The Oriental Daily from Hong Kong reports that director Joe Ma has confirmed that his last good comedy Love Undercover has been bought up by a Hollywood studio for remake. Despite no official casting having been announced, Ma said that he would personally like to see Drew Barrymore take the role Miriam Yeung made famous. This news comes after Stephen Fung’s Enter the Phoenix and Andrew Lau/Alan Mak’s Confession of Pain were bought up for Hollywood remakes earlier in the year.

Good news? Bad news? Don’t care? I personally think it’s going to suck already.

You know the procedure for Wednesdays - it’s the Oricon charts!

- We’ll first look at the monthly rankings for June. On the singles chart, it’s no surprise that Kat-tun’s latest won, but I’m a little surprised that it won by such a large margin. Released on June 6th, the single sold 332,000 copies within the month of June, despite the song sucking quite hard. Meanwhile, the only two songs that are not new releases on the top ten are Keisuke Kuwata’s Ashita Hareru Kana and new band GReeeeN’s Ai Uta, both of which saw rising sales from the previous month.

Meanwhile, the competition on the album charts is a little closer, as Mariya Takeuchi’s latest album sold 357,000 copies in the month of June after being released on May 23rd. Not too far behind is Johnny’s Entertainment’s Kanjani, who sold 226,000 copies of their latest after it was released on June 6th. Zard’s last compilation album “Golden Best” sold an additional 155,000 copies due to the untimely death of singer Izumi Sakai. Sad for J-pop, 4 of the albums on the top 10 are American albums from Linkin Park, Avril Lavinge, Maroon 5, and Ne-Yo, respectively.

On to the weekly charts. On the singles side, Erika Sawajiri’s first single as herself debuted at the top spot, but with a fairly weak sales figure of 50,000 copies. Sawajiri is now the first female artist to have her first two singles debut at number 1 since Hiroko Yakushimaru became the first female artist to do it in the early 80s. Not very far behind is the much-touted new single from young artist Ayaka, who just announced she will hold a concert at the famous Budokan in December. Despite all the hoopla surrounding the song’s release, it only sold 38,600 copies in its first week. Still, I actually like the song quite a bit. Meanwhile, high-pitch boy band w-inds’ new single, which is apparently the Japanese theme for Shrek the Third, only mustered a 4th place debut after selling 28,7000 copies. As for returning singles, Koda Kumi’s latest lost about 67% of its first-week sales with only 35,000 copies sold this week, and Ketsumeishi’s latest suffered similar damage with their latest single as well. If daily rankings hold up (and they usually do), then the new single by a collaboration known as the Golden Circle should win the week with very weak sales.

As for the album chart this week, Namie Amuro’s latest also suffered a 64% drop in sales, selling only 90,500 copies despite staying at the top spot. In comparison, GReeeeN’s debut album lost only roughly 35% in sales for their second week, selling 85,700 copies at a close second place. Meanwhile, Zard’s Golden Best sells another 32,200 copies, while R&B/ballad pop act Melody, who I’ll always know as the girl in that cool M-Flo song, sees her latest album debut at 6th place with only 22,000 copies sold. Get ready for Arashi’s latest album to blow away all competition by the end of the week.

- As we reported yesterday, Andrew Lau/Alan Mak’s Confession of Pain arrived dead on arrival in Japan. On its opening weekend, the film made 23.7 million yen. That’s only 27% of the opening for Daisy and 54% of the opening for Infernal Affairs III. Eiga Consultant sees it as a failure of Ayumi Hamasaki’s theme song to bring audiences in, but I see it as a freefall of Takeshi Kaneshiro’s popularity in Japan. Even teaming up with who is arguably one of Asia’s top actors couldn’t lift this thing up. Then again, the movie isn’t all that great.

- Just a little preview of Friday’s Hong Kong box office report - Harry Potter is going to be huge, just look at the IMAX presales. Those tickets are twice the price of a normal ticket. Red means sold out, by the way.

- Twitch has a ton of reviews from the Fantasia - Dog Bite Dog, The Restless, Kim Ki-Duk’s Time, Hazard, and The Show Must Go On.

- Meanwhile, Variety reviews the Japanese-Chinese co-production The Longest Night in Shanghai, which this blogger actually would like to watch.

- This can’t be real, right? Dicky Cheung, best known as Hong Kong television’s answer to Stephen Chow, is starring as the Monkey King in a Hollywood film after he played the famous character in two different television dramas.

- In an attempt to search out for new inspirations for films, a popular blog about a group of students’ war of pranks with a local resident in a rural town is being adapted into a film. If it all goes well, I bet you they’ll be making various versions of TV as well. Then again, the film is being directed by Renpei Tsukamoto, whose last theatrical work is One Missed Call 2.

- There’s a new trailer for Benny Chan’s Hong Kong actioner Invisible Target online, except it just have a little bit more plot and it’s all dubbed in Mandarin. It didn’t get me anymore excited about the film than I already did, so watch at your own risk.

- The Tribeca Film Festival held a mini-edition in Beijing, and it seems to be a success, as it has attracted not just over-glamourized celebrities, but hip film buffs as well.

- MTV and Motorola held a series of concerts featuring Taiwanese star Jay Chou and Chinese star Cui Jian to remind people that music comes from real musical talent, not just getting lucky on some talent show. Wow, so MTV actually promotes music anywhere that’s NOT the United States.

- After all the pushing and pulling and the rumoring, the producer of John Woo’s Battle of Red Cliff has confirmed that Chow Yun-Fat will simply not be joining the production in any capacity.

- In DVD news, Studio Ghibli’s Tales From Earthsea is coming is a cheaper Hong Kong DVD on July 20th, while the Korean dark comedy Driving With My Wife’s Lover, which I linked a review for a while ago, is coming out in August. I actually want to watch both, despite the less-than-good reputation for Earthsea.

- The Thai government is just pissing off everyone in the Thai entertainment industry, as even the TV industry has come out against the new ratings system. They argue the new system, which they say was thought up without any careful consideration, will restrict artistic freedom and impossible to put into practice. Case in point: A program is rated PG if it contains “use of wrong grammar not used for comic effect.” Man, that’s worse than China.

Seems like I accidentally used this title for yesterday’s Song of the Day, my apologies.

- The Japan box office numbers are out on Box Office Mojo….kind of. They have a bunch of numbers and percentages, but I’m guessing that because not all the distributors delivered their numbers, so the rankings are somewhat incomplete. The only conclusions I can make out is that 1) No film took a real big hit. Not even Pirates of the Caribbean, which just would. not. go. away. and 2) Confession of Pain preformed pretty disappointingly, despite the presence of Takeshi Kaneshiro. Is he just not that popular in Japan?

On the arthouse side, the Finnish film Lights in the Dark by Aki Kurismaki. The only reasons I’m writing about the performance of this film are 1) it actually looks really interesting, and 2) The advertising suggests that director Kurismaki has some kind of small following in Japan. Anyway, the 2006 Cannes contender opened in one small theatre in Shibuya on the 7th, and attracted 703 admissions for an even 1 million yen gross on the opening day. With a capacity of 145 and 5 shows a day, that means each show had an average capacity of 97%, which is pretty damn good.

- Lovehkfilm has a couple of new reviews - The Milkyway “Handover commemoration” comedy-drama Hooked On You, the Barbara Wong-directed official “Handover film” Wonder Women, plus a review of A Ball Shot By a Midget (don’t let the name turn you off, it’s really pretty good) and Resurrection of Golden Wolf by yours truly.

- MTV and EMI asks all Asian songwriters and aspiring directors: “Are you proud to be Chinese?” I certainly hope this song isn’t the winner.

- Despite bad word-of-mouth pretty much anywhere it played, Studio Ghibli’s Tales From Earthsea managed to sell 147,000 copies the first week and is the best first-week sales of any animated DVD this year.

- After Tokyo International Film Festival found a new programmer, the AFI festival in Los Angeles found themselves a new artistic director too.

- Even though it’s easy to attack the Hong Kong print media for spending most of their pages on celebrity gossips, you can actually find some little pieces of news that matter. For example, while this report is about Hong Kong stars Gigi Leung and Lau Ching-Wan having to lose weight for their respective upcoming film roles, you also learn that Wai Ka-Fai is making a new movie starring Lau as a blind man this August.

- The hit drama Nodame Cantabile is coming back for a two-part drama special in January. Next stop: the movie? For those people in Hong Kong that hasn’t downloaded it yet (I’m sure there are a few of you out there), this will be showing on TVB in August.

- TV Tokyo is under fire for biased reporting of the upcoming elections for the House of Councilors. News agenda exists, but I doubt that TV Tokyo is the only TV station that has it.

- Hollywood continues their formulaic filmmaking by finding ways to either continuing franchises or starting new ones. I swear, I’ll never watch another Harry Potter film if they manage to just make one up out of thin air.

- MK Pictures, most well-known for producing Korean director Kang Je-Gyu’s Shiri and Taegukgi (if you know Korean films, you should know these films anyway), has been bought up by cable TV. One of the people who sold his shares? Kang Je-Gyu.

- The promotion for Wilson Yip’s Flash Point has started in Hong Kong, and is it quite possible that they’re centering the promotion on Louis Koo? No way, Donnie Yen’s bus is probably right behind it, probably with a larger close-up too.

- I totally missed it when it got reported on Tokyograph, but the troubled Yubari Film Festival is finally coming back in March.

- This week, Japan Times reviews the Ryuichi Hiroki(who also made Vibrator) film Koisuru Nichiyoubi - Koi Shita (Thanks to Ryuganji for the link this week, because it wasn’t found from the Japan Times film review listing for some reason). Made under a project for the satellite channel BS-i, the film is currently playing at a Shibuya theatre. However, it actually opened last month at another theater in Shinjuku already, and only saw 1025 admissions/1.37 million yen. Since the theater has a capacity of 330, that means the shows aren’t even half-full on average. However, unlike other television-financed blockbusters, the experimental project is meant to show off new talents with commercial genres.

- Meanwhile, the Daily Yomiuri have reviews of Andrew Lau/Alan Mak’s Confession of Pain (which opens this weekend in Japan with a better trailer, despite some inaccurate subtitles. Japan Times also reviews it, though reviewer Kaori Shoji incorrectly identifies Andrew Lau as the sole director.), Pedro Almodovar’s Volver, and of course - the new Harry Potter movie, which seems to be drawing the most negative reviews of the series. They also give a very enthusiastic review for the new drama “Papa To Musume No Nanakakan,” which seems more like a idea stolen from Walt Disney’s 1976 film Freaky Friday (it was even remade a few years ago, so the TBS guys have no excuse)

- I found a very interesting Chinese blog on Hong Kong cinema that covers everything from films to theaters to ticket inflation. Recently, the blogger looked at why Simply Actors (starring Jim Chim and Charlene Choi) did so much business its opening week, except for the fact that it opened on a public holiday. Turns out the promotional campaign includes three different types of HK$10 off coupons that are good for different days of the opening week, which may mean lower box office gross, but also means more incentive for people to go to the theater. It’s even cheaper than buying a VCD, for crying out loud.

- In DVD news, the Japanese comic adaptation film Nana 2, which flopped pretty horribly at the box office last winter, is coming to an English-subtitled Hong Kong region 3 DVD on July 12th. Also, the DVD for Han Jae-Rim’s The Show Must Go On is coming to Korean region 3 DVD on July 19th.

- Prepare to see Yoji Yakusho everywhere when you head off to the Japan International Contents Festival this fall, because the actor has been chosen as the face of the festival.

- Alexi Tan’s Blood Brothers, also produced by John Woo and Terence Chang, is slates to have its world premiere as the closing film at the Venice Film Festival in September. But what is this whole thing about it being a remake of Woo’s Bullet in the Head?

- In the first half of 2007, Korean cinema took up only a 47.3% share of the total theatrical market at home, which is its lowest since 2001. In comparison, Korean films took a 60% market share in 2006. I’ve said before, plenty of countries outside the United States would kill for that kind of numbers. Yes, even the 47.3 % one.

- Considering that it’s over on Monday, this news is a little late, but this year’s Taipei International Film Festival seems to have the largest Chinese cinema lineup in all of Asia. It even has Hou Hsiao-Hsien sitting on top!

Tomorrow, Podcast and more and more news.

Saw the new Disney/Pixar film Ratatouille today, and had a great time as expected. Of course, I was especially excited to see this because it marked Brad Bird’s first film since The Incredibles, which was also the last Pixar film I wanted to see (I still haven’t seen Cars yet). It’s less “action-packed” than The Incredibles, which can be expected since it’s about a rat who becomes a chef, but there are still some really exciting sequences here that shows how far computer animation has come. The best part is that as excitedly real as it looks at times, the animators still have their feet firmly planted on fantasy land, with rats that walk on two feet and emote as if they’re human. And the writing is again top notch, with great comedy bits and even instances of subverted cliches. The rat clan on the move scenes do get a little goosebump-inducing, but like the usual Pixar films, this is a ton of fun to watch.

- As always, we start with the Hong Kong Thursday opening day box office numbers. The “official” opening day for Die Hard 4.0 was a little lackluster, making “only” HK$740,000 on 51 screens after the weeklong preview made HK$6.36 million. Shrek 3 will remain a viable competitor this weekend, as it made another HK$600,000 on 51 screens for an 8-day total of HK$13.37 million. Hooked On You might seeing a fair drop this weekend, making only HK$350,000 on 32 screens on Thursday. I don’t see it doing any better than HK$500,000 per day over the weekend. After 8 days, it has earned HK$5.46 million, which means it should end up being a moderate earner, but not a homerun by any means.

Remember I said Wonder Woman might be a huge hit? I was dead wrong, especially when I found out it only opened on 12 screens on Thursday. What’s worse is that it only made HK$90,000, despite film critic Shek Ki giving it a very positive review on Ming Pao daily yesterday (no link, sorry). The weekend’s third opener, Robert Rodriguez’s Grindhouse segment Planet Terror, actually did better than Wonder Women and made HK$140,000 on 15 screens, despite the no-one-under-18 category III rating.

- The Korean summer hit Black House is heading to Japan in October. Unlike other Korean films, this one might actually have a fanbase in Japan because it was based on a Japanese novel. Hell, they’re even putting on a wide release of 250 screens.

- The Tokyo International Film Festival has picked a new programmer for the Winds of Asia section, which promotes young talents from Asia. He wants to expand the scope to South, Middle, and Central Asia. Why doesn’t he just say “the rest of Asia” instead?

- After a theatre in Tokyo found enormous success with their screenings of the hit Korean drama Hotelier, the theatre is going back for some more Yong-sama classics. Starting on Tuesday, the theatre is screening each week two episodes of the complete version of Winter Sonata, THE drama that started the Korean wave in Japan. The theatre first decided to play it on three of their screens simultaneously, but when the tickets were quickly sold out, they will now play it on all their screens except one. The power of Yong-sama prevails.

- On a related note, overseas sales of Korean TV programs, mostly dramas, has seen increase in some markets. However, it also saw a decrease in key markets such as China, Japan, and Taiwan.

- The New York Asian Film Festival is winding down, and Asian Cinema - While on the Road uploads another report, this time about the screening of the Pakistani zombie horror flick Hell’s Ground and hanging out with hip Asian directors on the 4th of July.

More news throughout the weekend as they come in. And remember the Podcast on Sunday.

- Let’s go over the Oricon charts first. On the singles chart, the new Koda Kumi “maxi-single” debuts at the top spot with a strong sales figure of 108,000, while “hip-pop” group Ketsumeishi’s latest is fairly far behind in second place with 78,000 sold. However, Monkey Majik’s theme song for the Saiyuki movie (a little more on that later) dies on arrival with a 20th place debut and selling only 5,400 copies. If the daily rankings hold up, then expect Erika Sawajiri’s first single to top the charts next week.

Things are a little more exciting over on the albums side, as Namie Amuro’s new album sells a solid 250,600 copies on its first week of release, making it her first number one album since 2000’s “Genius 2000.” Meanwhile, new band Greeeen, comprised of current dentistry students (That’s what the Oricon website wrote), saw their first album debut at number 2 with 130,000 copies sold, which is pretty damn good for a debut album’s debut (However, Oricon also calls them a hip-hop group, which doesn’t seem right). Also, Zard’s Golden Best compilation album actually saw its sales go up from last week to 52,600 this week despite a drop in ranking, possibly because of the memorial for Izumi Sakai last week. Lastly, Love Psychedelico’s 4th album debuted at 5th place, selling only 48,000 copies probably due to the lack of any notable single this time around. If the daily charts serve as any indication, the album charts next week should be fairly quiet.

- Kumi Koda’s album “Cherry Girl” has now sold over one million copies, and she is the first female artist since Utada Hikaru to have three consecutive million-selling albums. Not to rain on her parade, but two of those albums are technically compilations…

- Eiga Consultant reports about how The Mourning Forest is doing in its limited release, particularly in Cinema Angelica in Shibuya, Tokyo. On the opening weekend of the 23rd, the film only attracted 905 people for a gross of 1.34 million yen. Considering there are 10 shows that wekeend (5 each day), and the capacity is 104 seats, that means the weekend capacity was only 87%. This is fairly disappointing, considering the film’s success at the Cannes Film Festival. Is it because of the art film stigma? The hi-definition broadcast on NHK? How is it doing elsewhere? We’ll explore this a little bit this weekend on the podcast.

- While a Thai court has overruled the ruling government’s ability to shut down websites at will, the Thai cabinet has sadly approved the new film act which actually still allow the film committee to ban films, despite the establishment of a film rating system. Now the legislation will now go to the parliament, where it will be even harder for activists to continue their cause.

- Thanks to Comingsoon.net, I found out that Andrew Lau’s first Hollywood film The Flock will actually open in Japan on August 4th (it has yet to secure an exact release date in the United States), and the Japanese site for it. There’s a trailer on it, which seems to play up the reportedly extended cameo by pop star Avril Lavigne. As for the movie, it just looks like an Andrew Lau movie with better production values. Blah.

- Speaking of websites for potentially crappy movies, no one has really reported on Saiyuki, the big summer film adapted from the “hit” drama. I didn’t even bother seeking it out because it takes a well-known Chinese fairy tale and twists it for cheap entertainment (Jeff Lau would be just as guilty if I didn’t enjoy the Chinese Odyssey films…but he DID make a Chinese Tall Story). Mostly I just didn’t bother looking for it because I hear it’s flat out not very good. Anyway, the website reports that the movie is coming out next weekend, and it has a trailer if you click on 予告.

- Production for the Korean horror film G.P. 506 has been suspended after 70% of shooting has been completed due to the lawsuit and management battles within the production firm. Film is, after all, a business.

Hong Kong was on public holiday Monday, which means no weekend box office figure until later tonight Pacific Time (Tuesday in HK) or even tomorrow night.

- On the other hand, the Japanese box office numbers are already out, and Box Office Mojo already has the comprehensive chart. Die Hard 4.0 takes the top spot with a strong 603 million yen from 741 screens. Adding the Saturday’s preview screenings’ take of 289 million yen, it has already made 892 million yen to date. However, its 814,000 yen per-screen average is kind of weak for an opening this wide (Spiderman 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean saw higher per-screen average on even higher screen counts). Meanwhile, Shrek 3 opens at third, making 363.8 million yen on 543 screens, which is much higher than Shrek 2’s opening of 284.8 million yen on 551 screens in 2004. If the performance pattern is similar to Shrek 2, this one should end up doing better than the previous film by about 25%.

Except for The Haunted Samurai, Maiko Haaaan!!!, and Pirates of the Caribbean, everything else took a pretty big hit, especially Spiderman 3’s 52.2% hit, Zodiac’s 40.1% hit, and Dai Nipponjin’s 43% drop (at least it passed the 1 billion yen mark). Lastly, Pedro Almodovar’s Volver missed the top 10 because it’s only playing on 40 screens. It only make 19 million yen.

- By the way, I forgot to report that the Akihi To Kamo No Coin Locker opening in Tokyo also marked the best opening for a Japanese film at that theater after last year’s Mamiya Brothers, and is the 7th best opening ever at the theater.

- After the financial failure of Ichikawa Kon’s self-remake of The Inugami Family earlier in the year, director Nobuhiko Oobayashi’s self-remake of his 1982 film Exchange Students also failed in its limited release. Originally the first part of the “Onomichi Trilogy” (the director’s hometown), the remake, named Tenkousei - Sayonara Anata, takes the film out of its original location to Nagano. On 30 screens, the film made only 5 million yen with only a 166,666 yen per-screen average. Perhaps these self-remakes aren’t very good ideas.

- Meanwhile, Kiroi Namida, the Isshin Inusou film starring Johnny’s boy group Arashi, opened in South Korea to a seemingly weak 16,000 admissions, only because it’s compared to Memories of Tomorrow’s 38,000 admissions and Tears For You’s 64,000 admissions for their respective opening weekends. However, there’s nothing about how many screens it opened on, considering that the film is considered less mainstream than its counterparts in Japan. However, Eiga Consultant also points out that the film actually didn’t even do all that well in Japan. While the film has finally broke the 200 million yen barrier, other films starring individual members of Arashi (such as Letters From Iwo Jima and Honey and Clover) has actually done much better.

- It’s kind of been reported before, but Pirates of the Caribbean has officially surpassed Spiderman 3 in worldwide gross. I’m reporting this because a bulk of that cash comes from Asia.

- Get it here first, the first full-length trailer for Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution, starring Tony Leung, Joan Chen, Leehom Wang, and newcomer Tang Wei, is everywhere on Youtube. A Chinese neonoir/political thriller? Sign me up.

Speaking of trailer, the full-length trailer for Paul Greengrass’ The Bourne Ultimatum is up, and it’s looking good. Could this deliver even better old-school movie magic action than Live Free or Die Hard? (HD links can be found at Dave’s Trailer Page)

- Since Shinya Tsukamoto’s Nightmare Detective was recently announced to be in production, I should probably link the latest review for the first film here.

- Lovehkfilm has updated with some reviews. First, Derek Kwok’s directorial debut The Pye-Dog with Eason Chan, then a review for Herman Yau’s direct-to-video film A True Mob Story (also his third release this year), and one for the Japanese heist/romance/true story First Love.

OK, there’s also one for sleazy low-budget exploitation flick Lethal Angels.

- Jason Gray has more about the Japanese documentary Campaign, including his interview with the director on The Midnight Eye and news of nightly English-subtitled screenings.

- Eason Chan and Miriam Yeung win big at the 7th Chinese Music Media Awards in Hong Kong. I’ve never even heard of this award in the first place, let alone the winners for the first 6 ceremonies.

- Naked News, the show where reporters literally remove pieces of clothing while reporting the latest news, is on an adult-oriented channel in Japan. Guess what? It’s also subsidized by the government.

- Variety has a review of the action film Dynamite Warrior, which Michael Wells wrote about after it screened at the New York Asian Film Festival.

- Associated Press, via the Daily Yomiuri, reports further about the death of master filmmaker Edward Yang.

- A while ago I reported about yet another censorship case involving Hong Kong’s Television and Entertainment Licensing Council. An essay in Hong Kong’s inMediaHK site included a picture from Flickr with nudity, prompting a warning from TELA that it might be sent to be classified as a category II indecent material. However, the writer refuses to budge (the irony is that the essay is actually about this Hong Kong witch-hunt of “indecent” material by conservative groups), and a month later, the essay has been classified as category II material, with the writer now at risk to pay fines and serve jail time.

Now, EastSouthWestNorth has translated the latest interview with the writer, who still refuses to give in to the ridiculous and ineffective censorship this government council is doing.

- Reuters introduces the Singaporean documentary Invisible City, featuring footages of a forgotten Singapore from the 1950s.

- Universal Music, one of the few record companies that is actually uploading their own artists’ music videos onto Youtube voluntarily, is refusing to draw a long-term licensing deal with Apple’s iTunes, which takes up 70% of the digital music market, because they pretty much want more money. According to Hongkie Town, Universal Music feels that iTunes isn’t charging enough for songs and is looking for another provider that would make them more money. And corporations wonder why people don’t like giving money to them.

I spent several hours editing the podcast, only to realize I botched it up on Audacity, so it’ll be a few more hours of re-editing the whole thing, and it’ll be up a little later than I originally thought.

- Kanye West’s video for “Sutosoga” (hey, that’s what the title says in Japanese) is up. The big deal about it is that he shot it in Tokyo reportedly in the style of the animated film Akira (it’s been too long since I’ve seen it to remember), and it also features a real biker gang. The song still sounds like nursery rhyme, but the video looks pretty cool.

- This past week, I wrote about the somewhat disappointing performance of the period comedy The Haunted Samurai starring Satoshi Tsumaboki. If you wanted to know more about the film, which is a rare non-horror supernatural samurai film, check out the Daily Yomiuri’s introduction.

- The Weinstein Company, once a group of people who only buy up Asian films to never release them under Miramax, is now entering a production deal with a Korean firm to produce and distribute animated films.

- Under “New York Asian Film Festival” news today - Asian Cinema - While on the Road posted the Q&A with E J-Yong, the director of Untold Scandal and Dasepo Naughty Girls.

Michael Wells also checks in with Twitch with two more reviews from the festival.

- Apparently it took two major Hollywood films to fail enough in order to show Hollywood that it needs more Japanese actors. Why did I already know that when they casted three Chinese women for all the lead roles in Memoirs of a Geisha?

(link via F-ed Gaijin)

- Disney has localized itself in China by producing and releasing the very first Disney film produced for the Chinese market. Filmed in China and partly produced by Hong Kong effects house Centro (they’re the pioneer of CGI in Hong Kong films, having done blockbusters such as Stormriders and A Man Called Hero), the effort is set for release this summer.

- Yojiro Takita, who last made the surprise hit Battery, is taking on Okuribito, the story of a man who prepares dead bodies. Masahiro Motoki and Ryoko Hirosue have taken on the lead roles. I’m not sure if this is supposed to be a very dark comedy or a very grim drama.

- Oh yes, it’s July 1st, so while a lot of people are filled with patriotism, especially the writers for TVB’s broadcast of the Hong Kong fireworks, I would rather post a link about Chinese censorship.

(Link via EastSouthWestNorth)

Meanwhile, Yvonne Teh of Webs of Significance has an article in Hong Kong BC Magazine about the archetypes of Mainland Chinese characters in Hong Kong films over the years that shows the love-and-hate relationship Hong Kong really has with the motherland.

I was messing around with Audacity to plan for this weekend’s podcast, and I’ve already started planning it. Looks like I might put in some music after all. Anyway, review first:

Saw the latest Die Hard movie today in a 65-75% full house. I love the Die Hard franchise, though my love extends to only the first and the third movies. This time, Len “I can’t even make a cool comic idea entertaining” Wiseman takes the helm and actually directs the action quite capably. I’m very appreciative that he actually bothered to make most of the action look real (even the flipping car in the tunnel that you see in the trailer is actually real), although they’re over-the-top to an extreme. Also appreciative to see a few Asian-American actors, though I’m not sure if I’m comfortable with Maggie Q being THE character that can fight well with the generic Asian name.

After a while, I realize just how bored Wiseman was when he filmed all those dialogue scenes. He was probably so bored that in one scene, he just picked up the camera and just moved it a lot in close-ups to make it look “dynamic.” That, plus the unusual instances of obvious ADR (dubbing in post-production), just says how much the crew was into making the non-action stuff, which is not very. The violence, which people were worried about because of the PG-13 rating, actually isn’t all that watered down - the death count is still pretty high and there are a couple of groaners, even though they are mostly bloodless (no, Bruce Willis with a couple of wound doesn’t count as lots of blood. Him walking through a bathroom filled with broken glass on the floor, THAT’S bloody). If anything, it just shows the failure of the PG-13 rating since the Die Hard franchise was never made for kids in the first place, and the violence here is still R-worthy, with or without blood. Plus, the way they toned down his signature line (motherf*cker=instant R-rating!) just feels forced.

I think watching this just ended up proving how great of an action director John McTiernan was, because the third Die Hard film was genuinely funnier, more exciting, better shot, and even smarter than Live Free or Die Hard. Hell, I’ll even forgive him for Basic….though not Rollerball. And I liked The Last Action Hero, sue me. Live Free or Die Hard may be a ton of fun, but Die Hard it ain’t. Well, at least Japan Times loved it, even if it gets a couple of plot details wrong.

In North America, it goes up against the new Disney/Pixar flick Ratatouille this weekend, but it did do fairly well on its opening day, making US$9 million. Since the action flick is appealing to older male, and the Pixar flick is appealing to families, I think they’ll both end up doing well, especially since they are both going to have pretty good word-of-mouth.

Die Hard is having an entire weekend of sneak previews in Hong Kong until it officially opens on July 4th to take advantage of the holiday weekend. However, it only made HK$480,000 on 34 screens, which is a solid but unspectacular opening day. Nevertheless, looking at the Broadway website, the online booking is picking up for the weekend, so it might end up doing pretty well.

No one released the numbers for the sneak previews last weekend in Japan, so I expect this weekend’s numbers to be inflated a little bit since the preview numbers will probably be counted into the opening weekend total as well.

- Judging by the Thursday opening day numbers, this weekend looks to be fairly busy at the Hong Kong box office. In addition to the Die Hard previews, Shrek 3 and the Milkyway comedy Hooked On You are also out to take advantage of the long holiday weekend. Shrek 3 managed to get a very healthy HK$1.29 million gross on 49 screens, though I’m not sure how the screens are split between the Cantonese and English versions. Hooked On You also managed a healthy take of HK$580,000 on 32 screens, which should ensure a solid weekend take. Limited release 2 Days in Paris by Julie Delpy made HK$50,000 on a limited 4-screen release and should pick up the hip 20-40 arthouse audience this weekend.

On the other hand, there’s no telling how holdovers from last weekend will do. Simply Actors made another HK$310,000 on 29 screens for HK$6.47 million after 10 days and should maintain an over-HK$10,000 per-screen average this weekend. However, Eye in the Sky made only HK$120,000 on 27 screens for the current 8-day total of HK$2.86 million. Hopefully, it’ll do solid business over the weekend again to lift it over HK$4 million. But even then, Eye in the Sky remains a commercial failure, any way you look at it.

- The Harry Potter reviews by the two big Hollywood trade papers, and they are both kind of negative. Hollywood Reporter’s Kirk Honeycutt doesn’t have much to say, except that it’s the least enjoyable film of the bunch. Variety’s Todd McCarthy, meanwhile, actually doesn’t seem to have any solid opinion of it.

- Celestial is making their movie channel in Indonesia local by including subtitles and dubbing all on-air promotions in Bahasa Indonesia.

- Miyu Nagase, the lead vocalist of the Japanese pop band ZONE, is branching off on her own years after the popular band disbanded in 2005, now that she’s done with compulsory education. Guess how’s she launching her solo debut? By starting a blog.

- Ryuganji introduces this year’s Pia Film Festival, which is a pretty damn important festival since some of Japan’s best young filmmakers got their first breaks there. At least their Robert Altman retrospective is in English, though I’m sure the overlapping dialogue in his films make them hard to understand too.

- Lastly, famous American film critic Joel Siegel (He’s the on-air reviewer for ABC’s Good Morning America) passed away today at the age of 63 after a battle with colon cancer. I don’t always agree with respectable critics such as Siegal (especially his behavior at the Clerks 2 screening), but I always respect their expertise, and he will be missed.

Saw Kiss Kiss Bang Bang by Shane Black, the writer of the first Lethal Weapon film and considered the pioneer of the buddy action genre. Instead of the usual violent action flicks he has written, Black offers up a self-conscious noir comedy directed with great pacing and plenty of quotable lines (the memorable quotes section brings back a lot of good laughs). What I liked best, though, was its constant subversion of cliches. I don’t want to reveal too much, it’s just a bloody good time at the movies. In fact, the only reason this didn’t do any better at the box office is because it was sold as an art film when it’s not. Trust me, it’s not. Check it out, you won’t regret it.

- The Japanese record sales were fairly weak this past week. On the albums chart, Crystal Kay scores her first number 1 debut album (though I think her compilation album from 2004 debuted at number 1) with her latest All Yours, selling 51,000 copies. Zard’s Golden Best compilation spends another week at number after selling another 38,000 copies, and Kick the Can Crew member MCU’s second album debuts way low at 15th place, selling just over 10,000 copies. I think it’s time for Kick the Can Crew to get back together now. Thing should pick up next week as Namie Amuro’s new album has already sold over 40,000 copies on the first day.

The singles chart is even weaker, with the number 1 single by Gackt selling only 43,000 copies. Another Kick the Can Crew member Kreva (Kureba=Clever, get it? ha ha) gets better results by selling 19,000 copies of his latest single for a 4th place debut. Last week’s number single by YUI drops to 3rd place, and it’s just kind of quiet everywhere else. Next week’s chart should be a battle between popular rap group Ketsumeishi and Koda Kumi, whose singles took second and first place on the first day of sale, respectively.

- As expected, Eiga Consultant has looked at the weekend performance of the Yuko Takeuchi Side Car Ni Inu (is this is a wordplay? It sounds like it’s supposed to be Side Car Ni Iru), and in two Tokyo theaters, it made 4.13 million yen with an attendance of 2544 people over two days. With a total of 20 shows for the two-day weekend (5 shows a day per theater), that’s only 127 people per show on two screens that hold at least 200 people, but I suppose a 2.07 million yen per-screen average is damn good.

- Variety Asia has a random box office report for this past weekend in Hong Kong (probably because of the presence of all those Hong Kong films). The only reason I mention it is that it actually introduces the early summer hit Simply Actors (a film starring Jim Chim make more than HK$5 million is a hit in my book).

- Popular actor Ken Matsudaira is heading to the stage, starring as Dracula in a musical planned to start next year. That’s right, this man is the next person to play Dracula.

By the way, I have the DVD for that. Don’t laugh, you try hearing it all year and not think it’s awesome.

- Jet Li and Jackie Chan has come out to ask people to stop trying to ask them which one do they think is better, with Li saying that it’s like coffee and tea. Well, I like tea better, so which one are you, Jet Li?

- The Toronto International Film Festival, often regarded as probably the most internationally renowned film festival in North America, has just announced their preliminary lineup for this year. Representing Asia are Naomi Kawase’s The Mourning Forest, Lee Chang-Dong’s Secret Sunshine, Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s The Flight of the Red Balloon, and Pen-ek Ratanaruang’s Ploy. Obviously missing are mainstream Asian crowdpleasers such as Exiled, The Host, and Hula Girl from last year. Then again, it’s still early, so who knows?

Meanwhile, the festival’s big honchos have decided to make a conscious effort to not grab attention by showing off the words “world premiere” or “North American premiere” by not inviting the films based on such labels. In fact, they won’t even show off that the screening of the Elizabeth sequel really is a world premiere.

In related news, Ming Pao reported yesterday that Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution will be premiering in Venice and will be released in Hong Kong late September.

- Aoi Miyazaki is going to try the pull off the ultimate actress challenge by playing two roles in Sono Toki Kare Ni Yoroshiku director Yuichiro Hirakawa’s latest Kagehinata ni Saku. The film itself sounds interesting, although Hirakawa’s Sono Toki Kare Ni Yoroshiku doesn’t.

- Ryuganji reports that Ogigami Naoko, the director of Kamome Diner, which became a long-running independent hit in Japan, is back with a new film. Megane actually appeared as a short film on the Kamome Diner DVD, and is now given the feature film treatment. Go to Ryuganji for more info. By the way, that teaser on the website doesn’t show anything.

- The slew of Nanking Massacre films is starting in July with the documentary Nanking. Apparently, the trick to get script approval in China is to be China-centric without pissing off Japan. The strangest entry is Stanley Tong’s $40 million film about the massacre, which got script approval and even has Japanese money invested.

- Brian at Asian Cinema - While on the Road, who is one of the organizers for the New York Asian Film Festival, reports from the ongoing festival and writes about the various audience reactions.

- Under “what the hell?” today, Curtis “50 Cent and a bunch of gunshot wounds” Jackson is joining the cast of Righteous Kill as a drug dealer alongside Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro . Yeah, what an acting challenge that will make.