- According to the supposed reliable Oriental Daily in Hong Kong (and in turn, The Hollywood Reporter Asia), Lust, Caution star Tang Wei has been banned from Chinese media by the government because of her role in Ang Lee’s erotic espionage thriller. Supposedly, the government wasn’t happy with Lust, Caution and is determined to bring down anyone involved in the controversial sex scenes, especially its main actress. Since this news is not confirmed (and likely will never be), we have no idea whether this is true or not. If it is so, this is a pretty sleazy thing to do even for the Chinese government. Or they must just really hate skincare products.

- Like last year’s Confession of Pain from Hong Kong, Warner Bros. has been quick to buy up this year’s big crime hit, the Korean serial killer thriller The Chaser. Also like the Confession of Pain remake, William Monahan and Leonardo DiCaprio may be involved.

- Despite the Lunar New Year and taking a majority of the market, box office gross for Korean films has once again dropped for February. This time, admissions are down 3.7% from the same period in 2007, despite the hit handball film Forever the Moment and the current hit The Chaser.

- Hot off her win at the Golden Arrow Awards, Yui Aragaki will next star as a high school bookworm who joins a one-member cheerleader team to get closer to her baseball player crush. Only in the world a movies would Yui Aragaki play a bookworm who can’t get a boyfriend.

- We reported on Chen Kaige’s biopic Mei Lanfang finishing shooting. Today, Hollywood Reporter Asia has a complete feature on the film.

That’s it for now. Have to save some for the rest of the weekend.

- In Korean box office, The Chaser took the top spot for a third week. It now has past the 3 million admission mark, and has not much signs of stopping. Meanwhile, art films and Oscar films flop. More details at Korea Pop Wars.

- It’s Oricon charts time! While the usual popsters such as News (with their 8th consecutive #1 single) and Exile top the single chart, African-American enka singer Jero managed to sell even more copies of his debut single than its first week in stores. However, because of the crowded market, he still fell one place on the chart.

On the album side, BoA sees her 6th consecutive #1 album, while a bunch of foreign acts join her in the top 10.

See the full report at Tokyograph.

- It’s also the Billboard Japan charts time! This one is a little different because the chart also adds in radio airplay to gauge a song’s popularity. As a result, Jero is all the way down at 13th place, because enka doesn’t usually get much radio play. That’s also the reason why Hikaru Utada’s latest is placed higher, because it’s on the top of the airplay chart for the second week in a row. Other than that, the charts are mostly similar.

- The always informative Eiga Consultant looks at how several films did in Japan over the weekend.

First, the latest One Piece movie opened at only 98% of the previous One Piece film, which made 900 million yen. Looks like this film will probably not get to the 1 billion yen mark either.

On the other hand, the third and latest Keroro movie outdid its previous installment and the first film by 117 and 103%, respectively.

Lastly, the war trial film Ashita He No Yuigon opened 6th place with 77.68 million yen, which is only 66% of director Takashi Koizumi’s previous film Hakase No Ashita sushiki.

- A Chinese senior official says that China cannot have a ratings system for films because it would be like “legalizing the mass production of pornographic publications.” Er…you guys won’t be allowing porn in anyway, so what’s there to worry about?

“China had yet to build a mature and orderly film market.” I think replacing “market” with “audience” would be a more accurate way of putting it.

- The Korean Film Archive managed to find a copy of the 1934 silent film The Crossroads of Youth, now known as the oldest Korean film in existence. Thankfully, 8 of the 9 reels are still in playable condition, and I sure hope it’s not the reel with twist ending.

- Chinese director Chen Kaige has wrapped up filming for his latest biopic Mei Lanfang, starring Leon Lai and Zhang Ziyi. However, the film has no expected release date or upcoming participation in any film festival.

The biggest doubts to Chinese press, on the other hand, is whether Twins member Gillian Chung, which is taking a public opinion beating in Hong Kong, will still be in the film. She plays the younger version of titular character Mei Lanfang’s second wife.

- Under “various Japanese awards” news today, Exile picked up Artist of the Year at the Japan Gold Disc Awards, unseating Koda Kumi. They also won the Album of the Year award. GReeen picked up the Best New Artist of the year award, while Hikaru Utada picked up Single of the Year with Flavor of Life, even though this fan thought it was her most mediocre hit.

Meanwhile, Yui Aragaki picked up the film prize at the 45th Golden Arrow Awards. Meanwhile, Rinko Kikichi somehow managed to pick up one of the Best Newcomer Awards, which is sad because she’s actually been in Japanese films for a few years now. Then again, they’ve been around for 45 years, so they must have credibility.

- It’s reviews by Russell Edwards time! Variety’s Russell Edwards coincidentally reviews all the films covered by the blog today: First, he reviews Chocolate, the new muay Thai action film from the director of Ong Bak. Then he reviews the documentary Iris Chang: The Rape of Nanking. Lastly, he looks at the Thai gay teen romance film The Love of Siam.

Meanwhile, Hollywood Reporter’s Maggie Lee takes a look at Stephen Chow’s CJ7, which goes on limited release this weekend in the United States.

- In related news, The Love of Siam picked up six awards at the Bangkok Critics Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay.

- Another reason to put a film in this year’s Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival: The winner of the Off-Theater competition will win 2 million yen.

- Jet Li and Jackie Chan reportedly had a hand in changing the script for their latest Hollywood film Forbidden Kingdom, changing the “traveling back in time” element to simply part of the main character’s dream. Good, that means one less movie where a foreign kid goes to China and save the world.

- In case you need another reason to see Koki Mitani’s latest film The Magic Hour, the film will feature a ton of cameos, including director Kon Ichikawa in his final film appearance.

- It’s Japanese drama ratings time! Saito-san sees its season-low ratings, as well as One Point Gospel. The Negotiator wraps up with an OK-13.2 rating (not too far below its premiere’s 16.7 rating). Meanwhile, Honey and Clover’s freefall continues to 8.0 this past week, while Bara No Nai Hanaya managed to recover slightly with a 16.5 rating. Lost Time Life stays steady, Edison No Haha saw a pretty good boost, and Sasaki Fusai No Jingi Naki Tatakai’s ratings increase didn’t last longer than a week.

- This news was first found at Eiga Consultant. The 2005 German documentary Our Daily Bread broke attendance record during its 4-month run at one Tokyo theater. Both reports contribute the film’s success to concerns about food safety for Chinese-made food, but there’s also Japan’s tendencies to put wrong expiry dates and screws in food that added to the concern.

- Meanwhile, the controversial Bollywood epic Jodhaa Akbar has now surpassed the 1 billion rupee mark at the box office. Meanwhile, courts overturned the Madhya Pradesh government’s ban, while violent protests interrupt screenings and screenings are still blocked in some regions.

In case you want to know what the hoopla is all about, Hollywood Reporter has a review.

- Under “Edison Chen’s career freefall” news today, his latest Hong Kong film Sniper has now been pushed back to May from a planned March 29th release date. However, distributor Media Asia states that it’s because the Mainland Chinese authorities has yet to approved the film, which is necessary for all co-productions (this also means the cops win by default at the end of the film).

On a side note, distributors in Taiwan for Pang Ho-Cheung’s Trivial Matters has decided to add in the advertising that this film is Edison Chen’s final film before he announced his retirement from showbiz. This is inaccurate, since he still has Sniper and possibly Stephen Fung’s Jump.

-Poor China: The EU and the United States are always bullying the poor authoritarian country. First it was over intellectual property, and now the two political giants are going to the WTO over China’s block of foreign media agencies. China granted the Xinhua News Agency with sole discretion on giving out media license to foreign organizations, which apparently blocks out other news agencies such as Reuters and Bloomberg.

- Chinese TV and film writers, inspired by their American counterparts, met up to talk about how to protect the copyrights of their intellectual property. The thing is, unlike Hollywood writers, they’re not even looking for more money: They just want their rights protected and their work respected.

- I missed out on this a few days ago when it was on Nippon Cinema: There’s a teaser out for the sequel to the kiddie-oriented live-action adaptation of Gegege No Kitaro. It seems like they’re aiming for a more serious film this time around, but trailers have been deceptive before, so I’m being extremely cautious about this one.

-  Not only will the upcoming Japanese epic sci-fi trilogy 20th Century Boys be Japan’s highest-budgeted film ever at 6 billion yen, it’s now been announced that the film will feature a cast of 300 people. In other words, expect to see a lot of “policeman #_” when the credits come up.

- I never knew that Takashi Kitano has his own awards show, AND he gives awards to his own movies there!

- With actions being taken to help the industry and a reversal of the ban on Indian films, will Pakistani cinema slowly flourish?

-  Twitch has a link to an interview with former Ghibli studio head Suzuki Toshio, who talks a bit about Hayao Miyazaki’s upcoming Ponyo on a Cliff.

-  Believe it or not, Maggie Cheung has not appeared in a film since 2004, and she says she’s actually quite OK with that.

- It’s Taiwan music charts time! This week on the G-Music charts, Aska Yang got its first place back after Gary Cao regained his top spot last week. Cao dropped down to 3rd place, which is still damn good after 9 weeks on the chart. Another strong performer to Joanna Wang, whose debut album is still at 2nd place after spending 7 weeks on the chart. The best-performing newcomer is the Grammy compilation album all the way down at 15th place. Other than that, sales are kind of depressing right now.

- It’s reviews time! This week from Japan Times’ Mark Schilling is Doko Ni Iku No, the first film in 22 years from cult director Yoshihiko Matsui. Also included is an interview with the director himself. Also, there’s a review of Yoji Yamada’s Kabei from Twitch reviewer The Visitor.

- The latest film from Japanese director Daisuke Tengen may be attracting lots of attention not because Tengen is the son of late legendary director Shohei Imamura, but because of its…ahem…climatic scene.

-Walking by a Hong Kong video store that sells DVDs of Mainland content will tell you the same thing Variety is about to tell you: Chinese producers are making too many TV series without the airtime to broadcast them.

- Hollywood, now seeing the spending potential of the Chinese population, have devoted more money and time to exploit entertain the Chinese audience with films about and/or filmed in China. However, as the producers of Shanghai has learned, you have to play by the government’s rules.

- One of the films opening in Japan this weekend is the drama Ashita he no Yuigon, about the trial of a Japanese B-class war criminal. The Daily Yomiuri has two articles on it - one on the writers, who had to do thorough research in order to stay objective, and one on the actors, who had to recite actual testimonies from ther real-life counterparts. What they didn’t have is an actual review of the movie.

- Japanese record companies have plenty of ways to make money of fans (one compilation, two differently colored albums, anyone?), but this one takes the cake: the record company of the pop collective AKb48 (48 members and counting) is holding a special concert, and fans only get a chance to go if they get all 44 posters that come with their latest single. Let’s do the math: 1200 yen per single, multiply by 44 copies (only if the buyer happens to get a different poster each time). That means a stupid lucky fan has to spend over 50,000 yen to see the group live. After receiving numerous complaints and possible violation of fair business practices, the record company has now canceled their plans.

The sad part is I can easily imagine a Hong Kong record company doing this, except for the canceling part.

- After finding a few new hits, Korean cinema is now doing what Hollywood does best: Hit films getting potentially unnecessary upcoming sequels include 200 Pounds Beauty, Le Grand Chef, Tezza: The High Rollers, and The Host.

-In 1985, legendary director Akira Kurosawa began filming a documentary while filming for his epic film Ran stopped because of financing problems. However, he never finished the documentary when filming for Ran resumed. Now, his son plans to complete his father’s unfinished film and release it by 2010, the 100th anniversary of the director’s birth.

- Shawn Yue has already been in 4 movies in the past 8 months (Invisible Target, Trivial Matters, Playboy Cops, Shamo), and now we can add another one to the list: Rule #1, the new horror film from Singaporean director Kelvin Tong.

- What do you get for releasing your high-profile, award-winning film with a studio head as your producer uncensored, despite getting a rating that would kill any commercial prospects? An award for freedom of expression from the theater owners who didn’t want you to do so in the first place.

- Two Chinese groups that represent Chinese musicians and songwriters are suing the Chinese search engine Baidu for allowing users to find and download songs for free through its website, thus using illegal downloads to boost its advertising revenues.

- Courtesy of the informative EastSouthWestNorth is an entry from Danwei about the current state of Chinese cinema. Yes, it’s making money, but where is it headed?

- Jason Gray has a advance review of Gururi No Koto, Ryosuke Hashiguchi’s first film in six years. The teaser on the website (click on the link next to “information”) doesn’t say much, but that, along with the review, has gotten me fairly excited about the film now.

By the way, the film stars Lili Franky. Yes, the Lili Franky who wrote Tokyo Tower - Me, Mom and Sometimes Dad.

- Actress Takako Matsu, usually seen in TV dramas and films, just picked up the Best Actress Award at the Yomiuri Theater Awards for her performances in two stage productions.

- Even though I’m a bigger fan of another author named Murakami, it’s worth reporting that Ryu Murakami’s novel Coin Locker Babies’ film adaptation, which has been on-and-off for years, may still be happening……eventually?

- Watch out, Oricon, the Billboard charts is heading to Japan. It will be compiling data from radio airplay from 33 radio stations and sales figures from 3,000 retailers to make a top 100 chart that will likely differ from the weekly Oricon singles sales chart.

- It may seem strange to those who don’t really know the Japanese film industry, since you may expect a film studio to so something like this instead: major television network NTV has announced its slate of film for the 2008 fiscal year, which will range from the latest film from Hayao Miyazaki to a crime film starring Takeshi Kaneshiro as a killer in 1949 Japan. Most mainstream films in Japan are actually at least partially financed by major television networks. NTV, for one, have made a ton of money from the Death Note films (including the currently-in-release spinoff L: Change the World).

- Japanese actress Youki Kudoh, who was last seen in L: Change the World, will be in her second Jim Jarmusch film, about a “mysterious loner working outside the law.” Whatever that means.

- Lastly, Variety’s Derek Elley gives a brief review to the hit Korean handball movie Forever the Moment.

- The Japanese box office numbers are out, and L: Change The World is hanging on surprisingly well, losing only 17% of its business from the previous week. I guess people will watch detective L in anything. Meanwhile, the standings with money figures in is slightly different from the previously reported attendance figures, as Kabei and Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium draw the “cheap ticket” audience, ie the old and the young, which would have an impact on final figures. If you see, Magorium’s take is actually fairly close to Earth’s take.

Meanwhile, box office was also somewhat impact by the previews for The Golden Compass. No word on how many screens it was shown on, but it managed to take a fairly strong 270 million yen over a 2-day period. That’s 155% of last year’s Springtime blockbuster Night at the Museum. It’s set to open on a whopping 700 screens this Saturday, and will probably open big to knock L right off the top spot.

- It’s Oricon charts time! On the singles chart, Arashi has their 10th consecutive number 1 single, selling 324,000 copies. But consider their thunder stolen by Jero, the first African-American enka singer whose first single debuted at 4th place with 35,000 copies sold, making it the best debut by a solo enka singer.

On the albums side, another compilation tops the chart, while Yuna Ito and pop/rock group TOKIO saw fairly weak debuts.

More details at Tokyograph.

- The Bollywood epic film Jodhaa Akbar has now grossed US$18.5 million worldwide, and it still have a holiday weekend coming up. The blockbuster has garnered plenty of controversy for inciting riots, leading to its ban by the regional government in the state of Madhya Pradesh.

- Japan’s Takashi Miike will be the director for a major TV drama project that will run a rare 51 episodes. However, other directors will also come in a direct some episodes as well. The drama is about a high schooler who works with a cell phone robot against internet-based criminal organizations. Wicked.

- China Film Group’s Han “China needs more movie like Pursuit of Happyness” Sanping announces that the Christmas and Lunar New Year period was phenomenal for Chinese films at the box office. Of course, he didn’t say that they didn’t play fair by completely blacking out non-Chinese films for 3 months.

- As reported a while ago, there are two movies about Bruce Lee’s master Ip Man in the works. One of them is the one directed by Wong Kar-Wai and starring Tony Leung Chiu-Wai. I had thought the other one will be by Fruit Chan (whose film will be about Bruce Lee as a child in Hong Kong?), but turns out it’ll be directed by Wilson Yip and star none other than Donnie Yen (DONNNNNIIIEEEEE!!) and Sammo Hung.

Not much news happening today (I don’t think the Oscars have anything to do with it…right?), so let’s combine everything together.

- In Hong Kong box office, Enchanted seemed to have taken the weekend again, making HK$810,000 from 35 screens for an 18-day total of HK$25.98 million. I still think 30 million is still in its reach. Last week’s opener Jumper is in second place with HK$627,000 from 38 screens on Sunday for a 11-day total of 9.93 million, just shy of HK$10 million. The Hollywood horror film The Mist did fairly well, with HK$500,000 from 25 screens for a 4-day weekend total of HK$1.69 million. The other major opener Vantage Point, made only HK$315,000 from 30 screens for a 4-day total of HK$1.16 million.
The Oscar nominees did extremely well the day before the big ceremony: Juno made HK$325,000 from just 12 screens, while best picture winner No Country For Old Men made HK$230,000 from 7 screens. The two films have made HK$1.09 million and HK$650,000, respectively. No idea on There Will Be Blood, as it was only on 3 screens showing it only 3 times a day, which means it wouldn’t have made the top 10.

CJ7 has crossed the HK$50 million mark, but grosses are still going the natural way, despite the ticket price cuts mentioned over the weekend.  On Sunday, the Stephen Chow film made HK$388,000 from 35 screens. After 25 days, it has made HK$50.61 million and will probably not even hit HK$55 million.

-  With no major releases, 8 of the top 10 films from last week’s Japan attendance figures remained at the same places. Only Flowers in the Shadow and Elizabeth: The Golden Age switched places at 3rd and 5th places.

- Someone catch the falling Japanese drama ratings. This week, the Monday 9pm Fuji drama Bara No Nai Hanaya falls to its season-low of 16.2% rating, while Honey And Clover has yet to see its ratings actually rise, hitting another low at 8.3%. Even reliable hit Aibou hit its season low of 14.7% after hitting its season high last week. However, somewhat good news for Sasaki Fusai No Jingi Naki Tatakai, whose ratings have finally gone up to 9.9% from 8.9 % last week.

- China’s education authorities is launching a test program that will include Peking Opera as a compulsory part of music education. This is to encourage a more traditional form of culture. What, you mean Jay Chou and Leehom Wang putting erhu in their songs don’t count?

- Shamo hasn’t even opened yet (though it’s been done for almost10 months), and director Soi Cheang already has a new movie on his hands. This time, it’s Assassins, a movie with Louis Koo and Richie Jen as members of a group of assassins that need to team together to save their friend. Give the man a teeny bopper comedy to do or something, he needs to lighten up.

- Korea Pop War’s Mark Russell offers a brief review of the current hit film in Korea, the serial killer thriller The Chaser.

- Under “aggressive director news that didn’t make it to the Associated Press” today, Japanese director Koichiro Yamashita was arrested over the weekend for getting drunk and attacking a poor convenience store clerk who was busy verbally attacking another customer. If you remember fondly, Hong Kong director Ringo Lam was arrested last week for fighting with a neighbor over something about a bucket and a parking space.

- Hong Kong saw five films enter the box office charts on opening day yesterday. Nevertheless, expect Hollywood films Jumper and Enchanted fight for the top spot for the weekend. Among the opening films, the horror film The Mist did the best with HK$253,000 from 24 screens. The other wide release, the Rashomon-style thriller Vantage Point, opened on 29 screens for an opening of HK$173,000. In limited releases, Oscar nominees Juno and No Country For Old Men opened to respectable grosses, making HK$137,000 from 11 screens and HK$97,000 from 7 screens, respectively. The 5th non-Oscar nominated limited release, The Bucket List with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, made HK$47,000 from 3 screens on opening day. More on Monday.

-  According to Hong Kong newspapers, Japanese weekly magazine Shukan Bunshun has named Genghis Kahn: To The Ends of the Earth and Sea the worst film of 2007. I kind of called it OK in my review, but really, it was pretty laughably bad.

Here is the top (bottom?) ten films (original Japanese list):

1) Genghis Khan: To the Ends of the Earth and Sea
2) Koizora (Sky of Love)
3) Last Love (the one with Misaki Ito and Masakazu Tamura)
4) Love Never to End (Ai No Rukeichi)
5) Kantoku Banzai
6) Dororo
7) Saiyuki
For Those We Love
9) Hero (come on, it wasn’t THAT bad)
10) (tie) Inland Empire and The Mourning Forest

Source from Apple Daily

- Looks like the ban of Hollywood films in China is coming to an end, as three Hollywood films have been greenlit for release in March: 10,000 B.C., The Golden Compass, and National Treasure: Book of Secrets.

- Not again: Deceased Japanese pop star Zard will see another one of her unreleased songs released to make a few bucks, and it will even be used as the theme song for the new Detective Conan movie. How thorough did her record company search her place to find these recordings?

- Twitch has a more violent trailer of Dennis “Love @ First Note” Law’s latest Fatal Move. It could be good, but it’s Dennis Law, so I can’t say I have a lot of faith in it. Certainly looks category III, though.

- Edison Chen has returned to Hong Kong alive and limbs intact. Oh, he also apologized many times and says he quits Hong Kong entertainment. However, he didn’t say whether he’ll give up his career in Hollywood as well.

Here’s the video

The always-informative EastSouthWestNorth reports on the always-controversial Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority’s way of classifying the photos (they were classified because they were subsequently published partially in Hong Kong magazines and for the courts to determine whether the police had a case against those who uploaded the photos). While showing private parts can be considered “obscene,” it’s hard to believe that one adjudicator actually believed that Bobo Chan and Edison Chen’s tongues ought to be blacked out.

- Time for Japanese box office numbers: L: Change The World is still rocking the Japanese box office, despite losing a higher-than-usual 41% of its business (in all fairness, it had a huge opening weekend, so a huge drop was inevitable). The Glorious Team Batista lost 35%, retaining a second place finish. With screen count and gross reported, Elizabeth: The Golden Age’s opening isn’t all that impressive after all. With nothing big opening until The Golden Compass on March 1st, expect L to continue its rule on the box office.

By the way, if you’re wondering what Naoko is, it’s the new sports drama starring Juri Ueno. Check out a trailer here.

- In Korean box office, Jumper took the number one spot as expected (it’s not a very good movie, but it wasn’t that bad), and the low-budget thriller The Chaser (which actually got a 500-screen release, that’s even more than Jumper) opened not too far behind at second place. More from Mark Russell at Korea Pop Wars.

- It’s Oricon charts time! On the singles chart, Porno Graffiti has the number 1 single, doing much better than the film the single is the theme song to. On the albums chart, M-Flo’s latest compilation barely debuts on top. More from Tokyograph.

By the way, Jero, Japan’s first Black enka singer (as introduced by Japan Probe), released his first single 2 days ago, and it has already gone up to 6th place on its second day. Seriously, he’s not that bad of a singer, just never make an MTV like that again.

And Japanese pop duo Kobukuro’s Tsubomi is now the most downloaded cell phone ringtone of a Japanese pop song ever.

- The Hong Kong Film Development Fund, which pours government money up to 40% of an approved film’s budget, has given money to its first two films. The first is the latest McDull film, and the second is Claustrophobia, Ivy Ho’s directorial debut starring Ekin Cheng and Karena Lam that was previously reported on this blog. Apparently, Claustrophobia was approved despite its artsy premise because of those involved.

-  With the program for the Hong Kong International Festival announced, the organizers have announced that Japanese directors Yoji Yamada and Yuya Ishii will be getting honors at the Asian Film Awards.

- Kaiju Shakedown looks at how China is slowly losing grip of its media and people by trying to grip harder ahead of the Olympics.

-  Continuing with Japan’s “let’s make movies out of songs” trend, Liar Game star Erika Toda will star in a short drama based on a Monkey Majik song that will be distributed online. It’s part of a series of such films from Fuji TV.

- The poster for the third (and reportedly the last) Patrick Kong-Stephy Tang-Alex Fong Lik-Sun film L for Love, L for Lies is out, and it’s…Okinawa Rendezvous?!  Ready for it or not, it’s coming out on March 13th.

- Warner Bros. and Leonardo DiCaprio’s production company has announced they will remake the famous Japanese comic Akira into two live-action films. Apparently, the remake will stick to the original comic rather than the classic animated film.

- Variety’s Russell Edwards has a review for the anticipated low-budget ultraviolent cult film Machine Girl.

- Under “Hong Kong gossip not really worth reporting globally” news today, Hong Kong director Ringo Lam was arrested for getting into a fight with his neighbor, who may or may not have thrown a bucket at his car. Obviously, this neighbor didn’t see what Ringo Lam did to Kelly Lin in his section of Triangle.

We’re kind of busy this week at The Golden Rock, but let’s do some number crunching anyway:

- Sad news from Hong Kong this morning: Actress and television personality Lydia Shum (better known as Fei Fei in Hong Kong) passed away at the age of 62. Fei Jei has been in poor health in recent years, and last appeared during local network TVB’s anniversary show in a surprise appearance.

Report from Variety

- Here’s an update on the box office for Lunar New Year films in Hong Kong (in order of release date), as of January 17th:

CJ7 - 18 days, HK$48.73 million

Sweeney Todd - 18 days, HK$8.28 million

L - Change the WorLd - 11 days (including previews), HK$7.25 million

Kung Fu Dunk - 11 days, HK$8.1 million

Enchanted - 11 days, HK$22.32 million

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (from 3 screens) - 11 days, HK$640,000

CJ7 is losing its momentum now, and it probably won’t make it to match Kung Fu Hustle’s take. Kung Fu Dunk is also slowing down considerably, and won’t get to HK$10 million, making it the flop of the season as the first Jay Chou film to not hit HK$10 million. Meanwhile, L will probably surpass Kung Fu Dunk in total take by the weekend, but I doubt that it’ll match the success of the two Death Note films. Nevertheless, it might have a chance for HK$10 million, which is a great take for a Japanese film. Enchanted is still topping the box office, so I think HK$30 million is not entirely unrealistic.

Meanwhile, the Hollywood sci-fi film Jumper made HK$6.13 million over 4 days from 38 screens. and Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood made HK$230,000 over 4 days from just 3 screens.

- No Japanese box office numbers yet. The audience attendance figures indicate that L took the top spot for a second weekend in a row (though I’m more interested to know how much business it lost), and the medical mystery The Glorious Team Batista also stayed at second place. It may surprise some, but Elizabeth: The Golden Age managed a 3rd place opening. However, that’s because the first film was a fairly big hit in Japan, taking over 1.5 billion yen back in 1999. Lastly, Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium opened at 5th place.

-My mistake: The British documentary Earth may be the highest-grossing documentary in Japan in the last ten years after crossing the 2 billion yen-mark, but Kon Ichikawa’s Tokyo Olympiad will remain the all-time champion in attendance figures. With inflation, the 1964 documentary would’ve made 8.5 billion yen with today’s ticket prices.

- In Japanese drama ratings, this season’s ratings are so depressing that I don’t even feel like reporting them anymore. But here they are anyway: Honey and Clover, Saito-San, The Negotiator, and Sasaki Fusai No Jingi Naki Tatakai all hit their lowest ratings with 8.6%, 13.0%, 12.7%, and a measly 8.9, respectively.

In better news, Lost Time Life managed to rebound to a season-high 12.3% rating, and Mirai Koushi Meguru bounced back in a big way with a 10.5% rating.

- Kimutaku is back on Japanese TV drama! This time, Kimura Takuya play an elementary school teacher who somehow ends up becoming Japan’s Prime Minister. With not much positive support for the current Japanese government, I’m sure a fantasy world where a Smap member becomes their head honcho would be a nice change.

- I might’ve reported this before: Spring 2007’s hit drama Proposal Daisakusen is getting a special episode, and it’s now scheduled to air on March 25th (I think this is the news part).

- I was supposed to report on this a long time ago: Tokyo Tower was the big winner of the Japan Academy Awards, but it didn’t repeat the pattern of films in the past that were nominated in almost all the categories by winning only five awards. However, those awards were best supporting actor, best actress, best director, best screenplay, and best picture, so I don’t think the team is sad over it.

Meanwhile, Always 2 only won two awards: best actor and best sound recording. I Just Didn’t Do It won only won 3 awards, including best supporting actress, best art direction, and best film editing, which must’ve been disappointing to some, considering that it’s been sweeping the other awards.

Full list of winners here

- While only two Asian films in competition title won at Berlin (Wang Ziaoshuai for In Love We Trust and Reza Najie for the Iranian film The Song of Sparrows), Japanese film won many other awards at the festival. Those awards include United Red Army winning several awards, and Izuru Kamasaka winning Best First Feature for Park and Love Hotel.

All the details are at Jason Gray’s blog.

- Considering its controversial censorship system, it’s surprising that not one, but two films that deal with homosexuality managed to win major awards at Thailand’s Subhanahongsa Awards.

- It’s reviews time! Or rather, it’s time for a compilation of reviews for Johnnie To’s Sparrow, which got a far better reception in Europe than from English-speaking critics.