Still waiting for various box office numbers to come out (public holiday in Hong Kong, Japan numbers coming out late, etc.), so let’s just do a regular news update today.

- The animation classic Ghost in the Shell is coming back to the big screen, with both a visual and aural upgrade, hence earning the title Ghost in the Shell 2.0.

- Twitch has a teaser for the Japanese omnibus film R246, which features a mix of musicians (Verbal of M-flo) and actors (Tadanobu Asano and Yusuke Santamaria) as directors. The films all revolve around Japan’s National Highway 246, which runs all the way from the government center of Tokyo to just past Mount Fuji.

- The effects of the recent Sichuan earthquake have spread all the way to the media, as a digital advertising agency is forced cut back on its quarterly outlook because of the earthquake has caused a dramatic decrease in outdoor advertising in the affected areas.

- China’s state-run media CCTV reported for the first time on the yearly candlelight vigil in Hong Kong for those who died at the June 4th Tiananmen Square incident in 1989. However, the station pulls a CNN and reports that the vigil was a memorial for those who died in the earthquake.

- X-Japan has suspended its reunion tour because member Yoshiki is suffering from a slipped disc in his neck.

- The 10th Short Shorts Film Festival has opened in Tokyo, and its winner will be recommended for a nomination at the next Academy Awards. That means no student films, please.

- The 25-year-long Japanese television drama Kaseifu wa Mita is finally coming to an end. The show has been running for about one episode a year with the same lead actress, who also starred in another one of these dramas between 1994 and last year.

- The sports film Chak De! India picked up 8 awards to be the big winner at the Indian International Film Awards. In true Bollywood fashion, the award ceremony managed to run 5 hours long.

- NHK is set to make a documentary/drama about the recent beef factory scandal that inspired similar whistle-blowing cases in other Japanese manufacturers in recent years. I hope their aim is to make it as good as Michael Mann’s The Insider.

- Opening day at the Hong Kong box office saw two major films opening - Sex and the City and Chronicles of Narnia. Along with Indiana Jones, these three films have taken up a total of 156 screens in a city that has only roughly 200 of them. As expected, Narnia opens on top with HK$1.09 million from 67 screens, while Sex and the City made HK$811,000 from 44 screens. Of course, both films had their ticket prices inflated due to the long running time, but Sex and the City is obviously the more successful film because of the restrictive category-III rating and the higher per-screen average. Still, I still expect Narnia’s business to pick up considerably over the weekend from the family audiences. Indiana Jones falls far far behind with just HK$231,000 from 45 screens. But with a 15-day total of HK$23.28 million, it’s time for the young ‘uns to have their turn. More on Monday.

-  China is well on its way to top its record-breaking performance at the box office last year, thanks to a 45% rise in ticket sales in urban areas. And domestic films make up 61% of the market. I’m sure Korea is jealous of that number these days.

- Speed Racer is going down the animation “celebrity dubbing” route, with Aya Ueto signing up to dub Christina Ricci’s role in the Japanese release of the film.

- Wong Kar-Wai has officially signed on as the head of the jury for this year’s Shanghai International Film Festival, while organizers have announced their official competition lineup.

- Meanwhile, the goal for this year’s Shanghai Television Festival, happening concurrently with the film festival, is to attract more foreign television content, despite government objections.

- Also, the New York Asian Film Festival has announced their full line-up, which include 7 international premieres.

- Exile was the big winner at the MTV Video Music Awards Japan, picking up three awards - Best Video, Best Album, and Best Karaoke Song. Yes, Japan has an award for Best Karaoke Song.

- Twitch has a trailer for the upcoming Thai fantasy film Queens of Langkasuka.

- Under “idols!!!” news today, the Japanese 18-member group Idoling!!! is now a 17-memeber group, as one member who joined in April has already decided to retire from show business. Korea’s SM Entertainment is expanding with a new division devoted to musicals starring their artistes. Lastly, the Tokyo girl performing troupe AKB48, who also has a recording career, is expanding their performances to Nagoya after performing in Tokyo over the years.

- The Japanese extreme violence film Tokyo Gore Police will be making its premiere at the New York Asian Film Festival.

- This week’s Televiews Column on the Daily Yomiuri explores the use of the term “monsuta” on Japanese television.

- Variety has a feature on Hollywood and Japan outsourcing their animation and effects work to Hong Kong firms.

- Jason Gray shows how hard Haruki Kadokawa is trying to promote his latest producing effort God’s Puzzle.

- Sardonic Smile covers rock goddess Ringo Shiina’s 10-year history with a major record label. I include this because I’m a fan. Too bad I’ll be missing the concerts in August.

- As expected, Indiana Jones also dominated at the Korean box office. In the opening weekend, Steven Spielberg’s adventure film already passed the 1 million admission mark. This ate into Chronicles of Narnia’s second week, and it has still not passed the 1 million admissions mark after two weekends. Of course, neither has Speed Racer after three weekends. Ouch.

More over at Korea Pop Wars.

- Katsuhito Ishii’s Yama No Anata opened at 6th place on the attendance charts with 520.9 million yen from 158 screens. That’s 102% of the opening for Hana (the Kore-eda film). According to Mr. Texas of Eiga Consultant, the male:female ratio of the audience was an overwhelming 26:74, with those in the 20s taking up 31.7% of the audience. Does this mean that female Smap fans are the one mainly showing up?

- Good for them: Kadokawa’s animation division will begin uploading their animation onto Youtube and allow legit posters to do so by putting ads on their pages on an ad revenue sharing system. This is how you embrace new media.

First found on Japan Probe

More details on Variety.

- On a related note, the Japanese government is planning to adopt a “fair use” system on copyrighted literary works, which allows people to use copyrighted materials for analyses, research, criticism, and media reporting. Currently, the law is so strict that posting a picture of an animated character in a public place on the web can be considered a violation.

- The planned Amazia multimedia trade show that would’ve conflicted with Singapore’s Asia Television Forum has now been canceled. How many trade shows can the market allow per year anyway?

- After Hong Kong filmmakers announced possible plans to make a film to raise money for the Sichuan earthquake relief efforts, Feng Xiaogang has announced his own plans to make a movie about an earthquake. However, his movie is a dramatic work on the Tangshan earthquake that’s not done to raise money for any charity. The film is now in the script stage and plans to start shooting next year.

- (via EastSouthWestNorth) A BBC reporter who had just covered the devastation left by the Sichuan earthquake writes about his coverage of the disaster and whether they took the right approach. At least they didn’t shove a camera into the injured’s faces and keep asking how they feel in order to squeeze out a few extra pennies from Hong Kongers’ pockets.

- The Japanese animated film Tokyo Marble Chocolate just picked up the Grand Prize at the Seoul International Cartoon and Animation Festival.

-  a Hollywood studio is looking at buying the remake rights for the upcoming Japanese film Kansen Retto, about the outbreak of an unknown virus in Japan. Didn’t they already make this movie already?

The trade papers took a break because it’s Memorial Day. As a result, it’ll be a somewhat short entry today.

- As expected, the Hong Kong box office was dominated by Indiana Jones over the weekend, and it ended up getting a very big boost over the weekend. On 101 (!) screens, the adventure film made HK$3.7 million on Sunday, and a 4-day total of HK$12.06 million. Definitely no underperforming here. Meanwhile, Michel Gondry’s Be Kind Rewind actually did the second best in terms of per-screen average, making HK$137,000 from 11 screens on Sunday as the only other film to pass the HK$10,000 per screen mark. After 11 days, the film has made HK$1.48 million.

Iron Man is still in second place in its 4th weekend, making HK$243,000 from 32 screens for a 26-day total of HK$21.06 million. What Happens in Vegas is still doing OK with HK$231,000 from 30 screens for a 18-day total of HK$6.5 million, which is a little better than average for this type of films in Hong Kong. Meanwhile, Speed Racer is now only on 8 screens, and made only HK$28,000 on Sunday for an 18-day total of HK$2.71 million.

The Japanese family film Tale of Mari and Three Puppies is still around with HK$95,000 from 23 screens for a 25-day total of HK$7.15 million, which is the best performing Japanese film in Hong Kong since Hero. That’s right, dogs are more appealing than Kimura Takuya here in Hong Kong.

- As expected, The Chronicles of Narnia took over as box office champ at the Japanese box office. The sequel finally bumped Aibou off the top spot down to 2nd place. Meanwhile, Rambo opened at 3rd place, Katsuhito Ishii’s Yama No Anata opens at6th place, and Kenji Uchida’s After School opens at 7th place. Poor Charlie Wilson’s War fell all the way from 3rd place last week to 8th place this week, which signals not-very-good word-of-mouth in Japan. More when the numbers are released.

- It’s Japanese drama ratings time! It was kind of a quiet week at the Japanese drama world this past week. CHANGE fell very slightly in the ratings to 23% for its second episode, while Gokusen’s season-low rating of 21.1% this week may give the Kimura Takuya drama a chance to catch up. Meanwhile, Zettai Kareshi and Puzzle both hit their season-low this week, falling to 12.4% and 8.9%, respectively. In fact, only one drama, the third season of Keishichou Sousa Ikka 9 Kagari, hit its season-high this week with 12.4%.

Last Friends continue to go back down to its original average numbers with a 16% rating for its 7th episode, Osen falls slightly down to 9%, 81 Diver takes a steep drop to 8.4% after its season-high rating the previous week, Muri Na Renai falls slightly again to a 6.6%, and Ryoteki Na Kanojo (My Sassy Girl)is also down slightly at 7.6%.

All drama sypnoses are at Tokyograph.

- Variety’s Derek Elley has a review of Singaporean director Eric Khoo’s latest My Magic, which was competing at the Cannes Film Festival.

- Jason Gray reports that The Mourning Forest director Naomi Kawase has officially announced her plans to create the Nara International Film Festival, which she hopes can join the ranks of the “big three” - Cannes, Berlin, and Venice.

-  Some Hong Kong netizens are complaining that the newposter for the new Incredible Hulk film is a rip-off of the poster for Johnnie To/Wai Ka-Fai’s Running on Karma. Judge for yourself.

- Japanese author Haruki Murakami talks about his side job as a translator of classic American novels to Japanese.

- It’s Taiwanese music charts time! Energy member Milk Yeh’s debut album could only muster a 2nd place debut behind Jesse McCartney’s album with 2.9% of total sales. The slow sales gave Victor Wong and Kenji Wu a chance to climb back up on the chart. Coco Lee’s relevance in Chinese pop may’ve just been proven, as her latest compilation could only get a debut at 11th place with just 0.86% of total sales. Khalil Fong also made it back into the top 20 at 17th place with 0.7% of total sales.

- Congratulations to Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Tokyo Sonata, which picked up the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. NHK News is already all over this.

- It’s reviews time! First up is Derek Elley’s review for Kim Jee-Woon’s The Good, The Bad, and the Weird. I can’t wait to watch this now. Mark Schilling of Japan Times also has a review of a film I’m anticipating - Kenji Uchida’s After School, his follow-up to the smart A Stranger of Mine.

- The Daily Yomiuri’s Televiews column looks at the ratings for the some of the dramas this season, as well as a brief review for Kimura Takuya’s CHANGE.

- Instead of paying for that expensive making-of DVD for Aoi Miyazaki’s latest film, now you can just catch clips of them at theatres, one clip at a time until its release in February.

- According to a research on the media, the American cable news networks have been giving less coverage of the Asian disasters than viewers demand. However, I watch CNN International here in Hong Kong, and the amount coverage has actually been quite balanced, with news getting fairly equal time, other than the live shows from the American CNN, of course.

- After a drama and two hit movies on deep-sea divers, there will be a Japanese drama on doctors who rescue people on helicopters. With a slate of promising young actors (plus a boy band member), the drama is coming this summer.

- I forgot to include the several deals that Fortissimo was also able to get at Cannes, which includes oversea distribution for Tokyo Sonata and Ashes of Time Redux.

- Japan takes successful adaptation one step further. After the film and TV drama versions of Ima, Ai Ni Yukimasu (Be With You), the tearjerker fantasy novel is now coming back as an audio drama. The news also mentions that a Hollywood remake starring Jennifer Garner is in the works. Actually, I can see her in the Yuko Takeuchi role.

- Twitch has an English-subtitled trailer for Go Shibata’s acclaimed Late Bloomer, which has been picked up for North American release by the up-and-coming Tidepoint Pictures.

- Apparently, Zhang Ziyi is quite upset that a group of people in Cannes doesn’t know much about China earthquake, accusing them of not knowing what’s going on on Earth. In related news, Zhang Ziyi doesn’t know how to spell “hypocrisy”.

- Watching TV today, I realize that the trailer for Johnnie To’s The Sparrow is up, and I found it on Youtube. Whoever edited it is a genius.

-Under “Cannes market deal” news today, Variety has a wrap-up of the various deals Cannes market. Meanwhile, Jason Gray also has a look at the deals being made for Japanese films at the market.

Also, director Wim Wenders have a Korean investor involved with his latest film, an adaptation of a novel by Ryu Murakami.

- The comic adaptation Maison Ikkoku is coming back for another live-action episode this summer.

- Amidst the current situation in China, it’s amazing that the media authority in the government still has time to get some censorin’ on.

- The Daily Yomiuri has a feature on the flash animated movie Eagle Talon II, currently playing in one Tokyo theater. Confession time and relax time in the middle of the movie? Sounds like a ton of fun.

- Actress Aoi Miyazaki just picked up the Galaxy Award for her starring role in the Taiga drama Atsuhime, currently playing to pretty damn good ratings on NHK.

- It’s reviews time! Hollywood Reporter finally updated their review page with the latest from Cannes. From reviewer Maggie Lee are reviews of the Korean thriller The Chaser, the omnibus film Tokyo!, Jia Zhangke’s 24 City, and the Korean horror The Guard Post. Meanwhile, Peter Brunette has a review of Wong Kar-Wai’s Ashes of Time Redux.

In addition, Twitch’s Todd Brown has a review of Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Tokyo Sonata and for the Japanese wrestling comedy Gachi Boy (Wrestling with a Memory).

- While we’re on the subject of Tokyo!, an American distributor recently bought up the film at Cannes, but it may not be the best distributor out there.

- Ryuganji has the second part of a Japanese magazine interview with mega-producer Haruki Kadokawa. He makes more sense in this part.

- Japanese actress Saki Takaoka will star in the American film The Harimaya Bridge. She will play the girlfriend of a dead American man who helps his father retrace his life in Japan.

- The announcement came at the Avex party over at Cannes, where an extended trailer for John Woo’s Red Cliff was shown, as Avex is one of the film’s major investors.

- Japanese public broadcaster NHK has come up with a new way to irritate non-fee payers into paying: put a big bold warning across their screens. I had fee collectors come to my door when I was in Japan, but I’m pretty sure the text across the screen is more annoying.

- Ex-NHK Morning Drama Chiritotechin has apparently earned itself a spinoff with an 8pm time slot. You had no idea how much I had to resist using “Chiritotechin After Dark” to start this item off.

- Shipping of a popular Japanese comic and its DVDs had to be stopped after finding out that one of the scenes included arabic text that was taken out of the Quran.

- Mark Russell over at Korea Pop Wars writes about going to recent copyright-related forums and writes his own thoughts about why piracy may not always be the consumers’ fault.

- The Japanese box office numbers are out. Aibou topped the chart for the third week in a row, losing only about 27% of business from last last week. The drama adaptation has now made nearly 2.7 billion yen with no signs of stopping. Meanwhile, Kurosawa remake The Last Princess dropped by nearly 40%, and has made just over 500 million yen so far. If word-of-mouth doesn’t pick up on this, it may be a disappointment for Toho. However, Toho still has the successful Conan film and Shaolin Girl (nearly 1.3 billion yen) to back them up.

On the other hand, The Mist lost only about 30% of last week’s business, and The Sand Chronicles is also hanging in there, losing only about 28%. The Bucket List also managed to stay at 2nd place not only because of Charlie Wilson’s War’s soft opening, but also because it lost only about 33% from its opening week.

Remember the percentage change is only a rough figure due to fluctuating currency from week to week.

- It’s Japanese Oricon charts time! This week, KAT-TUN sees their latest single debut at number 1, making it their 7th consecutive number 1 single, while Ayaka’s latest single could only debut at 6th place. On the albums chart, Superfly’s debut album debuts at number one, while actor Yutaka Mizutani’s self-cover album debuts at number 2. More at Tokyograph.

- The name My Sassy Girl just doesn’t mean much anymore: While the Japanese drama version is flopping on the ratings chart, the American remake is now sent directly to video without a theatrical release.

- The European Union is reporting that they are seizing less pirated entertainment than before, and such goods from China also fell by 20% (from a whopping 93% the year before). However, that could just mean that people are finding better ways to get them in or not getting caught.

- Variety reports that Hong Kong director Yui Lik-Wai’s Plastic City now has Hong Kong’s Sundream Pictures and Japan’s Bitter End on board, while Hong Kong’s Ming Pao adds that it stars Hong Kong’s Anthony Wong and Japan’s Jo Odagiri as father and son.

- Meanwhile, John Woo announced at Cannes that his next movie will be the Chinese epic 1949, chronicling events that occurred at the end of World War II and the Chinese civil war. While it’ll supposedly be a love story, the fact that Woo is trying to finish the film by the 60th anniversary of the founding of the PRC should tell you that it’s a China-approved love story.

- Also, a British film following the rise of Mao Zedong is in the making……with Vietnamese soldiers. This movie may not be China-approved.

- It’s reviews time! Hollywood Reporter’s Maggie Lee chimes in on Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Tokyo Sonata, while Variety’s Leslie Felperin has a review of Possession, the Hollywood remake of the Korean film Addicted.

- While we’re on the topic of remakes, Dreamworks really went through the old inventory and manage to buy up the remake rights to the 2003 hit Japanese film Yomigaeri. By the way, the Dreamworks-produced A Tale of Two Sisters remake is now called The Uninvited - the name of another Korean horror movie.

- Apparently, the critical and commercial failure of that Genghis Khan movie really got to Haruki Kadokawa’s head….now I’ll go swing my wooden sword a few thousand times.

- Tartan USA, who brought Oldboy and the Election films to America, has sadly closed down.

- Koizora, based on the internet novel about the trials and tribulations of a young Japanese girl, is now going to TV after the film was one of the biggest theatrical hits last year. The director and the production crew from the film are returning, though the cast will not.

- As expected, The Chronicles of Narnia opened first place at the Korean box office. However, as Korea Pop Wars reports, the sequel opened slightly lower than the first film. Meanwhile, Speed Racer didn’t experience a real free fall, already having 745,000 admissions after two weekends, meaning it should move past the million admission mark. Iron Man continues to perform strongly with 3.7 million admissions after three weekends. Full chart over at Twitch.

- The full list of films to be featured at this year’s New York Asian Film Festival is out, and you can find a full list via Tokyograph. Also, Subway Cinema’s Brian offers his thoughts on this year’s picks.

- The Oriental Daily reported it, and now Variety’s Derek Elly confirms it in his review: The new Ashes of Time Redux isn’t much different from the original film in terms of structure and length, although the new score seems to make a world of difference.

- A new English-subtitled trailer for John Woo’s Red Cliff is now online. However, like the trailer for The Good, the Bad, and The Weird yesterday, there’s no guarantee how long it’ll be online. Besides, it didn’t really get me any more excited for the film.

- That was fas, after Thelma Aoyama’s “Soba ni Iru ne” broke the record for reaching one million cell phone downloads in the quickest time about a month ago, previous record holder GReeeen came right back and recaptured the record with their latest song.

- Film buyers, time to add another festival on your schedule: The popular Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival is launching its own film market for genre films. Question is, are there that many films for sale these days?

- The first posters for Derek Yee’s The Shinjuku Incident, featuring Jackie Chan in his first dramatic/non-action-oriented role, showed up at the Cannes film market. Also, someone in the comment section revealed that the film may be due for a ban in China because it involves the Japanese yakuzas, even though the film is a co-production that filmed in China.

- Those who don’t get who the newly popular Japanese male trio Shuuchishin is can get a brief explanation here. Japan has a thing for gimmick pop, and it looks like this is one of them.

- Lastly, the American sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live did a Japanese take on The Office that’s funny at first, but only ended up growing annoying as it went on. Still, at least the Japanese was correct despite the heavy accent. And Ricky Gervais is still brilliant.