As the Cannes Film Festival gets its gears rolling, the fallout from the chilly reception of opening film My Blueberry Nights continues.

Well, perhaps not so much fallout. I’ll leave to the Hollywood Reporter to talk about that.

Premieres of works by major Asian directors continue, as the Tsui Hark/Ringo Lam/Johnnie To collaboration “serial film” Triangle and Taiwanese filmmaker Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s The Flight of the Red Balloon both received their premieres out of competition, with reviews coming in already.

Variety kind of likes Triangle, noting that “Lam and To come off most successfully, while Tsui’s material seems unnecessarily complex and fussy.” Sounds like typical Tsui Hark stuff to me.

Hollywood Reporter pretty much hated it, calling it “an inedible mess where ingredients war with one another and no one has paid any attention to the poor fellow who must consume the meal.”

As for Hou’s “Flight of the Red Balloon,” I swear that I saw a Hollywood Reporter pan on it earlier in the morning that’s no longer on the site. On the other hand, Variety sees it as business as usual for Hou, whose penchant for medium long takes has divided audiences for years.

- With Lee Chang-Dong’s latest Secret Sunshine in competition at Cannes, the Korean Film Council has published an English book on the director, which is free for download on their website.

On to other news:

- The Korean film wave is slowly on its death rattle in Japan, so now they’re trying to incorporate Japanese elements. Such is the cast with the film “Virgin Snow,” which stars Korean actor Lee Jun-Gi and Japanese actress Aoi Miyazaki. According to Eiga Consultant, the film opened with 30.2 million yen, which is good enough for a 9th place at the rankings. That’s only 26% of Miyazaki’s previous film “Tada Kimi Wo Aishitteru” and 95% of The King and the Clown’s opening in Japan. However, Box Office Mojo’s ranking shows that it opened on 9 screens….with only $25,352, which is only 3.04 million yen. Did the Mojo leave a zero out, or did Eiga Consultant added a zero in? I myself trust the rankings from Japan.

- Variety finally catches on with how Japan uses classy ads to attract audiences into small arthouse films. The key: appeal to young hip Tokyo girls.

It’s that kind of thinking that managed to create such a kick-ass poster for Election, although I doubt that it’ll appeal to any girls. That’s my carpet in the background, by the way.

- I don’t usually try to plug Yesasia directly, though they’re great enough to actually put up what I write. This is really more of a plug for the Sakuran DVD, which is coming out on August 3rd with English subtitles.

- Under “shitty movie wannabe” today, we finally have the trailer for Jet Li’s latest “War,” originally named “Rogue.” As much as I like Jason Statham AND Jet Li together again after “The One” (Oy vey….), I agree with Twitch: it looks pretty shitty.

- I still haven’t seen Dennis Law’s Fatal Contact yet, thanks to the traumatic experiences that were Marriage with a Fool and Love @ First Note. Anyway, the Weinsteins have just bought the North American rights to it, and since the title is so derivative already, I don’t think they even have to rename it.

- Remember a few months ago when everyone expected the worst when Edison Chen was meeting with Stephen Chow on a collaboration project? Turns out that project is actually Stephen Fung’s latest film about dancing. Edison Chen is starring, in a role where he can probably just play the spoiled hip-hop boy he is in real life, and Chow is probably producing. Just read the original Chinese report that mentions it.

- I was going to write a review of Matsuo Suzuki’s Otakus in Love (Koi No Mon) a few years ago, but I found it so crazy and overloaded with excess silliness that I didn’t know how to quite approach it. It was simply too much of what it had for its own good. Anyway, Suzuki’s latest Welcome to the Quiet Room (which seems to be based on his own novel) has a teaser on its website.

- Sony may be (barely) making big bucks with Spiderman 3, but its Playstation 3 is sinking the company fast. Because of the Playstation 3 (which I still believe is being released way too ahead of its time), Sony is now operating at a US$573 million loss. I’ll buy one eventually, I’m sure, but I just don’t see it happening this decade.

- Breathe slowly. Robert De Niro and Al Pacino had just signed on to a film where they’ll spend 90-95% of their screen time together. I don’t even care if the movie’s going to be crappy, or that the two have been making crappy movies (De Niro WAY moreso than Pacino), it’s finally happening, baby.

- Chen Kaige is going back to the well that brought him international fame. Somewhat reminiscent of Farewell My Concubine, Chen’s latest film is the biopic Mei Lan-fang, about the famous Peking Opera singer of the same name. Good news: The film will cost half of what The Promise cost. Bad news: Leon Lai is in the starring role.

- China is beginning to soften their stance against bloggers, stopping their campaign for mandatory registration of real names for all Chinese bloggers. Instead, they’ll just “encourage” blogging companies to do so. Blogger doesn’t have my real name, does it…..?

- In more My Blueberry Nights news, Lovehkfilm’s Sanjuro has a link to the trailer. Looks good to me, though I’m feeling Wong’s overuse of voiceover already.

- Looks like Chow Yun Fat might not be Battle of Red Cliff after all. Ming Pao reports that the role that Chow has supposedly been cast in actually went to another actor before Chow supposedly signed on. Additional excerpt as follows:

內地記者求證了製片方面的中影負責宣傳的翁先生，他說發哥目前正在美國，據他所知發哥臨走前確主動與《赤壁》劇組聯絡過，但該片有很多猛將角色會出現，所以若大家仍保持良好關係，未來發哥可能會客串其他角色也說不定。

Mainland reporters wanted to confirm with publicity’s Mr. Yong. He said that Chow is current in the States, and that Chow did contact the production before leaving. But since there are quite a few characters in the film, if relations continue to stay healthy, maybe Chow will take on other roles.

Original Chinese report

- In less than 24 hours, the Cannes Film Festival will open with Wong Kar-Wai’s English feature debut My Blueberry Nights. I’m not going to be in France, and as an example of positive thinking, I don’t think I’ll ever be at the Cannes Film Festival. Nevertheless, I will try and keep track of the Asian films playing and selling there over the next 12 days.

The Hollywood Reporter has a roundup of the Asian presence at Cannes this year(not including the marketplace).

- The promotion for opening film My Blueberry Nights is getting out there. I found a promotional kit floating online that offers some beautiful stills(link is .pdf), and Twitch has the poster, which for some inexplicable reason places star Norah Jones in the little corner.

- Tsui Hark, Ringo Lam, and Johnnie To’s Triangle is no slouch either, as Twitch has also found the film’s own promotional kit online. It’s definitely worth a look.

- Enough with festival stuff for now, let’s get to some box office.

Variety Asia reports that the Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara-penned war drama “For Those We Love” opened pretty big this weekend, when that’s actually not really the case. Eiga Consultant reports that the film actually opened a lot weaker than similar war films. Compared to “Otoko Tachi No Yamato,” which opened on less screens, “For Those We Love” made only 53% of its opening in December 2005. When compared to “Letters From Iwo Jima,” which Ishihara panned to make his own film sound better, the opening is only 37% of Iwo Jima’s. Both films opened around the same year-end period and had similar final gross. At least it might make back its budget.

- In other Japanese box office news, seems like Gegege no Kitaro is now poised to be the highest-grossing film in the “Yokai” genre(I guess mythical creatures would be the best way to translate that).

- In Japanese drama ratings, it stabilized slightly after the Golden Week holiday in Japan.

See here for all drama information.

Proposal Daisakuen (also known as Operation Love) regains its footing for its 4th episode with a 16.4 rating. As you can see, the rating for this week’s episode even went up (more on that next week). It’s now currently the highest-rated drama this season.

Looks like Sexy Voice and Robo found a fan base, as the ratings are now floating around the 7.0 range for 3 weeks now. We’ll see if that happens for the 4th week later tonight when the Tuesday ratings are up.

The biggest disappointment of the season Joudan Janai! (which sounds like it would fit right in as an American sitcom) also seem to have found a fan base, as the ratings are now staying around the 14.0 range. Considering that Yuji Oda’s last TV Drama Last Christmas had a 21.5 average, this does not bode well for Yuji Oda’s future career in TV.

The Oricon website has compiled a ranking of the satisfaction rate for the current dramas. So far, it’s the returning drama Kaette Kita Jikou Keisatsu, followed by the comic adaptation Liar Game, and Operation Love in 3rd place. Sexy Voice and Robo and Joudan Janai are at 8th and 9th place, respectively.

- Korea Pop Wars has a pretty thorough analysis of Korea’s box office this past weekend. Spiderman 3 continues to reign, but it’s not reigning very well - the opening boom was there, but staying power simply isn’t. This actually gave a chance for Asian films to perform pretty well at the box office.

- In today’s “bad idea” file, director Kirk Wong is possibly casting his remake of the classic Hong Kong martial arts film “Five Deadly Venoms” with Jay Chou, Edison Chen, and Maggie Q. I haven’t seen the original, and I’m already dreading this.

- This weekend, 7 films will try and bring down Spiderman 3, including two of the Herman Yau films I mentioned yesterday. Another one of them is the Mainland Chinese thriller “The Matrimony,” starring Leon Lai and Rene Liu. Variety already has a review.

- In case anyone cares, Universal Studios Japan in Osaka is finally making money.

- The MPA is launching a new anti-piracy campaign in Asia with new trailers in theatres. Which makes me wonder whether those trailers in America with the explosion expert talking about how hard he worked for the movies worked in the first place, when every opinion I’ve read of it has been overwhelmingly negative? And what makes them think that the guilt mentality is going to work?

- In other stupid media tactics, the New York Post talks about how American broadcasters are trying to keep viewers tuned in during commercials. I have to say I had no idea what was going on in that Fox cab driver thing, but it sure was annoying.

Today’s entry title refers to the Japanese punk band The Blue Hearts, who has a huge presence in the film I saw last night. Nobuhiro Yamashita’s Linda Linda Linda doesn’t play out like a crowdpleaser - it doesn’t have the dramatic flair of the usual high school girls films, nor is it outrageously hilarious like Shinobu Yaguchi’s Swing Girls - and yet, it’s so easy to get excited about it. The basic plot is fairly formulaic, with 4 girls overcoming obstacles to play in the big school fair, but its approach is so subdued and natural that I was surprised that I could muster up such enthusiasm for a film that intentionally doesn’t have much of a climax. The girls work hard, they bond, some kind of screw-up happens (which actually was such a natural thing to happen that I’m surprised I didn’t think of it), and they still play in the big show. There’s no time for big dramatic moments, and that helps to capture an authentic sense of reality rarely seen in American teen films without appearing artistically pretentious. And best of all: The movie has no montages.

Naturally, the standout is Korean actress Bae Doona playing Korean exchange student/lead vocalist that was randomly recruited. Speaking very little Japanese, Bae captures the simple charm in her character, an outcast that finds real friends through pure coincidence. Scenes involving her interacting with unsuspecting characters, including a crush that managed to learn a bit of Korean for his confession to her, are often the funniest scenes in the film. Too bad the subtitles couldn’t capture when Bae is actually speaking Japanese or Korean when it was crucial to getting the joke of said confession scene.

Anyway, it’s a different creature from Swing Girls, but it’s great just the same. It’s not the most entertaining, but Linda Linda Linda is simply one of the better teen films from Asia in recent years, period. And even though I’m about 12 years late, I’ve just become a Blue Hearts fan. I’m gonna have to check out the lead singer’s latest works too.

- The story this weekend at the box office is again Spiderman 3. But unlike last weekend’s “holy shit!” reactions, this week is about disappointment.

At the Hong Kong Sunday box office, Spiderman 3 still scored an impressive HK$2.86 million on 88 screens, bringing its 13-day total to HK$42.8 million, smashing Night at the Museum’s record as the highest-grosser this year so far. AND it still has the upcoming weekend to dominate before those pirates come and sweep the box office away.

In Japan, it still made 593 million yen this past weekend, with a 51% drop (which is perfectly natural since last week was part of a major public holiday period. If you look closely, just about every remaining film on the top 6 dropped over 50%) for a 13-day total of over 4.3 billion yen. This already way surpassed the track record of the previous film in Japan.

On the other hand, North America actually saw quite a huge drop on the gross, even though it still made a very large US$58 million, because it suffered a 61% drop from last weekend. In comparison, Pirates of the Caribbean only saw a 54% drop in its second weekend after its record-breaking opening.

And in worldwide box office overall, it took an even bigger tumble, losing 63.5% of its business, despite still making $85 million total. It’s not good, but how can anyone ever call a film that’s made over US$600 million a commercial failure?

- That was fast. While Kiroi Namida is putting people in small theaters, Isshin Inudou also has a more commercial film just opening in theaters. Bizan, starring Nansko Natsushima, opened in 291 screens this past weekend, making 135 million yen for a 4th place opening, right behind “For Those We Love,” which made an unspectacular 178 million yen. But that’s another story.

Anyway, according to Eiga Consultant, Bizan’s opening is 104% of the opening for Natsushima’s previous film Inugamike no Ichizoku and 125% of Gege, the previous adaptation of the author’s work. However, for the past 3 years, Toho opened huge hits Umizaru: Limit of Love, Negotiator(The Bayside Shakwdown spinoff), and Crying Out for Love in the Center of the World around this period, so that makes Bizan’s opening a bit of a disappointment.

- Another pretty big news today surrounds John Woo’s Battle of Red Cliff yet again. According to Oriental Daily, and now pretty much around several Asian Entertainment news site, Chow Yun-Fat, who suddenly dropped out due to reasons that had people screaming “prima donna,” has rejoined the cast, but only in a cameo role that will have scenes opposite Tony Leung Chiu-Wai’s character. This, ladies and gentlemen, is called an act public relations damage control.

- In Hollywood, there are also rumors flying around that Korean pop star Rain is joining the cast of the Wachowski Brother’s Speed Racer. After the free publicity Stephen Colbert gave him last week on the Colbert Report, I wouldn’t be surprised.

- Herman Yau may just be the low-budget genre version of Johnnie To. Aside from Gong Tau opening this Thursday, he also have 2 more movies coming up - Whispers and Moans, which was shown at the Hong Kong International Film Festival and was just reviewed by Kozo of Lovehkfilm, and Mob Story, which I’m sorry to say looks kind of bad. Twitch has links to all three trailers.

- Instead of more real news, Variety Asia posted reports on Asia’s current three biggest film regions - Japan, which is seeing independent distributors growing, China, where small distributors are beginning to take on the state-run China Films, and South Korea, where indie films are sadly getting bruised by the big bad Hollywood blockbusters.

- Malaysian native Tsai Ming-Liang is back in Malaysia with his latest film I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone, but it ran into trouble with its censors. Tsai managed to make a compromise, making five cuts from the film himself, though the film will only be screened in one theater for two weeks. Good thing Tsai is also very good at selling his movie.

But Tsai isn’t going to take this lying down. He believes that now I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone will play in Malaysia in its truncated version, it’ll open up talks about censorship. He argues that wouldn’t have happened if the film had simply gotten banned. The Twitch link above has links to the two reports in the local press.

- Somewhere out there, Asian film fans are about to pull their hairs out because Jeffrey Wells doesn’t realize what he’s missing out on just because he can’t stay up for an extra couple of hours. Hell, I would’ve caught a 3 am screening if it meant being able to watch the world premiere of Triangle.

- A film that I’ve grown to look forward to is Hong Kong director/UFO staple Samson Chiu’s latest film Call Me Left, which chronicles the journey of a middle-aged man through the ten post-handover years of Hong Kong. It looks like a male version of Golden Chicken without the sex, but with parodies of Communist propaganda.

- Lastly, Twitch looks ahead to the summer months in Singaporean cinema, including the latest from I Not Stupid director Jack Neo.

I started playing the game The Movies again today, and I remember why I stopped in the first place - this game is addictive as hell. Maybe I just have a thing for sim games, but once i start, I couldn’t stop playing for well over an hour (an hour that i didn’t really have to spare). Good thing I stopped playing, went out and grabbed two books - Haruki Murakami’s After Dark and David Mamet’s Bambi VS. Gozilla. Otherwise, I would’ve never got myself to start today’s entry.

- Japan’s music charts continue to be weak, which might mean that Golden Week isn’t much of a shopping week. On the singles chart, Arashi’s latest gets the number 1 spot again, selling 150,000 copies. That might not sound too bad, but the number 2 singles. a solo effort from a Morning Musume member, sold only 27,000 copies. You can imagine how the rest of the charts go. This week, B’z releases their brand-new single, and they’ll probably debut at number 1 (again for the umpteenth time) on next week’s chart.

The albums chart is somewhat stronger, though not for Japanese music. Pop group mihimaru GT’s compilation album managed to debut at number 1 selling just 146,000 copies, but American pop albums from Avril Lavigne and Ne-Yo take the second and third spots with their albums, selling 118, 000 copies and 58,800 copies, respectively. Wait a minute, how the hell did Kat-tun fall to 13th place already? Ouch. There are no major album releases this week (at least none that is making a huge dent on the charts), so it’ll be kind of boring next week.

- Under kind of exciting news, Kenta Fukusaku announced that his latest film will be more like the hardcore masculine action movie his father Kinji Fukusaku used to make and a “real fight movie.” If it’s going to be anything like Kinji’s Yakuza Papers series, I can already tell it’s going to be quite good. Just look at who he has for his star.

- The Japanese string puppet film “Strings,” which is kind of like Team America: World Police except not, opened two weekends ago in Japan (the first half of Golden Week) in one theater. According to Eiga Consultant, in the opening 3 days, it attracted 2738 people and 4.65 million yen. For one screen, that’s really really good. However, it seems like the gender ratio of the audience is 2 males for 8 females, and most of the audience seems to be 20-30s females. Perhaps it’s not the gimmick that’s attracting people, but rather the presence of two of the Smap members in the voice cast.

- Korean films may still have a market in Asia, as plastic surgery comedy (I guess a new genre has just been invented!) 200 Pound Beauty hits it big in Singapore.

- In Hong Kong, Spiderman isn’t wasting his 120 screens, as the first hit of the summer makes another HK$1.9 million on Tuesday to an 8-day total of HK$32.28 million. I might go watch this tomorrow.

- Even though a lot of people are buying season pass to the Hong Kong Disneyland, it looks like it’s still struggling since its opening in fall 2005.

- Twitch introduces Funukedomo, Kanashimino Ai Wo Misero, one of the Japanese films going to Cannes’ Critics’ Week. It looks like a messy and twisted little family drama that might turn a couple of heads….or it might be another pretentious digital film that show maybe not everyone that can hold a digital camera can make a movie. I think it’s more likely to go the first route, though.

- Holy crap, it’s the trailer for Wilson Yip/Donnie Yen’s Flash Point. Dig it. (Thanks to Beat TG on the Lovehkfilm Forum for the link)

- India is trying to simultaneous release strategy, where a film opens in theater is also available in other formats almost instantly. “Life in a Metro,” starring Shilpa Shetty, who not only attracted attention from her win at the British Big Brother this past winter, but also from her PDA with Richard Gere two weeks ago, will open in several countries at the same time and also be made available on the internet for at least US$9.99 for a low-resolution version for only 72 hours.

- Darcy Paquet over at Koreanfilm.org updated his site with his thoughts on 2007 Korean cinema so far. It just made me more excited about Sai Yaichi’s Soo.

- Hong Kong’s Mandarin Films (When’s the last time they actually made profitable movie again?) has signed on to be a distributor for Tsui Hark’s latest film “Missing,” about a man diving into an ancient ruins underwater to retrieve his engagement ring. It’s a romantic thriller, folks.

- Anyone in Japan be sure to watch the Foreigner Otaku Champion on the night of May 10th Japan time! This ought to be interesting, to say the lease. More details from Japan Probe.

This type of irregular schedule of posting will probably continue until next Monday, but I’ll try to deliver as much as I can each time i post.

- I read a column on Ming Pao yesterday (that I’m not going to translate) and contributes to Spiderman 3’s current success in Asia to a weak market. Well, how can you have any type of market when Spiderman 3 is taking up 102 screens in Hong Kong? The usual Hollywood blockbusters opens on 50 screens at most. That’s probably why Spiderman managed a huge HK$2.35 million on Thursday’s opening day (technically it’s opening day for all films, but the only major release this week opened on Tuesday), which is a lot less than the record-breaking HK$7 million it made on Tuesday’s public holiday (the previous holder for opening day was Kung Fu Hustle with over HK$4.5 million), but still very huge. After 3 days, Spiderman 3 has already made HK$12.68 million, and expect it to pass the HK$25 million mark by the end of the weekend.

The films from 3rd place all the way down to the 10th all made under HK$50,000 on Thursday. That’s so sad I’m not even going to analyze it.

- Reporting this a little late here, but ratings for Japanese dramas was dealt with another blow last week as ratings continue to plummet overall. Sunday prime time drama Joudan janai drops further to a 13.2 rating, while second place Proposal Daisakusen drops only by 2.2 % in its second week for a 17.1 rating, which makes it now the number 1 drama this season. Kenichi Matsuyama’s Sexy Voice and Robo drops to a desparate 6.9 rating its third week. In fact, Proposal Daisakusen is the only drama that cracked the 15.0 rating, and no drama this season has cracked the 20 rating line, a line that 3 dramas crossed last season. Sad state of affairs, indeed.

- After the complaints received because of Hong Kong broadcaster TVB’s uncensored broadcast of the classic film An Autumn’s Tale, TVB is looking to get in trouble again, this time because of a protester’s foul mouth during a live broadcast.

- Korea Pop Wars has a story on how the Korean distributor of John Cameron Mitchell’s sexually explicit film Shortbus found a way to get around the Korean film board to get a general release.

- Anyone in Los Angeles heads up: The Visual Communications Film Festival is happening now, and it includes a screening of John Woo’s Hard Boiled, the Japanese film What the Snow Brings, and Korean blockbuster King and the Clown, among many more.

- Jason Gray has a few more tidbits, including the first photos of Yoji Yamada’s latest film, and Asian film- destroy…er, I mean remaker Roy Lee’s decision to scrap a remake of Battle Royale.

- Why, oh, why do they bother? First it’s Sin City, then it’s 300, and now, the latest Frank Miller graphic novel (a glorified way to say comics) ready for adaptation is “Ronin,” about mutants, thugs, and a ronin duking it out in modern New York for a sword, or something like that. And the directors’ pedigree continues to slip too - first it’s Robert Rodridguez, then Zack Synder (in all fairness, I surprisingly liked Dawn of the Dead), and now it’s the director of “Stomp the Yard.”

- Speaking of “why do they bother,” the trailer for Rush Hour 3 is up, and it just looks like a sillier version of Kiss of the Dragon with an annoying-as-usual Chris Tucker. Even Jackie Chan once said he was baffled at the success of Rush Hour.

- Hong Kong gets film development council to figure out what to do with the US$38 million film fund - good. Council then establishes four other committees to figure out more stuff in more detail - bad. This fund is in serious danger of being held up by bureaucracy.

- At least the man has the good sense to finally announce that he’s retiring in next 5 years. I wonder if that’s just action films, or all filmmaking, period.

- Continuing on “why do they bother” news, Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh will be in auteur of crap Rob Cohen’s latest film “The Mummy 3.” Apparently they signed on a young actor named Luke Ford in order to have him carry the franchise. Just read the plot description for yourself.

- In more screen development news, the big discovery in 2007 for Japanese music is the song “Sen No Kaze ni natte” sung by tenor Misafumi Akikawa, based on the poem, “Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep.” The supposed history of how this song came about is that a Japanese author read the anonymous poem at Ground Zero in New York, translated it into Japanese, and wrote a song out of it. The song was sung at the annual Kohaku Singing Contest on New Year’s Eve this past year, and the single has now sold 920,000 copies to date. Anyway, I’m mentioning this song because Japan’s fascination with the song–>screen process is kicking in again, with a mini-series based on the song to be shown on TV in August.

- Want to know who are the most powerful people in Korean cinema? Look no further than this report.

- Twitch also has a trailer for Lee Chang-Dong’s first film since Oasis - Secret Sunshine.

- Be proud, Asia. Even though we’re not well-represented at Cannes this year, we still have three spots at Director’s Fortnight.

That’s it for now. When will I be back? I have no idea. Just keep reading, m’kay? Thanks.

- Yesterday, I wrote about the relatively weak performance of the new Kenichi Matsuyama film Shindo. Turns out Japan Times has a review for it this weekend, in case you’re curious. Sounds like an interesting character drama.

Meanwhile, Japan Times finally gives a positive review to a big blockbuster. This time it’s Spiderman 3, which Japan will get to see on Tuesday during their big Golden Week holiday. As always, they’re also covering small films, including a review for Michel Gondry’s The Science of Sleep (which comes with an interview with director Gondry himself) and Cannes Grand Prix winner Flandres (again with an interview with the film’s director Bruno Dumont.).

- While Hollywood is threatening to boycott China to back up the complaint by the United States government at the World Trade Organization, Silicon Hutong suggests that Hollywood might be bluffing because it probably needs China more than China needs them.

- After being on every Asian film buff’s shit list for buying up Asian films and either cutting them or leaving them on the shelf (in most cases, both), the Weinsteins now figure why do the buying and cutting when they can just make the damn things themselves? Honestly, I am almost sure no good films will come out of this deal, but I’m a pessimist by nature.

- A new Chinese film producer is making their big debut at Cannes this year, and they managed to find some big Hong Kong market players like Nansun Shi to help them out. Among the five films they’re bringing to Cannes is the latest by Tsui Hark, Ann Hui, Stanley Kwan, and Stephen Fung. Too bad all of them are “Chinese films,” not “Hong Kong films.”

- Someone in China finally fought the censors, and she won! Read about her story.

- Jeff Lau, the man responsible for the great Stephen Chow Chinese Odyssey movies and the shitty A Chinese Tall Story, is continuing Alex Fong Lik-Sun’s reign of terror by casting him in his latest film, also starring Gillian Chung of the Twins. The rest of the report is gossip, so you can just read it in Chinese here.

That’s it for today. Tomorrow - San Francisco International Film Festival for the screening of the After This Our Exile director’s cut, hopefully with Patrick Tam in attendance. Reports and more news to come then.

- 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.

- The biggest news out there, as I started teasing yesterday, is Tony Leung Chiu-Wai signing back onto John Woo’s troubled production of Battle on Red Cliff. As mentioned, Oriental Daily first broke the news without official confirmation. Ming Pao waited until this morning Hong Kong time to do it. Excerpt as follows:

昨晚《赤壁》監製透過網上承認此消息，他說﹕「經與梁朝偉先生聯絡後，梁朝偉先生基於與吳宇森導演20多年的友誼，又見到周潤發離開了《赤壁》劇組，《赤壁》又是一部令人期待的作品，必須要拍下去，所以當吳宇森邀請他重返劇組時，他一口答應，替吳宇森解決燃眉之急。」

Last night, “Red Cliff” producer admitted to the news via the internet: “After communication with Mr. Leung Chiu-Wai, based on his 20-year friendship with John Woo, Chow Yun-Fat’s departure, and the need to continue shooting the much-anticipated film, he decided to rejoin the film after John Woo invited him, helping John Woo due to the pressing need.

張家振表示，因偉仔已經熟讀劇本（去年初第一稿出時，已經給了偉仔）不會有發哥最介意的劇本問題（究竟發哥最介意的劇本問題是什麼，張家振未有回答）

Terence Chang said, since Tony have already read the script thoroughly (The first draft was given to him early last year), Chow’s problem with the script will not occur (But Chang has not responded to the question of what specific script problem Chow had).

Original Chinese report.

Variety Asia also has an English report.

- The other big story is the geniuses at New York Times finding what drove Virginia Tech student Cho Seung-Hui to kill 32 of his peers. Apparently, a package he sent to NBC just before he killed 30 students in a school building contained a picture of him holding a hammer that looks like he’s trying to imitate an image from Park Chan-Wook’s Oldboy. You know, it’s obvious because he’s a Korean, so of course violent Korean films would drive this poor disturbed bastard to murder.

OK, so how long before the American press starts blaming John Woo movies for the murders too?

Oh, wait, they’re not Korean, so Cho cannot possibly be influenced by those movies. Personally, I think anyone that blames movies for real-life crimes are just looking for false scapegoats so they can avoid dealing with real problems with society, like why he was mentally disturbed in the first place, and why he wasn’t properly treated by the authorities.

Plus, if Cho knew how fucking silly he looks with that hammer, maybe he would’ve woken up, but that’s just me.

In related media news, not only has there been reports of South Koreans coming out and apologizing for Cho’s rampage (what the hell for? They’re just feeding into this racial scapegoating the media is doing. The man has been in America so long he’s more Americanized than I am, for crying out loud), the Korean media has also taken a “it’s America’s fault” approach as well. (Thanks to Japan Probe for the link)

- Back to more relevant news to this blog, the Cannes 2007 lineup has been announced. As predicted, Wong Kar-Wai’s English-language debut My Blueberry Nights will be opening the festival, assuming that Wong is actually done with post-production. Representing Asia in competition will be South Korea’s Kim Ki-Duk with “Breath,” South Korea’s Lee Chang-Dong’s “Secret Sunshine,” and Japan’s Naomi Kawase with “Mogari No Mor.” Except for Wong, no Hong Kong films will be screened in or out of competition, despite predictions that Tsui Hark-Ringo Lam-Johnnie To actioner Triangle might make it. Nevertheless, the lineup looks pretty solid.

- Speaking of Korean films, Asian Cinema - While on the Road has reviews of a few Korean gangster films that are sure to corrupt another Korean-American youth’s mind (that was sarcasm, by the way).

- With the Hong Kong Entertainment Expo being a huge success, who can resist holding another film market in Hong Kong? That’s right, another film market event is going to Hong Kong, this time it’s Amazia, and it will open in November 2008. Yay.

- However, I don’t think the Amazia folks would be very happy to find what Hong Kong celebrities are doing with their Nintendo DS - some publicity photos have caught these celebrities playing their DS’s with an add-on that’s designed to enable the DS to play pirated games.

- I’ve never pushed box office news this far down an entry before, but I don’t want seem like I’m beating a dead horse. Eiga Consultant analyzes just exactly how bad Sunshine has done in Japan. According to his figures, it only grossed 52% of The Promise in its opening week in Japan. 52%?! I’m pretty damn sure Sunshine is better than The Promise based on this photograph alone.

- Ryuganji apparently has this report as well, but I saw it on Twitch first, so I gotta be fair. Anyway, Takeshi Miike is working on another new film, and apparently it’s a manga adaptation. I don’t care much for Miike, so you can find out more for yourself here as well.

- The troubled Bangkok Film Festival is making progress on its comeback, and this year they’re promising more Asian films. Good for them.

- I consider myself a fairly big fan of Japanese films. Sure, I’ve missed out on a lot of classics (I.have.not.seen.Seven.Samurai.), but I’m still a fan. So who’d know when Japanese people what 10 films they would recommend to foreigners, they would not only recommend a non-Japanese film (Letters From Iwo Jima), but they would actually recommended 57 films instead (the Tora-san series contains 48 films. I assume the Japanese people want us to watch them all)?

- Japanese new artist Ayaka has become the first female artist in over 4 years to sell more than 1 million copies of her album. Good for her too.

- I discovered Kon Ichikawa’s work when I took a Japanese cinema class last year. I discovered Shunji Iwai’s genius when I followed up my first viewing of Swallowtail with Love Letter. Too bad Iwai hasn’t done a new narrative film since Hana and Alice, but at least he made a documentary about Ichikawa, and it’s coming on DVD.

- Aside from making his war film The Assembly, Chinese director Feng Xiaogang is making a short film for China’s anti-piracy campaign. It even features one of the best metaphors for pirated films I’ve ever read.

- Jeffrey Wells has a link the the first legit review of Spiderman 3, and the verdict isn’t good.

As the title suggests, there’s a lot of news coming out to Japan again. Of course, there’s news from everywhere else, but we’ll start with Japan

- Oricon rankings again fairly weak this week. On the singles chart, Seki Jani Eight (I don’t really get them, but whatever floats Japan’s boat) rules the chart with their new single, selling 190,000 copies. In second and third place are also new singles, but sales are way lower than the top single. As for remaining singles, Glay drops all the way down to 7th place, and Namie Amuro’s “Funky Town” (Not a cover of the disco hit) is already out of the top 10. Next week should be interesting, as the daily chart indicates 14 singles vying for the top 10.

Albums sales are even weaker this week, as YUI hangs for to number 1 again with just 100,000 copies sold. The best-selling new album of the week is the second album by Endlicheri Endlicheri (also known as Tsuyoshi Domoto of Kinki Kids), which sold only 77,000 copies. Most of the albums still on the top 10 are holdovers such as Ai Otsuka and Kobukuro’s compilation albums and Mr. Children’s latest. Next week, expect boy pop collective Kat-tun to rule the charts with their latest (probably cashing in on the respective members’ debuting dramas).

- And looks like the music sales slump isn’t just a seasonal thing either - Hollywood Reporter reports that Japanese music sales have been declining since last year, and the majority of that loss actually is in declining sales of foreign music. Not that Japanese music weren’t selling less either; their decline just wasn’t as bad. One thing I don’t understand is why Japanese music as priced so much more expensive than its foreign counterpart - According to the figures, even foreign CD (album and singles included) cost an average of $9.30, while a Japanese music cost an average of $10.54. It doesn’t seem like a big difference, but Japanese albums can cost over 1000 yen more than American albums. Is it production costs? Is it simply a way to cash in on a market that can move almost 53 million units?

- Academy Award winner The Queen opened in one theater over the weekend, and in light of high advance ticket sales, the theater decides wisely to put it on two of its three screens. Eiga Consultant reports that decision was right, because with 428 seats available for 10 shows a day, The Queen attracted 4072 people, bringing in 5.59 million yen over the weekend. With expansion over the next two weekends, can The Queen become a sleeper hit in Japan?

- A while ago, I complained that Japanese television broadcasters were not stepping up quick enough to get its dramas overseas. Once a giant market for exporting dramas, Japan has since been overshadowed by South Korea. Finally, the broadcasters are waking up, and are collaborating with the Communication Ministry to build an online database for potential buyers of TV shows. Japan does make decent television shows that should be just as popular as the ones in South Korea, but its lack of access for foreign audience has caused those potential audiences to find other ways to access these contents such as Bittorrent and triad-sanctioned pirated discs.

- Speaking of TV, looks like TBS screwed up again, this time on reporting the Fujita food scandal.

- I like Lee Byung-Hun. I never watched his dramas, but he’s done some great movies such as J.S.A., Bungee Jumping of Their Own, and A Bittersweet Life. He’s also quite a heartthrob in Japan, although his movies haven’t done very well there. Of course, it would make sense that if a Japanese blockbuster were to need a Korean heartthrob, it’d be him or Bae Yong Joon (or Yonsama, as Japanese people call him). That’s why I’m not very surprised to hear that Lee has been casted in SMAP member/Asian superstar Kimura Takuya’s latest film Hero, a film version of the hit drama. It’s official - this movie is gonna be huge.

- Two weeks ago, I introduced the Japanese film Campaign. Turns out Jason Gray has seen it (as did people in film festivals around the world), and he offers far more information than I had on it. This makes me want to watch it even more.

- Now that I’m done with Japan, let’s pick on China. I swear I didn’t make this up:

CBS has chosen China as the next spot for its popular reality show Survivor. While this is a great development for western media trying to break into China, it should also speak volumes about how living in Mainland China can actually be equal to living on a jungle island in the middle of nowhere with no civilized necessity. Maybe finding a way to talk about Tiananmen Square in public without getting sent to a labor camp can be one of the challenges.

- Meanwhile, Hong Kong has its own battle to fight. On film, that is. More details have emerged about the so-called “Battle of Hong Kong” trilogy that actually sounds like it might be good. Called “The Exodus,” the sci-fi epic is about how enslaved citizens in Kowloon rise up against their wealthy captors on Hong Kong Island. Of course, if you look at the map of Hong Kong, you would realize that logistically, you don’t want to be the power holder and be stuck on an island, but I’m just nitpicking.

The summary still sounds very promising, until I read this ugly tagline by the director that seems better used for a Hollywood boardroom - ““This is Ten Commandments meets Blade Runner shot like 300.” Honestly, I don’t know how that’s gonna work out.

- The Singapore International Film Festival lineup has been announced, and this time the theme is “fuck the censors.” They will be showing “Syndromes and a Century” and “Village People Radio Show,” both Thai films that are in big trouble with the Thai censors. Also, they are fighting the Singaporean censors to get the local homosexual film “Solos” played at the festival uncut. The censors have already forced the Danish film “Princess” to withdraw from the festival, so they ain’t taking this fight lying down.

Edit: Ummm…I need to read the stories closer. As YTSL pointed out, the film festival is already underway, and Village People Radio Show was banned by the Malaysian censors. Disregard all that you just read and read the story yourself.

- The Herman Yau-directed/Dennis Law-produced Gong Tau (Curse) has a trailer up, thanks to the good people at Twitch. I personally loved the purple floating head, what’s your favorite?

- In an exercise in redundancy, the Australian government has backed the establishment of a Pan-Asian film awards. The Asia Pacific Screen Awards will take place in November in Queensland for at least three years before being moved to another country. In an even wiser movie, the show will be recorded for CNN and would concentrate on recognizing films from countries we don’t necessarily associate with film rather than blinging it up on the red carpet.

The bad news? It’ll only offer 3 nominations per category and its winner will be determined by a 3-member jury? It may beat Hong Kong in presentation, but this award might just lose on credibility.

- The developing story in Hong Kong is obviously the future of John Woo’s Battle of Red Cliff. Producer Terence Chang has shot back, citing Chow Yun-Fat’s attitude as the reason for his withdrawal. From Ming Pao, excerpt are as follows:

張家振承認投資者和發行商的確嫌發哥演周瑜太老，發哥的年齡的確是比周瑜大了20歲，但他和吳宇森一直都很維護發哥。真正的原因是發哥經律師擬定的合約，美國保險公司有73條不接納，他已盡量作出讓步，但可惜還是不能成事。

Terence Chang admits that investors and distributors complained that Chow was 20 years too old for the role, but John Woo and he have always protected Chow. The real reason is that the contract Chow’s lawyer wrote up - the American insurance company would not except 73 of the conditions. He [Chang?] already tried to compromise, but they couldn’t finalize it.

張家振說﹕「發哥要求在開拍前一次付清片酬，他說對每部獨立電影也一視同仁，後來我苦苦哀求，他才答應先付50%，收到錢3天後才向劇組報到，另外50%要我們在銀行一個帳戶，拍到一半時給他，雖然他不是一次拿到錢，但我也要一次把錢拿出來。（發哥的片酬是否很昂貴？）是500萬美元，另加全球分紅，沒有虧待他，他最近拍了4部電影的片酬加起來也不及此數目。」

Chang says: “Chow requested that his salary be paid in one installment before shooting began, he said that he treats every independent film the same. I end up pleading to him, so he agreed to taking 50% first and reporting to the set 3 days after receiving the money. The other 50% would be given to him halfway through shooting from a bank account. Even though Chow’s not getting the money in one installment, I have to raise the money in one installment. (Was Chow’s salary high?) It’s US$5 million, plus a cut of the worldwide gross. We don’t mistreat him, this salary is higher than the salaries he got from the last four movies he did combined.”

對於發哥指一星期前才收到劇本，張家振直斥這是廢話，他說﹕「早在去年，我就偷偷地交稿給他看。他在美國拍戲時，也跟我們提出了一些周瑜和小喬的感情戲，我們都覺得不錯。去年初，第一稿出來，我們同時給了他和梁朝偉，發哥有一些意見，向吳宇森和編導陳汗提出，編劇就發哥的說法潤飾了劇本， 此稿的確是一周前給他。」

Regarding Chow’s claim that he only got the script a week before shooting, Chang says that’s a lie. He says, “We’ve been showing him drafts since last year. When he was shooting another film in the States, he even gave us some suggestions regarding the romance that we thought was good. At the beginning of last year, the first draft came out, and we showed it to him and Tony Leung Chiu-Wai. Chow had some suggestions for John Woo and the screenwriter, so he changed the screenplay according to those suggestions. That draft did get to him a week beforehand.”

Original text in Chinese is here.

So there you have it. Who’s in the right? Who’s in the wrong? Chow admits that he did write up his contract in accordance to the Hollywood treatment he had, while Chang did admit that he only sent Chow the complete final draft a week before shooting. Meanwhile, even some of the Chinese press is blaming Chow’s wife for making these demands on the contract.

With Oriental Daily reporting that Tony Leung Chiu-Wai has actually joined the film again, but this time taking over Chow’s role, the plot thickens. More tomorrow when the latest Ming Pao comes online.

In less gossipy news about Red Cliff, Mei Ah has signed on as the distributor for the film, even without Chow, and predicted a HK$100-200 million gross in Hong Kong alone. Yeah, right.