- Reviews for this year’s Venice surprise film - Johnnie To’s Mad Detective starring Lau Ching-Wan - are out from the two big trade papers. Variety’s Derek Elley calls it a neat idea that doesn’t quite hit the bull’s eye, and that it’s a rewrite or two away from achieving the rigor of a To movie. On the other hand, Hollywood Reporter’s Ray Bennett, who can’t seem to spell “Johnnie” right, is a lot kinder, calling it concise and artful.

- Sony is changing their focus, putting more emphasis on foreign films when they realized that these foreign films don’t need investors, but rather a widespread distribution network that Sony can offer.

- Takashi Miike’s latest Sukiyaki Western Django had its screening at Venice. However, responses from journalists and festival audiences are quite different. Sorry, guys, I can’t get excited about a Takashi Miike film as some of you may do.

- Leah Dizon is really starting to get huge not just in Japan (forget the fact that her last single didn’t sell much), but in the rest of Asia as well. Her debut album, which will no doubt feature lots of easy-to-sing song with carefully pronounced Japanese, will be released simultaneously in 9 countries. However, I doubt a number of her fans are fans because of her singing. I suspect this might have something to do with it.

- It saw a screening at Venice, and it opens this weekend at home: Japan Times’s March Schilling has a review of Shinji Aoyama’s latest Sad Vacation, which supposedly wraps up a Kita Kyushu Saga. Along with that, Japan Times also has an interview with Aoyama himself. In addition, it’s been out for a while, but there’s also a review of the documentary The Cats of Mirikitani.

- Twitch has a review of Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution from Toronto, calling it the most disappointing film at the festival so far. Ouch.

- By the way, Jacky Cheung is singing the theme song for Lust, Caution, presumably before he got sick and canceled his concerts

- The Singapore-based Asian Film Archive is getting a donation of 90 Malaysian classic films that will be restored and archived (but of course. That’s what an archive is for).

- They never succeed, but they keep trying: a Hong Kong-based sports media company has signed a deal to broadcast National Football League (American football) games across Asia. This comes after several hurdles to bring NFL outside the United States, including the postponement of an exhibition game in China and the closure of the NFL European League.

- They’re outsourcing everything to India these days. Even Sony is outsourcing the production of their direct-to-video sequel to the animated film Open Season to India and New Mexico (that’s in America, not Mexico).

- Reviews for this year’s Venice surprise film - Johnnie To’s Mad Detective starring Lau Ching-Wan - are out from the two big trade papers. Variety’s Derek Elley calls it a neat idea that doesn’t quite hit the bull’s eye, and that it’s a rewrite or two away from achieving the rigor of a To movie. On the other hand, Hollywood Reporter’s Ray Bennett, who can’t seem to spell “Johnnie” right, is a lot kinder, calling it concise and artful.

- Sony is changing their focus, putting more emphasis on foreign films when they realized that these foreign films don’t need investors, but rather a widespread distribution network that Sony can offer.

- Takashi Miike’s latest Sukiyaki Western Django had its screening at Venice. However, responses from journalists and festival audiences are quite different. Sorry, guys, I can’t get excited about a Takashi Miike film as some of you may do.

- Leah Dizon is really starting to get huge not just in Japan (forget the fact that her last single didn’t sell much), but in the rest of Asia as well. Her debut album, which will no doubt feature lots of easy-to-sing song with carefully pronounced Japanese, will be released simultaneously in 9 countries. However, I doubt a number of her fans are fans because of her singing. I suspect this might have something to do with it.

- It saw a screening at Venice, and it opens this weekend at home: Japan Times’s March Schilling has a review of Shinji Aoyama’s latest Sad Vacation, which supposedly wraps up a Kita Kyushu Saga. Along with that, Japan Times also has an interview with Aoyama himself. In addition, it’s been out for a while, but there’s also a review of the documentary The Cats of Mirikitani.

- Twitch has a review of Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution from Toronto, calling it the most disappointing film at the festival so far. Ouch.

- By the way, Jacky Cheung is singing the theme song for Lust, Caution, presumably before he got sick and canceled his concerts

- The Singapore-based Asian Film Archive is getting a donation of 90 Malaysian classic films that will be restored and archived (but of course. That’s what an archive is for).

- They never succeed, but they keep trying: a Hong Kong-based sports media company has signed a deal to broadcast National Football League (American football) games across Asia. This comes after several hurdles to bring NFL outside the United States, including the postponement of an exhibition game in China and the closure of the NFL European League.

- They’re outsourcing everything to India these days. Even Sony is outsourcing the production of their direct-to-video sequel to the animated film Open Season to India and New Mexico (that’s in America, not Mexico).

We apologize for skipping yesterday’s entry, but school and movie stuff reared its ugly head at the same time, and this blogger chose to write a 3-page script for school than a really long entry in a news blog not enough people read. Plus waiting almost 3 hours to not be able to get Eason Chan tickets this morning really pissed us off. But we’ll make it up in a bit.

- Let’s go over the Oricon charts really quickly. On the single chart, L’Arc~en~ciel’s latest got its number 1 debut, selling over 110,000 copies. The second and third places were close, with Exile finally winning out Utada Hikaru’s latest by only 1,700 copies in total weekly sales. Exile (which really is just two guys singing and a bunch of people dancing) sold 95,299, and Utada Hikaru sold 93, 518. See how close that was? Next week, expect me to possibly not report the number 1 debut of Arashi’s latest single.

As expected, pop rap group Ketsumeishi (imagine a hybrid of reggae, hip-hop, and pop influence blended into one) saw yet another huge debut for their 5th album on the album chart. Selling 430,000 copies (this might be a decrease from their previous album), this makes the group’s 4th number 1 album debut in a row. Hell, I’ll eventually pick up a copy too. Meanwhile, rock-pop group Porno Graffiti’s latest did an impressive 140,000 copies, but could only muster a second place when up against the Ketsumeishi boys. Hideaki Tokunaga’s cover album continues to sell well enough to drop by just one spot. Next week, expect Dragon Ash’s two compilations (I really hate this new trend of releasing one compilation as two albums) to rule the chart.

- It’s reviews time! LoveHKfilm’s Kozo reviews romantic comedy stinker Contract Lover, Jingle Ma’s “where the hell did that come from” romance Love in the City, and the Japanese comedy Bubble Fiction: Boom or Bust. Sanjuro reviews the classic martial arts insult New Game of Death and the Japanese “pure love” film Angel’s Egg (Erika Sawajiri again??). There’s also a review of the Korean satire The President’s Last Bang by yours truly.

Hollywood Reporter has Ray Bennett’s reviews of Jiang Wen’s The Sun Also Rises and Lee Kang-Sheng’s Help Me Eros, the sole “Taiwan” representative at Venice. Lastly, Variety has reviews of Help Me Eros and Jia Zhangke’s latest documentary Useless.

- Speaking of Help Me Eros, Twitch has a link to the trailer. However, everything in that trailer feel so Tsai Ming-Liang, including the detached eroticism, that I’m honestly not all that interested.

- I first thought it was just a really funny rumor, but looks like Kirk Wong’s remake of The Five Venoms looks like it’s on. The funny part? It’ll star Edison Chen, Maggie Q, Leehom Wang, and Wu Jing.

- Under “silly China!” news today, the expected blackout date for non-Chinese/non-communist-patriotic films is coming up, as China comes up to its October Party Congress/Party establishment anniversary date. While it was expected that Hollywood would get blocked out, even Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution is getting delayed until the end of the Party Congress.

- Thanks to D-War and May 18, Korean films just had its biggest month, with the highest recorded amount of admissions within a month. Just August alone, Korean films took up 79.6% of the market.

- While Korean special effects blockbuster The Host took its special effects to Hollywood, a Hollywood film just took its special effects to Korea. OK, China/Hollywood co-production and all, but my point about the reversal remains.

- After news that Fruit Chan is making a film about a young Bruce Lee that’ll be produced by Terence Chang, another piece of news has come out reporting that Hong Kong’s favorite indie director will be directing an English remake of a Japanese horror film. According to the report, this is Chan’s attempt to no longer be labeled as an art-house director. He could’ve made a better choice, though.

Last, but definitely not least; Miyoshi Umeki, the first Asian to win an Academy Award for performance, has passed away. Our condolences to her family.

Coming up on the spin-off tomorrow: Review of Pang Ho-Cheung’s latest, and why the hell did i spend 3 hours to end up not getting any Eason Chan concert tickets.

Just going over what we missed yesterday:

- The China weekend box office came out, and the two recent Chinese releases have fallen prety hard. Not too hard is the stinker comedy Contract Lover, losing almost 37% of its audience. Falling much harder is Alexi Tan’s Blood Brothers, which lost damn near 50% of its audiences, but has made more than double Contract Lover’s gross. However, with a poor performance outside China, Blood Brothers is not likely to get its investments back through box office receipts alone. Then again, how many Chinese blockbusters do make money back on box office receipts?

- In North American box office, the two movies that matter had mixed results - War, starring Jet Li, lost 57.4% of its audience from the previous 3-day weekend period (I’m that specific because it was a holiday weekend in the United States). On the other hand, Johnnie To’s Exiled opened to a pretty-good US$7, 751 per-screen average over a 3-day period. OK, it was on only two screens and opened at 70th place, but still, per-screen average is what matters.

We apologize for skipping yesterday’s entry, but school and movie stuff reared its ugly head at the same time, and this blogger chose to write a 3-page script for school than a really long entry in a news blog not enough people read. Plus waiting almost 3 hours to not be able to get Eason Chan tickets this morning really pissed us off. But we’ll make it up in a bit.

- Let’s go over the Oricon charts really quickly. On the single chart, L’Arc~en~ciel’s latest got its number 1 debut, selling over 110,000 copies. The second and third places were close, with Exile finally winning out Utada Hikaru’s latest by only 1,700 copies in total weekly sales. Exile (which really is just two guys singing and a bunch of people dancing) sold 95,299, and Utada Hikaru sold 93, 518. See how close that was? Next week, expect me to possibly not report the number 1 debut of Arashi’s latest single.

As expected, pop rap group Ketsumeishi (imagine a hybrid of reggae, hip-hop, and pop influence blended into one) saw yet another huge debut for their 5th album on the album chart. Selling 430,000 copies (this might be a decrease from their previous album), this makes the group’s 4th number 1 album debut in a row. Hell, I’ll eventually pick up a copy too. Meanwhile, rock-pop group Porno Graffiti’s latest did an impressive 140,000 copies, but could only muster a second place when up against the Ketsumeishi boys. Hideaki Tokunaga’s cover album continues to sell well enough to drop by just one spot. Next week, expect Dragon Ash’s two compilations (I really hate this new trend of releasing one compilation as two albums) to rule the chart.

- It’s reviews time! LoveHKfilm’s Kozo reviews romantic comedy stinker Contract Lover, Jingle Ma’s “where the hell did that come from” romance Love in the City, and the Japanese comedy Bubble Fiction: Boom or Bust. Sanjuro reviews the classic martial arts insult New Game of Death and the Japanese “pure love” film Angel’s Egg (Erika Sawajiri again??). There’s also a review of the Korean satire The President’s Last Bang by yours truly.

Hollywood Reporter has Ray Bennett’s reviews of Jiang Wen’s The Sun Also Rises and Lee Kang-Sheng’s Help Me Eros, the sole “Taiwan” representative at Venice. Lastly, Variety has reviews of Help Me Eros and Jia Zhangke’s latest documentary Useless.

- Speaking of Help Me Eros, Twitch has a link to the trailer. However, everything in that trailer feel so Tsai Ming-Liang, including the detached eroticism, that I’m honestly not all that interested.

- I first thought it was just a really funny rumor, but looks like Kirk Wong’s remake of The Five Venoms looks like it’s on. The funny part? It’ll star Edison Chen, Maggie Q, Leehom Wang, and Wu Jing.

- Under “silly China!” news today, the expected blackout date for non-Chinese/non-communist-patriotic films is coming up, as China comes up to its October Party Congress/Party establishment anniversary date. While it was expected that Hollywood would get blocked out, even Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution is getting delayed until the end of the Party Congress.

- Thanks to D-War and May 18, Korean films just had its biggest month, with the highest recorded amount of admissions within a month. Just August alone, Korean films took up 79.6% of the market.

- While Korean special effects blockbuster The Host took its special effects to Hollywood, a Hollywood film just took its special effects to Korea. OK, China/Hollywood co-production and all, but my point about the reversal remains.

- After news that Fruit Chan is making a film about a young Bruce Lee that’ll be produced by Terence Chang, another piece of news has come out reporting that Hong Kong’s favorite indie director will be directing an English remake of a Japanese horror film. According to the report, this is Chan’s attempt to no longer be labeled as an art-house director. He could’ve made a better choice, though.

Last, but definitely not least; Miyoshi Umeki, the first Asian to win an Academy Award for performance, has passed away. Our condolences to her family.

Coming up on the spin-off tomorrow: Review of Pang Ho-Cheung’s latest, and why the hell did i spend 3 hours to end up not getting any Eason Chan concert tickets.

Just going over what we missed yesterday:

- The China weekend box office came out, and the two recent Chinese releases have fallen prety hard. Not too hard is the stinker comedy Contract Lover, losing almost 37% of its audience. Falling much harder is Alexi Tan’s Blood Brothers, which lost damn near 50% of its audiences, but has made more than double Contract Lover’s gross. However, with a poor performance outside China, Blood Brothers is not likely to get its investments back through box office receipts alone. Then again, how many Chinese blockbusters do make money back on box office receipts?

- In North American box office, the two movies that matter had mixed results - War, starring Jet Li, lost 57.4% of its audience from the previous 3-day weekend period (I’m that specific because it was a holiday weekend in the United States). On the other hand, Johnnie To’s Exiled opened to a pretty-good US$7, 751 per-screen average over a 3-day period. OK, it was on only two screens and opened at 70th place, but still, per-screen average is what matters.

- There’s not much to report in terms of box office numbers, but everyone was surprised as I was that Evangelion 1.0 opened so huge. It was apparently so huge (280 million yen on just 84 screens!) that one cinema couldn’t even accommodate the crowd after moving the film to a theater 5 times larger.

- Slightly outdated, but reviews for Shinji Aoyama’s latest Sad Vacation are coming in. Variety gave it a bit of a pan, while Twitch seemed to like it. Honestly, I’ve never seen a Shinji Aoyama thing, fearing that it’s not really my thing.

- Variety also has a review of Jiang Wen’s The Sun Also Rises, with Derek Elley calling the film’s enjoyment dependent on individual tolerance for cranked-up visuals and acting. Does that mean there’s not much beneath the visuals and acting?

- This has absolutely nothing to do with Asian films, but rather pure interest. Wes Anderson’s latest The Darjeeling Limited had its premiere in Venice, but sadly under the shadow of star/co-writer Owen Wilson’s suicide attempt. The reviews from the two big trade papers are out, with Variety saying that it’s closer to The Royal Tennenbaums than The Life Aquatic (that would be a good thing, although I liked both very much). However, Hollywood Reporter’s Ray Bennett calls it a third rate Hope and Crosby movie with no big laughs and nothing to say.

- Sorry to those who had tickets to the last two Jacky Cheung concert: the second-to-the-last show was canceled at the very last minutes because the legendary singer got ill and he claims that he couldn’t even sing one-third of the songs, failing his basic requirement as a singer. When his cold didn’t get any better, he canceled the final show last night as well. Still, I’ll bet he sings better than those Twin girls even when he’s sick…

Anyway, if you hold those tickets, go and redeem the tickets for the make-up shows at the end of January 2008.

- Imagethief goes over point-by-point on how the report of China Film Group chairman Han Sanping said about China needing more patriotic films is not something that should happen to the Chinese film industry. This quote sums it all up: “…government involvement in any aspect of popular culture, unless it is simply cutting a check, is generally bad form. This is because politicians and bureaucrats are, by and large, crappy arbiters of taste.”

- MCL, whose Kornhill cinema is honestly not that great, is working with a property firm named Shaw (not THAT Shaw, right) to open the largest multiplex in Hong Kong. I hope they have sound separation better there then MCL Kornhill.

- A trailer for the Hollywood remake for the Japanese horror flick One Missed Call is up. I never saw the original, but anyone still complaining about PG-13 horror movies should know that it didn’t even get any restrictive rating in Japan (maybe a PG-12?)

- The live-action Grave of the Fireflies has started filming, but there’s still no information on who’s behind the film.

- Not sure who’s interested, but the Canadian period film Silk, starring Michael Pitt and Keira Knightley (her in another period film??) will be closing the Tokyo International Film Festival this year.

- There’s not much to report in terms of box office numbers, but everyone was surprised as I was that Evangelion 1.0 opened so huge. It was apparently so huge (280 million yen on just 84 screens!) that one cinema couldn’t even accommodate the crowd after moving the film to a theater 5 times larger.

- Slightly outdated, but reviews for Shinji Aoyama’s latest Sad Vacation are coming in. Variety gave it a bit of a pan, while Twitch seemed to like it. Honestly, I’ve never seen a Shinji Aoyama thing, fearing that it’s not really my thing.

- Variety also has a review of Jiang Wen’s The Sun Also Rises, with Derek Elley calling the film’s enjoyment dependent on individual tolerance for cranked-up visuals and acting. Does that mean there’s not much beneath the visuals and acting?

- This has absolutely nothing to do with Asian films, but rather pure interest. Wes Anderson’s latest The Darjeeling Limited had its premiere in Venice, but sadly under the shadow of star/co-writer Owen Wilson’s suicide attempt. The reviews from the two big trade papers are out, with Variety saying that it’s closer to The Royal Tennenbaums than The Life Aquatic (that would be a good thing, although I liked both very much). However, Hollywood Reporter’s Ray Bennett calls it a third rate Hope and Crosby movie with no big laughs and nothing to say.

- Sorry to those who had tickets to the last two Jacky Cheung concert: the second-to-the-last show was canceled at the very last minutes because the legendary singer got ill and he claims that he couldn’t even sing one-third of the songs, failing his basic requirement as a singer. When his cold didn’t get any better, he canceled the final show last night as well. Still, I’ll bet he sings better than those Twin girls even when he’s sick…

Anyway, if you hold those tickets, go and redeem the tickets for the make-up shows at the end of January 2008.

- Imagethief goes over point-by-point on how the report of China Film Group chairman Han Sanping said about China needing more patriotic films is not something that should happen to the Chinese film industry. This quote sums it all up: “…government involvement in any aspect of popular culture, unless it is simply cutting a check, is generally bad form. This is because politicians and bureaucrats are, by and large, crappy arbiters of taste.”

- MCL, whose Kornhill cinema is honestly not that great, is working with a property firm named Shaw (not THAT Shaw, right) to open the largest multiplex in Hong Kong. I hope they have sound separation better there then MCL Kornhill.

- A trailer for the Hollywood remake for the Japanese horror flick One Missed Call is up. I never saw the original, but anyone still complaining about PG-13 horror movies should know that it didn’t even get any restrictive rating in Japan (maybe a PG-12?)

- The live-action Grave of the Fireflies has started filming, but there’s still no information on who’s behind the film.

- Not sure who’s interested, but the Canadian period film Silk, starring Michael Pitt and Keira Knightley (her in another period film??) will be closing the Tokyo International Film Festival this year.

- We have a tradition of starting each post with number crunching. But now that the box office reports have moved on to their own posts, we’ll start with Japanese drama ratings instead. In a rebound from disappointing weeks, the idol drama Hana Zakari no Kimi Tachi He have gone up to its season-high 18.2 rating in its 9th week. The Monday 9 pm Fuji drama First Kiss is not quite back up to its premiere rating, but still seeing a small rebound, going up to a 14.6 from last week’s 12.8 rating. The other idol drama, Yamada Taro Monogatari, also sees an increase from last week’s 13.6 to this week’s 14.6 for its 8th episode.

In outside-primetime category, the Saturday 11 pm Fuji high school bully drama Life also saw a season-high of 14.2 for its 9th week, and the Friday 11 pm TV Asahi drama Sushi Ouji (which you may remember also has a film version on the way) is climbing back up with an 8.1 rating, close to its season-high.

In “someone asked me to follow it” category, Yama Onna Kabe Onna (how many episodes can they go with a drama about breasts?) is just there, with this week’s ratings following the current season average of 12.2.

All drama information and description can be seen at Tokyograph.

I was going to try something new with Hong Kong ratings for biggest broadcaster TVB, but that would just seem lazy (without the ATV rating, that is). So consider it forgotten.

- As mentioned yesterday, the Japanese drama adaptation Hero is expected to be the big thing this year, surpassing Dororo as the highest-grossing Japanese film of the year and also surpassing Fuji’s own Monkey Magic (also a drama adaptation) to be the widest release for a Japanese film (or only widest live-action? Anyone?). Knowing that everyone in Asia has probably already bought bootlegs or downloaded the drama, Hero will also get a fairly wide Asia release in October, including the widest release for a Japanese film in South Korea.

- This news is kind of a spoiler on its own, but the Hong Kong-based distributor for Jet Li’s latest Hollywood flick War (or known as Rouge Assassin in Hong Kong) says he intends to submit the film to Chinese censors, and he expects them to let it in with a few cuts too. Yeah, good luck there.

- Speaking of those damn Chinese censors, blacklisted Chinese filmmaker Jiang Wen is back with The Sun Also Rises. Not only does Variety Asia have a general feature about the film, it also has a whole article about it not having anything to do with Hemingway.

- The Seiun Awards for Japanese science fiction writers was announced. The most curious winners were “Japan Sinks, Part 2″ (How much more of Japan was left to sink at the end of that movie?) and the media award going to Toki wo Kakeru Shojo - better known as The Girl Who Leapt Through Time.

- Honestly, I’m not surprised: Ang Lee says that filming the explicit sex scenes in his latest Lust, Caution left him nearly close to nervous breakdown. Reportedly, these scenes were filmed over an 11-day period in a close set with only a few crew members.

- Despite the recent global credit problems, experts believe that media financing will not be badly affected. Sorry, I posted this to assure myself that I will have a future in the business.

- We have a tradition of starting each post with number crunching. But now that the box office reports have moved on to their own posts, we’ll start with Japanese drama ratings instead. In a rebound from disappointing weeks, the idol drama Hana Zakari no Kimi Tachi He have gone up to its season-high 18.2 rating in its 9th week. The Monday 9 pm Fuji drama First Kiss is not quite back up to its premiere rating, but still seeing a small rebound, going up to a 14.6 from last week’s 12.8 rating. The other idol drama, Yamada Taro Monogatari, also sees an increase from last week’s 13.6 to this week’s 14.6 for its 8th episode.

In outside-primetime category, the Saturday 11 pm Fuji high school bully drama Life also saw a season-high of 14.2 for its 9th week, and the Friday 11 pm TV Asahi drama Sushi Ouji (which you may remember also has a film version on the way) is climbing back up with an 8.1 rating, close to its season-high.

In “someone asked me to follow it” category, Yama Onna Kabe Onna (how many episodes can they go with a drama about breasts?) is just there, with this week’s ratings following the current season average of 12.2.

All drama information and description can be seen at Tokyograph.

I was going to try something new with Hong Kong ratings for biggest broadcaster TVB, but that would just seem lazy (without the ATV rating, that is). So consider it forgotten.

- As mentioned yesterday, the Japanese drama adaptation Hero is expected to be the big thing this year, surpassing Dororo as the highest-grossing Japanese film of the year and also surpassing Fuji’s own Monkey Magic (also a drama adaptation) to be the widest release for a Japanese film (or only widest live-action? Anyone?). Knowing that everyone in Asia has probably already bought bootlegs or downloaded the drama, Hero will also get a fairly wide Asia release in October, including the widest release for a Japanese film in South Korea.

- This news is kind of a spoiler on its own, but the Hong Kong-based distributor for Jet Li’s latest Hollywood flick War (or known as Rouge Assassin in Hong Kong) says he intends to submit the film to Chinese censors, and he expects them to let it in with a few cuts too. Yeah, good luck there.

- Speaking of those damn Chinese censors, blacklisted Chinese filmmaker Jiang Wen is back with The Sun Also Rises. Not only does Variety Asia have a general feature about the film, it also has a whole article about it not having anything to do with Hemingway.

- The Seiun Awards for Japanese science fiction writers was announced. The most curious winners were “Japan Sinks, Part 2″ (How much more of Japan was left to sink at the end of that movie?) and the media award going to Toki wo Kakeru Shojo - better known as The Girl Who Leapt Through Time.

- Honestly, I’m not surprised: Ang Lee says that filming the explicit sex scenes in his latest Lust, Caution left him nearly close to nervous breakdown. Reportedly, these scenes were filmed over an 11-day period in a close set with only a few crew members.

- Despite the recent global credit problems, experts believe that media financing will not be badly affected. Sorry, I posted this to assure myself that I will have a future in the business.