- It’s reviews time! Japan Times’ Mark Schilling looks at Yoshimitsu Morita’s remake of Tsubaki Sanjuro, which he says passes the grade, though Kurosawa did it better. Twitch’s Todd Brown reviews Makoto Shinkai’s 5 Centimeters Per Second, which I loved even when I saw the trailer. I might review this when I have the time.

I don’t know if it counts as a review, but Daily Yomiuri has a report about the hit Japanese teen romance Koizora, though it seems like a hybrid of a plot description and a film review. The fact that my girlfriend hated the original “cell phone novel” doesn’t seem promising to me.

- The Korea Export Insurance Corp. will apparently now offer partial compensation through an export insurance policy for films targeted at an international market and/or has secured pre-sale deals that flops. I assume D-War doesn’t need that insurance.

- Japanese short film Frank Kafka’s A Country Doctor by Koji Yamamura picks up the Grand Prize at the animation festival I Castelli Animati in Italy.

- This weekend in Japan is the first film festival to feature films made entirely on cell phones. I expect the whole festival either to be on very small screens or on big screens filled with pixelated images.

- Somewhat related is the Daily Yomiuri’s Wm Penn pointing out the importance of cell phones in Japanese dramas this past year, including rescue tool, romantic triangle symbol, and character coding device.

- According to the official website,  Stephen Chow’s latest CJ7 is opening in North America 2 weeks earlier than Hong Kong. I know they want to open it in time for Lunar New Year in Hong Kong, but what’s up with that?

- If you’re in Los Angeles, be sure to check out the Toho Festival, featuring old Japanese monster flicks 4 weeks in a row!

- Japan Times’ David McNeill has a 2-part feature on the slew of films looking at the Nanjing Massacre this year from Chinese, Japanese, and Western perspective. Too bad the only Japanese perspective one seems like it might be a right-wing nut job (Seeing how “Japanese people don’t mistreat corpses like that, it is not in our culture” isn’t exactly the best evidence against the massacre). Then again, it’s not like the Chinese ones are going to be completely fair either.

Stay reading for the blog’s live coverage of the Golden Horse Awards.

- Let’s look at the Thursday opening numbers from Hong Kong to predict the weekend. Johnnie To/Wai Ka Fai’s Mad Detective wins the day again with HK$518,000 from 36 screens for an 8-day total of HK$6.07 million. If this keeps up, it should wrap the weekend with nearly 8 million, though its chances of hitting 10 million is getting slim with The Warlords coming up this coming Wednesday night. Danny Pang’s out-there romantic horror In Love With the Dead will probably be able to stay at second place with a current 8-day total of HK$3.27 million. However, it should come short of brother Oxide’s The Detective’s gross of near HK$6 million.

Meanwhile, the only opening film that hit the top 10 is Robert Benton’s Feast of Love. From 10 screens, it made HK$60,000. It’s going to be a very quiet weekend at the movies.

- From Twitch is the first trailer for the Japanese cult film Machine Girl that looks really cool in that adrenaline rush way. Be aware, though - it’s not really safe for work.

- Yet another Japanese film awards has given the best film honor to Masayuki Suo’s I Just Didn’t Do It. This time it’s the Nikkan Sports Film Awards, who also gave Suo the best director award. Kimura Takuya, meanwhile, won best actor for Yoji Yamada’s Love and Honor, Yuko Takeuchi picks up another best actress award for Sidecar ni Inu, Tokyo Tower’s Kirin Kiki picked up best supporting actress, Takashi Sasano picked up best supporting actor for Love and Honor, and Yui Aragaki picked up best newcomer for her two films this year - Warubobo and Koizora.

- Earlier (as in when we were still at Blogger), we reported that Donnie Yen and Wilson Yip are working on their 4th film together, the supernatural film Painted Skin. However, now that has changed, with Gordon Chan taking over. Donnie Yen will apparently play a ghost catcher. More exciting is the fact that this will be the first fantasy-horror film that is actually about the supernatural that was approved by the Chinese government.

-  While China did greenlight a ghost movie, Variety reported that they are starting their 3-month Hollywood film blackout period tomorrow. However, the Associated Press got right to Chinese film officials, who denied the report.  Then again, the Hollywood blockbuster I am Legend still hasn’t secured a release in China, despite opening in much of the world next week. The worse news is that Smith said he is meeting Stephen Chow this weekend, and that he is exploring the idea of setting his Karate Kid remake in Hong Kong.

More over the weekend.

- In Japanese drama ratings (one day late), many of the dramas that hit their season-low managed to bounce back. That does include the gradually failing Hatachi No Koibito, which finally saw a week with improving ratings as it bounced back by 0.2%. Hell, even Joshi Deka finally saw a rise in rating, bouncing from an abysmal 7.8 last week to a 9.3 this week. The same goes for Iryu 2, which went up from a 14.1 to a 16.6 for its 8th episode. The hit Fuji Saturday night drama SP, however, dropped to its season-low this past weekend. A preview for next week: Galileo drops to its season-low.

- Just before Mad Detective had its massive opening weekend in Hong Kong, IFC (Independent Film Channel) picked up the North America distribution rights last Friday. They will show it in theaters, for also make it a day-and-date release for video on demand, which is wise since the Hong Kong DVD would be out by then.

- When you buy legit copes of American movies on Chinese DVDs, you’ll get a refrigerator magnet with Jackie Chan’s face thanking you for buying legit products. Wouldn’t that make me want to buy them less?

- In case anyone in Japan (or planning to download) wants to know, this is the full Kohaku lineup this new year’s eve.

- Let me ask a hypothetical question: say you’re a South Korean director and you would like to receive the French Legion of Honor. What do you do? Make over 100 movies and win a few prizes.

- The Taiwanese film The Wall picked up the best film prize at the India International Film Festival, which screened 176 films from 46 countries.

- Kaiju Shakedown, which was kind enough to recommend you all to this blog today, compiles a sample set of reviews for the Japanese failed blockbuster Midnight Eagle. Here’s also a compiled set of reviews from Rotten Tomatoes.

- According to Apple Daily in Hong Kong, Wong Kar-Wai’s English film debut My Blueberry Nights will open in Hong Kong on January 3rd, apparently a whole month ahead of the American release.  There’s even a real pretty website up now.

- An animation house named Animation Innovation Tokyo is doing what their name promises by setting up a new channel on Youtube to upload clips of potential anime series. Potential investors can watch these clips and decide to invest to make them into feature length films. They’re already asking for submissions for the 7th group of pilots.

-  While Yu Aoi getting cast in a Japanese TV drama is news, the bigger news here is it’s a 12-part series by 4 directors, and each director has complete freedom over the 3 episodes they’re in charge of - as long as they’re about lies.

- It’s reviews time! Variety has a review of Happily Ever After - or Jigyaku No Uta - by Russell Edwards.

- The Japanese box office numbers came in from Box Office Mojo. Despite Always 2 and Koizora dropping around 30% each, it managed to hang on to first and second place. However, Beowulf did get the best per-screen average out of the top 10, despite opening at just third place. Midnight Eagle, which lost 66% of its business from last weekend after losing one screen to be at 100th place this weekend, lost only 30% of its opening weekend business in its second weekend for a 2-weekend total of 387 million yen. Sadly, the action thriller will not be hitting the 1 billion yen mark.

- As reported in Korea Pop Wars, it was indeed a rather slow weekend in Korea. To everyone’s surprise, the Hollywood film August Rush, which was co-produced by Korea’s CJ Entertainment, opened at number 1 (unlike in North America, where it stayed at 7th place for 2 weeks in a row). Lust, Caution has managed to see it admissions grow to 1.3 million now and may hit 1.5 million. If it becomes a hit in Japan, then Ang Lee’s film would officially have conquered all of Asia’s major moviegoing regions.

In a related note, Lust, Caution finally lost its number one spot in China after 4 weeks at the top.

- Let’s wrap up the week with some Japanese box office figure. Earlier in the week, we reported the disappointing opening of the Japanese blockbuster film Midnight Eagle in its native Japan. Now we can put it into comparison - According to Eiga Consultant, the 185 million yen opening is only 62% of Takao Ozawa’s previous film Life: Tears in Heaven (domestic total: 1.6 billion yen) and only 69% of Yuko Takeuchi’s previous film Closed Note (domestic total: 1 billion yen).

The film was also a day-and-date release in the United States. On two screens (one in New York and one in San Francisco), the aspiring blockbuster opened all the way down at 88th place with US$2,543. That’s just a per-screen average of $1,271. 12 shows over 3 days=a total of 24 shows nationwide. That means each show made just roughly $106 dollars. Still, considering it didn’t get enough of the promotional push it needed, it’s a good starting point.

- Meanwhil, Yon-sama seems to be doing much better in Japan. Bae Yong-Joon’s latest drama The Four Guardian Gods of the King is set to be shown digitally in Japanese theaters with one episode playing 3-6 days a week. Sold in sets, the drama has already sold 1047 sets of the 24,000-yen set tickets. I know the numbers don’t quite add up, but it still prove the power of a Korean guy in glasses has over Japanese housewives these days…

- According to Jason Gray, another major trend from a foreign country in Japan now is the trend of French filmmakers going to Japan to make their films. Jason even has a term for it: Nouvelle Tsunami.

- From this weekend’s opening of the Tsubaki Sanjuro remake, another trend in Japanese film seems to be filmmakers remaking classic films almost shot-by-shot under the guise that it would attract attention on the originals. Kon Ichikawa did it, Nobuhiko Obayashi did it. Hell, even Yasujiro Ozu remade his own film back it the day. Does that make it OK?

- Guess which Hong Kong director is going back into the well of used ideas? According to Ming Pao, Stephen Chow announced that he will be making not one, but two movies based on the Journey to the West story that he and Jeff Lau used for the Chinese Odyssey films. The article, which I will not be translating word-for-word, says that like the earlier films, he’ll be making a two-part film that is now possible thanks to the ability of computer graphics. He also said that he will be sticking closer to the source material, unlike the Chinese Odyssey films, which were only loosely based on it. One reason that he’s going back to Journey to the West again is that the Chinese Odyssey films were considered his breakthrough work in Mainland China, where they thought the comedy in his earlier films did not translate well to Mandarin.

Like the columnist points out, when is Chow going back to movies WITHOUT computer graphics?

- It just opened in Japan this weekend, but Kenta Fukasaku’s latest XX (X-Cross) is already set to getting a Hollywood remake. The last film to accomplish the feat of getting a remake before it opened is the Korean thriller Seven Days, starring Lost star Kim Yun-Jin.

- With the Simpsons movie opening in Japan next weekend, it’d be good for Japanese fans to know that their voices were heard, and that the original TV voice dubbing cast, instead of the usual celebrity voices, will be back on the film’s Japanese DVD. Somehow this reminds me of the episode where Burns got 4 actors, including Michael Caine, to impersonate the Simpsons for Bart.

- The Daily Yomiuri has a feature of The Rebirth, the latest film by arthouse director Masahiro Kobayashi that features almost no dialogue. Actually, I’m quite intrigued.

- Japan Times also has a feature on the Japanese online film festival Con-Can, which recently wrapped up its latest edition.

- the Hong Kong Films blog reveals that next year’s big Lunar New Year movie Kung Fu Dunk may not be the most original film of the year. Hell, they can’t even seem to design original production stills. Is anyone that is not a Jay Chou fan seriously looking forward to this movie?

- This week’s Televiews column on the Daily Yomiuri recommends the only two dramas still worth catching on Japanese TV this season.

- Meanwhile, Japanese public broadcaster NHK will be cutting back on their jidaigeki (period dramas) and use the free time slot to gear to those young-uns. But wait, isn’t Japan’s population getting older, not younger?

- Looks like EMI Japan looks to turn into a Johnny’s-sized company by expanding themselves into a management firm that will be taking care of all aspects of an artist’s career. However, it doesn’t seem like all of EMI Japan’s current artists will be joining the firm.

- Under “good for them” news today, Seagull Diner director Naoko Ogigami’s latest Megane will be heading to the Sundance World Cinema Competition next February.

Under “what the hell were they smoking” news today, Kenneth Bi’s The Drummer is also entering that category. It’s not even an independent film, people!

The full list of competition films at Sundance.

- Just for kicks, here’s an infomercial for the total Chinese rip-off that is the Vii.

- It’s reviews time! From Variety is Russell Edwards’ enthusiastic review for Always 2 (it’s enthusiastic enough to make me plan to search out for the first film on a used DVD on my upcoming trip) and also his review for the Rie Miyazawa-starrer The Invitation From Cinema Orion.

From Lovehkfilm guest review JMaruyama is a review of Japanese hit teen romance film Koizora, also known as the Sky of Love.

From Japan Times’ Mark Schilling has a review for the westerners-friendly geisha documentary Hannari - Geisha Modern. However, the theater website doesn’t indicate any English subtitles.

From the Daily Yomiuri, there’s a review by staff writer Tokiko Oba for Yoshimitsu Morita’s remake of Akira Kurosawa’s Tsubaki Sanjuro, which seems to suggest that while it’s not that good, just be lucky it’s not that bad.  Also, via the Daily Yomiuri is AP News’ positive review of Johnnie To/Wai Ka Fai’s Mad Detective.

- Thanks to Spiderman 3 and Resident Evil III, Sony Japan is having their best year at the Japanese box office ever. Coming up: More cash-in sequels!

-  While this is the best year ever at the Asian Television Forum, buyers can’t help but realize that there are two trade shows in Asia that aren’t competing, but will still have to fight for visitors because they happen within three weeks of each other.

- Yet another Japanese film awards time! At the Fumiko Yamaji Awards this week, Masayuki Suo takes the second best film award in a week for his Japanese legal system expose I Just Didn’t Do It. Meanwhile, Yuko Takeuchi received the best actress award for her “comeback” film Sidecar Ni Inu, and Riko Narumi won the best new actress award. No complete list of winner is available at this time.

- To help domestic films get their time of day at the multiplex, The Guangdong Film Company in China managed to convince multiplexes in some major Chinese cities to leave 50 screens aside to screen Chinese films, which includes Hong Kong-China co-productions.

- One of these co-productions will probably be Johnnie To’s latest romance Linger, which now has a trailer out with a link from Kaiju Shakedown.

- Takeshi Kitano appears on Japanese TV in variety shows often enough already, but audiences still can’t get enough of him: His latest acting role in a made-for-TV miniseries scored an average of 23.75 rating over Saturday and Sunday nights. That’s an even higher average rating than the highest-rated drama this season, and it was on the weekend.

- This isn’t a political blog, and this news isn’t meant to be political, but am I right in saying that a documentary that asserts the Japanese WWII war criminals are the equivalent of the seven samurais is probably a little absurd?

- It’s trailers time! Both courtesy of Twitch today- First, the English-subtitled trailer for the Thai action-fantasy film Siyama (yes, there’s supposed to be time traveling elements in the film that is completely ignored in the trailer). Then, the non-subtitled trailer for the gross-out Korean sex comedy Sex is Zero 2. You can already tell it’ll be grosser than the first film, which doesn’t necessarily make me want to watch it.

- Courtesy of Kaiju Shakedown are 5 clips from Pang Ho-Cheung’s latest film(s) Trivial Matters. With bong-smoking, swearing, and talk about oral sex, I’d be surprised if they can get away with a II-B this time.

- I’m starting to hate my vacation dates: Not only will I be missing Trivial Matters (unless it’s such a big hit and it plays through New Years), I’ll also be leaving Japan the day before the Nodame Cantabile special is scheduled to air on Japanese TV. D’oh!

- At least I’ll be back on time to see the new digital broadcast by Hong Kong free TV stations. Of course, I’ll have to first sink some money for a digital decoder or buy a HDTV. Which means I’ll probably be missing out anyway.

- Under “they mean really well” news today, the Beijing Film Academy produced a documentary about the China Disabled People’s Performing Art Troupe, and even took it to the American Film Market. However, despite some interest, it couldn’t find any buyers and it won’t even premiere in its homeland until March.

Meanwhile, Thai filmmakers are making their final protest calling for modification to the new Thai Film and Video Act, which could bring further censorship into the film system, despite the addition of a ratings system.

- Remember Lost in Beijing, the much-edited Chinese film that was forced to remove multiple scenes (including shots of dirty Beijing streets) before it cleared the censor board? The uncensored version was shown on Hong Kong screens (with a category III rating, which meant “no one under 18 allowed), and the censored version will finally be shown on Chinese screens with a wide release this week. Apparently, the critical nature of Chinese society remains in the film.

-  The European Union is getting more and more impatient with China over piracy, to the point that they’re threatening to go the principal’s office World Trade Organization about it.

- Huge Chinese blockbusters are not even going to premiere at the People’s Auditorium anymore: Now they’re going premiere in Olympic-sized venues!

- The Chinese father-and-son drama The Red Awn picked up the top prize at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival in Greece.

 - It’s Japanese drama ratings time! A total of 12 dramas hit their season-low ratings. They include Joshi Deka (season-high:  13.4, season-low: 7.8), Iryu 2 (season-high: 21.0, season-low: 14.1), Uta Hime (season-high: 9.8, season-low: 6.7), Dream Again (season-high: 12.9, season-low: 8.4), Hatachi No Koibito (season-high: 13.0, season-low: 6.4), and Abarenbo Mama (season-high: 15.3, season-low: 11.1).

On the other hand, Fuji dramas Galileo and SP remain fairly strong, and NTV’s Hataraki Man saw a pretty big rebound from last week’s 10.1 to this week’s 12.7. Still, things are pretty bleak overall.

All drama information can be found at Tokyograph 

-  It’s OK, Don, you did get this news first. Bayside Shakedown producer Chihiro Kameyama, who seems to be the only hitmaker for Fuji TV these days, will be teaming up with Bayside Shakedown screenwriter Ryoichi Kimizuka for a new police drama that does not have anything to do with the Bayside Shakedown series (contrary to the image on the main Variety Asia website). Dare Mo Mamotte Kurenai will star Japan’s favorite 14 year-old (fictional) mother Mirai Shida as the sister of a suspected murderer who is being protected by the cop who is also gathering evidence against her brother.

Kimizuka will be directing, his second film after the Bayside Shakedown spinoff The Suspect.

- In more Japanese drama-related news, Korean heartthrob Kwon Sang-Woo announced that he will be acting in a Japanese drama for Fuji TV that he would like to call a “Korean version of Notting Hill.” Blah.

- Peter Chan’s The Warlords is one of the biggest investments ever in the history of Chinese cinema. Turns out nearly half the damn budget went to the cast, including US$13 million for Jet Li.

- FilMeX wrapped up in Japan, and Hong Kong’s Milkyway is walking away as the big winner, with Yau Nai-Hoi’s Eye in the Sky winning the Special Jury prize and Johnnie To’s Exiled winning the audience award.

- Gong Li has taken up the lead for the Hollywood film Shanghai along with John Cusack. She’ll play some mysterious woman involved with the underworld, or something like that.

Anyway, the film will be directed by 1408’s Mikael Hafstrom and is expected to be released in 2009.

- Nothing to do with Asian entertainment, but I just thought it was kind of cool. Here’s a clip of newly elected Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd speaking Mandarin in a television interview with a Chinese TV station during his campaign. Rudd was a diplomat in China and started studying Mandarin when he was in college in the 70s.

 - I’ve been meaning to post this for a while: Hong Kong distributor Golden Scene uploaded the trailer for Edmond Pang Ho-Cheung’s latest Trivial Matters on Youtube. The trailer is unsubtitled, but I can tell you it includes references to ejaculation, Isabella Leung and Gillian Chung pretending they can sing like pop stars (kinda like real life), it has Shawn Yue smoking a bong, and Edison Chan pretending to speak like a rapper. In other words, it’s not really safe for work.

Just in case you need reminding, Trivial Matters is a film adaptation of 7 short stories all originally written by Pang himself. He also directed all 7 films.

- It’s reviews time! Variety has a review of Samson Chiu’s Mr. Cinema, one of the three Hong Kong handover commemoration film from this past summer.

- In case you haven’t watched any of Akira Kurosawa’s classic films, some of them are now public domain and can be downloaded legally for free. I’m somewhat embarrassed to say I have not seen Ikiru, Stray Dog, and Sugata Sanshiro.

- Han Jae Rim’s The Show Must Go On picked up the best film award at the Blue Dragon Awards. The film’s star Song Kang-Ho also picked up a best actor for playing the role of a gangster who has to balance family and his work in crime. Meanwhile, Jeon Do-Yeon picked up another best actress win for Secret Sunshine, Hur Jin-Ho picked up best director for his latest film Happiness (I can’t wait to see this), Kim Han-Min picked up best director and best screenplay for Paradise Murdered, and *gasp* Daniel Hanney picked up a best new actor award for the melodrama My Father. I guess they mean that he didn’t really act in Seducing Mr. Perfect.

Full winners list here

- Under “Pakistan sure knows how to send out conflicting signals” news today, the government has pressured the authorities in Dubai to shut down two Pakistani television news channels with no planned dates to bring them back on the air. Meanwhile, the Pakistani censor board has cleared an Indian film that will become the first Indian film to open in Pakistani theaters since the countries banned each other’s movies simply because of some financing loopholes. Yay for international co-productions!

- The Daily Yomiuri has a feature on Japanese genre director Ryuhei Kitamura’s decision to go to Hollywood. I thought it was a typo when it says his last Japanese film Lovedeath runs at three hours. Turns out it’s 160 minutes long. It doesn’t look like it deserves 160 minutes.

- The Daily Yomiuri also has a column about NHK’s efforts to boost ratings for its yearly Kohaku Variety show, including making it more concentrated on the strength of music. Wait, wasn’t the show supposed to be about the music in the first place?

In order to get to that, they have invited Akihabara-friendly idols AKB48, Shoko Nakagawa, and Leah Dizon to perform in this year’s show. Somehow I think this music strength thing is going to be a gradual change.

- Again from the Daily Yomiuri is a feature on the current state of Otaku-ism in Japan and its influence in America.

- If you’re in the area of Rotterdam around the end of January, you can get your Asian film fix at the Rotterdam Film Festival, where several Asian films are competing.

-  And if you were asking repeatedly when will someone make an inspirational movie about the game of darts, your prayers have been answered.

- Which country is affecting the growth digital TV broadcast signals? Not America. Not Japan. Not even South Korea. It’s China.

- It’s reviews time! This week we see why reading film criticism is like watching Rashomon - first a glowing review of the Japanese aspiring blockbuster Midnight Eagle from The Daily Yomiuri’s Ikuko Kitagawa, then a pan from Japan Times’ Mark Schilling. Who should we believe?

- The Daily Yomiuri is so enthusiastic about Midnight Eagle that they even have a feature on the actor who plays the Prime Minister in the film. No, he’s not the star, but he talks like one.

- If you’re in New York, Midnight Eagle is playing as a day-and-date release at the Imaginasian theatre in New York City.  Of course, if you’re not, then it doesn’t really mean anything to you.

- The first teaser for Stephen Chow’s CJ 7 is indeed out and a Chinese-subtitled version is all over Youtube. Thanks to Lovehkfilm’s Sanjuro, now I can actually link a version with English subtitles instead. By the way, the first time is mis-translated: it should say “stop yelling or I’ll throw you out to the streets.”

- Oh, no, it’s sex! Chinese doctors are so afraid of the impact of Lust, Caution - now on track to be the highest-grossing Chinese film of the year in China - that they have to warn people to not imitate the sex scenes from the uncensored version. If you get hurt doing them, they’ll probably arrest you for piracy.

- Under “piracy is bad, mmkay?” news today, The Korean Film Council will be launching a new anti-piracy campaign in South Korea, where box office gross is one of the highest in the world without the DVD sales to reflect it. Meanwhile, European businesses are putting the pressure on European Union officials to make China do something about their piracy problem. Lastly, five Hollywood studios have come together to sue a Chinese online service and an internet cafe in Shanghai for providing illegal downloads of films.

Quite frankly, short of shooting ballistic missiles at random Chinese vendors, Chinese pirates are harder to take down than Al Qaeda insurgents. But good tries, everyone.

Later today: Maybe a post in the spin-off.