Oh, come on, you had to expect me to use a title like that, right?

- OK, Hong Kong Thursday (opening day) numbers are up, and this weekend, those abstract-sounding Hong Kong-produced cgi animated-fest TMNT are going to try and take down the 300 Spartans. Sadly, even ninja turtles can’t fight 300 6-packs, as they tie for first place with HK$230,000 on 31 screens. Of course, TMNT being an animated film, business will pick up quite a bit during the weekend. However, don’t be surprised if Pursuit of Happyness comes back from behind to do great business again this weekend - it’s already the only film in the top 10 with a per-screen average higher than $HK 10,000, and HK audiences just LOVE a tearjerker.

The only other notable opening is Yoji Yamada’s “Love and Honor,” starring Asian megastar Kimura Takuya as a blind samurai. On 5 screens, the Japanese blockbuster only got HK$30,000. Again, look for business to pick up, thanks to the older adult audience that will come out during the weekend.

- Eiga Consultant looks at the box office result of Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s latest “Sakebi,” which first was reported to have opened huge (”Standing audiences only!”), but after a month and an expansion up to 100 screens, it only ended up making about 130 million yen. The first Ju-on (That’s “The Grudge” for you non-Japanese speakers out there) film made about 500 million yen (not exactly a nationwide phenomenon), but the second film ended up making a little more than a double that. So is he saying that Sakebi had buzz that never followed through?

- Recently, the National Broadcaster Association of Japan kicked NTV out due to the natto diet scandal, and now, the president of KTV (Kansai Television) will resign on the day that a program that explains the fraud data will air.

- Japan’s internet content provider Nifty added a bunch of new content on their website, but will charge money and requires membership….which mean it gives no alternative to the Youtube problem. People want easy access to free information - TV shows, music videos, things that are already shown for free if one has a TV. Hell, I’ll even step up and say I’d watch advertisements in between them, but I’m just speaking for myself.

- Hideo Nakata (The director of the original “Ring” film. NOT Ringu, Ring, that’s what it was meant to be called) is back in Japan with “Kaidan,” and a new teaser is out.

- Jeffrey Wells believe that this year’s Cannes opener will be Wong Kar-Wai’s English debut My Blueberry Nights. Yeah, maybe he’ll finish shooting by May 2009, who knows?

- I was pleasantly surprised by Han Jae-Rim’s Rules of Dating, which was a surprisingly complex and dark romance that was just not meant for a mainstream audience. But apparently, enough people were impressed by it that Han managed to cast Korean’s most unlikely favorite leading man Song Kang-Ho (who has been in some of Korea’s biggest grossers such as The Host, JSA, Shiri, and Memories of Murder) for his second film “The Show Must Go On.” Twitch has the details (The trailer even feature Yentown Band’s cover of “My Way” from Shunji Iwai’s Swallowtail, whoa!), and it sounds like The Sopranos…maybe with less sass?

- Seoul’s city government is now trying to attract more foreign films and TV dramas to shoot there by offering incentives.

- Like Kung Fu Hustle, Sony Classics have bought the international distribution rights for Stephen Chow’s “A Hope,” which should have a summer release date, but was also reported to be going up against Feng Xiaogang’s latest during Chinese New Year in some Chinese reports. June and Chinese New Year has a long time in between, which is it gonna be?

- One of those months in between is December, and that’s when Peter Chan Ho-Sun’s latest “The Warlords,” starring Andy Lau, Takeshi Kaneshiro, and Jet Li will open. Variety reports that the film has just wrapped up a 4-month shoot and will now go into post-production. Yay.

- Lastly, here are this month’s Yesasia reviews:

Udon
Seducing Mr. Perfect
Once in a Summer
No Regret
Shiina Ringo - Heisei Fuzoku

This is the 99th post of the Golden Rock, which I am quite proud of. I suppose a state of the blog is in order as well, then:

The blog started in mid-December of 2006, with a goal to be a source of just news that interests me and some number crunching that not a lot of Asian cinema blogs do. It started at an average of only a few readers a day (when I was on vacation, there was actually a day when nobody visited), and now it’s averaging roughly 60. It’s not a particularly huge number, but it’s a pretty good increase over 3 months, considering about 50% of my visitors are new. I’m glad to have started this blog, and I’m glad to keep doing it. Thanks for reading, and let’s keep on truckin’.

- Watched the second half of the Death Note saga last night. Again, having no knowledge of the manga nor the anime whatsoever, I am only judging this as a film. Maybe that makes me more qualified, or that makes me less qualified, I don’t know. I don’t care that they’re trying to cram in from the source material to satisfy fans, I just wanted to watch a movie. And with that:

Why didn’t they just make a drama out of this?

Death Note has a pretty cool Gothic concept - Notebook dumped onto earth by a God of Death, self-righteous human picks it up and begins to kill people with it. It inspires fear for criminals and hope for people. How dark, how bizarre, how cool. Then they had to add the detective elements; the mind games, the chess-playing, and the talking. The endless talking. If I were to sum up all the scenes between our bad/good guy Kira (owner of the Death Notebook) and strange detective L, it might go like this:

Kira: “I want to capture Kira.”
L: “But you are Kira.”
Kira: “I am not.”
L: “I hope you’re not”
Kira: “Great, let’s capture Kira together.”
L: “….but you are Kira.”
Kira: “…..and I’m going to kill you.”

In the first film, it took director Shusuke Kaneko 2 hours of screen time to set up the heart of the story - the head-to-head match between Kira and L. In the second film, it took him 2 hours and 15 minutes to, well…..make it not much of anything. One of the more suspenseful parts of the first film was seeing how Kira’s clever scheming helped him get away, although I mentioned I didn’t know whether that was the original creators’ work or the film’s screenwriters’. In “The Last Name” (That’s the title of the second film), a second and third (!) Kira are established, killing more people than ever, but it all gets a bit tiresome. How many more scenes of people talking about the ethics of Kira do we need before the filmmakers can pat themselves on the back for asking “the tough questions?”

Back to the schemings. “The Last Name” takes Kira’s schemes to a whole new level - he would do something, and you won’t even find out until 30 minutes of screen time later just what the hell he was up to. It was clever in the first film when it didn’t take that long to find out what really happened, but it just seems a bit too much in the second film. True, the stakes are higher, so the schemes need to go further, but how unbelievably smart are these people supposed to be for them to do so much damn scheming? The review linked above pointed out that nearly everything that happens in the film happened in the manga, but is that needed? While an adaptation can satisfy fans by including everything, if you still can’t include everything with 4 and a half hours of screen time, you just have to get creative and get the story across in a simpler way. Cramming everything from the original shows that you like the manga, but a more creative filmmaker would make the adaptation stand on its own.

So is Death Note: The Last Name better than its predecessor? Can’t really answer that, since they’re really one film split into two, but the Death Note saga as a whole is only a pleasing commercial effort thanks to its concept. It’s a routine adaptation with uninspired acting, directing, and some clever screenwriting in between. It’s not something worth running out to see if you have no familiarity with the original work, but it’s not a bad way to occupy a couple of hours just to see that Japanese commercial cinema can be just as mediocre as American ones.

And now, on to the news:

- There’s still reports coming from Variety about Hong Kong’s Filmart (which wrapped last week), mostly just new distribution deals. If you’re in Japan, you’ll be glad to know the Daniel Henney invasion is coming your way in the form of Seducing Mr. Perfect, one of the films I reviewed for Yesasia this month.

- Los Angeles is a great down for movies (duh), and here are a few reasons why.

- Yunjin Kim, who many may know as the Korean woman from Lost, really caught my eye from the Korean blockbuster Shiri. For some reason, I never really saw her in another film until she showed up on Lost (she did appear in Korean films before that - just ones I haven’t seen). Anyway, in a bit of homecoming, she’s been casted in the Korean crime thriller Seven Days. I don’t know if the film will be any good, but I wonder if Lost will make this film any more successful that it would’ve been.

- So what’s the best way to beat a movie you want to protest against? In India, they seem to have found the answer to be: Just ignore it.

- Apparently, The Host has become the fastest Korean film to reach the $1 million mark in the United States box office. That’s because Korean films have a history of not doing too well here. Oh, well, a good thing is a good thing, I guess.

- Oricon rankings are out. On the singles side, Utada Hikaru’s Flavor of Life, as predicted, fell to third place behind new singles by boy band News and pop group (I think they’re a man band) Kobukuro’s latest, which also served as the theme song for the drama version of Tokyo Tower.

As for the album ranking, Mr. Children hangs on for the second week, but after a huge drop to 180,000 copies after last week’s 680,000 copies sold. Mika Nakashima’s latest also hangs on for a third place for its second week, while Koda Kumi’s compilation (the album that beat Mika last week) drops to 5th behind Exile. After the firing of one of its own, Morning Musume’s latest, the creepily named “Sexy 8 Beat” (considering most of the members are even adults yet), could only muster an 8th place debut.

- Eiga Consultant analyzed the flop that is the fable Argentine Hag (Japan Times reviewed it two weekends ago). Hoga News has a translation, so I’ll let it speak for itself.

- Hoga News also reports about the directorial debut of comedian Hitoshi Matsumoto (half of the comedy duo Downtown that hosts the hit music show Hey Hey Hey AND does those “No laugh or get beat” games). Details are sparse, but the title is “Dai Nippon Jin” (or Big Japanese Person, or Super Japanese Person. Either way, the translation is open to interpretation), and it’ll open on the same day as Takeshi Kitano’s latest “Kantoku Banzai!” Joint marketing, I smell…

- Twitch has a clip to the press conference done for Donnie Yen/Wilson Yip’s latest Flashpoint. Don’t worry, the only reason I’m mentioning it is because it has footage. Good ones, too! It’s looking like this will be Wilson Yip’s attempt to emulate John Woo, so it might just be a lot of fun.

- India has started its own version of the Academy Awards, and what do they do at the launch? Talk about global warming, of course.

- A few weeks ago, Lovehkfilm mentioned that their “most underrated performance” award to Andrew Lin Hoi for The Heavenly Kings was actually noticed by the man himself. Turns out it didn’t stop there - they actually met up and Kozo presented him with a real award!

- I waited for a few days to post this - not on purpose, of course, I simply forgot - but here’s Jeffery Wells’ well-written review (certainly far better than what I wrote up there for Death Note) of the Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino trashfest Grindhouse.

- I enjoyed Brian Helgeland’s revenge flick Payback, starring Mel Gibson. I didn’t think it was a masterpiece or anything, but it was enjoyable enough. Turns out it was meant to be a complete thing altogether, as apparent by the review of the soon-to-be-released director’s cut on DVD. It’s not just another one of those director’s cut that adds a couple of minutes. No, the entire palate was redone, the whole third act was redone, and it’s like another movie altogether. It might just be worth checking out.

Next, the 100th entry, which is the 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.

Still slightly under the weather, so report will be briefer and shorter. Still, there are some good stuff out there.

- Hong Kong Sunday numbers show 300 top at first place again, with HK$870,000 on 32 screens and a HK$11.61 million total already. The Pursuit of Happiness leads the pack for openers with a strong HK$490,000 on 16 screens, with Danny Pang’s “Forest of Death” scoring a moderate HK$380,000 on 31 screens (A Pang Bros. overload in HK? I think so). The two films have 4-day totals of HK$1.71 million and HK$1.46 million, respectively. Park Chan Wook’s I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK made HK$140,000 on 8 screens on Sunday for a HK$450,000. Who wants to bet how many of those are Rain fans?

- I always just let Mark Russell’s Korea Pop Wars take care of the Korean weekend box office. Why? Because he knows more than me, of course. Well, I know that 300’s global domination has reached Korea as well. SPARTA!!!!

- In Japan, the box office this weekend is once again strong, with Night At the Museum taking a significant tumble, but Doraemon and Unfair hanging on. The Holiday opens fairly strong, at least according to Eiga Consultant. It opens at 146% of Something’s Gotta Give (the previous Nancy Meyers film) and 241% of In Her Shoes (the previous Cameron Diaz film in Japan). It should repeat the strong word-of-mouth business it has done around Asia.

Hoga News also has a report on another opening this weekend - Katsuhiro Otomo’s Bugmaster. I know, I’m just passing on the work to everyone else!

- Japan Times has a review of Bugmaster too.

- The Host expanded by about 30 screens on its third weekend, and it also saw a gross increase of about 9% for a 24th place weekend (up from 28th last week). With its opening gross responsible for only 29% of total gross, it means word-of-mouth is keeping this movie in theaters, and also well on the way to become one of Magnolia Pictures’ top grossers. Still, a mere $1.5 million gross for a film that made about 80 in its home country isn’t that great.

- Magnolia Pictures also hold the release rights for Johnnie To’s masterpiece Exiled, which didn’t do very well for distributor Media Asia at the box office. Now they attempt to cash in some more with a Hollywood remake coming. I don’t see why a film in the style of Sergio Leone Westerns needs to pay for any type of remake rights from Hong Kong, but good for Media Asia, I guess.

- Last time I posted a link to Professor Davis Bordwell’s report from the set of Johnnie To’s portion of Triangle and a deconstruction of To’s cinematography. Now Twitch’s Todd Brown has some set photos of his own.

- Filmart, how do they love thee? Let them count the ways.

- Speaking of which, Twitch’s Todd Brown has a report on what he saw at Filmart.

- In the realm of bad film ideas, the much-talked-about Jackie Chan and Jet Li project will be a family-friendly film based on The Journey to the West, the famous Chinese fairy tale with the Monkey King as its protagonist. There are other ways people are planning to bastardize the story too, but I’m honestly over it.

- Midnight Eye has a review of Sakuran, a film I’m still looking forward to watch.

- In a last bit of self-promotion, my article on Hong Kong director Derek Yee is up and running. Thanks to the editors at Yesasia for updating the post-Protege stuff.

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.

I’m usually more loyal to Variety because they recently freed up their online content, and it just loads up faster. But leave it to The Hollywood Reporter to get the first report of the Asian Film Awards. They even got a list of the winners already:

Best film — “The Host,” produced by Choi Yong Bae (South Korea)

Best director — Jia Zhangke, “Still Life” (China)

Best actor — Song Kang-ho, “The Host” (South Korea)

Best actress — Miki Nakatani, “Memories of Matsuko” (Japan)

Best cinematographer — Kim Hyung-goo, “The Host” (South Korea)

Best screenwriter — Mani Haghighi, “Men at Work” (Iran)

Best editor — Lee Chatametikool, “Syndromes and a Century” (Thailand/France/Austria)

Best composer — Rahayu Supanggah, “Opera Jawa” (Indonesia)

Best production designer — Tim Yip “The Banquet” (Hong Kong/China)

Best visual effects — The Orphanage, “The Host”

Yay for The Host and Miki Nakatani, although I REALLY wanted Exiled to win something. There’s always the Hong Kong Film Awards.

Speaking of The Host, KFCcinema posted a report from the Korean Film Council announcing The Host as a success. It cites that it’s earned $631,000 on its first week of release, which just ain’t true. While its second weekend was pretty good with only a 21% drop on 2 less screens and a slightly lower per-screen average, it is, sad to say, a disappointment. Hell, I checked the Film Council’s website, and the 631,000 figure is for the Chinese box office anyway.

Now that it’s the BEST ASIAN FILM of last year, can Americans get off their asses and go pay to see it now?

A real report coming later today

And a lot more news than I expected, so let’s rip through this sucker

- Before they take this thing down, check out Hollywood Elsewhere’s links to the screaming matches between Lily Tomlin and director David O. Russell on the set of I Heart Huckabees. I think Russell’s made some great works, but the guy looks like a downright asshole.

- Hong Kong Sunday numbers are up, and as expected, 300 takes the top slot. However, the grosses weren’t as high as I expected, considering that it grossed a phenomenal HK$1 million on Thursday. Instead, it made HK$1.69 million on 42 screens (a great number by any count) for a 4-day total of HK$6.47 million, including previews. Meanwhile, Ghost Rider is in second with HK$340,000 on 34 screens for a 11-day total of HK$5.76 million, The Haunted School is at HK$120,000 on 14 screens for a 4-day total of HK$480,000, and Dororo just can’t seem to get the audiences in seats by earning just HK$120,000 on 18 screens for a sad sad HK$380,000 4-day cume.

Good news for the limited releases though, as Pan’s Labyrinth draws in HK$120,000 on only 4 screens, while Ann Hui’s The Postmodern Life of My Aunt actually saw increased business with HK$100,000 on 5 screens. I knew Hong Kong audiences can’t just turn away a movie with Chow Yun Fat like that.

- The major Japanese dramas wrapped up this week, including the big three - Haken No Hinkaku (about temp office workers in Japan), Hana Yori Dango 2 (or who I mockingly called the Flower Boys), and Karei Naru Ichizoku (the big-budget rich family epic). Being a disliker of those Flower Boys and its positive word-of-mouth, I was afraid that the final episode would be higher than Karei Naru Ichizoku. But Kimura Takuya and his huge messed-up family rallied for a huge win with a 30.4% rating and a final average of a slightly disappointing 23.9 rating, while the Flower Boys did get a huge boost with a 27.9% rating for a final average of 21.7. The biggest boost, however, went to Haken No Hinkaku, who followed up its 19.9 rating for its 9th episode with a 26.0% rating for its last episode to get a 20.1% average.

The overall ratings this season are higher, since only one drama only got higher than a 20 rating average at the same season last year(while this season saw 3). But while Karei Naru Ichizoku did achieve a higher average than Kimura Takuya’s last drama Engine (I mention Kimura Takuya because he is the main draw for Karei Naru Ichizoku, considering all the posters around Tokyo has just his big face on it), but this is a man whose dramas once earned a 34.2 average (Hero in 2001), so a 23.9 rating for a big anniversary drama maybe not be so impressive.

Even a national newspaper reported on the huge ratings Karei Naru Ichizoku got, so let’s just all admit that it was pretty huge and all cheer like supportive people should.

Source: Drama News.

- The Japanese box office attendance rankings are also out, and Night at the Museum opened big at number 1, while the Doraemon movie held on a number 2. Drama adaptation Unfair the Movie opened at number 3, Happy Feet at number 4, and Deja Vu at number 5. As reliable as I can get numbers will come tomorrow, hopefully.

- Actress Ryoko Shinahara must be having a really happy week - her headlining drama Haken no Hinkaku got huge ratigns for its finale (which means let’s get her back for a sequel and stat!), and now her drama adaptation Unfair the Movie opens huge at 370 million yen, despite the drama only getting a 15.4 rating (which means Haken’s boost must’ve rolled over to Unfair too). Eiga Consultant predicts that this has gotta be pretty good omen for upcoming drama adaptations Saiyuki (a bastardization of the most beloved Chinese fairy tale ever Journey to the West) and Hero, which had a 22.8 and 34.2 average, respectively.

- After the critical failure of the last Studio Ghibli film Tales From Earthsea (which has been rumored to be Studio Ghibli officials’ way of hooking Hayao Miyazaki to come back and save the studio’s reputation by making one more film), Mr. Miyazaki’s latest project has finally been announced. According to Hoga News, it’ll be Gake No Ue no Ponyo (Ponyo on the Cliff), a story of a goldfish princess who wants to be human and a 5-year old boy. A producer said that it’s based on a time when Goro Miyazaki (Hayao’s son, and the one who directed Tales from Earthsea while detailing how horrible a father Hayao was on his blog) was 5 years old. Maybe this is Hayao’s attempt for a father-son reconciliation.

- Speaking of release dates, Stephen Chow’s latest A Hope has secured one too. Ming Pao writes this:

現在消息指電影的後期工作已基本完成，日內將送交國家電影局審查。由於電影故事溫馨講父子情，沒有敏感情節，通過審查應該沒問題，據悉已暫定暑假6月25日起在全國上映。

Current reports indicate that post-production is basically done, and it will be sent to the Bureau for Film, Radio, and Television for inspection. Since the film is touching story about love between father and son, there’s no sensitive material, it should have no problem getting through the inspection. It’s now tentatively set for a June 25th nationwide opening.

The story is something about a poor kid picking up a communicator that allows him to communicate with an alien, and the alien feel so sorry for the kid and his father (played by Stephen Chow) that it helps them out by punishing those that bully them. Sounds like good ol’ family fun indeed.

Original Chinese report is here.

- Youtube has a 5-minute trailer to the lesbian love story “Spider Lilies,” starring Taiwanese pop star Rainie Yang and Hong Kong pop star Isabella Leong. Rainie does even a nice little strip tease in the beginning. It premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, and will be shown at the Hong Kong International Film Festival as well.

- The Hong Kong Entertainment Expo is underway, and Variety Asia’s got you covered with a guide to fine dining and a guide to Hong Kong fashion shopping.

- At Hong Kong’s Asian Film Awards tonight, expect Andy Lau to get the “box office star” award. Excerpt from Ming Pao as follows:

據2005年12月舉行的「香港UA娛藝院線周年慶典頒獎禮」，劉德華的電影在香港的累積票房達17億港元，06年至今《墨攻》與《門徒》的累積票房數字為4100多萬港元。這些只是香港的票房數字，要統計劉德華的電影在亞洲區的票房數字肯定更驚人。

According to the “Hong Kong United Artist Cinemas Anniversary Awards” in December of 2005, Andy Lau’s film has grossed a total of HK$170 million. In the last one-year period, “A Battle of Wits” and “Protege” has grossed a total of over HK$41 million, and that’s just Hong Kong box office gross. Calculating the box office gross for Andy Lau’s films in Asia would come up with even more amazing numbers.

And why do people still just take Andy Lau as the next Hong Kong Chief Executive as a joke? He might just be the democratically-voted leader both China and Hong Kong can agree with.

Chinese report is here.

- Twitch’s logboy post a huge list of reviews for films he watched recently. None of them are complete, but they are another man’s opinions on some interesting Asian films that’s worth checking out.

- It’s all been reported out, but Mark Schilling wrote a comprehensive round-up of the recent Japanese health show scandal, which made the media turn against its own by leading a charge to uncover as much false data as possible.

- Twitch also has a review of the Ultimate Edition DVD of Versus. It was crazy and sometimes inspired fun, but was it really that great? Adrenaline-pumping does not a great movie made. Perhaps after the reported major tweaking, it’s now a better film. I’ll have to check this out.

- Those who were sad about Hong Kong girl group At 17’s split (I’m one of them) should rejoice, since Ming Pao has confirmed that the split is only for a half year. Ming Pao reports the following:

完成音樂會後，下半年這對好姊妹要暫時分開工作。Ellen與林一峰演出音樂劇《一期一會》，二汶則推出漫畫集，待年底再合作推出專輯。

After the concert, the sisters will have to work apart the second half of the year. Ellen will star in a musical with Chet lam, and Eman (Chet Lam’s sister) will release a comic collection. They’ll reunite to release an album at the end of the year.

Yay!

The original Chinese report is here.

I love the Independent Film Channel. I don’t know why I receive it, but I happen to have it, and it’s a great source for uncut independent films. They’ve been running a series called the Grindhouse every Friday night, showing pretty much trash movies by art standards. This is where I saw Sonny Chiba in Karate Bearfighter and Karate Bullfighter (in that order, even though the story’s in reverse order) last month, and it’s also where I saw Killing Machine (real title: Shorinji Kenpo, or the Shaolin Fist) last night. I’m now convinced that Sonny Chiba was probably Japan’s best hero, even better than Ultraman and Kamen Rider combined.

The movie opens during the Sino-Japanese war, where a bunch of Chinese solders with a commander that doesn’t really speak Chinese (he’s just pretending) were about to attack a bunch of troops. But a man wearing one of those Chinese sombrero pops out, and it’s Sonny Chiba as an undercover Japanese secret agent. He’s like James Bond, except he first uses Shaolin kung-fu to wipe out half the troops, THEN he uses the machine gun. Man, I would want an opening like that in any movie (not the killing Chinese people part, but the Shaolin kung-fu part).

He then retreats to his base, where he’s told by his superiors that Japan has surrendered and that it’s no use fighting. So he takes said machine gun and wipes out his superiors. “Japan may have lost, but I haven’t!” he says. What a bad ass. Being the bad ass Sonny Chiba is, he would fight for justice everywhere - on the train, where he stops a fight by twisting a dude’s arm and says, “There are 80,000,000 Japanese and 800,000 Koreans. You can’t swim back to Korea, so if you want to live here, be friends.” At the black market, where he fights black marketeers because he told the kids it’s OK to steal from them, and he gets into a fight with the cops and American soldiers (over what, I don’t know, I lost my attention for about 3 minutes, and Chiba the man just didn’t wait to get some ass-kicking done).

Of course, you also get to learn about behaviors when around Sonny Chiba. First, you don’t wanna be interrupting his udon eating, or he’ll look at you as he slurps up that last string. Second, you don’t want to rape the neighborhood udon shop’s owner’s daughter, because he’ll come beat you down with Shaolin kungfu, then castrate you (I am seriously not kidding about this). And you don’t wanna go over to his dojo and start something, because even though he says not to start fight with other schools, he will kick your ass anyway.

All in all, Killing Machine isn’t actually all that entertaining when compared with the Karate series (I mean, the word “good” wouldn’t be used to describe any of these movies), but it does have some entertaining fun here and there. It’s even surprising even-handed for a testosterone-pumped movie about Japan (Chiba may kill Chinese soldiers, but he respects Chinese martial arts and I would presume its people).

- March has been known to be an off-peak month in South Korea (unlike Hong Kong, where people actually get Easter holiday), and that means it’s time for a foreign invasion!

- This weekend, Japan finally sees the opening of two Hollywood blockbusters Night at the Museum and Academy Award winner Happy Feet. Last weekend, they had a preview duel with advanced showings, and on an unknown number of screens, Night at the Museum wins it with 169 million yen, while Happy Feet brought in 72 million yen. This should be a pretty clear indicator who’s gonna win.

Source: Eiga Consultant.

- The Filmbrain blog has its own review of a film I reviewed last month, the subtle Ad Lib Night.

- There’s a rather amusing trailer for a new film starring John Malkovich named Color Me Kubrick, a kind of true story about a man who looks and acts absolutely like Stanley Kubrick, but somehow pretended to be him anyway.

- After watching The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, I wished Justin Lin was given better scripts to do, because I think he means well, but he just keeps getting stuck with crappy scripts. So after two ventures into Hollywood, he’s doing his own thing (in just 8 months after Tokyo Drift, no less) with his latest Finishing the Game, a spoof on the search for a replacement of Bruce Lee after he died while making Game of Death, and it just premiered at the San Francisco Asian American Film Festival. Did anyone catch it?

- Two pieces of news to translate from my new Chinese news source Ming Pao:

1) Hong Kong International Film Festival run into a snag regarding missing tickets for its opening night film I’m a Cyborg, but That’s OK, among other shows. excerpt of Chinese report as follows:

網上訂票安排方面，協會收到約30名市民投訴，表示收不到協會發出的訂票確認電郵，經調查後發現，協會如常發出電郵

Regarding online ticketing, the association received about 30 complaints saying that they did not receive their confirmation e-mail for their reservations. After an investigation, the association will sent out these e-mails accordingly.

Apparently, there’s also a case of someone continuously complaining that he/she never got the confirmation email for said opening night, but turns out the confirmation numbers were faked, and this person might get charged for fraud.

Also, the official website has put up an official apology about the failures of the new online ticketing system. This is what happens when you rely on the internet. Then again, this blog is on the internet, so maybe I shouldn’t bite the hand that feeds me.

2) Using the Wong Jing crapfest The Lady Iron Chef, Ming Pao also claims that a bad box office gross doesn’t always spell the end of a movie.
Excerpt as follows:

目前有不少電影是不需過分依靠票房賺錢的。所以電影雖然仍陷低潮，但仍有不少像《美女食神》的製作出現。

這類電影，有一條賺錢方法，主要是把錄像、電視、賣埠的版權收入加起來，以這成本來製作，拍好後只要在戲院上上畫就可以。

為什麼一定要在戲院上畫？因為不上畫的戲，會被視為次一等的電影，錄像、電視等版權價錢，也會少一截。

電影上畫時做過宣傳，會多些人知道有這部戲，價錢與未上過畫的當然有分別。

單看票房，可能奇怪某些電視投資者為何還會開拍某類電影，但有噱頭或熟口熟面的題材，只要有好幾個有人認識的明星來做，還是可以賣得一定的價錢。票房不高的電影，未必無錢賺。

Currently there are quite a few films that doesn’t desperately need box office gross to make money. That’s why even though the industry is in a recession, there’s still many productions similar to The Lady Iron Chef coming out.

The way these types of movies make money is through adding up video, television, and overseas distribution deals. These type of productions only need to be on the screens for a little while.

Why do they need to be on the big screen? Because a film that does not go to theatres is regarded as an inferior film, and all those potential money from selling broadcast or distribution rights will suffer a loss.

A film that played on the big screen and was promoted would attract attention would surely fetch a higher price than films that didn’t.

Looking at the box office, maybe it would be strange for these television networks to still be financing movies. But as long as there’s buzz or a familiar topic, just find a couple of known actors, the film can still sell abroad. A film with a low box office gross can still make money.

It’s not a lot of news today, I’m saving the rest for tomorrow. Some Japan Times reviews, the best of the week, of course a song of the day, and maybe some American box office estimates.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“More people die on the East Bay commute than this idiot’s ever killed…”

Just came back from watching Zodiac, the latest from director David Fincher about the unsolved Zodiac serial murder case in the 1970s. I once said that if it was anything like the Korean film Memories of Murder, I’d be extremely happy. Well, I can say that it’s both like and not like Memories of Murder, but I’m extremely happy anyway, because it’s the first masterpiece of 2007.

Like Memories of Murder, Zodiac is about a real-life unsolved murder case from decades past. Specifically, a chain of murders occurred in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 60s and early 70s. He sent a bunch of letters to different newspapers in towns where these murders took place, taunting the police and threatening to kill school children. Fincher was a child living in Marin County at the time (fairly close to where one of the murders took place), so he probably captured the period fairly well. Having lived in SF for only 14 years, I wouldn’t know much about it back then, but I even recognized some of the locations, including a glaring mistake where a scene that was supposed to be in neighboring Daly City was shot in the Sunset District. How do I know this? The local Chinese supermarket, which has only been around in the last 10 years, is placed prominently in the background. Its name? Sunset Super.

Anyway, Zodiac follows two different paths in the investigation: the police, led by Dave Toschi (brilliantly played by Mark Ruffalo), and the San Francisco Chronicle, with reporter Paul Avery and cartoonist Robert Graysmith (whose books are the source of the film). While one may expect their paths to cross and they collaborate just like a Hollywood buddy film, they rarely do and only does so when Avery becomes a distraction. The film, at 158 minutes, is a meticulous look at existing files regarding the case. Graysmith is the natural protagonist not only because he was the only person that remained obsessed until he wrote a damn book about it, but also because it’s obvious that Fincher and writer James Vanderbilt were both equally obsessed with the subject as well. It may not be as sensational or have the emotional resonance of Memories of Murder (this is where they differ), but Fincher makes up the lack of emotions with tons and tons of details. Critics have compared watching Zodiac as reading case files for 2 and a half hours. I’d say that’s half-true - reading files for 2 and a half hours is boring, and Zodiac is certainly not boring. It’s an involving look at obsession, how man can continuously gnaw at something as long as they cannot make it go away. It’s Fincher’s most mature work to date, and it’s a masterpiece. If you think you can’t sit through the 2 and a half hours in a theatre (and you will feel those 2 and a half hours, no doubt), you owe it to yourself to at least check it out on home video.

A friend said that he felt Fincher didn’t know whether Zodiac should be a thriller or a procedural because they stopped showing the murders halfway through - that’s because the Zodiac killer has only confirmed to have committed 4 murders, and three of them were shown onscreen, while quite a few of the other murders that were not shown were simply speculations.

And now, more news:

- The Death Note films are finally finding their home video release this week (rental versions have been out in Japan for the first film, though, which allowed the HK version to be released as well), and Warner Bros is shipping 500,000 copies of the two-film set on the release date. It’s not a huge launch, considering that it’s the second highest-grossing film market in the world. But since they are charging over 60 bucks for each set, and that this is the highest shipment for a domestic Japanese release in 2006, maybe it is a pretty big deal after all.

One note to correct in that story - Death Note part 1 was shown on TV in a director’s cut (which, according to an imdb poster - so take it with a grain of salt - it took out footage rather than added) before part 2’s release (it even scored an excellent 24.5 rating), part 2 was never shown on TV - NTV has no reason to since it would just take away from the video sales.

- Twitch mentions today about Rinko Kikuchi’s first Japanese film after her encounter with the Oscars in Babel. But give credit where credit is due - Ryuganji actually picked up this story a few days ago first. Judging from the description and the trailer, it doesn’t seem to be a particularly appealing film, so watch at your own risk.

- Speaking of watch it at your own risk, Palm Picture has a red-band trailer for their latest acquisition - The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai. Twitch has picked up the trailer, and it’s weird as hell, just like the plot sypnosis. Do I dare go watch this?

- Anyone who has more faith in their reading Japanese than their listening can go watch Sakuran with Japanese subtitles all day this Saturday and Sunday at this theater in Tokyo. I might’ve gone, but I would have to live in Tokyo first.

- Looks like the Academy Award isn’t much of a commercial factor when the film arrives in Japan. Last year’s winning film for best actor, Capote, opened on 4 screens and eventually made 100 million yen (117 yen=$1, at least for today). Eiga Consultant analyzes the 12.1 million yen opening of this year’s winner, The Last King of Scotland, and while it did open with 200% of Capote’s opening weekend, it also opened on 12 times the screen Capote opened at, so the per-screen average is actually only 16.7% of Capote’s.

- Apparently, seeing South Korean entertainment’s boom in the last decade, Variety Asia thinks that the rest of Asia would like to do that. While I do see the point of the Singapore part, Hong Kong already has a full-grown entertainment industry that, while absorbing some of South Korea into its mainstream, is much in need of a revival more than a boom, and maybe that’s what this new government grant is for.

- The new 3D animation trend is so huge that even Hong Kong is joining in on the fun, and the person doing it is none other than Brian Tse, who carved out Hong Kong’s most famous contemporary animated franchise with McDull. According to Twitch, he’s developing a 3D animated feature about a duck liver sausage that finds out he’s a piece of poop. No kidding. At least the duck liver sausage idea is pure original HK humor.

- With increasingly successful Chinese films being funded from foreign funding, the Film Bureau realizes that they should modernize their existing government funding system. Insteading of finding government subsidies or a rich financier, an official at the Film Bureau says, “We now urgently need film producers who are politically sensitive, aesthetically sophisticated and have a flair for marketing.” Politically sensitive means communist, right?

- I mentioned about those Southern boys trying to do awesomely bad Japanese rap a while ago on this blog, and that they were putting a show in a Shibuya club. Well, their gigs already happened, and Japan Probe is awesome enough to provide a video of those Kokujin Tensai (literally means Black Person Genius, or a grammatically correct title of Black Genius). I searched on Youtube, and trust me, this is the best quality one can find of that show. Believe me, I don’t think the Japanese people who are there are laughing with them. They’re probably laughing at them. I know I would, and I’m not even Japanese!

Song of the day coming up after this entry.