Just checked out Steven Soderbergh’s latest attempt to emulate the good old days, better known as Ocean’s Thirteen. This second sequel to the original (itself a remake) takes the series back to its American stylistic roots after he veered into French New Wave territory with the last film. I always have fun watching Soderbergh’s mainstream (note mainstream) works because he would so blatantly recall a classic cinematic style as homage that it’s always a film student’s joy watching them (French New Wave? Check. 40s Warner Bros. black and white? Check. 60s Rat Pack romp? Check). This time, it’s the breezy 50s color comedies mixed with the best of 70s commercial filmmaking.

I honestly don’t remember enjoying Ocean’s Eleven much (I remember kind of liking it while watching it, but never really seeing a reason to go back to it ever), and I might’ve been the only person who had a load of fun with Ocean’s Twelve (exactly because of the tongue-in-cheek European film style, though the breakdancing thing was a bit much). With that said, I had a blast again with Ocean’s Thirteen, though this time they really up the disbelief ante. I can buy that the plan ends up going completely different than the plan they had spend the first two acts discussing, I can buy they can manage all that gadgetry, but I had a bit of trouble buying the earthquake bit. But who cares about logic when Soderbergh is upping the visual flair again with his “I so miss the 70s” camerawork and the oozing star chemistry throughout? It’s Al Pacino! It’s Brad Pitt! It’s George Clooney! It’s Matt Damon…..seducing Ellen Barkin! I don’t think I have to mention anymore. Unlike Pirates of the Caribbean (the only other huge third-movie I’ve seen this year), this series knows what breezy Hollywood entertainment ought to be, and it ends up delivering more by being less serious.

- It’s time for those Thursday Hong Kong opening day numbers. Today, we have three movies breaking into the market - Milkyway Production’s Eye in the Sky, directed by screenwriter Yau Nai-Hoi, David Fincher’s Zodiac, and the surprise American hit comedy Wild Hogs. Eye in the Sky didn’t do very well during 5 nights of previews this past weekend, and only made HK$230,000 on 28 screens on its official first day. Up to now, Eye in the Sky has made HK$570,000. As an adult-oriented and male-oriented thriller, business might pick up during the weekend, but I don’t see this making more than HK$2 million. Meanwhile, Zodiac picks up only HK$110,000 on 11 screens, even with its inflated ticket price (140 minutes and more=inflated ticket price), and Wild Hogs breaks down on arrival with only HK$40,000 on 7 screens.

Meanwhile, Fantasy Four is looking to lead the weekend again with HK$590,000 on 50 screens on Thursday, bringing its 8-day total to HK$12.37 million (theaterowners happy, HK film producers not so happy). The summer’s first HK film hit Simply Actors, starring Jim Chim and Charlene Choi, expands by two screens and makes HK$450,000 on 31 screens for a 3-day total of HK$2.2 million. It won’t hit the $1 million mark on daily box office this weekend, but I expect it to hit the $5 million mark after Sunday. Theaterowners are already giving up on Mr. Cinema and Kidnap, as they are still on 20-something screens, but only playing one to three shows a day. On Thursday, they made HK$150,000 and HK$50,000 for totals of HK$2.06 million and HK$1.73 million, respectively. Oh, and Norbit made another HK$30,000 on 9 screens for a 15-day total of HK$2.34 million.

(US$1=HK$7.8)

- Why did I mention Norbit? Because Eiga Consultant reports that it just went straight-to-DVD in Japan! Eddie Murphy comedies have always done badly in Japan, with 4 of his last 6 films (the other 2 being The Haunted Mansion and Dreamgirls) making less than 300 million yen (that’s less than US$3 million). Its title in Japanese? Mad Fat Wife (Maddo Fatto Wifu). No kidding.

- Technically, the Daily Yomiuri just scored the first official major review of Live Free or Die Hard (Die Hard 4.0 in Japan, a title I like a lot more) since it’s the first place in the world to show it. Reviewer Julian Satterthwaite says that it’s highly entertaining, but also grows increasingly ridiculous as it rolls along. It actually officially opens next Saturday, but has a full day of previews today in a ton of theaters.

If you can’t wait until next week to go watch it (and there are less of you out there than I think, as it’s not tracking very spectacularly in the United States, probably due to its PG-13 rating. Explanation: the first three films have been rated-R, suggesting the 4th film has been watered down in violence and foul language), Twitch has a link to 8 minutes of it.

- Variety, on the other hand, has one of the first reviews of Michael Bay’s Transformers. Big bad robots, lots of explosions, and unnecessary human subplots. Sounds like a blockbuster sci-fi movie to me.

- The entertainment industry doesn’t just like to bully people in America for piracy, they like to bully the rest of the world too. A court in China has ruled for a U.S. industry group in a lawsuit, ordering a Chinese firm to pay 4 major U.S. studios for copyright violation. Looks like it’ll be a long time before Hollywood knows what “if you can’t beat them, join them” means, especially that they know this ruling doesn’t really do much to stop things.

- David Strathairn, a great character actor who’s done some great work (especially in George Clooney’s Good Night and Good Luck), has just been casted in the Hollywood remake of the Korean horror film A Tale of Two Sisters. I’m slightly looking more forward to it now. It starts shooting next month.

- Looks like Erika Sawajiri is heading to a recording career after all, as I just found her first music video under the name “Erika” on Youtube today. With that weak vocal and generic melody, it’s not really Song of the Day material (then again, you can argue against a ton of choice I’ve made…).

- The silly box office battle between Spiderman 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean 3 is coming to an end, as a definite winner is pretty much set.

- Andrew Lau has hooked up with the Weinsteins to produce three films under his new production company. Lau and Weinstein - now that’s a formula for crappy commercial films. Honestly, I can’t ever get excited about neither Lau or Weinstein’s Asian stuff, so just go to the link to read more.

- I had no idea that the public holiday in Hong Kong ended up being on Tuesday the 19th, not Monday the 18th. That would explain why Fantastic Four ended up making another HK$2.12 million on 60 screens Tuesday in Hong Kong, bringing a 6-day total of HK$11.14 million. Simply Actors, starring Jim Chim and Charlene Choi, is a hit with HK$970,000 on 29 screens on its first full day of screenings (it made an additional HK$250,000 the previous night). Mr. Cinema continues to do weakly with just HK$300,000 on 27 screens for a 6-day total of HK$1.7 million. It has now surpassed Kidnap, which made only HK$230,000 on 25 screens on Tuesday for a HK$1.56 million after 6 days plus previews. Milkyway’s Eye in the Sky has accumulated a total of HK$340,000 after 4 nights of preview screenings. It opens officially on Thursday. 4 Hong Kong movies on the top 10 - that’s a rare sight for sore eyes.

- Oricon released the rankings for music and DVDs sold in the first half of 2007. On the singles chart, Sen No Kaze Ni Natte is the number one top-seller with 916,000 copies sold. Released late last year, sales for the single rocketed after Masafumi Akikawa appeared on the year-end Kohaku Uta Gassen, and has been steady through the first six months of the year. In a far-off second is Utada Hikaru’s Flavor of Life, which in my opinion is easily Utada’s most mediocre single ever released (And I’m speaking as a fan who has shelled out 30+ dollars for her stuff since her first album); it has sold nearly 630,000 copies. Arashi’s Love So Sweet rounds out the top 3, selling nearly 421,000 copies. It’s official: Hana Yori Dango 2 ruled the music world.

In albums, Mr. Children not so surprisingly tops the chart, selling over 1.12 million copies of their album Home. I was a little surprised that Koda Kumi managed to sell 998,000 copies of her album Black Cherry, and Ayumi Hamasaki rounds out the top 3rd and 4th place with her compilation albums A BEST 2 WHITE and A BEST 2 BLACK. More surprising is the third best-selling non-compilation Japanese album would not show up until 7th place with YUI’s Can’t Buy My Love. Even Avril Lavigne managed to sell 656,000 copies of the album with that annoying Girlfriend song. Someone save J-pop.

In the DVD charts, the best selling DVD so far this year is Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (which I’m sure was helped by the follow-up At World’s End), selling 430,000 copies. Second place is Hitoshi Matsumoto’s roundtable discussion DVD with 310,000 copies, and third place is the best-selling Japanese film so far this year, Umizaru 2: Limit of Love, with 267,000 copies. Even the huge pop culture event of last year, Death Note, has only sold 244,000 copies of its complete set since March. The reason why the sales seem bad is because Japan has a very active rental market due the gap between the price of a rental (400-500 yen) and the price of a DVD (2500-4000 yen for a single movie). With such a huge price difference, it’s understandable why people would rather rent than buy.

- In the weekly charts, Sen No Kaze Ni Natte is still selling strong in the singles chart. This week, it’s at 16th place, selling 7,300 copies as it inches slowly towards that million mark. Meanwhile, YUI rules the chart with the debut of her new single, selling just 79,000 copies. The Korean boy band Dong Bang Shin Ki (TVXQ) managed to sell 35,000 copies of their latest single for a second place debut. Dreams Come True’s latest disappoints slightly at third place, with only 31,000 copies sold of their latest single. Even a wedding didn’t help troublemaker DJ Ozma’s latest single, debuting at 14th place selling only 7,400 copies. Gackt’s Japanese theme for Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige is expected to win the charts next week, as shown in the daily rankings.

On the albums chart, Bon Jovi’s album hits a very surprising first place, selling 73,000 copies. ZARD’s Golden Best compilation continues to sell very well as it remains at second place with another 54,000 copies sold. There’s no real major Japanese album release this past week, so it all looks a bit quiet. Next week, Crystal Kay may earn her first number one album, if the daily rankings hold up.

- In Taiwan, three Hong Kong/Macau university students decided to show how ineffective news reporting is by creating fake news items and forwarding them to television stations. And those stations actually ended up running the stories without any verification. Someone’s in the big trouble, and it’s not the students.

- Sales are down this year at the Shanghai Television Festival, especially historical dramas. Good news is that over 40% of the stall holders were from outside Mainland China, which means it’s no longer just a place for the Chinese market. However, only 1.2% of the buyers were from Europe and the U.S..

Meanwhile, the German film March of Millions took the top TV Film Award at the Shanghai TV Festival. The strangest win in my mind was the best TV Series Award to Living, based on the same novel as Zhang Yimou’s To Live. To Live gets banned, but the drama version wins an award in China?

- Twitch has a longer trailer to new director Carl Zhang’s Lovers. It looks real pretty with the filters and all, but all it says is that the guy has some style. Let’s hope his directing and writing will back it up.

- Since Japan’s United International Pictures is packing up, Hollywood studio Paramount just flat out decided to do things themselves by distributing their own films in Japan.

- Reviews, reviews, reviews. Variety surprisingly already has a review of current Japanese blockbuster Maiko Haaaan!!! up already, while the Daily Yomiuri has a review of Naomi Kawase’s The Mourning Forest. On the same note, Japan Times has a feature on the French translator who helped translate the scenario and the script to get French funding for The Mourning Forest, which makes the fact that he still hasn’t met the director somewhat strange.

- A government-appointed advisory panel in Singapore is urging the authorities to embrace the new media by finding new ways to take advantage of traditional forms of entertainment. Then there’s a bunch of vague official suggestions that look like English, but not really.

- Shanghai finally has their first full-fledged art house theater. Hong Kong had so many of them that they had to get rid of them one by one. OK, that’s not why they’re diminishing, but Hong Kong still has plenty of them.

- Andy Lau pisses off a CCTV program by refusing to appear on their human interest show. But then they piss off the people by complaining about it. This comment is my favorite: “If Andy Lau won’t come, you criticize him. What if Andy Lau criticizes you directly? Are you going to give him a physical beating?”

- Wilson Yip is making yet another Donnie Yen movie, but at least it’s not just another action movie. It’ll be a supernatural action movie. I thought China doesn’t like ghost and supernatural tales.

- Takeshi Kitano (Beat Takeshi is fine too) is returning to the TV drama world, except it’ll only be a two-part made-for-TV film.

- The Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival (I think they mean Fantasy rather than boasting that the films will be fantastic) has announced its lineup, which includes Oxide Pang’s Diary, Yamashita Nobuhiro’s The Matsugane Potshot Affair, and a special program of films by Herman Yau.

- The international hit drama “Jewel in the Palace” (Dae Jang Geum) is going to the stage in Japan after it was successful adapted as a musical earlier this year in Korea. Performance will begin this December.

- The Daily Yomiuri has a feature on the Japanese documentary Election, which has seen very good word-of-mouth.

- Director Mamoru Oshii, best known for the animated film Ghost in the Shell, announced that his next film will be The Sky Crawlers, based on the novel by Hiroshi Mori. I haven’t seen any of his work, so I can’t really comment on this.

- Twitch has a set of reviews for the films playing at the upcoming New York Asian Film Festival in case you can’t decide what to watch. The festival starts this weekend.

- The somewhat incomplete Japanese box office numbers are in. I say incomplete because either Kantoku Banzai has fallen below 15th place, or Office Kitano has flat out decided not to report its grosses anymore, and the opening weekend of 300 is not as spectacular as the numbers report. Box Office Mojo reports that 300 made about US$3.4 million, or 415 million yen. But the total indicates that it included the previous week’s previews into its total gross, which means that as Eiga Consultant reports, 300 made 330 million yen, or roughly US$2.71 million with a per-screen average of US$5,995. Of course, that still makes a very impressive opening, and it’s still 209% of Sin City’s opening, but it’s still overshadowed by Pirates of the Caribbean.

Unlike most of the world, Pirates is actually enjoying a very healthy long-term run, dropping just 20% from the previous week for another 941 million yen. After three weekends, Pirates has already made almost 6.2 billion yen, and will pass Spiderman 3’s gross mid-week. Still, Spidey 3 has already surpassed the previous movie’s gross, and as indicated by its slow 25-30% drop, it should end up making just a little more than the first film, too.

Everywhere else on the top 10 looks pretty stable, with only the Hollywood flick Shooter seeing a considerable drop. Even Dai Nipponjin survived its lackluster word-of-mouth, losing only about 28% of its business (Knocked Up lost more than that in its second weekend, and it’s an audience favorite). In a one-theater limited release, Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto made a promising 1.8 million yen. It’ll go on wide release this coming weekend. NOTE: It will not feature English subtitles.

- Speaking of Pirates of the Caribbean, the notorious Chinese censors have approved the third film to play in Chinese theaters. However, they banned the first two movies (which are kind of crucial to understand the third one, no?), and they cut out half of Chow Yun-Fat’s scenes. Now people are not only utterly confused, they even lost much of the their main reason for buying a ticket to watch it in theaters. Disney is wasting their money, this one is pretty likely to flop in China.

- In Thailand, director Pen-ek Ratanaruang’s Ploy opened only modestly. However, its first weekend gross has already surpassed the total domestic gross of his last film, Invisible Waves. For a filmmaker associated with the words “arthouse cinema,” I would say that’s pretty good.

- I have honestly seen very few Japanese films that actually have original screenplays. Many of them are adapted from novels (so much that I took a whole class of Japanese films adapted from novels), comics, video games, or continuation of TV dramas. Then again, a bulk of Hollywood films is made the same way. However, Ryuganji points out that it’s getting a little out of hand these days in Japan.

- Elizabeth Banks has signed on to play the young stepmother role in the American remake of A Tale of Two Sisters. I liked her in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, but like all American remakes of Asian films, I remain very very skeptical about this.

- China is getting ready to fight back at the United States after they filed two cases against China with the World Trade Organization. However, with the complaint, China is now less likely to open up its film market any quicker just to get on Hollywood’s nerves.

On the other hand, the EU is warning that it will “go to trade war” with China if they don’t improve cracking down on piracy. Who needs who more these days anyway? You try stopping a billion people from making pirated versions of your overpriced goods.

- Meanwhile, Hong Kong seems to have a thing or two to complain about Japan too. TV Asahi showed its made-for-TV biopic of Asian superstar Teresa Tang on June 2nd, which was shown simultaneously in Hong Kong as well. Since Tang did spend a huge chunk of her career in Hong Kong, the Hong Kong press would naturally put how the Japanese portray Hong Kong under a lot of scrutiny. As a result, Ming Pao had a field day pointing out how much the show screwed up:

1) The movie starts in 1973, when a Japanese talent manager discovered Tang in Hong Kong still under British colonial rule. Yet, the Hong Kong Special Administraive Region flag was seen at the location, instead of the colonial flag.
2) In the scenes that take place during the 80s, the Bank of China Tower (built in 1989) and the International Finance Center (built in 2003) were seen in the background from the Peak.
3) The Murray House was not restored in Stanley, where Tang lived, until 1998. However, it appeared in the film’s 80s scenes as well.

There are a bunch of other nitpicks in that report as well. While I can’t blame Ming Pao for nitpicking (”ha ha! Japanese TV crews suck just as much!”), TV Asahi just didn’t have the money to reproduce all these historical locations with cgi. Plus, it’s not like Hong Kong productions are very good at conveying foreign locations either.

- Disney has signed a deal with an Indian studio to produce several computer-animated features aimed for the region. No word on whether Disney will ever plan to release these films outside the region.

- Ryuganji also has news on upcoming and ongoing projects from Miki Satoshi, all of them starring Joe Odagiri. He also adds on another upcoming Odagiri project as well. It’s all a little complicated, you should go read it yourself, since Joe Odagiri may soon be the male version of Erika Sawajiri. These Japanese stars just never rest.

- Andy Lau really is the hardest working man in Chinese entertainment: When he’s done filming Daniel Lee’s historical epic this month, he’ll do a cameo for a Focus Films production that he’s investing in, then an album and concert tour. All by the end of the year.

- Considering that the film will be entirely in English, it’s so surprise that there’s an English website up for Takeshi Miike’s Sukiyaki Western Django. However, the trailer remains on the original website, so just go to Twitch instead of getting confused.

Jason Gray also reports that Quentin Tarantino showed up in Japan at the end of the shoot to film his cameo, which would explain why he was not in the trailer and why he showed up at the wrap-up ceremony.

- Do we really need an Asian version of Oprah? Apparently someone thought so.

- Lastly, Tokyograph left a comment yesterday with more about Tea Fight, starring Erika Toda. They had this to say:

“About “Tea Fight” - there actually is a director named, but I know nothing about Taiwanese or Chinese names. The Japanese form is ワン・イェミン, which seems to be something like Wang Ye-Ming, but the closest I could find is an actor. The article says the person was an assistant director for “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” but none of the credits I could find (imdb or elsewhere) match the name.

Here’s what another article said about the story (roughly): “The father runs an old tea shop, and he closes shop after his wife dies from what he believes to be a ‘tea curse.’ Through the internet, the daughter finds out about a legendary tea and travels to Taiwan in search of it. The father then follows her, concerned that it may be a trap by Taiwanese tea-makers.” There’s also mention of Taiwanese mafia being involved in the story somehow.”

I can’t seem to find the name through various variations on that name either. But still, that’s more than helpful. Thanks!

Brace yourselves, this is going to be a long entry to read and an even longer entry for me to write:

- As expected, Ocean’s Thirteen led the pack on Sunday box office in Hong Kong. On 59 screens (still a fairly high number), Ocean’s Thirteen made HK$1.57 million for a current 4-day total of HK$5.41 million, which puts it just slightly ahead of Ocean’s Twelve, even though Twelve opened only 44 screens. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End slows down by just a bit with HK$1.02 million on 51 screens (a HK$20,000 per-screen average for a film in its third weekend is pretty good in my book) for a 18-day total of HK$38.33 million. It probably won’t hit Spiderman 3’s current gross of HK$54.94 million, but it’ll pass the HK$40 million mark pretty easily.

Meanwhile, Norbits makes a better-than-expected HK$360,000 on 16 screens to get a 4-day total of HK$1.18 million (I guess I was wrong about that), Japanese sports film Rough made only HK$30,000 on 7 screens for a very weak 4-day total of HK$140,000; and British film Cashback continues to be strong in limited release with another HK$60,000 on just 2 screens for an 11-day total of HK$510,000;

- In Japan, the attendance ranking shows Pirates taking the weekend again as 300 opens at second place and the Prestige opens at 5th. Dai Nipponjin also continues strong at 3rd place, as Kantoku Banzai has fallen off the top 10 already. Number crunching to come tomorrow.

On the other hand, Eiga Consultant reports that two limited releases have done quite well in Tokyo. Notes on a Scandal, starring Cate Blanchett and Dame Judi Dench, opened in two theaters on June 2nd and saw 2006 admissions for a 2.78 million yen opening. With nine shows that day for two theaters combined, that’s an average of 223 people per showing, which would be impossible in one theater and a full house in the other (not sure if these theaters offer standing room, which some Tokyo theaters do). Apparently, good word-of-mouth is spreading as it expanded this weekend, though it seems like it didn’t make it into the top 10.

The other movie is Sydney Pollack’s documentary Sketches of Frank Gehry. At one theater in Shibuya, the opening day saw 1500 admissions for 2.32 million yen and full houses of mostly design freaks and art students. However, it seems like attendance has died down, as the theater recommends that getting there 10-30 minutes before the show is fine now.

- In South Korea, Shrek 3 came in and took care of business by opening with 1.6 million admissions since Wednesday, which is a pretty damn good opening by any count. Hwang Jin-Yi isn’t doing so well with just roughly 700,000 admissions since Wednesday. Pirates took another pretty big tumble with only 75,000 admissions in Seoul, although it might end up doing better than Spiderman 3, which only saw 600 admissions in Seoul this week. You can see the rest of the top 10 yourself.

Oh, and Mark Russell went and watched Michael Bay’s “Best Summer Movie You Haven’t Seen Yet” Transformers (By the way, MTV is owned by Viacom. Transformers home studio is Paramount. Also owned by Viacom. See the coincidence?) and he can’t say anything yet, except that he liked it.

- This past week in Japanese TV dramas (see here for all drama introductions), we see the audience favorite Kaette Kita Jikou Keisatsu wrapped up to its highest rating of 13.5, Proposal Daisakusen (or Operation Love) saw its biggest ratings hike from 14.6 in the past week to 19.1 for its 8th episode, nearing the season high of 19.3. It remains the season’s highest-rated drama with an average of 16.8, and will likely to keep its place unless some type of divine intervention comes in. Joudan Janai also continues its slow climb back to respectability with a 12.8 rating, while Sexy Voice and Robo finds another new low with a 6.4 rating as it nears its end within these two weeks. Liar Game, Bambino, and Hotelier also see rebounds this week, as the weakest spring season in years begin to come to a close.

- Erika Toda, currently starring in Liar Game, has been casted in Tea Fight, a Japanese-Taiwanese co-production scheduled to shoot late this year mostly in Taiwan. Not much details on the film (not even director), but I can imagine the film would include tea and/or fighting.

- Apparently Bollywood has so many movies that they needed six hours to pass out all of its awards. The youth film Rang de Basanti, which is seeing its shorter cut released soon, won ten of the 15 cetegories, including best film.

- My favorite Japanese band is probably Love Psychedelico, especially after I saw them in concert back in 2005. At the end of June, they’re finally getting their own “Bokura No Ongaku” special. Considering their 60s Hippie rock influence, I’m not at all surprised that they would invite Yoko Ono. I’m just surprised that she actually agreed.

- Hong Kong’s Big Media Group, which announced its opening during the Hong Kong International Film Festival back in March, has unveiled its initial slate of films. They include mid-budget films by Wilson Yip, Wong Ching-Po, Joe ma, Jingle Ma (no relations), anc Vincent Kok, among others. Their only big-budget production so far is “Another Better Tomorrow, which will not be a remake and is trying to cast both Hong Kong and Korean stars. Except for the whole “Another Better Tomorrow” thing, I really like that they’re trying to do mid-budget productions with new talents, boasting production values instead.

- Still, looks like America thinks it has a thing or two to teach Hong Kong. Actually, I would like to sit in one of these things.

- Twitch laments for Isao Yukisada’s career, although I still think his comparatively subdued handling of a melodrama like Crying Out For Love in the Center of the World is top-notch commercial filmmaking (OK, it’s a little long, but a lot of Japanese films are). Oh, they also have a link to the trailer of his latest film, which seems like a children’s melodrama about building something for space.

- Jason Gray offers his own take on the Matsumoto-vs-Kitano comedian battle after seeing both Kantoku Banzai and Dai Nipponjin. The latter still sounds like quite a film.

- Meanwhile, Hollywood Reporter has finally chimed in with a review of Naomi Kawase’s The Mourning Forest, calling it a slow-moving film that might have worked better as a 30-minute short.

- I’m only reporting this because I know some people that like the Japanese pop collective (it’s too large to just be called a group) AAA. One of its member, Yukari Goto, is leaving the group due to health reasons, and will leave the pop collective with “only” seven members.

- The Shanghai Television is getting underway today, followed by the film festival, and this is the first year that the Shanghai Television Festival is operating on its own, before the actual film festival commences. On the other hand, the film festival will run its first SIFF market, which should do fairly well with the increasing reputation of Chinese films today.

- This is a strange and even somewhat contrived way of marketing a film - Saiyuki, the Japanese bastardiz….re-imagination of the famous Chinese tale Journey to the West, is promoting its film version with a fake cast, including another SMAP member Tsuyoshi Kusanagi and pop star Koda Kumi, on its poster.

- Ratings for Japanese animations is dropping overall due to a decreasing number of children, more extracurricular activities, more Wii playing (which is better exercise than watch cartoon anyway), and other reasons that seem to have nothing to do with quality.

- Since I already started following it, I might as well keep reporting it. Netizens in Hong Kong have found a new way to attack Hong Kong’s Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority - by complaining about a porn hyperlink seen on a government website.

- After proving to be a talented actress, Yu Aoi has a chance to prove her worth as a voice actress as the lead in a new high-budget animation special for Fuji Television.

- Twitch has the link to the full trailer for The Insects Unlisted in the Encyclopedia, Rinko Kikuchi’s first Japanese film after her Oscar-nominated performance in Babel. It looks weird.

- After winning the week at the Oricon singles chart last week, L’Arc~en~Ciel announces that they will release one single each month for five months starting August, as well as a new album and a concert DVD.

There’s so much news from Japan today that this entry might as well be called “Nippon Thursday.”

- Having been one of the top 5 dramas of the 2006 Spring season, Kurosagi is being turned into a feature film. Starring boy band NEWS’ Tomohisa Yamashita (currently in the hit drama Proposal Daisakusen), this will be his first feature film lead role, and the film is scheduled to be released next Spring.

- More on the opening of Kantoku Banzai. It’s 40 million yen opening on 113 screens is merely 72% of Takeshis’, which only made 280 million yen. Just like Takeshis’, the alienating nature of the film will probably mean that word of mouth won’t be good. On the other hand, like Takeshis’, Office Kitano should make its money back through foreign sales.

- Ryuganji has a really interesting commentary on a Japan Times commentary about the state of Japanese films. One is bleak about the state of Japanese films, the other says “hey, it ain’t so bad out here.” Guess which is which.

- One of the filmmakers mentioned in the Japan Times commentary is Cannes winner Naomi Kawase. Thanks to her Cannes win, she was recently able to go to the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry to try and convince the government in helping out the film industry. Why? Because her film is playing on only 28 screens in Japan when it’ll open on 70 of them in France.

- Fans of Hong Kong films in Japan: Milkyway screenwriter Yau Nai-Hoi’s Eye in the Sky is heading your way. Fans of Cheng Chen in North America: The Go Master is heading your way, too, but only if you have Netflix.

- On Monday, I wrote about the successful limited release performance of British film Cashback in Hong Kong. Today, Twitch offers us a trailer, as well as the original short film that led to the feature film. It actually looks pretty good.

- Toho-Towa, a major foreign film distributor in Japan, has signed up to release 14 movies for Universal, including about one film per month in 2008. I thought Universal is already trying their hand at investing Japanese films, but looks like they still need some help from one of the big three.

- Until recent years, martial arts films were actually banned from being made in China. Now that the ban has been lifted, it seems like studios are trying to catch up. Yuen Woo-Ping is rumored to be getting back into the director’s chair after years of working in major films in both Hollywood and China, and it might be a sequel to Iron Monkey starring Andy Lau. Yawn.

- Hollywood Reporter has a review of Memories of Tomorrow, starring Ken Watanabe as an Alzheimer’s patient. The film is due to be shown in different cities around America in the coming months.

- Young singer-songwriter Ayaka (whose first official single was already her first bona-fide hit) is now the first Japanese artist to have a video debut as a world premiere on the iTunes store. No big deal, you say? She’s only the third artist in the world to have such a privilege. Her new single Jewelry Day will be released on July 4th, as her first album will also be sold in 22 regions around the world after already selling over one million copies in Japan alone.

- Professor Bordwell writes about the recent wave of omnibus films, especially the Cannese 60th Anniversary anthology film To Each His Own Cinema.

- I’ve been looking forward to Shoot ‘Em Up since Jeffrey Wells wrote about its development on Hollywood Elsewhere, and now a trailer is finally up. It’s not as crazy as I thought it would be, but considering it’s just a trailer, it looks like quite a bit of fun to me already. But what the hell is a classy lady like Monica Bellucci doing in a film like this?

- Someone is suing Universal and director Judd Apatow because she believes his new hit film Knocked Up, about an up-and-coming reporter having a one-night stand that leads to an unplanned pregnancy, was obviously based on her book, about an up-and-coming reporter’s night at her engagement party that leads to an unplanned pregnancy. This one could go either way.

- The world is changing fast. These days, a movie makes US$218 million by the end of its second weekend, and suddenly it’s a disappointment. Of course, Pirates’ disappointment probably has something to do with the 61% drop from last weekend, but that can be easily attributed to it 1) opening on a record-breaking holiday weekend, and 2) on too many screens to meet demands rather than relying on steady stream of word-of-mouth. I think the movie is getting generally good responses from people, but everyone that needed to see it had plenty of chances to see it already, so those that need convincing aren’t going to because they missed out on the first two. Anyway, with a current global take of US$624 million (to add to the over US$1 billion the second movie already made) there’s absolutely no doubt that everyone’s going to be smiling to the bank when it’s all over - they’re just upset that their deposit is a little smaller than before.

Pirates continued to do strongly (though still lagging behind Spiderman 3) on Sunday in Hong Kong, making HK2.55 million on 88 screens for a 11-day total of HK$32.92 million - that’s an average of almost HK$30,000 per day. Look for this sucker to break the HK$40 million mark, but remember - the ticket prices are 20-30% higher than the usual ticket price, so the only real gauge of success is audience admissions, and I don’t see Hong Kong releasing that type of figures anytime soon.

Meanwhile, urban romantic-docudrama-comedy Single Blog makes HK$280,000 on 28 screens for a lackluster 4-day total of HK$1.06 million. The word-of-mouth seems to be doing OK on the mov3 message board (a lot of them are saying it’s funnier than they expected), but quite a few people seemed to have gone in with free tickets. With Ocean’s 13 taking over the screens this weekend, I doubt the chain theaters are going to give this film a chance. By the way, as I mentioned last week, the “blog” connection is stated in the trailer - that 99% of the film is based on experiences people write in blogs. Just what blogs and how many blogs I have no idea. The rest of Hong Kong cinemas seem kind of ho-hum, except for the surprising performance of British film Cashback. On 2 screens, the comedy made an impressive HK$60,000 for a 4-day total of HK$190,000.

Box Office Mojo only has the top 6 movies on their site, so I’ll wait until they have the full ranking before I talk about numbers. However, I do have the attendance rankings, and as expected, Pirates took the weekend again (but with much more staying power than it did in the States). The bigger surprise is Hitoshi Matsumoto’s Dai Nipponjin showing up at 2nd place. Apparently, it opened wider than I thought, though it’s not playing in that many theaters in Central Tokyo (look at the screen counts for Pirates and the new Masami Nagasawa movie for comparison). It also beat Takeshi Kitano’s Kantoku Banzai by quite a margin, as Kantoku opened at only 10th place, right under The Banquet (!!).

Eiga Consultant further analyzes the opening weekend of the previous mentioned new Masami Nagasawa film, Sono Toki Wa Kare Ni Yoroshiku. Nagasawa got her big break with the 2004 Japanese blockbuster Crying Out For Love In the Center of the World (whose DVD probably sold so many copies that I managed to get a second-hand DVD in Tokyo for just 500 yen), and has had a considerable presence in both movies (Tears For You and Rough) and TV (Sailor Suit and Machine Gun and the currently-playing Proposal Daisakusen) ever since. However, the opening of Sono seems to prove that maybe she isn’t the big box office attraction after all. Sono made 89 million yen on its Saturday opening, which is only 94% of Rough and 23% of Tears For You. After the ratings disappointment that was Sailor Suit (only a 13.3 average rating, including a 45% drop from its first to third episode) and this, Eiga Consultant wonders whether the success of Nagasawa’s outing depend more on her male co-stars? After all, Proposal Daisakusen has boy band member Tomohisa Yamashita, and Tears for You has hunky actor Satoshi Tsumabaki. Too bad, I actually fell quite head over heels for Masami-chan (she’s three years younger than me, so I get to call her that!) after Crying Out for Love.

- Meanwhile, the recent blockbusters have been taking up so much screens in Korea (and pretty much everywhere else, come to think of it) that the Korean government is actually looking into whether studios are breaking monopoly laws. However, since these screen counts were reached by consensus between theaterowners and distributors (more demand=more screens=bigger cut), not much wrongdoing is likely to be found.

- Speaking of Proposal Daisakusen (as always, see Tokyo Graph for all drama introductions), it took quite a dive in the Japanese dramas ratings last week, dropping from a 17.4 % in week 6 to a 14.7% rating in week 7. Sexy Voice and Robo suffered from NTV dropping their 7th episode as episode 8 shows a new ratings low with only 6.5%. The Japanese remake of Korean drama Hotelier, starring Aya Ueto, also saw its lowest rating at 7.1 this past week. After announcing its planned 3-hour finale, Liar Game saw its first ratings drop in 6 weeks, from 12.0% to 11.4%. This is Fuji’s first attempt at a late-night drama, and it appears to have worked quite well. Meanwhile, TBS’s Sunday night disappointment Joudan Janai! finally stopped its freefall by recovering a slight bit on Sunday night. Starring Yuji Oda, the sitcom-like drama went back up from a 10.7 % rating last week to a 11.3% rating this week.

- Over the weekend, I posted a link to the Korean monster film D-War. Now an August release date has finally been set in both North America (where the distributor plans to open in on over 1000 screens) and in Korea. It’s hard to believe director Shim Hyung-Rae managed to get US$70 million to make this, although over half of it went to starting up a brand-new effects house for it.

- Director Katsuhito Ishii (Taste of Tea, Funky Forest: The First Contact) has leaked out some details of his latest film “Yama no Anata ~Tokuichi no Koi~.” A “cover” of the 1938 silent film “Anma to Onna,” the film will star SMAP’s Tsuyoshi Kusanagi as a blind masseur that I assume is not named Zatoichi.

- Spanish cinema is getting to be such a commodity that some of the biggest international film buyers are heading to Madrid for the latest screenings. I wonder if this is helped by the success of Pan’s Labyrinth, or am I just assuming too much because of my lack of knowledge about Spanish cinema?

- After the Indian film Rang de Basanti got nominations at the BAFTA, its studio UTV decided to release a new cut that’s 30 minutes shorter to capture more audiences. No word whether the new cut is approved by director Rakeysh Screwvalla, but he does have a comment in the article, so it would seem so.

- After appearing in 6 films, starring in one TV drama (Taiyou no Uta, or the drama version of Midnight Sun, which was confirmed to be inspired by the Hong Kong film C’est la vie, Mon Cheri), and releasing a single under said drama character’s name, Erika Sawajiri may be headed for a singing career. Sony Music has introduced a new singer named Erika who happens to look like her, has the same birthday as her, and even has the same voice….except she was born in Paris, unlike Sawajiri. But, but, she’s not even much of a singer.

- r@sardonicsmile is looking forward to the comedy Maiko haaaan, written by Ping Pong screenwriter Kankuro Kudo, and with good reason, too - it has Shibasaki Kou as a maiko.

- Twitch reviews the Korean animated film Yobi, The Five-Tailed Fox, from the team that brought you My Beautiful Girl Mari.

- There’s a parody of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing floating around the web, starring those Fisher Price Sesame Street toys. I’ve had neither, but I still found it hilarious.

- Jim Carrey is getting to be more of an actor than just another funnyman - I loved his performance in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and I guess taking on a thriller like The Number 23 sounded pretty good on paper. Now he’s taking on the dark comedy I Love You Philip Morris, as a real-life character who escaped prison four times after falling in love madly with his released-cellmate.

- Lastly, one of those people who got sued by the America record industry for downloading is now fighting back, countersuing the RIAA and Universal on several counts, including trespassing. That way, everyone loses!

- Youtube/Google and record company EMI have struck a deal to place video contents on Youtube legally. Artists under the EMI label include Coldplay and David Bowie (wait, does David Bowie even make music anymore?). Universal music also has a similar deal in place with Youtube. Too bad only North American music labels have deals so far, everything else is just getting their copyrights violated.

- Meanwhile, Asian music is seeing a huge market at making their products available for mobile users, and for a very good reason. In fact, a survey says most people expect music to only be available digitally in the next few years….as long as these music will be provided in uncompressed 1400k wav files (OK, I added that last part myself).

- This weekend, two films by two major comedians in Japan opened. First, there’s Takeshi Kitano’s latest “Kantoku Banzai” (”Long Live the Director!”), which is supposed to be quite strange and alienating like Takeshis’. There’s also “Dai Nipponjin,” the directorial debut of famous comedian Hitoshi Matsumoto (he’s the bald guy that does those batsu games). There were rumors that the films are opening on the same day to allow some cross-promotion, since the two comedians seem to cross paths on TV quite often. I can’t seem to find any articles about it (though I remember I read something about that), but if you need any proof that there’s any of that happening, just look at the following clip of Hitoshi Matsumoto on the comedy show “Waratte Itomo,” where he not only talks about his Cannes experience, but also have a crew member hang posters of his own film AND Kantoku Banzai in the back. Damn it, I want both of those posters.

I also predicted that there might be some kind of box office battle this weekend between these two films. I was wrong, they’re both fairly small releases (maybe just under 100 screens?), so Pirates will probably win the weekend again.

- I wrote about the so-so box office of last weekend’s opener Shaberedomo Shaberedomo before. Turns out it’s not doing quite well. The film, a drama about Japanese stand-up comedy (except they sit down, which….I guess makes it sit-down comedy in Japan terms), stars Johnny’s Entertainment-managed group Tokio member Taichi Kokubun and is actually doing worse than films featuring other Johnny’s talents. For instance, compared to those films that opened on less than 250 screens, Shaberedomo’s 39.7 million yen opening is only 66% of Sakurai Sho’s Honey and Clover’s opening, though it did open 143% of the opening for “Nezu no Ban” (A Hardest Night), another film about Japanese comedians. In addition, its “main theater” in Ginza reported full houses all weekend. Perhaps word-of-mouth (partly from positive reviews) will give it legs at the box office.

- Japan Times also rips the ridiculous Hollywood blockbuster 300 a new one this weekend.

- I know Ryu Seung-Wan (City of Violence, Arahan, Crying Fist) is a favorite among Asian action film fans out there. After exploring contemporary films, now he’s kind of moving on to period films….except said period film will have zombies in it too.

- Joost is supposed to be the high-quality alternative to Youtube, plus legal content. I have it, but it doesn’t have much to keep me tuned in. This isn’t going to help me keep tuning in, but I think this might encourage some other people to try it. However, Joost is currently invitation-only. Still, just google “Joost invite” and you can find one easily.

- People in the UK are now lucky enough to pre-order the excellent German film The Lives on Others on DVD. I know it’s not Asian, but I like the movie.

- A few weeks ago I put up the link to a teaser for Takeshi Miike’s high school brawl film Crows Zero. Apparently, the film won’t be an all-out boys fest; it will now have approximately one female character in it. Jeez, now I’m just making the movie sound like a prison sentence with periodical conjugal visits.

- Korea Pop Wars has an amusing story about how a win in the art world is overshadowing big bad Hollywood advertising. That’s right, Shrek, you just got your big promotional plan beat down by the French.

- Canada, sit tight. You guys are getting the Election movies in theaters starting yesterday! Just don’t bring a video camera to the theater anymore. Too bad I’ll be missing the August 17th opening of Exiled on the big screen in the United States (I’ll be in Hong Kong already by then).

- Speaking of which, forget about uploading TV shows; don’t even think of trying to spread them, especially episodes of 24.

- Lastly, there are more information about Tsui Hark’s latest film Missing, which somehow has something to do with a sunken wedding ring and an underwater city.

That’s it for today, we’ll wrap up the weekend tomorrow.

As I wrote yesterday, I revisited the Iwo Jima saga by Clint Eastwood for Memorial Day in the United States. But except for my point that one should watch Letters From Iwo Jima before Flags of Our Fathers, I couldn’t write anything beyond that.

Anyway, my reasoning for the reverse order is simple chronological order: Letters takes place before and over the course of the battle of Iwo Jima, and at least half of Flags takes place after the battle. Since one is likely to suffer battle fatigue by the end of Letters, the fragmentary nature of Flags (which shows the battle using flashback moments) would work more effectively. In fact, if one looks closely, the scene transitions towards the end of Letters is similar to the first half an hour or so of Flags. Beyond those sections, Eastwood doesn’t use the fade-out approach as often, almost as if he wanted both films to work as one. Either way, even though Eastwood’s work doesn’t bring anything new to the genre, I think it’s still a monumental achievement, and it will hopefully be seen as that down the line.

- Feeling a little deja vu again, as I’m reporting another huge worldwide weekend for another huge blockbuster sequel. That’s right, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End has broken a few records around the world at some of the places that this blog covers. Starting in North America, Pirates broke the Memorial Day weekend record set by X3: The Last Stand (another 3rd edition of a blockbuster franchise).

According to a link at Korea Pop Wars, it also broke the global 6-day opening record set by Spiderman 3 (just read that complicated explanation to see how it works), even though it didn’t win the 3-day weekend record. But it didn’t break the best opening weekend record in Korea set by The Host, taking in 2.71 million admissions since it opened on Wednesday on a crazy 900 screens. Oh, Secret Sunshine had a pretty good opening too, plus a Japanese film crossed the 100,000 admission mark. Go read all about it.

- Back in the beginning of the month, Spiderman 3 made HK$28.6 after 6 days on over 120 screens in Hong Kong. It might not have beaten its opening day record (and in fairness, both films opened on public holidays), but Pirates might its pace by making HK$20.33 million after 4 days, including HK$4.62 million from 121 screens on Sunday alone. We’ll know by Wednesday when the 6-day gross comes out, but with 8.3 million to go in 2 days, the best Pirates can do seems to be matching Spidey, not beating it. Of course, note that Pirates tickets in HK cost HK$5 more than Spiderman 3, so if the same amount of people go watch it, then its gross would naturally be higher than Spiderman.

(reference: US$1=HK$7.8)

- In Japan, Pirates ruled at number 1, as expected. But all I gots right now is the ranking (that’s an intentional mistake, by the way, unlike the many typos I make in this blog), so more number crunching tomorrow.

- Very sad news also coming from Japan. Izumi Sakai, the lead singer of the pop group Zard passed away yesterday after an accidental fall. She was 40 years old.

- In Japanese drama ratings, We see Operation Love climbing from a 16.9 to 17.4, solidifying its status as this season’s top drama. Sadly, Joudan Janai went further down from a 11.7 to a season low of 10.7. Sexy Voice and Robo saw its 2nd episode replayed because its 7th episode is too close for comfort after a police-involved shooting last week, and the rerun got only a 6.0 rating. Aya Ueto’s Hotelier (based on the Korean drama) is seeing an up trend with a 9.3 this week, same as Liar Game, which has seen its ratings go up for a 4th week with 12.0 rating.

All Japanese drama information here.

- After its win at the Cannes Film Festival, Variety finally has a review of Naomi Kawase’s The Mourning Forest. Reviewer Russell Edwards says its ambitions are undercut by conveniently underarticulated affections, and won’t reach far beyond festivals and European arthouse audiences.

Meanwhile, Jason Gray updated his previous about with a few more words about the film and its upcoming limited release in Japan.

Eiga Consultant questions its commercial prospects. While The Mourning Forest is set for a 5-screen limited release nationwide, its success in Cannes may push it to become a small indie success like “The Seagull Diner.” However, it’s also going to be broadcast on the pay satellite channel for NHK in HD on May 29th, 3 weeks before its theatrical release.

- James Maruyama provides a review for the independent Japanese film “I am Nipponjin,” about a Japanese-American girl finding out the ways of her culture. Apparently, it’s better than it sounds.

- r@sardonicsmile has a look at the Hong Kong band scene, which include a clip of the documentary on my favorite HK rap group LMF. However, if you’re in a Cantonese-speaking work environment, the language is not work-safe.

- Jason Gray also reports that Martin Scorsese may be filming Silence, his adaptation of the novel on 17th century Japan, in Japan after all.

- Before moving on L, the spinoff for Death Note, Hideo Nakata finished his horror flick Kaidan. Twitch has the full theatrical trailer up. Am I the only one that thinks the Ayumi Hamasaki theme song is really out of place?

- Meanwhile, Yukihiko Tsutsumi, the director of Memories of Tomorrow and Trick, has signed up for yet another comic adaptation.

- Twitch is reporting some rumor from Hong Kong’s Oriental Daily (and we know how reliable Hong Kong entertainment news are) that Chow might take up a non-comedic role in a war film as part of his deal with Sony Pictures.

As kind of a related note, a Hong Kong entertainment reporter reported that Chow Yun-Fat is rumored to take a role in a kung-fu take on the Snow White story with Disney. I am not even joking, and I’m not being sarcastic. I heard this with my own ears.

- Under “no one really asked for this” today, Jackie Chan is joining George Foreman is a campaign to sell the George Foreman Grill in Asia. I’m not gonna bite.

- Twitch has a first look at Mathieu Kassovitz’s latest film Babylon AD, starring Vin “I should’ve starred in 300″ Diesel and Michelle Yeoh. It’s not even real footage, but rather behind-the-scenes stuff. Still, it’s actually looking pretty good.

Since there isn’t a lot of new from Cannes, we’ll just do it the way we always do it around here.

- First, some news out of Hong Kong in a follow-up to the Chinese University of Hong Kong newspaper scandal. After the news broke out that the student newspaper was slapped with an interim category II rating (ruling it as indecent), Ming Pao Daily reprinted the page on one of their Sunday issues in an attempt to show what the hoopla’s about. After receiving more complaints, the TELA has also given that issue an interim classification of category II. Meanwhile, a survey was also done with over 1000 people about the CUHK newspaper, and to further complicate the definition of obscene, the general public seemed to have been offended by the CUHK newspaper.

Besides the obvious problem stated by EastSouthWestSouth, that most of those people haven’t even read the page themselves because the law won’t allow anyone to reprint it, what about the issue of target audience? The newspaper is not produced nor distributed for the general public, but rather just a small number of people that goes to Chinese University. Some people say that students might bring it back home, where kids can get to it. Then it’s the student’s fault for laying a sex page around the house, not the fault of the editors. Until then, only the students of CUHK should have the right to decide what they can or cannot read.

This is a frustrating situation, because people who have no business in denouncing a newspaper is doing so, and there’s such a hypocrisy going on in the media that I’m surprised no one is pointing it out. This is the Oriental Daily “Male Extreme Section.” It comes out once a week, and it contains articles about how prostitution is a natural thing in society, a column about a woman’s experience with a younger man, a guide to having sex during the summer heat, among other things that would not be very acceptable in a mainstream newspaper. So why hasn’t these people been fined week after week?

Same reason why Easyfinder has managed to survive week after week of exploiting female celebrities: It’s titillating. The contents in the sex pages of mainstream newspapers are meant to encourage people to feel sexual desire, which is why they are often sensational and written in casual Chinese. Though Easyfinder is now closing after years of public pressure, it only got into trouble because of clear acts that are illegal (such as violating Gillian Chung’s privacy by printing the pictures of her changing). Other than that, no one points out that it’s been nothing more than a trashy tabloid that’s meant to entertain.

On the other hand, the CUHK newspaper forces people to face their hidden fantasies, and it pretty much presents the same thing the other mainstream newspapers write about. As for the questionnaire problem, it doesn’t even encourage such behavior, nor is it even meant to be taken seriously. Look at the choices: There are four relatively short answers and an extended mock answer that’s just played for laughs. Hell, for the question about whether readers thought about bestiality, the closest thing to a “yes” choice is the mock answer. Maybe it’s in poor taste, but I don’t see anything particularly obscene about it, as long it’s not encouraging people to engage in such behavior, and that’s my conservative side talking already.

Anyway, on to regular news already.

- Legendary Japanese director Kei Kumai passed away on Wednesday morning Japan time.

- It’s time for the Japanese Oricon charts. On the singles side, Keisuke Kuwata’s latest single “Will It be Sunny Tomorrow,” also the theme song for popular drama Operation Love, debuts at number 1 with 167,000 copies sold. The single also marks his first solo effort in 5 years, and his 5th consecutive number 1 as a solo artist. The debut breaks the record for the consecutive number of number 1 debuts for a solo effort from a band member. Meanwhile, Exile’s latest debuts at a weak number 3 spot with only 89,000 copies sold as the singles market continues to weaken over time. Next week, expect boy band V6’s new single to rule the charts, only to see a huge drop off afterwards.

On the album chart, Linkin Park debuts at number 1 with 150,000 copies sold, while Maroon 5 debuts at the number 3, selling 64,000 copies. The biggest news is the new album by Tsuyoshi Nagabuchi, who is also starring in Kenta Fukasaku’s latest film, debuted only at number 4 with 61,000 copies sold. If the daily rankings hold up, then we should see Japanese albums ruling the charts again.

- Anyone that’s looking to watch Sexy Voice and Robo episode 7 online (I’m not, but I’m just saying) can forget it - NTV pulled the episode after an incident last week where an ex-Yakuza holed up in an apartment shot and killed a police officer during the stand-off. They also have no plans to air the episode yet, as they’ll just skip straight to episode 8 next week.

- Last weekend, the distributor for the independent film sequel Pacchigi - Love and Peace predicted that its gross would past the 1 billion mark based on the opening day of the first film. And it’s true, Love and Peace did indeed open at 150% of the first film, except the distributor didn’t take into account that the first film played to strong word-of-mouth for 22 weeks. Considering that the opening was also only 59% of last year’s indie hit Hula Girl, perhaps expectation is a little high.

- On the other hand, Indies are now all the rage in North America as a form of counter-programming.

- Reviews from Cannes time. The latest film by Thai director Pen-ek Ratanaruang (Invisible Waves, Last Life in the Universe) Ploy premiered as part of the Director’s Fortnight. Variety didn’t really like it, saying that it made the slow Invisible Waves look like a rapid approaching tsunami in comparison (that was a pun in bad taste, I say). On the other hand, Twitch likes it a lot, calling it beautiful, thought, and mediative.

- The Edge of Heaven, the new film by Fatih Akin, the director of the great “Head-On” (the film, not the product), is competing in Cannes. Looks like both Variety and Hollywood Reporter liked it. Variety calls it utterly assured and profoundly moving, while Hollywood Reporter calls it intricate and moving. I’m looking forward to it already.

- There have been clips of Sammi Cheng’s Hong Kong concert on Youtube, prompting the record company to ask Youtube to take it off the site. Problem is that these are just badly recorded clips from cell phones of digital cameras, so why start some petty copyrights fight to give up some promotion for the concert DVD?

- The Korean film I’m anticipating the most right now is probably Kim Ji-Woon’s The Good, The Bad, and the Weird, and it was recently sold to France in a 6-figure deal. Good for them.

- Dave’s Trailer Page has a link to a pretty good trailer for the fabulous Paris Je T’aime. I have the Hong Kong all-region DVD, but I urge everyone to give this a try in the theaters. Trust me, it’ll appeal to a wide audience better than the arthouse ones, except for a few of the shorts.

- Chow Yun-Fat wants to take on romantic or dramatic lead roles in Hollywood. At least he’ll do better than Jackie Chan, who pretty much said the same thing a year or two ago. But….but…what about Hong Kong??

- Apparently someone used a digital camera or something and bootlegged some footage from the reel for Feng Xiaogang’s The Assembly from the Cannes Film Festival. It looks technically accomplished, with huge explosions and whatnot, but Feng Xiaogang is first and foremost a commercial filmmaker. And honestly, the battle scenes look like they were taken straight out of Taeguki, which took its battle scenes out of Saving Private Ryan.

- Who says that playing video games ruins your mind? Well, maybe in America, but in Japan, the Nintendo DS is actually being used effectively to learn English.

- Oh, there’s another positive review for the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie, though right now it’s only at 50% fresh at Rotten Tomatoes. I still can’t get over the 2 hours and 48 minutes length myself.

- China is not just looking to Hong Kong for co-production. Those promiscuous bastards are looking all over the world.

- Isabella Leung is going to Hollywood. The star of…Isabella is set to play Michelle Yeoh’s daughter in The Mummy 3, also known as “the latest way to fuck up Chinese culture for worldwide consumption.” Stop taking our people down with you, Hollywood.

- Cannes isn’t even over yet, and the Venice Film Festival is already announcing that Robert Zemekis’ latest film, the 3D Beowulf (can he just go back to doing live-action films already?), will be opening the festival. Also, Ang Lee and Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest films also have a pretty good chance of showing up there as well.

The big Cannes screening this past day was the director’s cut of Quentin Tarantino’s self-indulgent Death Proof. Essentially, the new cut extends the film by about 20 minutes with two major scenes - the missing reel with the lap dance, and a scene where Stuntman Mike (played by Kurt Russell) actually meets the girls in the second half. Variety likes it even more than the theatrical cut, saying that now the film benefits from the additional details in the second half. And I guess Hollywood Reporter doesn’t really have much of a problem with it either, which probably means that the director’s cut is pretty much a longer version of the same film. On the other hand, Jeffrey Wells, who actually liked the Grindhouse cut of Death Proof, is indirectly slamming it all of a sudden. Lastly, the Risky Biz blog by Hollywood Reporter has more on the press conference.

This didn’t happen yesterday, but someone uploaded footage from Hitoshi Matsumoto’s introduction of his film Dai Nipponjin at the Cannes premiere.

Hollywood Reporter critics Ray Bennett and Kirk Honeycott talk about the critical reception to the Cannes Festival films so far, including a reprieve for the panned-opening film My Blueberry Nights.

Meanwhile, there have been quite a few business deals made in Cannes:

Martin Scorsese, with other directors from around the world such as Wong Kar-Wai, Walter Salles, Alfonso Cuaron, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, and Stephen Frears, have started the World Cinema Foundation, which is committed to restoring and preserving old neglected films.

Meanwhile, the Independent Film Channel (IFC) picked up the North American rights for Cannes front-runner “4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days,” among other films.

Colombia Films, owned by Sony, has signed a production deal with Stephen Chow’s production company Star Overseas. The first film under the deal is the Stephen Fung-directing effort Jump, starring Hong Kong’s spoiled bad boy Edison Chen. This doesn’t seem like a surprising decision, considering that Sony handled the distribution for Kung Fu Hustle and will do the same for Chow’s latest A Hope.

In the past few years, Korean films have hit it big in Japan, with huge distribution deals being made at film festivals around the world. Seems like the tables have turned, with Korean distributors now buying up Japanese films for their market after their recent relative success.

Yet another film investment fund has now established. A3 International will produce films with Korean, Chinese, and Japanese films in the mid-budget range. No films have been announced under the fund yet.

Now back to regular programming:

- Speaking of launching funds, the Pusan International Film Festival has also launched a film fund for Asian filmmakers. But there’s a catch - the fund is for documentaries.

- Numbers from the Japanese box office ranking this past weekend are in. As I mentioned yesterday, only two films penetrated the top 10, with the other 8 remaining films staying at the same place as last week. And most impressive is that none of the remaining films dropped by more than 30% from last week’s gross. Even Spiderman 3, which has been suffering pretty big falls around the world, dropped only 24% after losing only 21 screens.

- Eiga Consultant analyzes the 10th place opening for Will Farrell’s Stranger Than Fiction. He basically compares Farrell to Adam Sandler, another American comedy actor who has a huge following at home, but whose films fail to perform in Japan. At 26 million yen, the Stranger Than Fiction opening is only 17% of Bewitched’s opening in Japan, but it’s also 113% of Click. I doubt that Japanese people buy Farrell’s type of humor anyway.

- There were a few Asian films on the North American box office as well, excluding Shrek 3, which was co-directed by an Asian. Sad news is they’re at the 101st and 102nd place. The two films are Triad Election (which moved on to a San Francisco engagement this week with almost no fanfare) and Ken Watanabe’s Memories of Tomorrow, which also opened with pretty much no advance word at all.

- Following in the footsteps of Variety Asia, Hollywood Reporter has recently decided to expand their coverage into Asia with new offices in Hong Kong and Beijing. Good for them.

- I guess it’s pretty important for some people. Variety has the first major review of the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie, and it seems to be more of the same. I’ll probably go watch it, as soon as I get myself to go catch Spiderman 3.

- New York Post critic Lou Lumenick warns that Evan Almighty, now officially the most expensive comedy ever made, might not be any good. Come to think of it, I’ve never heard of a good comedy that runs under 90 minutes.

- Yesterday, I reported that the winner of the Shanghai International Film Festival will be allowed to see a release in China without worrying about import quotas. And now, here are the official selections.

- EastSouthWestNorth has a link to an English TVB-produced special about The Society For Truth and Light, a conservative group in Hong Kong that is very much on the opposing side against the Chinese University of Hong Kong student newspaper controversy, and is a strong opponent against laws that outlaw discrimination of “sexual minorities” (that would mean the gays). The focus of the program is that they have recently been teaching a human rights course to schoolteachers. My favorite quote about the course: “If you think your time is valuable, don’t try to join this course.” Sounds like a quote ready for print.

- Japan must really love Richard Gere. After being featured in several ads in Japan and dancing with former Prime Minister Koizumi, now he’s taking part in one of Japan’s most beloved pet stories. That’s right, Richard Gere has signed on to star and produce “Hachiko: A Dog’s Story,” playing the role of the professor owner who meets a tragic end. At least Japanese distributor Shochiku has its hands in it, or Japanese audiences might be crying foul.

- Korea, you guys are getting an Universal Studios theme park. I guess there’s no need to go to Osaka anymore, huh?

- I’m sure many people know that there’s such thing as a news agenda, which means news producers has an agenda in putting what they think is the most important story early in the newscast. This, I believe, is the reason why perhaps such agendas may be a little misguided sometimes. If you look at the top left corner, this news came on 12 minutes into the newscast. Are there actually less important news out there then a Civet running around in a TV station, or is it just to show the Japanese police’s lack of priority in solving crimes?