compilation as two albums) to rule the chart.

- It’s reviews time! LoveHKfilm’s Kozo reviews romantic comedy stinker Contract Lover, Jingle Ma’s “where the hell did that come from” romance Love in the City, and the Japanese comedy Bubble Fiction: Boom or Bust. Sanjuro reviews the classic martial arts insult New Game of Death and the Japanese “pure love” film Angel’s Egg (Erika Sawajiri again??). There’s also a review of the Korean satire The President’s Last Bang by yours truly.

Hollywood Reporter has Ray Bennett’s reviews of Jiang Wen’s The Sun Also Rises and Lee Kang-Sheng’s Help Me Eros, the sole “Taiwan” representative at Venice. Lastly, Variety has reviews of Help Me Eros and Jia Zhangke’s latest documentary Useless.

- Speaking of Help Me Eros, Twitch has a link to the trailer. However, everything in that trailer feel so Tsai Ming-Liang, including the detached eroticism, that I’m honestly not all that interested.

- I first thought it was just a really funny rumor, but looks like Kirk Wong’s remake of The Five Venoms looks like it’s on. The funny part? It’ll star Edison Chen, Maggie Q, Leehom Wang, and Wu Jing.

- Under “silly China!” news today, the expected blackout date for non-Chinese/non-communist-patriotic films is coming up, as China comes up to its October Party Congress/Party establishment anniversary date. While it was expected that Hollywood would get blocked out, even Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution is getting delayed until the end of the Party Congress.

- Thanks to D-War and May 18, Korean films just had its biggest month, with the highest recorded amount of admissions within a month. Just August alone, Korean films took up 79.6% of the market.

- While Korean special effects blockbuster The Host took its special effects to Hollywood, a Hollywood film just took its special effects to Korea. OK, China/Hollywood co-production and all, but my point about the reversal remains.

- After news that Fruit Chan is making a film about a young Bruce Lee that’ll be produced by Terence Chang, another piece of news has come out reporting that Hong Kong’s favorite indie director will be directing an English remake of a Japanese horror film. According to the report, this is Chan’s attempt to no longer be labeled as an art-house director. He could’ve made a better choice, though.

Last, but definitely not least; Miyoshi Umeki, the first Asian to win an Academy Award for performance, has passed away. Our condolences to her family.

Coming up on the spin-off tomorrow: Review of Pang Ho-Cheung’s latest, and why the hell did i spend 3 hours to end up not getting any Eason Chan concert tickets.

Just going over what we missed yesterday:

- The China weekend box office came out, and the two recent Chinese releases have fallen prety hard. Not too hard is the stinker comedy Contract Lover, losing almost 37% of its audience. Falling much harder is Alexi Tan’s Blood Brothers, which lost damn near 50% of its audiences, but has made more than double Contract Lover’s gross. However, with a poor performance outside China, Blood Brothers is not likely to get its investments back through box office receipts alone. Then again, how many Chinese blockbusters do make money back on box office receipts?

- In North American box office, the two movies that matter had mixed results - War, starring Jet Li, lost 57.4% of its audience from the previous 3-day weekend period (I’m that specific because it was a holiday weekend in the United States). On the other hand, Johnnie To’s Exiled opened to a pretty-good US$7, 751 per-screen average over a 3-day period. OK, it was on only two screens and opened at 70th place, but still, per-screen average is what matters.

We apologize for skipping yesterday’s entry, but school and movie stuff reared its ugly head at the same time, and this blogger chose to write a 3-page script for school than a really long entry in a news blog not enough people read. Plus waiting almost 3 hours to not be able to get Eason Chan tickets this morning really pissed us off. But we’ll make it up in a bit.

- Let’s go over the Oricon charts really quickly. On the single chart, L’Arc~en~ciel’s latest got its number 1 debut, selling over 110,000 copies. The second and third places were close, with Exile finally winning out Utada Hikaru’s latest by only 1,700 copies in total weekly sales. Exile (which really is just two guys singing and a bunch of people dancing) sold 95,299, and Utada Hikaru sold 93, 518. See how close that was? Next week, expect me to possibly not report the number 1 debut of Arashi’s latest single.

As expected, pop rap group Ketsumeishi (imagine a hybrid of reggae, hip-hop, and pop influence blended into one) saw yet another huge debut for their 5th album on the album chart. Selling 430,000 copies (this might be a decrease from their previous album), this makes the group’s 4th number 1 album debut in a row. Hell, I’ll eventually pick up a copy too. Meanwhile, rock-pop group Porno Graffiti’s latest did an impressive 140,000 copies, but could only muster a second place when up against the Ketsumeishi boys. Hideaki Tokunaga’s cover album continues to sell well enough to drop by just one spot. Next week, expect Dragon Ash’s two compilations (I really hate this new trend of releasing one compilation as two albums) to rule the chart.

- It’s reviews time! LoveHKfilm’s Kozo reviews romantic comedy stinker Contract Lover, Jingle Ma’s “where the hell did that come from” romance Love in the City, and the Japanese comedy Bubble Fiction: Boom or Bust. Sanjuro reviews the classic martial arts insult New Game of Death and the Japanese “pure love” film Angel’s Egg (Erika Sawajiri again??). There’s also a review of the Korean satire The President’s Last Bang by yours truly.

Hollywood Reporter has Ray Bennett’s reviews of Jiang Wen’s The Sun Also Rises and Lee Kang-Sheng’s Help Me Eros, the sole “Taiwan” representative at Venice. Lastly, Variety has reviews of Help Me Eros and Jia Zhangke’s latest documentary Useless.

- Speaking of Help Me Eros, Twitch has a link to the trailer. However, everything in that trailer feel so Tsai Ming-Liang, including the detached eroticism, that I’m honestly not all that interested.

- I first thought it was just a really funny rumor, but looks like Kirk Wong’s remake of The Five Venoms looks like it’s on. The funny part? It’ll star Edison Chen, Maggie Q, Leehom Wang, and Wu Jing.

- Under “silly China!” news today, the expected blackout date for non-Chinese/non-communist-patriotic films is coming up, as China comes up to its October Party Congress/Party establishment anniversary date. While it was expected that Hollywood would get blocked out, even Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution is getting delayed until the end of the Party Congress.

- Thanks to D-War and May 18, Korean films just had its biggest month, with the highest recorded amount of admissions within a month. Just August alone, Korean films took up 79.6% of the market.

- While Korean special effects blockbuster The Host took its special effects to Hollywood, a Hollywood film just took its special effects to Korea. OK, China/Hollywood co-production and all, but my point about the reversal remains.

- After news that Fruit Chan is making a film about a young Bruce Lee that’ll be produced by Terence Chang, another piece of news has come out reporting that Hong Kong’s favorite indie director will be directing an English remake of a Japanese horror film. According to the report, this is Chan’s attempt to no longer be labeled as an art-house director. He could’ve made a better choice, though.

Last, but definitely not least; Miyoshi Umeki, the first Asian to win an Academy Award for performance, has passed away. Our condolences to her family.

Coming up on the spin-off tomorrow: Review of Pang Ho-Cheung’s latest, and why the hell did i spend 3 hours to end up not getting any Eason Chan concert tickets.

Just going over what we missed yesterday:

- The China weekend box office came out, and the two recent Chinese releases have fallen prety hard. Not too hard is the stinker comedy Contract Lover, losing almost 37% of its audience. Falling much harder is Alexi Tan’s Blood Brothers, which lost damn near 50% of its audiences, but has made more than double Contract Lover’s gross. However, with a poor performance outside China, Blood Brothers is not likely to get its investments back through box office receipts alone. Then again, how many Chinese blockbusters do make money back on box office receipts?

- In North American box office, the two movies that matter had mixed results - War, starring Jet Li, lost 57.4% of its audience from the previous 3-day weekend period (I’m that specific because it was a holiday weekend in the United States). On the other hand, Johnnie To’s Exiled opened to a pretty-good US$7, 751 per-screen average over a 3-day period. OK, it was on only two screens and opened at 70th place, but still, per-screen average is what matters.