We’re surprisingly busy here for the rest of the week, but we gotta get through all this news anyway, so let’s do it quickly:

- Japanese box office numbers are out at a much higher exchange rate than last week (US$1=123.495 yen this week vs 121.775 yen last week), which means they seem to be earning less in American dollars in addition to the drop. I really wish they’d just stick to a consistent rate to show the true week-to-week drop each week.

Anyway, except for Pirates of the Caribbean and Apocalypto (which saw a screen increase), looks like almost all the films took a pretty big hit, with 300 leading the way by losing 56% of its audience. That almost never happens in the top 10 in Japan.

Yesterday, I mentioned that Maiko Haaaan!!! opened pretty big at second place with 230 million yen. However, Eiga Consultant gets it straight and points out that it actually only opened at 76% of writer Kenkuro Kudo’s last film Kisarazu Cat’s Eye World Series (which ended up with an 1.8 billion yen total) and 80% of Kou Shibasaki’s last comedy Star Reformer (2 billion yen total). Mr. Texas also points out that this year seems to lack the huge hits such as Umizaru 2, Suite Dreams, and even Star Reformer. In fact, the highest-grossing Japanese film this year, Dororo, only grossed less than half of Umizaru’s final gross. Is the Hoga resurrection that short-lived?

Meanwhile, the May-September romance Last Love, starring Masakazu Tamura and Misaki Ito, opened pretty weakly at 8th place with only 45 million yen. That’s only 29% of Love Never to End, another drama that aimed at an older crowd, though the latter film did have the sex scenes to bring in more of the older crowd.

- Jason Gray got it first, as he reported that Tsukamoto Shinya’s Nightmare Detective is headed for a sequel less than half a year after the first film was released. Less than a day later, Ryuganji has plenty of expanded information about what the sequel will be like. According to the website, the DVD of the first film will be out this weekend. Did anyone know how well this film did? I don’t even remember it ever hitting the top 10.

This was a clothing store in Harajuku that happened to also be promoting the film at its storefront, January 2007.

- The Melody Awards was handed out in Taiwan recently. Nicky Lee and Jolin Tsai, both pop stars that I don’t particular care for, picked up best male and female awards, respectively. And David Tao, who delivered a fairly underwhelming album last year, still managed to pick up an award for best duet.

- There are some creative ways to meet your favorite celebrity, this is not one of them.

- Under “most surprising news” today, a sequel to the mega Korean blockbuster The Host is now in pre-production. I know monster flicks are prone to sequels, but there’s almost no way this is going to top the original.

- A Chinese documentary about a school class election picked up the top feature award at the AFI/Discovery Channel Docufest. Good for them.

- The website for Feng Xiaogeng’s latest film The Assembly, which seems to be next year’s big Chinese New Year film in China, just uploaded a trailer. It looks technically accomplished, but it still seems pretty derivative to me.

- Twitch also has a trailer for the Korean film May 18th, about the Kwangju uprising. It looks pretty intense, considering its director made Mokpo, Gangster’s Paradise. But there’s something about that overdramatic music towards the end…

- With the latest chapter of the China-vs-Japan-history saga taking a turn for the worse, it’s good to see some people still acting pretty sane. Toho/UniJapan and China film are expected to sign a memorandum of understanding for cinematic cooperation. What does that mean? It means China and Japan are now one step closer to collaboration on film, strengthening the role of Asian films around the world, politics be damned.

- Unlike Hong Kong, Shanghai’s ongoing film market is currently still only seen as a work-in-progress.

- After teaching Hong Kong a lesson, Hollywood went up to Shanghai and taught the Chinese film industry how to emulate Hollywood too.

- The Dragon Dynasty two-disc DVD for John Woo’s Hard Boiled is up for pre-order. I’m very happy with my Mei-Ah remastered DVD (which I guess isn’t the best in the market), so unless it has some mind-blowing feature, I’m skipping it. Still, if you haven’t seen this amazing action flick, this is probably the chance to see it.

- Lastly, looks like they’re trying to really give the newly reset James Bond franchise some class by signing up Monster’s Ball director Marc Forster to direct the next film. The last time they tried that with Michael Apted ended up with The World is Not Enough. Might not be such a good idea.

The Golden Rock is back for another month and a half of continuous blogging. Yes, I did miss compiling a ton of news everyday, as I still kept up on Variety Asia and Twitch from 70 miles away. Anyway, the weekend’s over now, so let’s do this thing.

- Hong Kong box office was pretty disappointing over the holiday weekend, at least for Hong Kong. The two Hong Kong openings - Mr. Cinema and Kidnap, both opened to very weak openings. On Sunday, Samson Chiu’s Mr. Cinema made only HK$350,000 on 27 screens for a 4-day total of HK$1.16 million, while Law Chi-Leung’s Kidnap made only HK$230,000 on 25 screens for a 4-day (plus previews the previous weekend) total of HK$1.16 million. Patrick Leung and Chan Hing-Ka’s Simply Actors, starring Jim Chim and Twins’ Charlene Choi, opens today in Hong Kong, and we’ll see how it does on Wednesday. Yau Nai-Hoi’s Milkyway production of Eye on the Sky didn’t do too well either, making only HK$80,000 on 26 screens of advanced preview showings, and HK$170,000 after two nights. Either way, Hong Kong cinema’s summer season isn’t having a very good start so far.

In other box office rankings, Fantastic Four naturally opens in first place, making HK$2.07 million on 62 screens (I don’t even remember the first film doing that well in Hong Kong) for a HK$7.71 million after 4 days, Ocean’s Thirteen hangs on with HK$630,000 on 38 screens for an11-day total of HK$9.3 million, and British film Cashback stays strong with HK$40,000 on 2 screens. There are no huge Hollywood openings this weekend (Wild Hogs and Zodiac), so maybe it’s time for Hong Kong films to bounce back. One can only hope.

- Meanwhile, Lovehkfilm updates with a few reviews - Law Chi-Leung’s Kidnap, Billy Chung’s straight-to-video Undercover, the Korean fantasy extravaganza The Restless, and the J-horror film Ghost Train (written by yours truly).

- The audience rankings for Japan is also up, as Pirates continues its rampage across Japan as the number one movie. Japanese comedy Maiko Haaaan!!! is a hit, debuting at second place; Zodiac opens weakly at 5th place, but not as weakly as the Japanese romance Last Love (more on its weekend performance tomorrow), and Apocalypto jumps up to 9th place in the first weekend of wide release. Numbers and analysis tomorrow.

- In Japanese drama rankings, the Japanese remake of the Korean drama Hotelier starring Aya Ueto wrapped up its lackluster run with only a 9.1 rating, which is just above the season average rating of 8.5, but below the highest rating of 11.1. Sexy Voice and Robo continues to limp at 6.5 (I’m guessing episode 7 will never be broadcasted), train nerd drama Tokkyu Tanaka 3 Go took a huge drop to a 6.8 from last week’s 9.7, Kodoku No Kake has dropped from the season-opening 11.2 to a sad sad 5.1, losing more than half of its initial audience (Even Sexy Voice and Robo managed to avoid that). Speaking of disappointments, Joudan Janai goes back down a little bit this week with a 12.0 rating.

The season, which has been pretty sad in terms of ratings, will wrap in the next two weeks. I think we all know that Operation Love will come out on top in two weeks (the big question is if it will break the 20.0 mark), but what about Banbino, Watashi Tachi No Kyokasho, both which have seen pretty stable ratings all season? How will audience favorite Liar Game wrap up after seeing a ratings decrease this week? Will Joudan Janai and Sexy Voice and Robo fight off their “disappointment” label by attracting more viewers next week? We shall know by next Monday.

Part 2 of today’s entry is about little controversies in recent Chinese medias.

- I’ve never been a fan of Jia Zhangke. In fact, I have a legit copy of Still Life sitting here, waiting to be watched. Recently, director Jia was asked to write an editorial about the word “perplexity,” and he chose to write about Xiao Wu’s banishment due to someone in the film industry denouncing it. Since then, it has stirred a controversy because the media found its suspect. I might not have liked Ziao Wu, but I am certainly sympathetic with the ridiculous treatment of the film.

- r@sardonicsmile warns that if you’re a celebrity in Hong Kong and you have a personal blog, you might want to watch what you even dare to hint at, because the Hong Kong media will jump on you like a shark looking for even the slightest hint of red. One thing: Is the Storm in a teacup reference to the old Commercial Radio Hong Kong talk show, or is it actually a pretty widely-used phrase?

- Doing my part to spread the word, a Hong Kong blogger realizes that one of his posts was recently plagiarized by a writer for Hong Kong pop culture magazine Milk. However, the editor was confronted, only to say that it was entirely coincidental that the feature happens to match the original entry 90% of the time (even the two glaring mistakes in the entry was carried over). I’m even ashamed now to admit that I do read Milk Magazine with some enjoyment, which makes the disappointment even greater.

Now to regular news:

- I’m only reporting this for rachael: Aoi Miyasaki, better known as the cute Nana in the first Nana movie, announced her surprise marriage this past weekend. Yeah, usually I wouldn’t report something like this, but anything to keep them readers happy.

- The Jackie Chan/Jet Li historical family film Forbidden Kingdom has delivered its progress report, and they might as well have not reported it if they just say something like “it’s going well.” Jackie Chan apparently did offer promising words about the Chan/Li fight, but I’m still being very very skeptical about this English production passed off as a Chinese film.

- The Shanghai International Film Festival has officially opened, but it opened fairly low-key with very little business being done and a lack of real Panasian stars.

Meanwhile, Geoff Gilmore, the head of the Sundance Film Festival, took the Shanghai festival as an opportunity to blast the International Federation of Film Producers Association for their ratings of film festivals around the world. Might not matter to you, but it does to me.

- Japan Times reviewed Miki Satoshi’s Insects Unlisted in the Encyclopedia, probably most notable outside Japan for being Kinko Kikuchi’s first film after her Oscar nomination for Babel.

And they also liked The Prestige very much too.

- Dai Nipponjin is hitting the festival circuits, and they’re the major ones. The most exciting one in Hong Kong because I’ll actually be there next year, but Toronto is pretty damn exciting too.

- Speaking of exciting, the teaser for P.T. Anderson’s There Will be Blood is up and running. It looks different than anything he’s done, but he’s one of my favorite filmmakers, so I’m looking forward to it big time.

- Noruhiro Koizumi, the director of Midnight Sun, is taking on Gachi Boy, the adaptation of a play about a professional wrestler with a memory problem. I can’t tell if this is supposed to be an inspiring sports story or a comedy yet.

- Also working on a new film is Jeff Lau. His new comedy The Fantastic Waterbabes will star Gillian Chung and Alex Fong (seems natural to have an ex-olympics swimmer turned pop star to be in a movie about swimming), and will be released in time for the Beijing Olympics. I like Jeff Lau, but I don’t like EEG and movies that cash in on current events. What to do, what to do…

- Twitch write about the new Korean film The Wonder Years, about a young girl who is so sure that her mom is a famous rock star that she goes out in search of her in Seoul…with a little help from her friends(That was a Wonder Years reference, by the way). Plot sounds interesting, but after Ice Bar, I am approaching Korean films about searching for biological parents with caution.

- Doesn’t really have anything to do with Asian entertainment, but Jean Reno has a new commercial in Japan, and it’s pretty awesome. Who knew that he’s such a cool romantic lead?

- There’s gonna be another Godzilla movie…….in 3D!

Brace yourselves, this is going to be a long entry to read and an even longer entry for me to write:

- As expected, Ocean’s Thirteen led the pack on Sunday box office in Hong Kong. On 59 screens (still a fairly high number), Ocean’s Thirteen made HK$1.57 million for a current 4-day total of HK$5.41 million, which puts it just slightly ahead of Ocean’s Twelve, even though Twelve opened only 44 screens. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End slows down by just a bit with HK$1.02 million on 51 screens (a HK$20,000 per-screen average for a film in its third weekend is pretty good in my book) for a 18-day total of HK$38.33 million. It probably won’t hit Spiderman 3’s current gross of HK$54.94 million, but it’ll pass the HK$40 million mark pretty easily.

Meanwhile, Norbits makes a better-than-expected HK$360,000 on 16 screens to get a 4-day total of HK$1.18 million (I guess I was wrong about that), Japanese sports film Rough made only HK$30,000 on 7 screens for a very weak 4-day total of HK$140,000; and British film Cashback continues to be strong in limited release with another HK$60,000 on just 2 screens for an 11-day total of HK$510,000;

- In Japan, the attendance ranking shows Pirates taking the weekend again as 300 opens at second place and the Prestige opens at 5th. Dai Nipponjin also continues strong at 3rd place, as Kantoku Banzai has fallen off the top 10 already. Number crunching to come tomorrow.

On the other hand, Eiga Consultant reports that two limited releases have done quite well in Tokyo. Notes on a Scandal, starring Cate Blanchett and Dame Judi Dench, opened in two theaters on June 2nd and saw 2006 admissions for a 2.78 million yen opening. With nine shows that day for two theaters combined, that’s an average of 223 people per showing, which would be impossible in one theater and a full house in the other (not sure if these theaters offer standing room, which some Tokyo theaters do). Apparently, good word-of-mouth is spreading as it expanded this weekend, though it seems like it didn’t make it into the top 10.

The other movie is Sydney Pollack’s documentary Sketches of Frank Gehry. At one theater in Shibuya, the opening day saw 1500 admissions for 2.32 million yen and full houses of mostly design freaks and art students. However, it seems like attendance has died down, as the theater recommends that getting there 10-30 minutes before the show is fine now.

- In South Korea, Shrek 3 came in and took care of business by opening with 1.6 million admissions since Wednesday, which is a pretty damn good opening by any count. Hwang Jin-Yi isn’t doing so well with just roughly 700,000 admissions since Wednesday. Pirates took another pretty big tumble with only 75,000 admissions in Seoul, although it might end up doing better than Spiderman 3, which only saw 600 admissions in Seoul this week. You can see the rest of the top 10 yourself.

Oh, and Mark Russell went and watched Michael Bay’s “Best Summer Movie You Haven’t Seen Yet” Transformers (By the way, MTV is owned by Viacom. Transformers home studio is Paramount. Also owned by Viacom. See the coincidence?) and he can’t say anything yet, except that he liked it.

- This past week in Japanese TV dramas (see here for all drama introductions), we see the audience favorite Kaette Kita Jikou Keisatsu wrapped up to its highest rating of 13.5, Proposal Daisakusen (or Operation Love) saw its biggest ratings hike from 14.6 in the past week to 19.1 for its 8th episode, nearing the season high of 19.3. It remains the season’s highest-rated drama with an average of 16.8, and will likely to keep its place unless some type of divine intervention comes in. Joudan Janai also continues its slow climb back to respectability with a 12.8 rating, while Sexy Voice and Robo finds another new low with a 6.4 rating as it nears its end within these two weeks. Liar Game, Bambino, and Hotelier also see rebounds this week, as the weakest spring season in years begin to come to a close.

- Erika Toda, currently starring in Liar Game, has been casted in Tea Fight, a Japanese-Taiwanese co-production scheduled to shoot late this year mostly in Taiwan. Not much details on the film (not even director), but I can imagine the film would include tea and/or fighting.

- Apparently Bollywood has so many movies that they needed six hours to pass out all of its awards. The youth film Rang de Basanti, which is seeing its shorter cut released soon, won ten of the 15 cetegories, including best film.

- My favorite Japanese band is probably Love Psychedelico, especially after I saw them in concert back in 2005. At the end of June, they’re finally getting their own “Bokura No Ongaku” special. Considering their 60s Hippie rock influence, I’m not at all surprised that they would invite Yoko Ono. I’m just surprised that she actually agreed.

- Hong Kong’s Big Media Group, which announced its opening during the Hong Kong International Film Festival back in March, has unveiled its initial slate of films. They include mid-budget films by Wilson Yip, Wong Ching-Po, Joe ma, Jingle Ma (no relations), anc Vincent Kok, among others. Their only big-budget production so far is “Another Better Tomorrow, which will not be a remake and is trying to cast both Hong Kong and Korean stars. Except for the whole “Another Better Tomorrow” thing, I really like that they’re trying to do mid-budget productions with new talents, boasting production values instead.

- Still, looks like America thinks it has a thing or two to teach Hong Kong. Actually, I would like to sit in one of these things.

- Twitch laments for Isao Yukisada’s career, although I still think his comparatively subdued handling of a melodrama like Crying Out For Love in the Center of the World is top-notch commercial filmmaking (OK, it’s a little long, but a lot of Japanese films are). Oh, they also have a link to the trailer of his latest film, which seems like a children’s melodrama about building something for space.

- Jason Gray offers his own take on the Matsumoto-vs-Kitano comedian battle after seeing both Kantoku Banzai and Dai Nipponjin. The latter still sounds like quite a film.

- Meanwhile, Hollywood Reporter has finally chimed in with a review of Naomi Kawase’s The Mourning Forest, calling it a slow-moving film that might have worked better as a 30-minute short.

- I’m only reporting this because I know some people that like the Japanese pop collective (it’s too large to just be called a group) AAA. One of its member, Yukari Goto, is leaving the group due to health reasons, and will leave the pop collective with “only” seven members.

- The Shanghai Television is getting underway today, followed by the film festival, and this is the first year that the Shanghai Television Festival is operating on its own, before the actual film festival commences. On the other hand, the film festival will run its first SIFF market, which should do fairly well with the increasing reputation of Chinese films today.

- This is a strange and even somewhat contrived way of marketing a film - Saiyuki, the Japanese bastardiz….re-imagination of the famous Chinese tale Journey to the West, is promoting its film version with a fake cast, including another SMAP member Tsuyoshi Kusanagi and pop star Koda Kumi, on its poster.

- Ratings for Japanese animations is dropping overall due to a decreasing number of children, more extracurricular activities, more Wii playing (which is better exercise than watch cartoon anyway), and other reasons that seem to have nothing to do with quality.

- Since I already started following it, I might as well keep reporting it. Netizens in Hong Kong have found a new way to attack Hong Kong’s Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority - by complaining about a porn hyperlink seen on a government website.

- After proving to be a talented actress, Yu Aoi has a chance to prove her worth as a voice actress as the lead in a new high-budget animation special for Fuji Television.

- Twitch has the link to the full trailer for The Insects Unlisted in the Encyclopedia, Rinko Kikuchi’s first Japanese film after her Oscar-nominated performance in Babel. It looks weird.

- After winning the week at the Oricon singles chart last week, L’Arc~en~Ciel announces that they will release one single each month for five months starting August, as well as a new album and a concert DVD.

- Two NHK mini-dramas were recently announced, but the reason we care here is because one of them is a milestone of sorts. The six-episode drama Shanghai Typhoon will be the first NHK drama to have a non-Japanese lead with Taiwanese star Peter Ho. Apparently, he will plays a Chinese exchange student in Japan that will be a romantic interest for the female lead, played by Tae Kimura. According to Ming Pao, it’ll play at the very time slot that the hit Korean drama Winter Sonata played in 3 years ago, and Ho said like Winter Sonata star Bae Yong-Joon brought on the Korean Wave, he hopes to bring in the Chinese Wave. I doubt it, but go for it, Peter.

- The winners of the 44th Grand Bell Awards have been announced (didn’t I just write about the nominees last week?). Family Ties picked up best picture, while The Host still managed to grab best director. My favorite win of the whole award, though, is Ryu Deok-Hwan’s best newcomer award for Like a Virgin. It’s most definitely well-deserved!

- Lovehkfilm has a couple of new reviews, including one for the Hong Kong romantic comedy Single Blog, the “where the hell did that come from” Chinese film Sweet Revenge, and the delightful Japanese girl power music film Linda Linda Linda.

- Speaking of Linda Linda Linda, the songs the girls cover are by the Japanese punk band The Blue Hearts. Two of its members - vocalist Hiroto Komoto and guitarist Masatoshi Mashima - actually went on to form The High-Lows, and since last year, they have been playing as the Cro-Magnons. So even though the Blue Hearts have been broken up for 12 years now, their spirit is still very much alive. Anyway, the Cro-Magnons will be doing their first movie theme for the film Waruboro, though it’s not clear if The High-Low or The Blue Hearts have done any movie themes before.

- Twitch offers us another review of the over-the-top Singaporean horror comedy Men in White, and the conclusion is pretty much the same as last time.

- The Fujimoto prize, which recognizes producers and directors, was recently given in Japan. TBS has now officially shown their strength over Fuji Television as its producers picked up an award for their ten films last year, including the hit films Tears For You and The Sinking of Japan.

- The restructuring Bangkok International Film Festival has announced a preliminary lineup for its competition, which includes the Chinese film Lost in Beijing and two Thai films as well, one of which is Pen-ek Ratanaruang’s latest Ploy.

- The region 1 DVD of Hot Fuzz is coming July 31st!

- It’s getting more and more dangerous to be an otaku these days in Japan, as crimes in Akihabara has gone on the rise after extensive construction to change the face of the electronic town has brought out more otakus than ever. Of course, it seems like another concern would be whether these otakus would do their part to stop crime (that’s two links there at the end).

- The latest trailer for Ping Pong director Fumihiko Sori’s Vexville is up, and it still looks very technically impressive. I might even be tempted into checking this one out.

- As random as it sounds, Korea Pop Wars has some random notes, including the poor start for the hyped historical epic Hwang Jin-Yi. We’ll find out more about Hwang’s weekend in the next few days.

- Jason Gray reports that Japanese director Sabu’s (whose Dead Run I sort of liked) first foreign language film Arrested Memories, which Gray did the English translation for, has been green-lit.

I rarely watch a Japanese drama that I was really sorry to see end, but Kekkon Dekinai Otoko (He Who Can’t Marry) has become one of them. It’s a relaxing and charming little show that can best be described as the Japanese version of James L. Brooks’ As Good as It Gets. Hiroshi Abe stars as Shinsuke, a talented 40-year-old architect who thrives on living the good life in solitude - steak for one, followed by a glass of milk and some loud classical music in his unusually large Tokyo apartment. He’s committed to keeping that life of solitude by being generally unkind to everyone he runs across, even his own mother. However, when his all-meat diet causes him a trip to the hospital, Shinsuke finds his life slowly becoming a John Donne meditation. Will he stop being so mean and eccentric? When will the people around up get fed up? And in a society where unmarried 40-year-old man are not seen in a very good light, will he meet his match and finally get married like everyone else?

That’s about the gist of the drama, which plays out more like an American TV show with a mostly episodic structure rather than a serial one. Each episode deals with an aspect of Shinsuke’s lifestyle being questioned (the title of each episode is “So What if I______?!”, and they are often hilarious as they are insightful. The writer also managed to craft one of the most interesting protagonists in recent Japanese drama with Shinsuke, thanks to a great performance by a deadpan Hiroshi Abe. Yui Natsukawa is also great as Natsumi, Shinsuke’s new doctor that makes up the second half of the unlikely couple. Yes, traces of the great As Good as It Gets are apparent - the cute dog (and the dog is REALLY cute), the rude protagonist, and the apartment setting. Still, the whole thing plays much more to a younger urban crowd, as well as the middle age crowd; the Tokyo cityscapes are nicely captured, and if the whole thing doesn’t make you want to live in Tokyo, I don’t know what else can.

I watched this on a Chinese-subtitled DVD bought in Hong Kong by a family member. If I’m not mistaken, an English-subtitled version was shown on Hong Kong TVB Pearl a while back, and the (sadly) unsubtitled DVD from Japan will set you back a good 200 dollars (I really wish Fuji would release their dramas with subtitles like TBS has done in Hong Kong). Still, I encourage you to seek this one out - it’s really the best Japanese drama I’ve seen in the past year.

- Looking at Hong Kong’s Thursday opening day numbers, this weekend is shaping up to be a little more balanced than the month of May. The big opening this week is Steven Soderbergh’s big heist flick Ocean’s Thirteen. On 57 screens (Spiderman 3 opened to double that number in Hong Kong!), the star-studded film made HK$930,000 on its first day (If you put it at Pirate’s ticket price inflation of 30%, that’s about HK$1.2 million). With Pirates already fading away at the opening of its third weekend (HK$440,000 on 53 screens), Ocean’s should do fairly healthy, though unspectacular business over the weekend, probably making about HK$5 million at the end of Sunday, just about on par with Ocean’s Twelve’s opening 2 and a half years ago.

If anyone cares (I sure don’t), Eddie Murphy’s Norbit opened with HK$170,000 on 16 screens. It probably won’t even make HK$1 million by the end of the weekend. Good riddance. Japanese sports comic adaptation Rough (by Nana director Kentaro Otani) opens weak with only HK20,000 on 7 screens. British film Cashback stays strong with HK$30,000 on 2 screens at the start of its second weekend with an 8-day total of HK$360,000. And the only Hong Kong film in the top 10 is Single Blog, taking in just HK$80,000 on 18 screens with the 8-day total of HK$1.84 million.

- As reported on this blog before, Naomi Kawase (director of the Cannes Grand Prix-winning The Mourning Forest) announced at Cannes that her next film will be a romantic comedy. Now more details have emerged that it’ll be shot in Thailand with Japanese drama star Kyoko Hasegawa. According to Ryuganji, just because Kawase is using a major actress for the first time doesn’t mean she’s going to be any easier on Hasegawa. She also wants to be among the ranks of Akira Kuroasawa and Nagisa Oshima as the “Japan’s Kawase” by the next generation and that she’ll win the Palme d’Or next time, though The Daily Yomiuri adds that she said it with a smile, suggesting that she might have just been half joking. Because, you know, I half-joke about winning the Palme d’Or all the time.

- The trouble is over, as Midway has now rejoined the New York Asian Film Festival as a sponsor. However, they are no longer the main sponsor, as Dragon Dynasty has taken that spot while they were gone. Maybe someone can now afford to fly me to New York to cover this as an official assignment for The Golden Rock…

- If you’re in Japan this weekend with limited Japanese ability (being able to read katakana is just fine), then your movie choice this weekend ought to be Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige. It’s a hell of a movie I wrote about back in April that’s damn well worth your time. Even the Daily Yomiuri gives it five stars.

- China is suspending the issuing of internet cafe licenses as they do a thorough investigation to make sure the customers are behaving properly, as in they’re not playing violent games, looking up porn, or speaking ill of the nation. In other words, what Americans do on the internet most of the time.

- Tartan has picked up the US rights for Kim Ki-Duk’s latest Breath, starring Cheng Chen. Meanwhile, Kim’s previous film Time will open in New York mid-July.

- In related Tartan news, they also picked up Park Chan-Wook’s I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK and prebought Kim Ji-Woon’s The Good, The Bad, and The Weird. Since Tartan originates from the UK, no word if this means that they’ll also be releasing these films through their USA divisions as well.

- BET is sending a weekly version of their countdown show “106&Park” to MTV Japan, further signaling the growing hip-hop culture there.

- In a piece of more serious news, the erotic pages of major Hong Kong newspapers were sent to the Obscene Articles Tribunal recently for classification after some accused the TELA of having a double standard in the classification process, especially in the handling of the Chinese University of Hong Kong student newspaper case. Well, it seems like these erotic pages were classified as category I: Neither obscene nor indecent, which is baffling to me, since they are saying that kids are allowed to read erotic pages of mainstream newspapers without any warning printed on its pages.

Oh, I got it, they must’ve figured out that since Apple Daily, The Sun Daily, Oriental Daily have some of the least credibility among Hong Kong newspapers, no one would take them seriously anyway, right?

More news tomorrow.

There’s not much news today, so let’s do a short overdue review:

Took a bit of time to check out Kinji Fukasaku’s classic gangster film Battle Without Honor or Humanity. The 99-minute epic (which easily packs a story double its length) opens right after World War II, where Japan is a recovering nation out of control. We’re introduced to at least 5 characters who would play important roles in the narrative later on. If you’re not taking notes, then just follow one guy: Hirono (played by Bunta Sugawara), whose rise in the syndicates is probably the closest thing to a central plot. As the film rolls along, we are treated to subplots about internal yakuza feuds, assassinations, betrayals - all done in a pseudo-documentary style that tells so much story that even a narrator is needed. And don’t worry if you don’t remember the names, you’ll know who dies from the matter-of-fact on-screen texts.

Needless to say, Battle Without Honor or Humanity can be brutal, but if you can manage to follow Hirono’s storyline, you’ll be treated to an engaging, powerful, and even somewhat affecting story of a man trying live by the code, only to realize his world is changing even before he entered it. The style is revolutionary (almost always shot with a handheld camera at canted angles), and the action is refreshingly real, even though the handheld camera seems to be foreshadowing the current way of shooting action scenes far too closely. If you’re a fan of triad films (I honestly believe the Young and Dangerous series from Hong Kong learned a thing or two from here) or gritty gangster flicks, then this is the one to watch. What a classic.

- Before doing the regular news stuff, another outward shout to Tokyograph, who mentioned The Golden Rock in their blog. They’ve been providing translated Japanese entertainment news that’s certainly far more trustworthy than this blogger’s own translations (trust me, my Japanese isn’t that good), and will remain a very important source of news for all interested in Japanese entertainment. My e-hat is off to you, Tokyograph.

- Time for a look at the Oricon music charts this week. The singles chart is livening up a little bit, as L’Arc~en~Ciel’s latest single sells 112,000 copies to debut at number 1. Aiko follows not too close behind with her latest, selling 70,000 copies at number 2. Chihiro Onitsuka’s comeback single everyhome debuts only at number 9 with 18,800 copies sold. Even more depressing is Aya Ueto’s latest, selling only 8900 copies for a 17th place debut. Next week, expect Kat-Tun to rule the charts.

As reported by the Japan Times, the solo “group” ZARD’s albums are seeing a sales surge following the accidental death of lead singer Izumi Sakai last week. While Mariya Takeuchi’s latest album rules the album chart for the second week in a row by selling 76,000 copies, ZARD’s last album, the compilation Golden Best ~ 15th Anniversary, jumped all the way back up to 3rd place with 41,000 copies sold. Their 1999 compilation also jumped back up to 18th place with 8,400 copies sold. Don’t be surprised if their record company decides to release more compilations in the future. Meanwhile, American pop artist Rihanna fails to duplicate the recent success of other American albums with her latest album, debuting only at 8th place with 24,700 copies sold. Looking at the daily rankings, don’t be surprised if the ZARD compilation shows up on the top 10 again next week.

- Korea Pop Wars is providing us with a mini-version of the box office charts this week, so let’s do some analysis ourselves. This week, seems like Pirates took a 63% drop in Seoul admissions, while Secret Sunshine saw a significant increase in Seoul, probably thanks to Jeon Do-Yeon’s win at Cannes. I was also surprised to see Confessions of Pain debuting at third place, even though it seemed to have done not as well outside of Seoul. Anyway, seems like Pirates is following somewhat close behind Spiderman, and both films will probably pass the 5 million mark.

- The first English review for Takeshi Kitano’s Kantoku Banzai (Glory to the Filmmaker) is out, and with a 3.4 stars out of 5…..I guess it’s good, right?

- Twitch has a link to two more fragmented trailers to Wong Kar-Wai’s My Blueberry Nights. In line with the episodic structure of the film, the first trailer, released just before Cannes, showed the Jude Law subplot, while the second trailer is about Rachel Weisz’s subplot, and the third trailer is on Natalie Portman’s. It still looks pretty, but I’m not so sure about Portman’s country accent myself. By the way, you have to click on the French yellow button under that poster of Wild Hogs to get to the trailers.

- Japanese TV just seems to get in trouble all the time - this time it’s TBS employees trying to put microphones on participants of an amateur golf tournament just to pick up what the new golf teen sensation Ryo Ishikawa is saying. TBS has since apologized for making the request, which was obviously denied.

- After a bit of rescheduling and whatnot, the New York Asian Film Festival finally announces its lineup, and it’s looking real good (so good that I wish I can fly to New York for it).

Looking even better is Japan Society’s own film festival Japan Cuts, which has quite a lineup this year as well, some of which is part of the New York Asian Film Festival.

- I first picked it up here, which somewhat wrongly translated the article. John Cameron Mitchell’s controversial film Shortbus is finally making its way to Japan, but not without a few modifications. According to the director, he personally supervised the placing of mosiac at 100 different places for the Japanese theatrical release due to the watchdog Eirin, who is basically the MPAA of Japan. Still, it’s not exactly the kiss of death, because unlike America, about 100 films are rated R-18 each year, including American Beauty. In fact, this news might even attract more people to see Shortbus in its limited run. Then again, Eirin is kind of weird, because even a violent war film like Letters of Iwo Jima got away with a general rating, while Flags of Our Fathers was a PG-12.

- Because of the size, there are essentially only two free TV stations in Hong Kong - TVB and ATV. They each run a main channel with Chinese programming and another channel mainly for English and foreign television shows. TVB pretty much takes up about 80% of viewership, which in American standards would make them NBC, CBS, ABC, and maybe even FOX combined, while ATV is like the CW with maybe the crappy side of FOX. This means ATV is only struggling to stay alive so TVB doesn’t get sued for monopoly. Lucky for ATV, they just got themselves a new investor. However, and this is from Hong Kong’s Oriental Daily rather than Variety Asia, the Cha family is known for their support of the Mainland Chinese communist government. With that in mind, there was an internal memo issued that promised ATV’s staff that despite the new investor’s political affiliations, freedom of speech and unbiased new reporting will continue to be upheld. And I say I’ll believe it when I see it.

- Good news for Orange Range fans (I am not one of them, by the way) - the Okinawan version of Limp Biskit is putting out two new albums this summer. Bad news for Orange Range fans - they are both compilation albums - one is a singles collection, and the other is a compilation of “fan favorites.”

- Election and Triad Election is heading to LA this weekend, so do go check it out. Me, I missed out on its one-week San Francisco engagement because they played it in a kind of inconvenient location, considering where I live, and they only showed Triad Election without the first film.

- Anyone who follows this blog and Hong Kong music at the same time would know that I don’t have much love for Mark Lui, whose pop duplication skills is only second to Hanjin Chan(Edison Chen vs. 2Pac, Jordan Chan vs. Justin Timberlake). But I have to admit that Hong Kong press tends to make far too much out of nothing, even when it’s about Mark Lui’s copycat skills.

Case in point, I point you to the blog of Hong Kong pop star Denise “HOCC” Ho (yes, that is actually her real blog). In a recent entry, she wrote:

今日唔覺意聽電台。
唔覺意比我聽到d甘geh野。
聽到我想死。
我最愛的東西比人攪成甘……..
求神拜佛唔好比我再聽到。

(in translation)
I was unconsciously listening to the radio today.
I unconsciously heard such a thing.
I wanted to die listening to it.
Someone turned the thing I love the most into something like that……
I pray that I won’t have to listen to it ever again.

Somehow the Hong Kong media (and by that, I mean the Oriental Daily, circulation over 2,000,000 in Hong Kong, plus however many internet visitors it attracts) has connected it with reports that Mark Lui’s latest work “Money Money Money Money” by Leo Ku has been accused of copying Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. Then somehow, Oriental Daily connected it with HOCC’s post about listening to a song on the radio that has ruined the thing she loves, which is conveniently Queen. Thing is, she has nothing to deny because she never named the song, and the report states that HOCC admits to have heard the song, but doesn’t wish to criticize it. Then the reporter apparently continued to pursue the question, prompting her to say the following:

「 創 作 人 同 音 樂 人 心 中 有 把 尺 ， 我 把 尺 set 得 好 高 ， 自 己 盡 量 避 免 （ 抄 襲 ） ， 其 實 歌 手 都 應 該 有 責 任 ！ 」 阿 詩 最 後 暗 寸 Mark 說 ： 「 有 抄 襲 成 分 話 係 冇 得 追 究 ， 不 過 總 會 有 人 知 ！ 」

(in translation from the report)”Musicians have a bar in their hearts; I set the bar very high, and I try my best to avoid (copying). Actually, all artists have that responsibility!” Ah C also finally subtly criticizes Mark, saying “If there’s copied elements then it can’t be pursued, but someone always knows eventually!”

I love how these reports love to assume what the people are trying to say just by the report’s agenda.

Anyway, here’s the song in question, and here’s Bohemian Rhapsody. There’s a saying in Chinese, “The eyes are tall, but the hand is low,” meaning that the vision is ambitious, but the way it’s done is lackluster, which is the best way to describe the Leo Ku song. Lui’s ambition is high, trying to create a pop song that attempts to emulate Bohemian Rhapsody’s structure (it’s not the only song to do so anyway) and avoiding the Karaoke-friendly cliches. But the song sounds like a bunch of random melodies that Lui’s written before held together by the chorus; the whole thing just sounds like one of those bad pop song medleys…..like this one by Leo Ku rather than an actual song. Furthermore, Ku’s whole “can you hear me trying to sound like I’m having fun?” tongue-in-cheek delivery is irritating, especially when he does it for five minutes. I’m sure Leo Ku is a talented singer (though his “I love to sing” shtick is a little tiresome), but he’s no Freddie Mercury. And yes, the beginning and the random a capella does sound a bit like Bohemian Rhapsody’s structure, but saying that “Money Money Money Money” is copying from Bohemian Rhapsody is an insult.

….an insult to Bohemian Rhapsody, that is.

Still, this isn’t the worst case of Mark Lui’s copying skills. You can even write this one off and call it an homage.

- Speaking of Oriental Daily and bad press behavior, the Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority has finally decided to send the erotic pages of several Hong Kong major newspapers, including Oriental Daily, to the Obscene Articles Tribunal for classifications. This comes after the TELA received hundreds of complaints following the Chinese University of Hong Kong student newspaper scandal, where bloggers accuse the TELA for holding a double standard. If they have any type of fairness, then they would classify these pages as category II, which then would just show that the people in charge might just be a tad too uptight about sex.

- After game developers Midway’s abrupt resignation as the official sponsor of the New York Asian Film Festival, Twitch has decided to call a boycott of Midway because of their unethical practices.

On the other hand, Suntory (yes, as in “For relaxing times, it’s Suntory time” Suntory) and the Weinstein Company’s Dragon Dynasty have stepped up to become sponsors, though the financial gap left by Midway’s departure still hasn’t been filled, which should say how big of a presence they would’ve been.

- Korea Pop Wars has a link to a very good editorial about the way the Korean Wave is going.

- Twitch has an extended trailer for the big-budget Korean monster film D-War, which still doesn’t look very good. But hey, the special effects actually look pretty impressive, which balances out the dialogue, which is not very impressive.

- TV Tokyo, which is still considered the CW of Japan (smallest network with the fewest affiliates in the country), is hoping to expand to four more major territories by 2011. More programming choices: good. More crappy variety shows: bad.

- Nominees for the 44th Grand Bell Awards in Korea have been announced. They’re still busy giving awards to The Host? That felt like it was so long ago. The biggest surprise is to see films that I didn’t particularly care for (Seducing Mr. Perfect and Ice Bar) in the nominations.

- Hideo Nakata is a very very busy man - he has the period horror film Kaidan coming out on August 4th, then he’s also shooting the Death Note spinoff film L this summer, and now he has signed on to return to Hollywood for Inhuman, a horror film that’s not a remake. Inhuman will be produced partly by Taka Ichise, who worked with Nakata on the original “Ring” series.

- A while ago I introduced the trailer for the Singaporean film “Men in White,” a horror-comedy that seemed to be trying too hard to be funny. Now there’s a review, and it seems to confirm a couple of things that I fear the film might be.

- I guess Thailand is making a transgender parody of Kung Fu Hustle?

- Lastly, we have a report about China’s closest thing to a school of rock - a rock band named 20088 (they apparently turn 8 in 2008)consisting of 4 kids from the school’s music club. I can’t wait until they do some Nine Inch Nail covers.

Took the three hours to watch Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End yesterday. Surprisingly, the 165-minute length went by fairly quickly, maybe because everyone was double-crossing each other the first hour and a half. Unlike Dead Man’s Chest, which sprinkled bits of action moments throughout to keep the audience pumped(including the Krakin beast thing that I have a personal affinity for, though it didn’t appear much in At World’s End), At World’s End is really one big setup for a somewhat underwhelming final battle that feels much like the second half of a huge 5-and-a-half hour film. This one really tests the audiences to see whether they actually care about the plot or not by stuffing as much into the journey between point A to point B as they can. It’s still very entertaining with the silly sense of humor and penchant for excess still around, but Verbinski and his writing team of Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio take the whole thing so seriously that Verbinski actually went as far as trying to channel Sergio Leone in a pre-showdown scene, Western music and extreme close-ups and all.

As expected, Johnny Depp steals the show as Jack Sparrow, even though he doesn’t appear until about 30 minutes in. While the Elizabeth Swann and William Turner plot line’s resolution was better than I expected, they are still the usual straight characters that were obviously misconceived when the writers wrote the original characters, not knowing that Depp’s performance would be so over-the-top. Chow Yun-Fat was great to see on the big screen, but that’s only because of the man’s reputation in my mind; he really doesn’t get much to do. The special effects are…..special, especially the Davy Jones character design. The credits showed at least 5 different special effects firms worked on the film, and it shows how much work they put in to make everything look real nice. Essentially, with all the money and audience love it’s gotten (which I honestly admit I’m a little baffled by, though I think a large percentage of the audience go purely for Johnny Depp and/or the special effects without even caring about the mythology and the plot), this movie is critic-proof. So go catch up with the second movie on DVD (trust me, you’ll need to), sit yourself in a movie theater with a good setup (I watched it in digital projection myself), and just enjoy the hell out of it. Word of warning, though: This movie is the most violent of the three, with people getting stabbed and shot in the head (though no blood). So don’t let the Disney label fool you into thinking it’s a kids film.

Note: Do stick around for past the credits. The post-credit scene this time actually matters, unlike the one in the second film (I had predicted the post-credit scene in the first movie mattered in the resurrection of Barbossa - it didn’t), because it wraps up a pretty important plot line. While I admire the team’s effort to make people watch the credits to recognize all the people’s hard work, it’s already been 160 minutes by the time the credits start. Just show what you need to show and let people go home.

- In Hong Kong, Pirates already seems to be slowing down a little bit. On Thursday opening day, Pirates made only HK$1 million on 88 screens for an 8-day total of only HK$25.85 million. One can argue that reduced running time means less shows, but I blame it on the ticket increase (theaterowners added HK$15 to the ticket price because of the length) and people just kind of balked at a 3-hour long movie. I don’t see this going past $HK40 million, which King Kong managed to do under the same condition.

In opening films, Hong Kong romantic comedy Single Blog (which actually claims in its trailer that 99% is not created, but rather situations taken from Hong Kong people’s blogs…someone should ask for royalties) made HK$220,000 on 25 screens, which is bad, but could have been a lot worse. Premonition starring Sandra Bullock makes HK$100,000 on 15 screens, Disney’s Bridge to Terabithia makes only HK$60,000 on 19 screens, and the weekend is just looking pretty yawn-y.

- Borat opened on 31 screens in Japan this past weekend, and it did pretty well in at least one of them. A theater in Shibuya is reporting that the film got off to an extremely good start, with hip people from their 20s to their 50s attending, and that people are taking advantage of the Monday discount….except the theater gives no official numbers, and no one knows how it did in the other 30 theaters. According to Box Office Mojo, it only made 7.3 million yen, for a not very good per-screen average of 237,000 yen (US$1=121 yen). But considering that it’s playing in small art house theaters that sit only about 150 people (at most 200), the houses are definitely getting filled….just not as filled as some might suggest.

- When my friend told me about the ridiculousness of this, I thought he was behind about 2 months, because I thought Norika Fujiwara’s wedding already happened. Turns out they held a Western wedding reception, and for some reason, Nippon TV thought it was important enough to broadcast it live. Then viewers thought it was important enough to tune in. In the Kansai area, where Fujiwara is from, the ratings for the wedding actually reached 40%. It didn’t do too shabby in Kanto, either; it reached 24%.

- In Europe, authorities report that they seized 23.2 million copies of entertainment goods such as DVDs, CDs, and software. And they’re blaming China, reporting that 93% of what they seized came from there.

- Taiwanese music channel Channel V is signed on to broadcast on the Hong Kong pay network Now TV. The thing is, Channel V was already in Hong Kong when Star TV was still playing in Hong Kong before joining Now TV, so how is this news? I know, I’m wasting your time too.

- There’s a sales poster up for Johnnie To’s romance Linger. Is that what passes for a poster of a Johnnie To movie nowadays? And that title, “Butterfly Fly?” This might be the first time I’m actually avoiding a Johnnie To movie.

- Japan Times has a feature on Japanese cinema’s newest hero Naomi Kawase, who won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival with her drama “The Mourning Forest.” They also have a feature about the making of the film as well, including her frustrations of working with foreign investors.

- Seems like the New York Asian Film Festival is running into some troubles after sponsor Midway Games decided to pull out of the festival. Now things are being rescheduled, but the festival is still on. I won’t be able to attend (due to the fact that i’m on the opposite end of the country), but I wish them mucho luck.

- Australian screenwriter/director Tony Ayres’ autobiographical film The Home Song Stories, starring Joan Chen and her daughter Irene, won a A$15,000 prize for its screenplay.

- Sai Yoichi, the Korean-Japanese director who made the brutally powerful Blood and Bones, made his Korean directorial debut with Soo, a violent revenge action thriller that sounds really promising. It’s coming to DVD on June 15th.

But then today Twitch’s Todd posted a fairly negative review that now has me wondering whether it’d be any good. I’ve read positive reviews of the film as well, so perhaps it’ll be one of those love-it-or-hate-it films that I might end up liking.

- The Galaxy Award, held by the Japan Council Better Radio and Television (there should be a council like that everywhere), was recently given out. I’ve never heard of this award, but since it’s in its 44th year, it must mean something. Notable winners include drama “Dr. Koto’s Clinic 2″ and actress Ryoko Shinohara for her several roles (including her lead role in drama Haken no Hinkaku).

- For anyone that wants to know more about the Japanese pop music world, Japundit has a really long feature on the infamous Japanese talent management firm Johnny’s Entertainment. Sounds a bit like Hong Kong’s EEG too.

That’s it for today, more over the weekend.

Before we get into the more controversial stuff, let’s follow our usual order:

- This is why you want more than one source for box office news. Variety Asia and the Japanese press have been reporting that Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End actually beat the opening weekend record in Japan set by the second Harry Potter movie. Opening on Thursday night, Pirates made 1.9 billion yen in three-and-a-half days. In fact, according to Eiga Consultant, its Saturday and Sunday gross of 1.47 billion yen is 148% of Dead Man’s Chest’s opening Saturday-Sunday gross (the previous Pirates movie). Then why does Box Office Mojo writes it as a disappointment?

Last year, the opening gross of Dead Man’s Chest is marked as US$16.6 million at the exchange rate of US$1=116.172 yen. However, Mojo wasn’t able to take in the fact that Dead Man’s Chest actually had weekend previews the previous week. Buena Vista probably calculated it all into the opening weekend gross to rig the numbers, or Mojo didn’t know about the screenings and just put whatever it made total as its total two-day gross. This week, At World’s End made about US$12 million in 2 days at the exchange rate of US$1=121.839 yen, with a total US$15.9 million. So not only did Mojo not know about the preview screenings for Dead Man’s Chest, it also failed to account the changing exchange rate, which shows At World’s End made more in yen in its first 3 days than Dead Man’s Chest in its first 2 days PLUS 3 days of weekend previews, which accounted for 0.94 billion yen, or at the exchange rate at the time, 8.09 million of Mojo’s reported 2-day gross.

OK, it all seems a little complicated, so here’s a summary: At World’s End made more money, despite Mojo’s one-sentence opinion that it disappointed because it forgot changing exchange rate and the lack of weekend previews.

Elsewhere on the rest of the Japanese box office top 10, seems like Kitaro drew more audiences, but For Those We Love made more money because of the adult audience it attracts. Same thing for Pacchigi - Love and Peace, which may be pulling in an older audience (senior tickets are cheaper as well) than Stranger Than Fiction. Spiderman 3 will probably pass Spiderman 2’s gross in Japan, but will not likely hit the 10 billion yen mark that Sony was hoping for. Everything else except for Bizan is seeing over-30% drops simply because there’s not enough screens to go around in Japan. This week’s strongest Japanese film opening is Shaberedomo Shaberedomo, a drama about Japanese comedians that opened with 39.7 million yen on just 98 screens. This looks like one of those movies with staying power anyway.

- In Korea, Jeon Do-Yeon’s best actress win at Cannes, the second ever for an Asian actress, for Secret Sunshine seems to be having a significant impact on its box office, with online ticket sales increasing to 31.6% of overall sales. Then again, this type of character-driven films probably depends more on word-of-mouth in the long run anyway.

- Everyone in Japan probably already know by now that Miss Japan is the new Miss Universe. In fact, two of the five finalists are from Asia (with two from South American, and Miss USA rounding out the rest). Asia represent!

Too bad that more people decided to tune into a rerun of a Charlie Sheen sitcom instead. And it’s even sadder that the ratings for amateur filmmaking reality show On the Lot continues to show that most people just don’t care about filmmaking. It’s like going to see a doctor and not care about how the doctor is going to fix you.

- With Spiderman 3 and Harry Potter holding their world premieres in Japan, Hollywood is taking Japan more seriously than ever, at least in promotion.

- r@sardonicsmile writes a rave for Japanese music film Custom Made 10.30, starring Kaela Kimura and Tamio Okuda. As a fan, she also introduces Okuda’s music in the post.

- I saw Batman Begins on IMAX, which was quite an experience, even though it was my second time watching the movie. What was that for, you ask? Christopher Nolan is now filming the sequel The Dark Knight, and he’s actually filming four sequences with IMAX cameras, instead of just letting them convert it from 35mm.

- EastSouthWestNorth is fuming at the further hypocrisy of the Hong Kong Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority. First the government prosecuted a man for just hyperlinking to some pornographic images on a Hong Kong forum. Except if you look at the board in question, you have people posting supposed pictures of their girlfriends and their wives with no constraint or morals involved. Meanwhile, you have the TELA going after inMediaHK for posting an artistic photograph with nudity that was already widely available on Flickr. The point is, with an entire forum of this crap, with even a warning on it, why did they even prosecute just one person?

By the way, link to forums in the EastSouthWestNorth is NOT work-safe, and not for anyone under 18 years old. There, just covering my own ass before I get arrested and extradited back to Hong Kong too.

- In what might also be considered an outrage to some, a Michael Bay movie is actually going to premiere at a film festival. Who knew?

- Korea Pop Wars has more posters for Kim Ji-Woon’s The Good, The Bad, and the Weird, cheesy English tag lines and all.

- Stephen Fung’s Enter the Phoenix has been sold to be remade in Hollywood. I shuddered when the producer says “this movie should be remade for a bigger, broader audience.” Can you say bad gay jokes all around? Then again, the original has a kid smiling after a thermometer goes up his anus, it can’t really get any broader than that.

As I wrote yesterday, I revisited the Iwo Jima saga by Clint Eastwood for Memorial Day in the United States. But except for my point that one should watch Letters From Iwo Jima before Flags of Our Fathers, I couldn’t write anything beyond that.

Anyway, my reasoning for the reverse order is simple chronological order: Letters takes place before and over the course of the battle of Iwo Jima, and at least half of Flags takes place after the battle. Since one is likely to suffer battle fatigue by the end of Letters, the fragmentary nature of Flags (which shows the battle using flashback moments) would work more effectively. In fact, if one looks closely, the scene transitions towards the end of Letters is similar to the first half an hour or so of Flags. Beyond those sections, Eastwood doesn’t use the fade-out approach as often, almost as if he wanted both films to work as one. Either way, even though Eastwood’s work doesn’t bring anything new to the genre, I think it’s still a monumental achievement, and it will hopefully be seen as that down the line.

- Feeling a little deja vu again, as I’m reporting another huge worldwide weekend for another huge blockbuster sequel. That’s right, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End has broken a few records around the world at some of the places that this blog covers. Starting in North America, Pirates broke the Memorial Day weekend record set by X3: The Last Stand (another 3rd edition of a blockbuster franchise).

According to a link at Korea Pop Wars, it also broke the global 6-day opening record set by Spiderman 3 (just read that complicated explanation to see how it works), even though it didn’t win the 3-day weekend record. But it didn’t break the best opening weekend record in Korea set by The Host, taking in 2.71 million admissions since it opened on Wednesday on a crazy 900 screens. Oh, Secret Sunshine had a pretty good opening too, plus a Japanese film crossed the 100,000 admission mark. Go read all about it.

- Back in the beginning of the month, Spiderman 3 made HK$28.6 after 6 days on over 120 screens in Hong Kong. It might not have beaten its opening day record (and in fairness, both films opened on public holidays), but Pirates might its pace by making HK$20.33 million after 4 days, including HK$4.62 million from 121 screens on Sunday alone. We’ll know by Wednesday when the 6-day gross comes out, but with 8.3 million to go in 2 days, the best Pirates can do seems to be matching Spidey, not beating it. Of course, note that Pirates tickets in HK cost HK$5 more than Spiderman 3, so if the same amount of people go watch it, then its gross would naturally be higher than Spiderman.

(reference: US$1=HK$7.8)

- In Japan, Pirates ruled at number 1, as expected. But all I gots right now is the ranking (that’s an intentional mistake, by the way, unlike the many typos I make in this blog), so more number crunching tomorrow.

- Very sad news also coming from Japan. Izumi Sakai, the lead singer of the pop group Zard passed away yesterday after an accidental fall. She was 40 years old.

- In Japanese drama ratings, We see Operation Love climbing from a 16.9 to 17.4, solidifying its status as this season’s top drama. Sadly, Joudan Janai went further down from a 11.7 to a season low of 10.7. Sexy Voice and Robo saw its 2nd episode replayed because its 7th episode is too close for comfort after a police-involved shooting last week, and the rerun got only a 6.0 rating. Aya Ueto’s Hotelier (based on the Korean drama) is seeing an up trend with a 9.3 this week, same as Liar Game, which has seen its ratings go up for a 4th week with 12.0 rating.

All Japanese drama information here.

- After its win at the Cannes Film Festival, Variety finally has a review of Naomi Kawase’s The Mourning Forest. Reviewer Russell Edwards says its ambitions are undercut by conveniently underarticulated affections, and won’t reach far beyond festivals and European arthouse audiences.

Meanwhile, Jason Gray updated his previous about with a few more words about the film and its upcoming limited release in Japan.

Eiga Consultant questions its commercial prospects. While The Mourning Forest is set for a 5-screen limited release nationwide, its success in Cannes may push it to become a small indie success like “The Seagull Diner.” However, it’s also going to be broadcast on the pay satellite channel for NHK in HD on May 29th, 3 weeks before its theatrical release.

- James Maruyama provides a review for the independent Japanese film “I am Nipponjin,” about a Japanese-American girl finding out the ways of her culture. Apparently, it’s better than it sounds.

- r@sardonicsmile has a look at the Hong Kong band scene, which include a clip of the documentary on my favorite HK rap group LMF. However, if you’re in a Cantonese-speaking work environment, the language is not work-safe.

- Jason Gray also reports that Martin Scorsese may be filming Silence, his adaptation of the novel on 17th century Japan, in Japan after all.

- Before moving on L, the spinoff for Death Note, Hideo Nakata finished his horror flick Kaidan. Twitch has the full theatrical trailer up. Am I the only one that thinks the Ayumi Hamasaki theme song is really out of place?

- Meanwhile, Yukihiko Tsutsumi, the director of Memories of Tomorrow and Trick, has signed up for yet another comic adaptation.

- Twitch is reporting some rumor from Hong Kong’s Oriental Daily (and we know how reliable Hong Kong entertainment news are) that Chow might take up a non-comedic role in a war film as part of his deal with Sony Pictures.

As kind of a related note, a Hong Kong entertainment reporter reported that Chow Yun-Fat is rumored to take a role in a kung-fu take on the Snow White story with Disney. I am not even joking, and I’m not being sarcastic. I heard this with my own ears.

- Under “no one really asked for this” today, Jackie Chan is joining George Foreman is a campaign to sell the George Foreman Grill in Asia. I’m not gonna bite.

- Twitch has a first look at Mathieu Kassovitz’s latest film Babylon AD, starring Vin “I should’ve starred in 300″ Diesel and Michelle Yeoh. It’s not even real footage, but rather behind-the-scenes stuff. Still, it’s actually looking pretty good.