You guessed it, folks, it’s box office time.

- For Hong Kong’s Sunday numbers, there was plenty of love for the cynical Gold Label pop stars vehicle Love is Not All Around. On 37 screens, the film made HK$1.22 million on Sunday for a very healthy HK5.19 million total (including previews). Look for this one to actually have a chance to pass the $10 million mark with two fairly weak HK competition films this weekend - Susie Au’s Ming Ming, which will attract the cool art 20s crowd, and Francis Ng’s Dancing Lions, which might attract the slightly older crowd.

In other openings, Hollywood crap fests Epic Movie and Shooter gets 3rd and 4th place, respectively. On 26 screens, Epic Movie made HK$330,000 for a 4-day total of HK$1.25 million. As for Shooter, it made a healthier HK$310,000 on just 19 screens for a HK$1.11 million 4-day total. As expected, The Painted Veil saw a bit of a surge, making HK$100,000 on 5 screens with a 4-day total of HK400,000. One place ahead is the lesbian drama Spider Lilies in its second weekend, making HK$160,000 on 10 screens on Sunday for a 11-day total of HK$2.44 million.

- Speaking of Ming Ming, Lovehkfilm actually has a review of it already, but many of you probably know that already since you probably found this blog from it. For those who’s been tracking the Hong Kong box office and has no idea what the hell is Easter box office flop Super Fans all about, Kozo has a review of that as well. I knew Eric Kot sold out with this movie, but I didn’t know he sold out to a Karaoke chain.

- In Japan audience rankings, the kids ruled the cinemas as two newly-opened animated films top the box office. The latest Conan (the child detective, not the barbarian) film opened up on top as expected, while Crayon Shinchan opened on 2nd. Three foreign films also joined the fray - Rocky Balboa performed the best after this week’s screen expansion, scoring fourth place, while the unworthy sequel Hannibal Rising scored fifth place. Performing even worse is Hugh Grant/Drew Berrymore’s Music and Lyrics, managing only an 8th place opening. Meanwhile, Box office Mojo seems to have some discrepancy again with the numbers, so we’ll go into that tomorrow when they have the entire top 10.

- Just about all the Spring Japanese drama has started, and the ratings are nowhere near the numbers networks enjoyed last season or even last year, for that matter. This season, the most anticipated new dramas are “Proposal Daisakusen,” starring boy band NEWS member Tomohisa Yamashita and Masami Nagasawa taking over Fuji’s best drama time slot, “the food drama “Banbino,” and Yuji Oda/Juri Ueno’s May-September romance “Joudan Janai!” After one full week, Joudan Janai opened strong with a 19.4 rating for its first episode, but has since fallen to a disastrous 14.7 rating for its second week. Proposal Daisakusen is in a close second place with a 19.3 opening episode with its second episode just aired a few hours ago in Japan. As for Banbino, it opened at an OK 16.6 rating.

Other dramas this Spring include the Japanese adaptation of the hit Korean drama Hotelier, starring idol Aya Ueto and a cameo by original star Bae Yong Joon (better known as Yonsama in Japan). It opened at a weak 11.1 rating in its first week. Even Death Note star Kenichi Matsuyama can’t help comic adaptation Sexy Voice and Robo, which had a weak first-week rating of 12.5, only to slip further into an 8.7 rating for its second week.

- In the North American box office, Disturbia, or better known as “Rear Window for Gen-Y,” topped the box office again. Grindhouse continues its freefall for its third weekend, and Hot Fuzz opens with an impressive $7,089 per-screen average on just 825 screens. In Asian film news, while Mark Cuban may be pissed about his Dallas Mavericks losing to the Golden State Warriors in their first game in the NBA playoffs (go Warriors!), he should be happy to know that The Host is now his Magnolia Picture’s 8th highest-grossing film ever. It’s only a little over $2 million in box office, but Cuban needs a little consolation prize right now, so there.

- That was fast. The recent commercial South Korean disappointment The Show Must Go On, starring Song Kang-Ho and directed by Rules of Dating’s Han Jae-Rim, is already seeing a DVD release date. According to Twitch, the DVD is coming out on July 30th, which isn’t that small of a theatrical-to-DVD window, but I’m surprised they’re announcing it so quickly. Funny enough, Paradise Murdered, the film that took The Show Must Go On off its box office throne, is also coming to DVD on July 30th.

- Everyone is picking on poor China. After the United States filed a formal complaint with the World Trade Organization over China’s rampant piracy of Hollywood films, Japan is now planning to file their own complaint against China as well. Oh, and sources say the EU is planning to do the same. Talk about the dirty Capitalists ganging up on the poor giant Communist.

- In true Japan fashion, while they blame the Chinese for not doing enough, the Japanese also have to praise themselves for cracking down piracy the right way. Oh, and they’re blaming foreigners for that too! I wonder if those Japanese street vendors at Osaka’s Electronic Street are still working the streets as if nothing is happening….

- Speaking of Hollywood and Japan, after the successful premiere of Spiderman 3 last week in Tokyo, Warner Bros. is now planning a similar rote for their summer tentpole film - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Hoping to continue their over-10 billion yen box office streak in Japan for the franchise, Warner Bros. will hold its premiere in Tokyo on June 28th, while the rest of the world will start seeing the film on the weekend of July 11th. Oh, except Japan, where it’ll actually open a week late.

- British Airway wants to provide the latest hit movies for their passengers, but it doesn’t want to do it if a rival airline and its chairman show up in it. In a petty immature fashion, BA decided to cut out Virgin Atlantic chairman Richard Branson’s cameo in the latest James Bond film Casino Royale. They also blurred out the appearance of a Virgin Atlantic plane in the film. Oh, behave!

Friday is upon us, which mean it’s a smaller edition of the daily news because I’ll be spreading them over the weekend.

- Let’s start, as usual, with the Thursday opening day numbers in Hong Kong. I should have seen it coming, but Gold Label’s latest film Love is Not All Around, which promises to continue the mean streak left by the ending of director Yip Lim Sum’s previous effort Marriage with a Fool, shot to the top of the box office after preview screenings last weekend. On 34 screens, Love is not All Around made HK$770,000 for a total of already HK$1.35 million after previews. Look for this to do pretty well this weekend, and sadly for Gold Label to keep making more films.

As for other openers, Hollywood stinkers Epic Movie and Shooter both make HK$200,000 on 26 and 29 screens, respectively. Meanwhile, the Edward Norton/Naomi Watts art film The Painted Veil, co-starring Anthony Wong and shot in China, makes HK$60,000 on 5 screens on its first day, making it the best limited opener this weekend. But look for Spider Lilies, which expanded by one more screen, to rule the limited-release box office this weekend. On Thursday, it made HK$100,000 on 10 screens. However, I do expect Love is Not All Around to take away business because of a similar target audience.

- Continuing from yesterday’s report of the Cannes line-up, Variety Asia also recognizes the absence of Asian films in this year’s festival, despite an Asian filmmaker being chosen to open the festival.

- Meanwhile, Jason Gray has not only more on the sole Japanese selection in competition this year, but also the Udine Far East Film Festival, which got a hilarious mention in Edmond Pang’s AV.

- Before its appearance at Cannes, there’s already a review up for one of the two South Korean films in competition - Kim Ki-Duk’s Breath.

- Speaking of review, Variety also has an early review of Spiderman 3, and it pretty much echoes the review I posted up yesterday. On the other hand, Hollywood Reporter seemed to have loved it. Sounds like it’s gonna be fun, but a bit of a mess as well.

- Since we’re already talking about reviews, Hot Fuzz, the much-anticipated (at least on my list) follow-up by Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright to Shaun of the Dead opens today in the States. I could be a big fan and go opening day, but I prefer to go next week to avoid the human traffic. Anyway, the reviews are mostly positive, with an over-80% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I consider that a good thing, yes.

It doesn’t seem like much, but tomorrow I still have plenty of news, including plenty of reviews and film news. It’s all an effort to make this blog more readable from day to day.

Let’s fly over to Japan first to see what’s going on out there:

- Japan weekend numbers are out, and as I mentioned last time, Dreamgirls debuted in second place with 200 million yen, which according to Eiga Consultant, is 72% of Chicago (also written by Bill Condon and made 3.5 billion yen) but 171% of the painful The Producers (which made 1 billion yen). Pending positive word of mouth, its total should come in around 2 billion yen, and be a solid little hit for Dreamworks/Paramount, even if they didn’t get those major Oscar nods.

Meanwhile, those pesky Dororo and Pursuit of Happyness are finally showing signs of waning, each dropping more than 30% after making tons of money. Surprisingly, last week’s newcomer Bubble Fiction: Boom or Bust has some staying power, losing only 17% of its business, showing the second least decrease out of all the films in the top 10. The least decrease of the top 10 goes to the Japan-Korean co-production “26 Years Diary,” based on the true story of a Korean man who gave his life to save another on a train platform.

- Eiga Consultant also analyzes the performance of best foreign film nominee The Lives of Others (which is doing very good business in limited release in the States), currently showing in one theater in Tokyo. Its first three days, all holidays, brought in 3032 people, totaling a 4.49 million yen take (120 yen=1 dollar). While solid, it’s also only 94% of what Brokeback Mountain did in its first 3 days in that same theater, and unlike The Lives of Others, it didn’t open during a holiday weekend. Still, German films don’t exactly bring in as big a crowd as an English film would, which makes this start pretty good as it is.

- Now kind of to Hong Kong, where a Twitch columnist has posted her own review of the Fearless director’s cut, and she likes it a lot more than the theatrical cut. I haven’t seen it myself, but skimming through it, I agree it turns into a much different film - more of the ambitious epic that it aimed to be than the tremendously entertaining theatrical cut. I don’t know if it’s better yet, I’ll let you all know when I see it.

- Kind of halfway back to Hollywood, Hollywood Elsewhere has a link to an interview with The Departed screenwriter William Monahan, who also wrote the great Kingdom of Heaven, whose director’s cut is one of the greatest films that never got discovered. He answers questions about what he thinks about the original films, kind of hints about whether there’ll be a sequel, and why it won’t based on the original prequel/sequel combo. It’s a good interview, even when he’s not talking about Infernal Affairs or The Departed.

- I loved Children of Men. No doubt about it. And I love the brilliant cinematography even more. That’s why I’m so happy to see Variety reports that its cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki has won the top feature film award at the American Society of Cinematographers award. Good for you, man. I’m pulling for him to win again at the Oscars this week.

- Lastly, Variety also posted its review of Hot Fuzz. Yeah, we know it’s gonna be good, we just like posting good news, is all.

Tomorrow, hopefully things are back up and running out in Hong Kong so we can get some box office numbers. It’s gonna be huge, just you see.

With the Lunar New Year holidays, there’s not much news coming out of Hong Kong, Korea, and China. But there are still some notable trailers released today:

- After Oxide Pang’s solo project Diary, it’s now Danny’s turn for his moment in the spotlight after the strange action flick Leave Me Alone with Forest of Death, starring Ekin Cheng and Shu Qi (a Young and Dangerous reunion!). The concept is based on the forest at the foot of Mt. Fuji that’s known for being a popular spot for people to hang themselves, especially after the economic bubble popped in the 1990s. Anyway, Twitch has a link to the new trailer, and….I don’t know.

Thanks to Twitch, I also found the Sina page for Kidnap, the new film by Law Chi-Leung, the sometimes talent director of Double Tap, Inner Senses and Koma. It stars Karena Lam (with a blond look seemingly inspired by Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, another film about kidnapping. See here for reference.) and Rene Liu, and the not-quite-promising teaser is not showing much. Kidnap will be released in June, and the trailer is here.

And today came the trailer for one of the most anticipated films in my lifetime. That’s right, it’s the full-length trailer for The Simpsons Movie is out, and it’s awesome. As always, HD versions are available on Dave’s Trailer Page, and the film (honestly, even if it’s 90 minutes of random gags, I’d be very happy) will be released in the States on July 27th.

- At the box office, Japan has this weekend’s rankings out already, and Dororo takes first place again, while Dreamgirls debut in 2nd place. More when the actual numbers come out.

- On the rest of the world, Variety reports that Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg’s Hot Fuzz scored US$11.6 million on its home turf in the UK this past weekend. Hopefully this will encourage Universal to push it further when the US release comes.

- Rounding up this Presidents Day is Japan drama ratings number. Kimura Takuya’s Karei Naru Ichizoku is back on top by rounding out the week with a 23.5 rating, while the Flower Boys continue at a 21.0 rating. More amazing is Haken No Hinkaku’s popularity. After showing its first decline in ratings last week, the comedy jumps up to its highest ratings yet again this week with a 20.7 rating. The average is now trailing very close behind those pesky Flower Boys. Even more amazing is the freefall Nakama Yukie’s drama this season, premiering with a 16.1, and now dropping to a new low with a 10.8 rating.

All the numbers are here (with drama titles in Japanese).

Update will come late or not at all tomorrow, so treasure this while you can.

Not gonna have much of a new years spirit here, since we do things very serious here (ha ha!). Let’s do a bit of everything today:

- Curtis Hanson is a filmmaker I’ve come to admire after L.A. Confidential, Wonder Boys, and 8 Mile (I liked The River Wild too, but it’s no masterpiece). I’ve been looking forward to his latest, Lucky You, since it was scheduled for release last fall…except it never came out. It has a very solid cast - Eric Bana and Robert Duvall (the less said about Drew Barrymore, the better), and it’s co-written by the brilliant Eric Roth, who wrote The Insider and Munich (in this case, the less said about The Postman, the better). Cashing in on the fading popularity of Texas Hold ‘em poker, the film is finally going to open on May 4th (perhaps long enough that people can forget In Her Shoes, which I haven’t seen). The good news is that it’ll be opening the 2007 summer season. The bad news is that it’s going against Spiderman 3, which means Lucky You seems to be aiming for the “chick flick” market rather than the male poker-playing crowd.

Anyway, the third trailer is out, thanks to Dave’s Trailer Page (where you can find HD versions)
, and it still looks like a solid little flick.

- Twitch also brings us two trailers (one trailer, one teaser, actually): One for Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s “Red Balloon” (Ballon Rouge), and a teaser for Takeshi Miike’s film version of the Japanese game “Ryu ga Gotoku” (better known in the states as Yakuza).

- Saw two films that seem to be worthy of comparison: Japan’s “The Sinking of Japan” and Korea’s mega-blockbuster “The Host.” Both films take formulas that Hollywood has mastered over the years and puts an Asian twists to them. However, the difference is astronomical.

“The Sinking of Japan” is about exactly what its title suggests: Japan sinks. Explained by a flurry of pseudo-science and a bunch of experiments (explained by on-screen text - giving a whole new meaning to visual storytelling), it basically blends docudrama and spectacle into possibly the most somber disaster pic since The Day After Tomorrow (which probably inspired this remake). With an unconvincing romance as the central plot, the film really takes off when things get destroyed - the special effects are awe-inspiring, with no one safe and everyone buying the farm, even though it’s done with such seriousness that unintentional humor breaks through far too often (the afro-wearing scientist, upon finding out that Japan has less time than expected, punches his computer monitor…which would not be good if that was the only evidence he has). Even though it does follow a certain Hollywood formula (the fate of Japan really does fall onto only one man’s hands), it doesn’t pretend to have any meaning beyond the island - scenes where politicians realize the rest of the world has abandoned Japan once it finds out the land and the economy are sinking fast is a sobering reminder of Japan’s role in the world. It makes for a fairly depressing time at the movies, especially when watching it in Japan, where frequent earthquakes are a part of daily life.

“The Host,” on the other hand, takes the same risk at genre conventions. But thanks to genuine characterizations and the sure-handed direction by Bong Joon-Ho, The Host is a thrilling good time. The humor, often black, is intentional and it even works. Unlike most Asian Hollywood clones, it even integrates some very Korean humor (I actually had to go to imdb to see explanations of a few jokes) so that it adds an extra layer for local audiences. I don’t have much else to say except to end with a wholehearted recommendation for it.

The American trailer for The Host is here (it opens in most of the country on March 9th).
The trailer for the spectacular, but depressing Sinking of Japan is here, courtesy of Twitch.

- Last night I saw the awesome Sonny Chiba in Karate Bear Fighter on IFC. Besides the obvious title (yes, Sonny Chiba does fight a bear barehanded, although it’s more like a guy in a bear suit most of the time), he also pulls a “Drunken Master” Jackie Chan by popping open a barrel of sake and drinks straight from the gaping hole as it pours out, and seeks guidance from a master whose trick is pushing a stick against Sonny Chiba’s eye….and by that, I mean the camera. It’s 85 minutes of karate awesomeness, and you should definitely seek out for it.

- Poor Mika Nakashima. After the success of her third album Music (not to mention Nana), she decided to try new things musically by doing the gospel thing with singles Cry No More and All Hands Together - and both were met with poor sales. So now with a hit drama to do a theme for, she’s back to her old ballad roots with the new single “Mienai Hoshi” (Invisible Stars). And what a coincidence that is just happens to sound like her first hit single Will.

Unless there’s any big news, I should be taking a break tomorrow. Will be back Monday with all kinds of useless Asian cinema and entertainment news.

Most of the major film blogs (understandably) don’t write on weekends, but I figured I should capture that niche of weekend blog writing, so here I am.

- Mostly reviews today.

The long-delayed Korean “blockbuster” D-War by Derek Elley, who describes the film as “the most expensive cult movie on DVD.”

Park Chan-Wook’s “I’m a Cyborg, but That’s OK,” which I don’t care what anyone says, I’m looking forward to it immensely.

Yoji Yamada’s third film in the “Samurai Trilogy,” “Bushi no Ichibun” (or known internationally as “Love and Honor.”), which I look forward to reluctance because I’m not much for quiet samurai films, but I liked “The Hidden Blade,” so there.

This issue of Entertainment Weekly also provided a review of the Infernal Affairs trilogy (which is finally seeing its region-1 release thanks to the release of “The Departed.” It’s not on the EW website yet, so here are some quotes:

“(The two follow-ups) were produced and released within nine months of the original, with equally convoluted plotting - so whatever they’re putting in the coffee, can we import some? The first Infernal plays like The Departed on fast-forward; you get dozens of scenes nearly identitcal to Scorsese’s…Affairs 2 is a decent prequel (just decent?) that downplays its dueling moles while filling in an epic mod-war backstory. The more intimate finale…prepare to be baffled about why key players get whacked, and whether to cheer or cry.”

Infernal Affairs gets an A-, 2 gets a B, and 3 gets a B-. Personally, I would’ve given 1 a B/B+(I can’t stand MTV-style overdirecting, and the contrived female character in Sammi Cheng), 2 an A, and 3 an agreeable B-, but I don’t write for EW, so there.

I saw Pan’s Labyrinth yesterday. It’s a harrowing fantasy mixed with a brutal (and I mean BRUTAL) war drama. It’s hard to decide what to think of it; it is a towering achievement for Guillermo del Toro, as this is now my favorite film of his (but I’ve only seen Mimic, Blade 2, and Hellboy, and wasn’t terribly impressed by any of those), and the fantasy stuff is great. But the intense violence will literally scar people for life (I rarely resort to closing my eyes in the theatre, but that’s what I did at one point), and the tragic conclusion perhaps takes things a little too far. Nevertheless, it’s an involving and beautifully realized piece of filmmaking.

- Some trailers: One for Julie Taymor(who directed the awesome Titus)’s new musical Across The Universe (one of the more overlooked Beatles song that I know), a teaser for Ocean’s 13, which I think a lot of people have seen by now, and one for the interesting French comedy The Valet.

These trailers are the high-res versions, if you want to watch them in HD, go to Dave’s Trailer Page for them.

- MonkeyPeaches reports that Jia Jiangke’s film Still Life, which was shot and projected in Hong Kong in digital, was taken out of the Hong Kong Film Award best Asian film race because the award has a rule that stipulates films must be shot in 35mm. According to vice-chairman director Gordon Chan, the rule is to “protect movies” and that they are aware that more and more films are being shot in digital but they are “not ready to include them.” In other words, they’re trying to protect high-budget blockbusters produced by the committee members’ (quite a few of them producers and filmmakers themselves) bosses so they can get their next films funded. I’m not a fan of Jia Zhangke at all, and I don’t mean to be on a personal attack mode, but the man who made this movie shouldn’t talk about protecting movies anyway.

It’s Friday, so let’s make this quick for everyone:

- Berlin’s English newspaper Exberliner has a rather nonsensical blog about the Berlin Film Festival, which will run until the 18th. It seems to be written with such verbal vomit and nonsensical run-on sentences that I wonder if the writer is rather…influenced when he writes it.

For example: “When placed in comparison to the drudgery of my aging hipster lifestyle, the disease-filled, whorehouse-circus, heroin-blindness sufferings of La Môme’s Edith Piaf appear utterly galvanizing. And of course: an artist’s myth is more than just the vibration of talented muscle. Why is my life so insufferable when my father could be a contortionist? Wait, my father is a contortionist….anyway, the tears that streamed from my eyes during the first third of the film were neither entirely the result of the artistry of the filmmaker, nor the girth of the journalist sitting next to me.”

Maybe my English really sucks, but….what?

The blog is worth reading anyway, as it does offer some perspective about the festival and the films, and it’s right here.

- The new internet-only trailer for Hot Fuzz, from the makers of Shaun of the Dead, is out, and it’s special because it was edited by director Edgar Wright himself. There’s nothing new to see, but looks fun nevertheless.

- Hong Kong Thursday box office numbers are out, and it’s indicating a weak weekend. But that’s only because the big lunar new year films are all rolling out next week, starting with advance screenings for Charlotte’s Web and Night at the Museum throughout the weekend, then Derek Yee’s highly-anticipated Protege opens on the 13th, then Ronald Cheng’s directorial debut (I feel a bit of vomit saying that after watching the trailer in Hong Kong) It’s A Wonderful Life and the equally awful-looking Twins Mission (the title screen looks like a bad 80’s adventure film. Maybe it’s a homage!) opens on the 14th, and the two Western films see their openings on the 17th and the 15th, respectively. New Years (as in the official holiday) is on the 18th, so expect box office updates throughout next week.

Oh, Thursday numbers can be seen here. Expect the advance screenings of Charlotte’s Web and Night at the Museum to dominate the weekend.

- Cannes has enlisted the past winners of the Palme d’Or to each make a 2-3 minute short film for the festival’s 60th anniversary. The feature film is set to premiere, and will probably never be shown anywhere else, during the festival this May. Asian filmmakers include Wong Kar-Wai, Tsai Ming-Liang, Chan Kaige (who hopefully isn’t promising the return on the pimp finger stick), and Hou Hsiao-Hsien are expected to participate.

Source: Variety

- Japanese distributor Shochiku has made a deal with an American producer to remake Yoji Yamada’s classic film “The Yellow Handkerchief,” with no director named as of now. The original film, based on an American novel, was known as the first best picture winner in the Japanese Academy Awards in 1978. Considering Yoji Yamada is still alive and going strong (making a real actor out of Kimura Takuya in Bushi no Ichibun), and that Ichikawa Kon just remade his own film, why not have him do it? The film will begin shooting in New Orleans in March.

Source: Variety Asia

- Japan’s Kansai Television has revealed more false data in their now-canceled hit health show “Encyclopedia of Living.” After the much-covered scandal, in which producers gave false data that suggested natto (fermented soy beans that looks like held together with snot) can help people lose weight, setting off a natto-buying frenzy in Japan, now KTV has revealed at least two more cases where foreign experts’ testimonies were mistranslated on purpose.

I always approach these shows with caution myself, especially when they show these interviews, they dub over the English and show the subtitles of what the voiceover person is saying instead of showing what the experts actually said in English. I hope these scandals now bring greater transparency for these so-called health variety shows all around the world.

Source: Variety Asia

Today I’ll be watch Pan’s Labyrinth and I’ll receive my DVD for the great Paris Je T’aime tomorrow. Yup, it’ll be a good weekend. I might even post once or twice.