A bit of everything today, but actually quite a bit of reviews.

- Japan Times offers us three reviews this weekend. The most intriguing one is Tony Takitani director Jun Ishikawa’s latest Ashita No Watashi Tsukurikata, which from the plot description and trailer sounds like a pretty good movie. It’s currently playing on limited release at these theaters (if you are in Japan and is interested in this movie, you ought to be able to read it anyway). Kaori Shoji, meanwhile, reviews Panasian film Invisible Waves by Thai director Pen-Ek Ratanaruang. Lastly, they also have a review of the MTV-affiliated documentary Just For Kicks, which is about hip-hop and sneakers……I guess?

- Thanks to the Trailer Blog, we have our first look at Ang Lee’s Lust Caution, starring Tony Leung Chiu-Wai. It’s part of a reel from Focus Features, who also distributed Lee’s previous film Brokeback Mountain. It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing. Lust Caution is expected to be released in the United States in September. No word on the Asia release date, though.

- I had previously expressed my disappointment that the Tsui Hark/Ringo Lam/Johnnie To collaboration Triangle didn’t get invited to the Canne official lineup. Turns out they were waiting for the Chinese censors to clear the film (which they didn’t do with last year’s Summer Palace by Lou Ye), which was likely because of its “uncontroversial content.” Now it’s been cleared, and it’s part of the out of competition lineup. No idea when this will be released in Hong Kong, though. More news on Triangle tomorrow.

- I recently saw a link on Mobius Home Theater Forum to the results of a readers’ poll on they consider to be the 40 best foreign films of all time. I agree with one of the posters on the board that says it’s unfair to place all non-English films as simply foreign films. Maybe I’m just the resident Asian film fanatic who doesn’t know better, but I’m more bothered by the fact that 32 of the films are made by the Western world than the fact that Amelie actually got second place.

- With the surge of Korean national cinema, it’s about time that they recognize some of the classics. For the first time, several classic Korean films will be registered as national cultural heritage materials. Considering film restoration was virtually non-existent in Korean, it’s amazing that these films survived through the war.

That’s it for today. A few more news tidbits tomorrow.

I usually start with Japan box office on Tuesdays, but since Box Office Mojo was quick in getting the rankings up yesterday, and I honestly don’t want to write about how huge Spiderman 3 is anymore. So, I’ll start with a bit of self-promotion today.

The 5 reviews I wrote for Yesasia are now up, and they’re as follows:

Stephanie Sun - Against the Light
Mika Nakashima - Yes
The Legend of Eight Samurais
Sugar and Spice ~ Fumi Zekka
Hula Girl

- Speaking of reviews, I forgot to mention Japan Times’ reviews for last weekend. There wasn’t really anything notable, except the Japanese film Ahiru to Kamo No Coin Locker, which is getting a limited release in Sendai and Miyagi this weekend.

- Under more reviews, Lovehkfilm also has a review for the Francis Ng/Marco Mak-directed Hong Kong flop Dancing Lion, which collapsed under the weight of Love is Not All Around (shudder) and Spiderman 3 (shit, I mentioned it again).

- We’re not done with reviews yet - Twitch also has an advanced review of 28 Weeks Later, the sequel to Danny Boyle’s 28 Weeks Later, which I enjoyed quite a bit.

- The controversial Summer Palace by Suzhou River’s Lou Ye, which was banned by the Chinese government, just picked up the Golden Durian award at the Barcelona Asian Film Festival. Er..I hope they know that a Durian may be the foulest-smelling fruit in existence (it’s also very delicious, but it stinks very much). Hey, next year, they’re focusing on Hong Kong films. Good for them.

- That was fast. According to Green Cine, some bloggers and columnists alike are already starting to compile best of 2007 lists when we’re not even halfway through the year yet. That London Times list is just unnecessary, in my opinion.

- Twitch has a full trailer for the new Singapore comedy “Men In White,” which looks like it tried a little too hard to be funny. The concept seems interesting though - five ghosts that can’t seem to scare anybody.

- Casual Hong Kong film buffs and some fans like me may be lamenting the Mainland Chinese influence into Hong Kong films, including increasing usage of Mandarin, but what some don’t know is that Hong Kong films were once only in Mandarin. I didn’t read through the entire thing, but here’s a detailed review of 1950s Hong Kong Mandarin cinema.

- On the other hand, digital cinema now has such a huge presence in world cinema that Seoul is launching a digital media-only Asian film festival in July. This might be interesting in the long run.

- The first Finnish martial arts period film Jade Warriors is coming to DVD with English subtitles. I myself am not really interested in this, but I’m sure a lot of you out there dig it.

This type of irregular schedule of posting will probably continue until next Monday, but I’ll try to deliver as much as I can each time i post.

- I read a column on Ming Pao yesterday (that I’m not going to translate) and contributes to Spiderman 3’s current success in Asia to a weak market. Well, how can you have any type of market when Spiderman 3 is taking up 102 screens in Hong Kong? The usual Hollywood blockbusters opens on 50 screens at most. That’s probably why Spiderman managed a huge HK$2.35 million on Thursday’s opening day (technically it’s opening day for all films, but the only major release this week opened on Tuesday), which is a lot less than the record-breaking HK$7 million it made on Tuesday’s public holiday (the previous holder for opening day was Kung Fu Hustle with over HK$4.5 million), but still very huge. After 3 days, Spiderman 3 has already made HK$12.68 million, and expect it to pass the HK$25 million mark by the end of the weekend.

The films from 3rd place all the way down to the 10th all made under HK$50,000 on Thursday. That’s so sad I’m not even going to analyze it.

- Reporting this a little late here, but ratings for Japanese dramas was dealt with another blow last week as ratings continue to plummet overall. Sunday prime time drama Joudan janai drops further to a 13.2 rating, while second place Proposal Daisakusen drops only by 2.2 % in its second week for a 17.1 rating, which makes it now the number 1 drama this season. Kenichi Matsuyama’s Sexy Voice and Robo drops to a desparate 6.9 rating its third week. In fact, Proposal Daisakusen is the only drama that cracked the 15.0 rating, and no drama this season has cracked the 20 rating line, a line that 3 dramas crossed last season. Sad state of affairs, indeed.

- After the complaints received because of Hong Kong broadcaster TVB’s uncensored broadcast of the classic film An Autumn’s Tale, TVB is looking to get in trouble again, this time because of a protester’s foul mouth during a live broadcast.

- Korea Pop Wars has a story on how the Korean distributor of John Cameron Mitchell’s sexually explicit film Shortbus found a way to get around the Korean film board to get a general release.

- Anyone in Los Angeles heads up: The Visual Communications Film Festival is happening now, and it includes a screening of John Woo’s Hard Boiled, the Japanese film What the Snow Brings, and Korean blockbuster King and the Clown, among many more.

- Jason Gray has a few more tidbits, including the first photos of Yoji Yamada’s latest film, and Asian film- destroy…er, I mean remaker Roy Lee’s decision to scrap a remake of Battle Royale.

- Why, oh, why do they bother? First it’s Sin City, then it’s 300, and now, the latest Frank Miller graphic novel (a glorified way to say comics) ready for adaptation is “Ronin,” about mutants, thugs, and a ronin duking it out in modern New York for a sword, or something like that. And the directors’ pedigree continues to slip too - first it’s Robert Rodridguez, then Zack Synder (in all fairness, I surprisingly liked Dawn of the Dead), and now it’s the director of “Stomp the Yard.”

- Speaking of “why do they bother,” the trailer for Rush Hour 3 is up, and it just looks like a sillier version of Kiss of the Dragon with an annoying-as-usual Chris Tucker. Even Jackie Chan once said he was baffled at the success of Rush Hour.

- Hong Kong gets film development council to figure out what to do with the US$38 million film fund - good. Council then establishes four other committees to figure out more stuff in more detail - bad. This fund is in serious danger of being held up by bureaucracy.

- At least the man has the good sense to finally announce that he’s retiring in next 5 years. I wonder if that’s just action films, or all filmmaking, period.

- Continuing on “why do they bother” news, Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh will be in auteur of crap Rob Cohen’s latest film “The Mummy 3.” Apparently they signed on a young actor named Luke Ford in order to have him carry the franchise. Just read the plot description for yourself.

- In more screen development news, the big discovery in 2007 for Japanese music is the song “Sen No Kaze ni natte” sung by tenor Misafumi Akikawa, based on the poem, “Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep.” The supposed history of how this song came about is that a Japanese author read the anonymous poem at Ground Zero in New York, translated it into Japanese, and wrote a song out of it. The song was sung at the annual Kohaku Singing Contest on New Year’s Eve this past year, and the single has now sold 920,000 copies to date. Anyway, I’m mentioning this song because Japan’s fascination with the song–>screen process is kicking in again, with a mini-series based on the song to be shown on TV in August.

- Want to know who are the most powerful people in Korean cinema? Look no further than this report.

- Twitch also has a trailer for Lee Chang-Dong’s first film since Oasis - Secret Sunshine.

- Be proud, Asia. Even though we’re not well-represented at Cannes this year, we still have three spots at Director’s Fortnight.

That’s it for now. When will I be back? I have no idea. Just keep reading, m’kay? Thanks.

After a small break yesterday, it’s time to catch up - in a big way.

- As always, let’s start with box office reports. Japan had the beginning of its Golden Week holiday this past weekend (Tuesday and Wednesday are technically business days, but people take them off anyway), so obviously numbers are gonna be pretty huge. However, Box Office Mojo doesn’t have their charts updated yet, so I’m relying on audience ranking for now. The big battle for this Golden Week weekend is the highly anticipated-Babel (due to the Academy Award nominated performance of Rinko Kikuchi) and the classic cartoon adaptation “Gegege Kitaro.” And the winner is…..neither. Conan the child detective film won the weekend at number 1, while “Gegege” does win the duel at number 2, and Babel still manages a number 3 opening. All the other top 10 movies stayed pretty close to their rankings last week, but expect Spiderman 3, which already opened today Japan time, to come and wipe them all out this coming weekend. Hell, its first day already attracted 400,000 people, which far surpassed the opening days of the last two films (248,000 for the first film, 301,000 for the second film). That’s OK, Babel was never meant to be a crowd-pleasing hit anyway.

- Speaking of Babel, after the negative press it got earlier in the year when the deaf community in Japan rightfully complained the lack of Japanese subtitles made the film hard to understand for them, the film is under fire again for making people sick. In one theater in Nagoya (funny how the press is only covering one of the some-300 screens it’s playing at), several moviegoers complained of feeling sick during the club scene, which features strobe lights. I rewatched the film recently, and having seen it on the big screen, I can see why that scene would be a problem, especially for those sensitive to such effects. But when I got uncomfortable, I just turned away for a second, which I think any sensible person would do….right?

Of course, it’s funny to see how comments on various Japan blogs that carry the story would go off-topic and take the opportunity to blast the film.

- Another weak weekend at the South Korean box office, as Paradise Murdered rules again. My Tutor Friend 2 (which I hear has nothing to do with My Tutor Friend 1, which I wished I enjoyed more, but didn’t) is a flop.

- I had thought that Election 2 (renamed Triad Election in the United States) would not do very well, even in a cinephile city like New York. But look - at 71st place, it actually made a very impressive $10,811 on just one screen! I wonder if the theater is counting Election and Election 2 as one film, and since the two films require separate admission, it just happened that people stuck around for both films, thus inflating the gross? Who cares, the numbers look good either way.

- The Tarantino/Rodridguez flop Grindhouse was originally going to be released as a double feature in many European regions (apparently, Asia doesn’t “get” the idea of double features.). Looks like the Weinsteins are changing their tune now.

- Someone correct me if I get this wrong, but looks like both the big Japanese comedies expected this summer - Takeshi Kitano’s “Kantoku Banzai” and Hitoshi Matsumoto’s “Dai Nipponjin” - are both going to Cannes. “Kantoku” was previously reported to be in competition, and “Dai Nipponjin” had just been invited into the Director’s Week lineup. According to the report, Matsumoto was not intending to join the Cannes lineup, but seems to be changing his mind now.

- Twitch reports 2 upcoming DVD releases - the region 1 DVD for Katsuhito Ishii’s A Taste of Tea, which I marked down as a film I should have saw when I was in Japan, but just couldn’t get the motivation to rent the damn thing (or was it because the rental DVD didn’t have English subtitles?) on July 3rd, and Danny Pang’s Forest of Death (LoveHKFilm review) on May 10th.

- The Udine Far East Film Festival wrapped up on Saturday, and the Korean film No Mercy For the Rude won the audience prize, with After This, Our Exile at 2nd place and Memories of Matsuko at 3rd.

- With that, Variety Asia also covers the Udine Far East Festival as part of a trend that’s seeing Asian films penetrating into the mainstream market in Europe.

- File this under “idiotic Asian pop decisions”: The huge Taiwanese boy pop group F4 (the F stands for Flower), which got its name from their drama Meteor Garden, which was based on the Japanese comic Hana Yori Dango anyway (still following me?), is now changing their name to…..you ready for this? JVKV. The new name is comprised of the first letters of the members’ respective names - Jerry, Vic, Ken, and Vanness (which is a name I’ll never take seriously, seeing how we have a Van Ness Ave. in San Francisco). Just because I filed this under humor, don’t think that I made it up. I totally didn’t.

- And file this one under “bad gimmicks”: The second trailer for Takeshi Miike’s so-called “Sukiyaki Western” film “Django” is on the website (I suggest watching the Windows Media Player version), and it honestly looks pretty bad. The trailer itself is ridden with horrible English narration (I swear it sounds like it comes from a mock Grindhouse trailer), and the trailer shows that the film is actually completely in English (The problem lies in that the film has an all-Japanese cast). Yikes.

- Professor David Bordwell and Dr. Kristin Thompson go to Roger Ebert’s Overlooked Film Festival (which apparently will be renamed Ebertfest next year), where Ebert himself made an appearance, despite his recent condition. Oh, and they watch a couple of movies too.

- This is nothing new, but the U.S. decides to remind which Asian countries suck at protecting copyright.

- Daniel Wu and the alive boys really DID show up at the San Francisco International Film Festival. And SF360 has an interview with them that the Hong Kong media might have a field day with.

An interesting thing to note - there were quite a few Chinese people at the After This, Our Exile screening on Sunday, but at 22, I think I was the youngest person in the entire screening. As I was leaving, the line for The Heavenly Kings rush tickets, which was to be shown in about half an hour after that, was forming. Instead of the mature crowd that was at my screening, the people in line were much younger in comparison. I could see it already: screaming ABC girls as Daniel Wu comes out to introduce the film. That wouldn’t have been very pleasant. Who knows, there’s still one more chance to see the Alive boys….nah, probably not.

Instead of the song of the day, there will be a feature coming up.

Lots and lots of news today, because I’m going to be participating in this tomorrow:

- Hong Kong’s BC Magazine - THE magazine for foreigners in Hong Kong - has not only an article of Dancing Lion co-director Marco Mak, but if you scroll down, you’ll also see an interview with Ming Ming director and Hong Kong MTV legend Susie Au.

- Too bad Ming Ming is flopping in Hong Kong. According to those nasty Sunday numbers, Ming Ming only made HK$140,000 on 12 screens for a 4-day total of HK$570,000. At least Ming Ming isn’t doing as bad as Dancing Lion, which only made HK$100,000 on 19 screens on Sunday for a 4-day total of HK$350,000. As expected, Love is Not All Around (Which Lovehkfilm’s Kozo is already calling one of the worst of the year) rules the weekend again with HK$660,000 on 38 screens for a 11-day total of HK9.36 million, which can only suggest that the HK teen audience is only as shallow as Hollywood’s teen audience.

Meanwhile, Spider Lilies, which Kozo also reviewed this week, is beginning to die down a little bit with only HK$80,000 on 9 screens for a 18-day total of HK$3.01 million, which is pretty good for a limited-release Taiwanese film. The Painted Veil actually shows some staying power with HK$100,000 on 5 screens for a 11-day total of HK$910,000. This week’s best limited release goes to opener Paul Verhoeven’s Black Book, which made HK$70,000 on just 2 screens for a 4-day total of HK$180,000.

For reference: US$1=HK$7.8

- In my attempt to do what Hoga News did with its translation of Japanese news site Sanspo, the new adaptation of the classic cartoon Gegege No Kitaro opened on Saturday just in time for Golden Week in Japan. Shochiku, not embarrassed enough from their miscalculation of Tokyo Tower’s box office, saw opening day’s audience number was 150% of the opening day for Takeshi Miike’s The Great Yokai War, which made 2 billion yen. So they decided to declare that Gegege is going to make 3 billion yen. Should I buy into that estimate? I think not…

- In other Japanese box office news, the trend of small animated films making it big continues with the 9-screen opening last weekend of the “Dengeki Bunko Movie Festival.” According to Eiga Consultant, the Tokyo theater it played in found 4155 people over its opening 2 days. That’s 415.5 people per show, which is pretty good, considering the biggest screen on the multiplex holds 426 people. On 9 screens, the film opened with a 15.82 million yen, which seems to be encouraging the distributor to expand it all that much more.

On the other hand, Eiga Consultant also looks at the first wide weekend of Rocky Balboa last weekend. While the film opened to around the same numbers as Sylvester Stallone’s last starring role in Driven in North America, it ended up making more than double Driven’s final gross. On the other hand, Rocky Balboa only opened in Japan at 58% of Driven, which grossed 1.6 billion yen. Can Rocky stay a few more rounds in Japan, or will it always remain the film that “only almost beat Driven?”

- A while ago, I reported Korean star Lee Byung-Hun putting a cameo in Kimura Takuya’s latest film, the film adaptation of the drama Hero. Now, see the man on the set for yourself.

- The 43rd Baeksang Film Awards in Korea happened last week, and if an award can make it to its 43rd installment, it’s gotta be pretty respectable, right? Twitch has the results.

- New news source Filmphilia has details about personal favorite Edmond Pang’s latest film Exodus, which sounds like a dark comedy in the vein of Men Suddenly in Black. But his next film, which he recently got funding for at Filmart, sounds even better.

- Apparently, Quentin Tarantino is going to be bringing more of his “Grindhouse” installment Death Proof to Cannes - 30 minutes more???!!!! As if Tarantino didn’t have enough self-indulgent show-off dialog already, he actually managed to find more to put more into what is essentially a self-masturbatory short film with no plot and a kick-ass car chase. With that said, I still would like to check it out.

- Oh, and there’s a review for the modern Japanese pink film The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai.

Next, best of the week, and look for a revised report of the my SFIFF experience. By the way, because of the feature, there’s no song of the day today.

Stop moving when you talk!!!!!

Director Patrick Tam introducing the film.

Roger Garcia and Patrick Tam at the after-screening Q&A, where I actually asked a question. For those at the Q&A, I was the kid that asked about Aaron Kwok shedding his pop star image, to which Tam actually called Aaron Kwok a very smart man.

I apologize for the bad quality of the pictures, which is partially due to the low lighting and not enough time to mess with the camera setting. With the sign strictly prohibiting photography, I wasn’t sure if I should attempt taking a picture, but when several audience member took pictures of Tam himself (with flash, no less!), I decided to give it a try as well.

Anyway, this is my first viewing of After This, Our Exile on the big screen and with an audience. I was a little hesitant because of the length of the director’s cut (160 minutes!) and a possibly unappreciative audience (i.e. those who don’t know HK cinema), but I’m very glad I decided to sit through the film again. As far as I can remember, there aren’t any huge changes from the theatrical cut to the director’s cut. The extra 40 minutes of footage is spread out pretty evenly throughout the film, and some were cut probably not for length, but for language. There were at least three scenes where the “forbidden” Cantonese swear words were used, which would’ve landed the film in category III territory (no one under 18 admitted). Some of the notable changes, not in order, include (and I can’t be sure all of these were new scenes, nor can I guarantee these are all the changes):

SPOILER WARNING:

Aaron Kwok’s character having to break the lock he used to lock in his wife, played by Charlie Yeung, along with him swearing.

We realize Aaron’s character isn’t much of a cook.

The man that Charlie Yeung’s character is seeing is actually a much cleaner-looking and a suit-wearing Aaron Kwok. Yup, the mother is attracted to a version of her husband that can offer her the opposite of what she’s going through.

An extension of the scene in which Aaron is threatened by loan sharks. He goes back into the kitchen and gets into an heated argument with his co-worker, which probably led to his firing.

The entire sequence where Aaron’s character plays pimp to his prostitute girlfriend, played by Kelly Lin. Turns out the customer is an 80-year-old man on vacation, and Aaron’s character says he needs the money to send Kelly Lin’s character to study abroad.

Before Aaron Kwok’s character decides to abandon Boy for England, they have one last dinner together, where Aaron serves his son beer.

Boy beginning to realize why his mother left him, the argument that ensues between him and his father, and Boy wandering away again. Also, the scene afterwards feature Aaron almost becoming a thief himself.

SPOILER END.

And obviously, there are small moments scattered here and there that I didn’t list and can’t recall right now. But I’m sure the question is: how is the director’s cut? Anyone who felt that the theatrical cut moved too slow is obviously gonna find it even slower, as the film’s methodical pacing really shows here. Anyone who felt the epilogue is too short and sudden (like me) is gonna find that the epilogue is exactly the same, except the second viewing and Tam’s explanation of the ending really helped me warm up to it. Some of the abrupt breaks in storytelling (like how the father and son decide to leave the house they live in during the first act) are still there, but the addition of the small moments really help to smooth out the story as a whole. There isn’t any significant plot point added, but it’s amazing none of the scenes added felt like filler. Every scene seems to be where they’re supposed to be (except an awkward music cue around the middle, you know which one I mean), and After This, Our Exile remains a great film. It was also interesting to hear how the audience was into it based on their reactions - ranging from disgust for the actions of Aaron Kwok’s character to nervous laughter.

Oh, anyone that wanted more of the sex scenes won’t get any - they remain the same in the director’s cut.

Random trivia about the film:

The idea came from Tam’s student, who found an article in the newspaper about a father who forces his son to break into houses to steal for him. He brought the idea to Tam, and they began to craft the screenplay from there.

The screenplay was completed in 1996, and contained 135 scenes. The final product has 77. So the theatrical cut pretty much contains only half the original story.

The English title - “After This, Our Exile,” comes from a Catholic prayer.

The music in the film was personally picked by Tam himself, and many of them played very personal roles in his life, from his favorite Malaysian pop songs to his mother’s favorite piano piece.

Other starstruck moment: I was standing only 5 feet away from Hollywood Elsewhere’s Jeffrey Wells. I was tempted to walk up and talk to the man, but I was just standing in line. I don’t think he went to the screening though.

Of course, only a film geek like me would consider seeing Jeffrey Wells, Roger Garcia, and Patrick Tam in one day an extremely rewarding day.

NOTE: Patrick Tam will probably be at all the remaining screenings of the film, so do check it out!

- Yesterday, I wrote about the relatively weak performance of the new Kenichi Matsuyama film Shindo. Turns out Japan Times has a review for it this weekend, in case you’re curious. Sounds like an interesting character drama.

Meanwhile, Japan Times finally gives a positive review to a big blockbuster. This time it’s Spiderman 3, which Japan will get to see on Tuesday during their big Golden Week holiday. As always, they’re also covering small films, including a review for Michel Gondry’s The Science of Sleep (which comes with an interview with director Gondry himself) and Cannes Grand Prix winner Flandres (again with an interview with the film’s director Bruno Dumont.).

- While Hollywood is threatening to boycott China to back up the complaint by the United States government at the World Trade Organization, Silicon Hutong suggests that Hollywood might be bluffing because it probably needs China more than China needs them.

- After being on every Asian film buff’s shit list for buying up Asian films and either cutting them or leaving them on the shelf (in most cases, both), the Weinsteins now figure why do the buying and cutting when they can just make the damn things themselves? Honestly, I am almost sure no good films will come out of this deal, but I’m a pessimist by nature.

- A new Chinese film producer is making their big debut at Cannes this year, and they managed to find some big Hong Kong market players like Nansun Shi to help them out. Among the five films they’re bringing to Cannes is the latest by Tsui Hark, Ann Hui, Stanley Kwan, and Stephen Fung. Too bad all of them are “Chinese films,” not “Hong Kong films.”

- Someone in China finally fought the censors, and she won! Read about her story.

- Jeff Lau, the man responsible for the great Stephen Chow Chinese Odyssey movies and the shitty A Chinese Tall Story, is continuing Alex Fong Lik-Sun’s reign of terror by casting him in his latest film, also starring Gillian Chung of the Twins. The rest of the report is gossip, so you can just read it in Chinese here.

That’s it for today. Tomorrow - San Francisco International Film Festival for the screening of the After This Our Exile director’s cut, hopefully with Patrick Tam in attendance. Reports and more news to come then.

- The San Francisco International Film Festival is coming around the corner, and the local San Francisco newspapers have been running features for a while now, so I figure I should probably at least link one of them. From the San Francisco Bay Guardian, there’s a feature dedicated to Daniel Wu’s recent award-winning mockumentary The Heavenly Kings. Too bad I haven’t seen one mention of Patrick Tam’s After This, Our Exile in these features, considering that it’s the heralded return of Wong Kar-Wai’s mentor.

- Remember, Johnnie To’s Election and Election 2 us currently under a 2-week run at New York’s Film Forum. They even decided to add one more showing of Election starting tomorrow, Friday the 27th! Greencine has a round-up of reviews around the net, which seems to be generally positive, even though no one seems to be picking up the political implication in especially Election 2.

- Jason Gray writes about his recent contributions to Screen International, all of which I will actually link to the Variety or Hollywood Reporter version (sorry, Jason!). He also has some new tidbits about Japanese cinema, including a new title for “For You I Go To My Death,” and even a shoutout to this here blog.

- As Jason mentioned in his entry, Shochiku is sending three more films over to the Cannes market - a horror movie, a romantic drama from the director of “Trick,” and most notable for me: A film based on the songs “Mirai Yosouzu” I and II (it’s misspelled in the Variety report) by the pop group Dreams Come True. Probably thanks to the success of “Nada Sousou” (Tears for You), looks like Shochiku decided to cash in on Toho’s idea with a hit “pop song adaptation” of their own with Hiroshi Chono making his feature debut. Look at The Song of the Day to see why this is such a big deal to me.

- The other news in Jason’s entry, and obviously good news again, is about the first Doraemon film to ever be shown legally in China. The comics have been hits for years in the region (I myself own all the comics from the Hong Kong version when it was still called “Ding Dong.”), but the films have never gotten a decent release in China. Finally, someone got off their ass and decide to actually release one of these things in Chinese theaters come July. Too bad it’ll be the movie from last year, not the recent hit.

- It was previously thought that Asian films might be a tad underrepresented this year at the Cannes Film Festival. Well, turns out Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s latest film “Looking For the Red Balloon” is getting a chance by opening the Un Certain Regard Section. It’s only kind of an Asian film, seeing how it’s more French than Asian and it stars Juliette Binoche, but hell, we’ll take what we can get.

- It has nothing to do with Asian films, but since we’re writing about Europe, and this happens to be an European film I liked, it’s worth talking about. Apparently, there’s a debate going on in Germany about the critically-acclaimed film The Lives of Others. The film portrays a captain for East Germany’s secret police that becomes sympathetic to the man he’s assigned to investigate, but a former Stasi member has come out and criticize the film for portraying something that couldn’t possibly have happened. Of course, while that takes away some of the credibility of the film (at least in the latter half. The stasi member still praises the film’s first half as being an accurate portrayal of the former communist government), but The Lives of Others is still a great movie worth watching.

- Back in Asia, Korea Pop Wars have the latest box office chart for last weekend. Paradise Murdered, as reported earlier, tops the chart, and Danny Boyle’s Sunshine continues its disappointing Asian run with just 68,100 viewers nationwide for its first weekend.

- Another film with a disappointing run pretty much all over the world is the prequel that no one asked for - Hannibal Rising. According to Eiga Consultant, the film opened with 150 million yen for a 5th place opening (wow, Box Office Mojo has a pretty comprehensive ranking this week). While that’s a sad 46% of Red Dragon’s opening (another Hannibal Lecter film), it’s still 126% of the opening weekend for the Black Dahlia, which earned 650 million yen in Japan. It’ll make a decent 800 million yen or so, but it’s definitely not a hit.

- Poor Hong Kong Disneyland - it was made fun of as the smallest member of the family, it was overcrowded with tourists who don’t know what “no spitting” means, then employee scandals popped up all over the place. That’s OK, Hong Kong Disneyland is actually still quite popular - in fact, people enjoy it so much that they’re buying up annual passes.

- The first two Pirates of the Caribbean films were banned in China, and the third one was threatened with banishment as well (you’d think Disney would stop trying by then). But lucky for them, it’s looking like it’s passed the censor board (though it didn’t come out unscathed) and will open in China in June. Disney sure isn’t worried about people not getting the film - its audience probably saw the first two films on pirated discs already! Anyway, Chinese report excerpts as follows:

昨日網上有消息指出，此片終於拿到公映許可證，暫定6月15日於全國各大戲院。就此事求證香港迪士尼發行部，負責人表示仍未收到批文，當收到落實批文後，必會正式向外公布。

Reports on the internet last night say that the film has gotten a permit to screen and is tentatively set to open nationwide on June 15th. When asked for confirmation from Hong Kong Disney, the spokesman says he hasn’t heard the news. Once he can confirm the news, he will officially report it to the public.

而發行商為免重遇第2集被禁的命運，一度刪減了部分的內容作遷就。

The distributor, in order to avoid the fate that fell upon the first two films, has made cuts as a compromise.

Original Chinese report

Not that Pirates of the Caribbean should be mistaken as “art,” (you know it’s a cash cow meant to show off the latest digital effects Hollywood can offer and how crazy can Johnny Depp act without seeming like he sold his soul to Hollywood) but it’s always a shame to see films get censored.

- Twitch has a teaser poster for the remake of Tsubaki Sanjuro. Why just a teaser? The film isn’t even opening until December.

Just watched Hot Fuzz, the latest from Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg of “Spaced” and “Shaun of the Dead” fame. As many know, this time Wright and Pegg take on the action genre, and as expected, it’s a ton of fun. Unlike spoofs, which mocks the cliches of the genre it’s taking on, Hot Fuzz embraces the action genre, taking every editing, sound, visual cliche from Hollywood and blows them up to the max. It’s so into it that audiences who aren’t in on the joke will probably love it at face value, when the filmmakers are probably making fun of them for buying into its Hollywood counterparts. On the other hand, those who “get it” would probably still find it pretty cool.

- Continuing with the previously-reported story about the appearance of pirated Spiderman 3 DVDs on the streets of China, Sony has confirmed that cheap suckers have been scammed by those amateur entrepreneurs. That’s right, the poor bastards who thought they got a chance to watch Spiderman 3 before everyone else in the comforts of their own home spent their hard-earned renminbi for just another copy of Spiderman 2 packaged as Spiderman 3. Ha-ha!

- It’s time for Oricon rankings. On the singles chart, concocted pop boy duo Takki and Tsubasa’s latest single gets the number one spot with only 65000 copies sold. As predicted, all but two on the top 10 happen to be new singles, including the new single by AAA, SEAMO (who hit it big with his 2006 single Mada Aimasho), and Spitz, all selling less than 35,000 copies in their first week. Next week’s sales should be healthier, as KinKi Kids’ latest already sold over 40,000 copies on its first day.

As for the albums chart, Kat-tun’s second album rule the charts with 270,000 copies sold. The surprise, at least for me, was Avril Lavigne’s second place debut with her latest “The Best Damn Thing,” selling 220,000 copies and making her an even richer woman for having not all that much talent. Why?! How?! Which?!

- Japan has a new pop group, which features a former Morning Musume member (I suspect there are a lot of them out there floating in the J-pop world anyway). This time, the gimmick is the “gyaru” image, and the pop group name is - you guessed it - “Gyaruru.” I’ve seen these “gyarus” in Tokyo before, and they’re not really all that appealing to me. Who wants to guess that they’re not gonna go very far?

- In something that comes as absolutely no surprise, Hollywood has come out saying that they are backing the United States government’s complaint against China for intellectual copyright. In fact, they’re even threatening a ban, which means it might just rescue China from crappy Hollywood films, only to be replaced by more happy Chinese blockbusters promoting messages of peace and communism.

- To show those Americans that China takes copyright very seriously, a Chinese courts just found Yahoo! China guilty of copyright violation because the site provide links to sites with unauthorized MP3 downloads and lyrics.

- On the other hand, Chinese public television broadcaster CCTV has nothing to complain about, seeing how they just found a distributor for their content, thanks to the BBC.

- But then, the Asian media is not quite happy about how they are always in the shadow of Western media. They complain about how Western media only represents 1/7 of the world’s population, yet they control 2/3 of the world’s media, blah blah blah. Well, guess what, this report is right: Asian media does kind of suck. When they decide to stop sensationalist, inaccurate, and xenophobic reporting, then maybe someone will pay attention to you.

- Those who loved Hong Kong director Soi Cheang’s Dog Bite Dog are surely looking forward to the director’s latest, the Japanese comic adaptation Shamo. Even though it’s not being released in Hong Kong until September, the film will be shown at the Cannes film festival for potential overseas buyers. The bad news? Unlike Dog Bite Dog, which is category III due to violence and subject matter (meaning no one under 18 may be admitted, PERIOD), Shamo will only be category IIB (which is the equivalent of an R, except anyone can get in).

- When people watch Hong Kong film credits, they usually see the same guy for sound: Kinson Tsang. Honestly, I don’t know how that guy manages to do sound for almost every single Hong Kong film, but guess what? There’s actually another sound guy out there in the Hong Kong film world, and his name is Martin Chappell. KFC Cinema has an interview with him, and it’s quite informative.

- Director Mira Nair, who’s made films from Mississippi Masala to Monsoon Wedding, is getting the Pride of India award at the Bollywood Film Awards next month. Good for her.

- Lastly, in light of the “surprise” success of Hong Kong film Love is Not All Around, Ming Pao has a column on possible direction Hong Kong films can go:

青春愛情片在日本、韓國很流行，香港則甚少見也少有好票房，其實是傳統市場計算的問題。理論上，影市萎縮，餘下入場看電影的觀眾群，以青少年為主，是拍拖的主要活動，但港片偏就缺乏青春愛情片。

Youth romances are popular in Korea and Japan, but those in Hong Kong have seen low box office gross. That’s because there’s a problem with market calculations. Theoretically, the market has shrunk, and the audience that remains are mostly teens, who see moviegoing as a date activity. But Hong Kong film lacks youth romance.

最主要原因，是愛情片從來是港片的弱項，不是沒有，是少之又少，較有這方面才華的創作人，年紀已大，心態也大了，拍出來的作品，成熟觀眾喜歡，青少年沒有共鳴。可惜成熟觀眾多半已不入場看戲。

The primarily reason is that romance is a weakness of Hong Kong films. It’s not that they don’t exists, they just amount to very little. The artists that have talent in that aspect have grown old, and their mentalities have matured. Older audiences like those films, but youths can’t connect with it. Sadly, mature audiences mostly don’t go to cinemas anymore.

港片最有市場的是動作片，在香港可能只收幾百萬，但內地有市場，歐美也要這些片，拍幾千萬不是問題，再貴些都可以。黑社會片也可以，或者鬼片，一樣有埠。

Hong Kong’s biggest market is in action films. It may only earn a couple of million Hong Kong dollars locally, but there’s an audience for them in the Mainland, Europe, and America. The budget can go to tens of million dollars. Triad films and horror films have overseas markets as well.

在香港拍青春愛情片市場太窄，成本不能高，否則風險大。成本不高，可以請的卡士也不能太大，大也不一定好，因為當今的一線明星，個個年紀有番咁上下。

The market for youth romance in Hong Kong is too narrow; budget can’t be high, or the risk is too much. With a small budget, the cast can’t be too great. Even if they attract the big stars, all the big stars are past their prime.

韓、日動作片不及香港，愛情片反而有市，製作費也較高，無論畫面、美術、音樂各方面也做得比港片好，浪漫感也更強。愛情片拍得好，其實有很大空間，可惜香港電影公司把投資放在更有把握的片種上，不拍青春愛情片，也就少培養這方面的創作人才。

Korean and Japanese action films aren’t as huge as Hong Kong’s, but the market for romance exists. The budget is higher, hence visuals, production values, music, etc. are done better than Hong Kong films. The romantic feeling is stronger. Actually there is quite a bit of space to make good romance, but Hong Kong film studios put their investments in films they are more confident in instead of making romances. This prevents the cultivation of talents for those type of films.

《十分愛》的成功，希望可為香港年輕觀眾帶來更多有共鳴的電影。

Hopefully, the success of “Love is Not All Around” can bring more films that can connect with the young audiences of Hong Kong.

Original Chinese article

There are quite a few romances aimed at youths. Too bad the ones that exist - My Sweetie, Love@ First Note, and Super Fans - happen to be really crappy and manufactured to please record companies/Karaoke joints. Thing is, are the Japanese and Korean youth romance films all that much better?

- First, some sad news to report in the Asian cinema blogsphere. Hoga News, run by Michi Kaifu, will no longer be updated. Hoga News has been a great source for news even before this blog started, especially for someone who can only understand maybe about half the Japanese cinema news stories out there. Michi has been there to put things into perspective (and not to mention English), and Hoga News’ presence on the Japanese news front will be missed by all. Hopefully, my Japanese is still good enough to read Eiga Consultant’s entries, whose links I originally got from Hoga news. Best of luck to you, Michi!

- Speaking of Eiga Consultant, he’s been tracking the results of the two big animated films that opened this weekend - Conan (again, the detective, not the barbarian) and Crayon Shinchan. Both films, despite performing fairly well at 450 million yen and 300 million yen, respectively, are somewhat under-performing. In Conan’s case, the opening is only 85% of the last film, which opened around the same time last year. However, since last year’s installment was the 10th anniversary film that performed 141% of its previous installment, this installment is actually performing at the series average. As for Crayon Shinchan, it should actually performing better since it’s the 15th anniversary film. Instead, it made 91% of the last film’s opening weekend, which made 1.38 billion yen total. It should still be at the series’ range of 1.28 billion yen to 1.45 billion yen, but for an anniversary film, it’s still kind of disappointing.

- On to the real Japan box office numbers, which is at a higher exchange rate this week (last week: US$1=119.304 yen. This week: US$1=118.725). It’s not much of a difference, but it was enough to put Tokyo Tower at 4th place, even though audience ranking puts it at 3rd. And the change in exchange rate means it shows the film dropping 19.4% in revenue when the film really lost about 20%. Of course, since Tokyo Tower appeals to an older audience, it just means more lower-priced tickets were sold. Meanwhile, Music and Lyrics still opened at 8th place (flop!), and even the well-received Blood Diamond (it’s at third at the satisfaction ranking I just linked) lost 35% of its business.

- Under the “bad idea” label today, they’re making a second sequel to the South Korean hit “My Boss My Hero” franchise. Under the “worst idea” label today, it’s going to be made with a brand-new cast.

- Back in March, I might have written Twitch’s entry on a cheesy-looking Japanese action film called “Midnight Eagle,” which looks like the most manufactured Hollywood action film ever made (According to its website, it’s about “orientals” who places an explosive device within a Japanese military aircraft). Now we find out that it’s actually a $10 million (pretty huge budget in Japan standards) blockbuster thriller that is actually co-produced by Universal Japan, who made a whole lot of money with Dororo earlier in the year. I certainly hope it’ll be better than its teaser trailer is suggesting.

- Also good to see Japan (kadokawa Pictures) and South Korea (CJ Entertainment) getting together to make movies - too bad it’s another generic horror movie set for a summer release. At least the poster looks really groovy, man.

- Hey, America, you ain’t so bad, with your formal complaints and shit. We Chinese already have pirated copies of your most anticipated movies a week and a half before anyone else is supposed to see it. Of course, it’s probably a scam set to cash in on the hype cheating the poor bastards who think they lucked out, but still, how about them apples?

- A reminder to people in New York that Johnnie To’s masterpiece Election 2 (renamed Triad Election in the states) is opening tomorrow for a limited run. You can also catch the first Election film during its one showing a day. I find it interesting that the theater’s website have to assure people that “Triad Election” can be perfectly enjoyable on its own, although I personally don’t necessarily agree. Let’s just say you won’t be too lost watching just Triad Election, but you’re doing yourself a disservice if you don’t watch the first film as well.

- Now to the folks in Tokyo, Jason Gray recommends the latest Japan Foundation Film Series, which features classic films at a discounted 600 yen AND English subtitles. Trust me, you’re not gonna be able to get the subtitles at your local Japanese video store. What do you think was stopping me from renting Kurosawa movies there?

- Paradise Murdered, the latest hit in South Korea, has taken the top spot at the box office again, even though it’s DVD release has already been announced. Too bad other Koreans films aren’t doing so hot.