- The world is changing fast. These days, a movie makes US$218 million by the end of its second weekend, and suddenly it’s a disappointment. Of course, Pirates’ disappointment probably has something to do with the 61% drop from last weekend, but that can be easily attributed to it 1) opening on a record-breaking holiday weekend, and 2) on too many screens to meet demands rather than relying on steady stream of word-of-mouth. I think the movie is getting generally good responses from people, but everyone that needed to see it had plenty of chances to see it already, so those that need convincing aren’t going to because they missed out on the first two. Anyway, with a current global take of US$624 million (to add to the over US$1 billion the second movie already made) there’s absolutely no doubt that everyone’s going to be smiling to the bank when it’s all over - they’re just upset that their deposit is a little smaller than before.

Pirates continued to do strongly (though still lagging behind Spiderman 3) on Sunday in Hong Kong, making HK2.55 million on 88 screens for a 11-day total of HK$32.92 million - that’s an average of almost HK$30,000 per day. Look for this sucker to break the HK$40 million mark, but remember - the ticket prices are 20-30% higher than the usual ticket price, so the only real gauge of success is audience admissions, and I don’t see Hong Kong releasing that type of figures anytime soon.

Meanwhile, urban romantic-docudrama-comedy Single Blog makes HK$280,000 on 28 screens for a lackluster 4-day total of HK$1.06 million. The word-of-mouth seems to be doing OK on the mov3 message board (a lot of them are saying it’s funnier than they expected), but quite a few people seemed to have gone in with free tickets. With Ocean’s 13 taking over the screens this weekend, I doubt the chain theaters are going to give this film a chance. By the way, as I mentioned last week, the “blog” connection is stated in the trailer - that 99% of the film is based on experiences people write in blogs. Just what blogs and how many blogs I have no idea. The rest of Hong Kong cinemas seem kind of ho-hum, except for the surprising performance of British film Cashback. On 2 screens, the comedy made an impressive HK$60,000 for a 4-day total of HK$190,000.

Box Office Mojo only has the top 6 movies on their site, so I’ll wait until they have the full ranking before I talk about numbers. However, I do have the attendance rankings, and as expected, Pirates took the weekend again (but with much more staying power than it did in the States). The bigger surprise is Hitoshi Matsumoto’s Dai Nipponjin showing up at 2nd place. Apparently, it opened wider than I thought, though it’s not playing in that many theaters in Central Tokyo (look at the screen counts for Pirates and the new Masami Nagasawa movie for comparison). It also beat Takeshi Kitano’s Kantoku Banzai by quite a margin, as Kantoku opened at only 10th place, right under The Banquet (!!).

Eiga Consultant further analyzes the opening weekend of the previous mentioned new Masami Nagasawa film, Sono Toki Wa Kare Ni Yoroshiku. Nagasawa got her big break with the 2004 Japanese blockbuster Crying Out For Love In the Center of the World (whose DVD probably sold so many copies that I managed to get a second-hand DVD in Tokyo for just 500 yen), and has had a considerable presence in both movies (Tears For You and Rough) and TV (Sailor Suit and Machine Gun and the currently-playing Proposal Daisakusen) ever since. However, the opening of Sono seems to prove that maybe she isn’t the big box office attraction after all. Sono made 89 million yen on its Saturday opening, which is only 94% of Rough and 23% of Tears For You. After the ratings disappointment that was Sailor Suit (only a 13.3 average rating, including a 45% drop from its first to third episode) and this, Eiga Consultant wonders whether the success of Nagasawa’s outing depend more on her male co-stars? After all, Proposal Daisakusen has boy band member Tomohisa Yamashita, and Tears for You has hunky actor Satoshi Tsumabaki. Too bad, I actually fell quite head over heels for Masami-chan (she’s three years younger than me, so I get to call her that!) after Crying Out for Love.

- Meanwhile, the recent blockbusters have been taking up so much screens in Korea (and pretty much everywhere else, come to think of it) that the Korean government is actually looking into whether studios are breaking monopoly laws. However, since these screen counts were reached by consensus between theaterowners and distributors (more demand=more screens=bigger cut), not much wrongdoing is likely to be found.

- Speaking of Proposal Daisakusen (as always, see Tokyo Graph for all drama introductions), it took quite a dive in the Japanese dramas ratings last week, dropping from a 17.4 % in week 6 to a 14.7% rating in week 7. Sexy Voice and Robo suffered from NTV dropping their 7th episode as episode 8 shows a new ratings low with only 6.5%. The Japanese remake of Korean drama Hotelier, starring Aya Ueto, also saw its lowest rating at 7.1 this past week. After announcing its planned 3-hour finale, Liar Game saw its first ratings drop in 6 weeks, from 12.0% to 11.4%. This is Fuji’s first attempt at a late-night drama, and it appears to have worked quite well. Meanwhile, TBS’s Sunday night disappointment Joudan Janai! finally stopped its freefall by recovering a slight bit on Sunday night. Starring Yuji Oda, the sitcom-like drama went back up from a 10.7 % rating last week to a 11.3% rating this week.

- Over the weekend, I posted a link to the Korean monster film D-War. Now an August release date has finally been set in both North America (where the distributor plans to open in on over 1000 screens) and in Korea. It’s hard to believe director Shim Hyung-Rae managed to get US$70 million to make this, although over half of it went to starting up a brand-new effects house for it.

- Director Katsuhito Ishii (Taste of Tea, Funky Forest: The First Contact) has leaked out some details of his latest film “Yama no Anata ~Tokuichi no Koi~.” A “cover” of the 1938 silent film “Anma to Onna,” the film will star SMAP’s Tsuyoshi Kusanagi as a blind masseur that I assume is not named Zatoichi.

- Spanish cinema is getting to be such a commodity that some of the biggest international film buyers are heading to Madrid for the latest screenings. I wonder if this is helped by the success of Pan’s Labyrinth, or am I just assuming too much because of my lack of knowledge about Spanish cinema?

- After the Indian film Rang de Basanti got nominations at the BAFTA, its studio UTV decided to release a new cut that’s 30 minutes shorter to capture more audiences. No word whether the new cut is approved by director Rakeysh Screwvalla, but he does have a comment in the article, so it would seem so.

- After appearing in 6 films, starring in one TV drama (Taiyou no Uta, or the drama version of Midnight Sun, which was confirmed to be inspired by the Hong Kong film C’est la vie, Mon Cheri), and releasing a single under said drama character’s name, Erika Sawajiri may be headed for a singing career. Sony Music has introduced a new singer named Erika who happens to look like her, has the same birthday as her, and even has the same voice….except she was born in Paris, unlike Sawajiri. But, but, she’s not even much of a singer.

- r@sardonicsmile is looking forward to the comedy Maiko haaaan, written by Ping Pong screenwriter Kankuro Kudo, and with good reason, too - it has Shibasaki Kou as a maiko.

- Twitch reviews the Korean animated film Yobi, The Five-Tailed Fox, from the team that brought you My Beautiful Girl Mari.

- There’s a parody of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing floating around the web, starring those Fisher Price Sesame Street toys. I’ve had neither, but I still found it hilarious.

- Jim Carrey is getting to be more of an actor than just another funnyman - I loved his performance in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and I guess taking on a thriller like The Number 23 sounded pretty good on paper. Now he’s taking on the dark comedy I Love You Philip Morris, as a real-life character who escaped prison four times after falling in love madly with his released-cellmate.

- Lastly, one of those people who got sued by the America record industry for downloading is now fighting back, countersuing the RIAA and Universal on several counts, including trespassing. That way, everyone loses!

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.

I don’t know why I started putting titles for every entry, but after having to think of over 100 of them, I’m a little tired of them. So News from tomorrow on will just be under generic titles like “Golden Rock News for _______).

- The big worldwide opening this weekend is, as everyone knows by now, the third and (perhaps) final Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Spiderman 3 had already set the bar this summer with record openings all around the world. However, this blog only tracks a few, and it seems that Pirates isn’t quite tall enough for the bar.

In Hong Kong on Thursday opening day, Pirates took up 119 screens and made HK$6.8 million (this may or may not include Wednesday night shows, if there were any). It was close, but it fails to break the Spiderman record, which is 7.38 million on 122 screens. There are going to be arguments that suggest Pirates made less because it’s longer, but in Hong Kong, longer movies charge more money. In the case of Spidey, it saw a $10 extra charge because it runs at 140 minutes, while Pirates saw a $15 charge for the 168-minute length. Perhaps that’s the reason people bulked - it’s a three-hour movie that charges 15 dollars extra. This is the case where theater owners went a little too far in trying to make money, considering they are the ones pocketing this PLUS the 50% gross that’s the usual theaterowner fee. Of course, I’m making it sound a little bad, but the truth is Pirates still scored one of the Hong Kong’s biggest opening days ever.

On the rest of the top 10, Spiderman 3 still managed to make HK$600,000 on 33 screens for a 24-day total of HK$52.66 million. Gong Tau actually saw a better per-screen average than last week with HK$120,000 on 8 screens. There are only two openers, both limited releases, that entered the top 10: The animated Conan the tiny detective movie made HK$20,000 on 2 screens, which means it might be looking good this weekend for the family business. The art film The Go Master opened on one screen with HK$20,000. Looks like it’ll be the counter-programming indie hit this weekend.

Oh, in America, Pirates also failed to beat Spidey’s gross, though it also made a ton of money on Thursday night showings, which means it might be able to best Spidey’s record 3-day numbers.

- An Asian-American filmmaker hits it huge in Cannes. Raised in rural Arkansas and studied film at Yale, Lee Issac Chung’s Munyurangabo, about the Rwanda genocides, earned a rave review from Variety.

- Meanwhile, Fortissimo Films (which holds a number of Asian films, in case you wonder why it matters) have struck a bunch of deals at Cannes. Find out what Asian films are coming to your corner of the world.

- In the continuing saga of amateur college publishers versus the conservative Hong Kong society, there are now public comments criticizing the eight Obscene Articles Tribunal Adjudicators that participated in the mock classification of four articles, including the Chinese University of Hong Kong student newspaper.

Meanwhile, if anyone is still interested in what’s going on, EastSouthWestNorth translated the whole questionnaire, including the mock answers, at the risk of being reported to the TELA for reprinting obscene materials. I’m not currently living in Hong Kong, so I don’t believe I’m under the jurisdiction of this law (though I am a Hong Kong permanent resident), but much credit goes to Mr. Soong’s work and his dedication to cover the important topics of Chinese media. He even goes into the entire classification process, which I have no idea how I managed to miss the link for.

- Speaking of conflicts, looks like Harvey Weinstein and Luc Besson is going at each other over The Weinstein Company’s release of Besson’s last film Arthur and the Invisibles. Even though Weinstein does have a record of screwing with their foreign acquisitions, I actually haven’t really heard anything positive about Arthur and the Invisibles, it was probably going to flop anyway.

- Another conflict that might pop up is going on in Japan, where outspoken director Izutsu Kazuyuki (Pacchigi - Love and Peace) praised films in general…..except Kitano doesn’t exactly care whether directors like films or not. This is ironic, considering Kitano’s movie emulates just about all popular genres of film, which I figured only a director that likes film that do.

- After becoming a limited release hit in Hong Kong, Borat has finally landed in Japan. Playing in about 30 screens nationwide (including just one theater in central Tokyo), the limited release strategy is another step by Fox to try and understand the strange Japanese market, where there really hasn’t been much of a pattern as to what type of Hollywood films work there (A.I. was a huge hit there while Batman Begins was not). Check out some of the more interesting promotional tactics. Also, the Shibuya theater linked above is offering admission for 1000 yen (scroll about one entry down) if you show up at the the theater on Mondays with a mustache on (fake mustache ok, but no stubble, not sure if the theater offers the mustache) and mention “hige” (mustache in Japanese) at the box office. Oh, and Japan Times has a review for it too.

- Japan Times also has a review of nationalist Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara-penned “For Those We Love,” which he claims in an anti-war film….except reviewer Mark Schilling says Ishihara writes the war as “an idealistic crusade to free Asia from Western domination.” Maybe it’s just me, but that sounds awfully pro-WWII to me.

- The Hideo Nakata-helmed Death Note spinoff L already has an official site up with a teaser trailer. Don’t get excited, though, it includes absolutely no footage from the film, because it’s a teaser announcing that shooting starts in the summer.

- More movie website news: The website for Shinji Aoyama’s new film Sad Vacation is up and running, but no trailer on it yet.

- Lastly, there’s a 4-minute trailer up for Kenta Fukasaku’s latest film X Cross (no, not the action film he announced he would do a few weeks ago). According to the trailer, it’s about a woman running away from a cult that cuts young girls’ legs off, and it promises a scare every 5 minutes. Except for the cross-dressing killer, it looks pretty intense. Remember it’s the very fist link.

Two notable films (at least for me) premiered at Cannes - the big Hollywood blockbuster Ocean’s Thirteen and Lee Chang-Dong’s Secret Sunshine.

While many people didn’t like Ocean’s Twelve, I really liked the fun French New Wave spirit Soderbergh was trying to express. He knows that it was an excuse for everyone to just go on vacation in Europe, and pretty much shot it that way. It might’ve seemed like film snobbery (People seriously thought I was bullshitting with the French New Wave thing), but I liked it nevertheless. Anyway, The gang returns for more of the same in Ocean’s Thirteen, although I expect Soderbergh turning down the genre homage by quite a bit. Anyway, seems like critics are liking it more, with Hollywood Reporter calling it spirited and engaging, while Variety calls it as smooth as a good mojito and as stylish as an Armani suit. Alright, I’ll bite.

Meanwhile, Lee Chang-Dong’s Secret Sunshine, starring Jeon Do-Yeon and Sang Kang-Ho, is also getting some pretty good reviews as well. Variety says Jeon’s performance is finely detailed while the film fails to dramatized in cinematic terms, LunaPark6 is praising it, and Hollywood Reporter calls it a brave and unsettling film with outstanding performances.

The Singaporean film Pleasure Factory, about prostitutes in Singapore, was shown at the Un Certain Regard, but Variety hated it, saying that it makes the “dreadful” Herman Yau film “Whispers and Moans” look like a narrative masterpiece by comparison. Ouch.

Who else other than the director of Pleasure Factory not having such a good time? The coordinators for the booth representing Korean films this year. Apparently, they are just not having much luck at all at Cannes, marking a down trend in the Korean market for the first time in years.

But nevertheless, studios seem to be opting to buy films from independent studios rather than making them themselves, even though some independent studios aren’t biting what the big guys have to offer.

As Cannes starts to get to the end, it’s about time to decide who gets the Palme D’or. In many instance, the jury doesn’t quite agree with the critics’ choices, but the critics can’t even agree among themselves this year.

The MPA is singing the same tune at a different concert hall, this time at Cannes.

On to your regular programming:

- Mark Schilling has written an obituary for director Kei Kumai, who passed away on Wednesday morning Japan time.

- Twitch has an advance review of Ryuhei Kitamura’s Lovedeath. Reviewer James Maruyama calls it high on style and action, but low on story or invention. Sounds like typical Kitamura to me.

- LoveHKFilm also has some new reviews, including last week’s openers in Hong Kong - Herman Yau’s Gong Tau and The Matrimony, starring Leon Lai and Rene Liu. On the Panasian side, there’s also the Japanese films Midnight Sun, Strawberry Shortcakes, and Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s Ozu tribute Cafe Lumiere.

Out of those, I’ve only seen Cafe Lumiere, and if i haven ever been to Tokyo, I would’ve been bored to death by it. But for some reason(most likely in that I’m a bit of a transportation nerd), I really liked how Hou Hsiao-Hsien captured Tokyo in such a naturalistic fashion. It’s not really a crazy city. In fact, despite its sheer size, the city is rather serene when you leave its busiest districts, and that’s what Hou managed to capture. Also, I was in a Japanese cinema class at the time, and I was actually looking for recurring Ozu themes throughout the film, which made it even more interesting. Plus, it was fun playing “what’s that train” and “which train station is that” throughout the film. However, I expect everyone else to be pretty bored.

- Good to see the Japanese government embracing the technology, with a government panel now encouraging webcast of television content without requiring getting permission from all rights holders, as long as royalties are paid.

This leads me to a short rant. Recently, I signed up for a Japanese video service named Gyao, which is by the Usen Group and basically provides streaming video service for free. Unlike websites like Veoh and Crunchyroll (no link for you!) basically allow users to upload and watch films for free and illegally, this one is actually 100% legal and free, paying for itself through advertising. It has films, music videos, dramas, basically everything users wanted when they go to sites like Youtube. I was signed up and ready to watch (I knew something was fishy when they asked for my Japanese zip code, though. I used the zip code of someone I know), then the service won’t let me watch it, limiting it to Japanese computers only.

Obviously, I understand that it’s a matter of copyrights when foreign films or films sold to foreign distributors are involved, but this just shows how much the studio cares about exposure versus pure profit. Who cares who watches their movies when they got money from their foreign deals all lined up? This disdain for international audiences by Japanese distributors are why copyrights for their shows are infringed all the time. This is why sites like Crunchyroll and Veoh pop up, while the Japanese authorities moan and whine about how foreigners are stealing their copyright. Mind you, I’m not going to start downloading Japanese movies without paying my dues, but I think they brought it onto themselves.

- Director Naomi Kawase’s “The Mourning Forest” hasn’t even premiered at Cannes yet, and she’s already announced her next film, which will be released next summer. You have to give Asian directors some credit; even the best ones work amazingly fast.

- Remember three weeks ago, when Spiderman 3 broke all kinds of records with humongous screen counts and what have you? That seems so long ago, doesn’t it? Well, the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie is opening, and sounds like it’ll be more of the same - breaking screen counts, box office records, and the blah blah blah. In Japan, Eiga Consultant is predicting the three ways it can go - the V way, as shown by the Lord of the Rings and Spiderman franchise in Japan (High gross for first installment, dips the second, and jumps back up in the third), the “yama” way, as shown by the Matrix and Mission: Impossible franchise (increased gross for the second film, then dipping on the last film), or the descent way, shown by the Harry Potter franchise and the Star Wars prequels (this one doesn’t need explaining).

Considering that the Pirates franchise saw its first film make 6.8 billion yen to 10 billion yen for its sequel, it’s safe to say that the descent way is out of the question. But with a 2-hour-and-48-minute length and the big Japanese comedy battle next week (Dai Nipponjin vs. Kantoku Banzai), don’t be surprised if it goes the Yama way.

- A movie that I guess can work as counter-programming is the latest Zero Woman film, which F-ed Gaijin introduces. Here’s the trailer to the new film, but beware: it is NOT work-safe.

- Here’s kind of an interesting idea for a new film. The Korean-Canadian co-production “Anti-Hero” introduces a world where everybody has some kind of unique power (where are they going to think of 6 billion different unique powers?) except for the protagonist. Doesn’t that make him unique in the first place?

- Japanese poet Shuntaro Tanikawa is directing his first film, and it’s apparently shot with a still camera. Is he trying to emulate Hou Hsiao-Hsien?

Since there isn’t a lot of new from Cannes, we’ll just do it the way we always do it around here.

- First, some news out of Hong Kong in a follow-up to the Chinese University of Hong Kong newspaper scandal. After the news broke out that the student newspaper was slapped with an interim category II rating (ruling it as indecent), Ming Pao Daily reprinted the page on one of their Sunday issues in an attempt to show what the hoopla’s about. After receiving more complaints, the TELA has also given that issue an interim classification of category II. Meanwhile, a survey was also done with over 1000 people about the CUHK newspaper, and to further complicate the definition of obscene, the general public seemed to have been offended by the CUHK newspaper.

Besides the obvious problem stated by EastSouthWestSouth, that most of those people haven’t even read the page themselves because the law won’t allow anyone to reprint it, what about the issue of target audience? The newspaper is not produced nor distributed for the general public, but rather just a small number of people that goes to Chinese University. Some people say that students might bring it back home, where kids can get to it. Then it’s the student’s fault for laying a sex page around the house, not the fault of the editors. Until then, only the students of CUHK should have the right to decide what they can or cannot read.

This is a frustrating situation, because people who have no business in denouncing a newspaper is doing so, and there’s such a hypocrisy going on in the media that I’m surprised no one is pointing it out. This is the Oriental Daily “Male Extreme Section.” It comes out once a week, and it contains articles about how prostitution is a natural thing in society, a column about a woman’s experience with a younger man, a guide to having sex during the summer heat, among other things that would not be very acceptable in a mainstream newspaper. So why hasn’t these people been fined week after week?

Same reason why Easyfinder has managed to survive week after week of exploiting female celebrities: It’s titillating. The contents in the sex pages of mainstream newspapers are meant to encourage people to feel sexual desire, which is why they are often sensational and written in casual Chinese. Though Easyfinder is now closing after years of public pressure, it only got into trouble because of clear acts that are illegal (such as violating Gillian Chung’s privacy by printing the pictures of her changing). Other than that, no one points out that it’s been nothing more than a trashy tabloid that’s meant to entertain.

On the other hand, the CUHK newspaper forces people to face their hidden fantasies, and it pretty much presents the same thing the other mainstream newspapers write about. As for the questionnaire problem, it doesn’t even encourage such behavior, nor is it even meant to be taken seriously. Look at the choices: There are four relatively short answers and an extended mock answer that’s just played for laughs. Hell, for the question about whether readers thought about bestiality, the closest thing to a “yes” choice is the mock answer. Maybe it’s in poor taste, but I don’t see anything particularly obscene about it, as long it’s not encouraging people to engage in such behavior, and that’s my conservative side talking already.

Anyway, on to regular news already.

- Legendary Japanese director Kei Kumai passed away on Wednesday morning Japan time.

- It’s time for the Japanese Oricon charts. On the singles side, Keisuke Kuwata’s latest single “Will It be Sunny Tomorrow,” also the theme song for popular drama Operation Love, debuts at number 1 with 167,000 copies sold. The single also marks his first solo effort in 5 years, and his 5th consecutive number 1 as a solo artist. The debut breaks the record for the consecutive number of number 1 debuts for a solo effort from a band member. Meanwhile, Exile’s latest debuts at a weak number 3 spot with only 89,000 copies sold as the singles market continues to weaken over time. Next week, expect boy band V6’s new single to rule the charts, only to see a huge drop off afterwards.

On the album chart, Linkin Park debuts at number 1 with 150,000 copies sold, while Maroon 5 debuts at the number 3, selling 64,000 copies. The biggest news is the new album by Tsuyoshi Nagabuchi, who is also starring in Kenta Fukasaku’s latest film, debuted only at number 4 with 61,000 copies sold. If the daily rankings hold up, then we should see Japanese albums ruling the charts again.

- Anyone that’s looking to watch Sexy Voice and Robo episode 7 online (I’m not, but I’m just saying) can forget it - NTV pulled the episode after an incident last week where an ex-Yakuza holed up in an apartment shot and killed a police officer during the stand-off. They also have no plans to air the episode yet, as they’ll just skip straight to episode 8 next week.

- Last weekend, the distributor for the independent film sequel Pacchigi - Love and Peace predicted that its gross would past the 1 billion mark based on the opening day of the first film. And it’s true, Love and Peace did indeed open at 150% of the first film, except the distributor didn’t take into account that the first film played to strong word-of-mouth for 22 weeks. Considering that the opening was also only 59% of last year’s indie hit Hula Girl, perhaps expectation is a little high.

- On the other hand, Indies are now all the rage in North America as a form of counter-programming.

- Reviews from Cannes time. The latest film by Thai director Pen-ek Ratanaruang (Invisible Waves, Last Life in the Universe) Ploy premiered as part of the Director’s Fortnight. Variety didn’t really like it, saying that it made the slow Invisible Waves look like a rapid approaching tsunami in comparison (that was a pun in bad taste, I say). On the other hand, Twitch likes it a lot, calling it beautiful, thought, and mediative.

- The Edge of Heaven, the new film by Fatih Akin, the director of the great “Head-On” (the film, not the product), is competing in Cannes. Looks like both Variety and Hollywood Reporter liked it. Variety calls it utterly assured and profoundly moving, while Hollywood Reporter calls it intricate and moving. I’m looking forward to it already.

- There have been clips of Sammi Cheng’s Hong Kong concert on Youtube, prompting the record company to ask Youtube to take it off the site. Problem is that these are just badly recorded clips from cell phones of digital cameras, so why start some petty copyrights fight to give up some promotion for the concert DVD?

- The Korean film I’m anticipating the most right now is probably Kim Ji-Woon’s The Good, The Bad, and the Weird, and it was recently sold to France in a 6-figure deal. Good for them.

- Dave’s Trailer Page has a link to a pretty good trailer for the fabulous Paris Je T’aime. I have the Hong Kong all-region DVD, but I urge everyone to give this a try in the theaters. Trust me, it’ll appeal to a wide audience better than the arthouse ones, except for a few of the shorts.

- Chow Yun-Fat wants to take on romantic or dramatic lead roles in Hollywood. At least he’ll do better than Jackie Chan, who pretty much said the same thing a year or two ago. But….but…what about Hong Kong??

- Apparently someone used a digital camera or something and bootlegged some footage from the reel for Feng Xiaogang’s The Assembly from the Cannes Film Festival. It looks technically accomplished, with huge explosions and whatnot, but Feng Xiaogang is first and foremost a commercial filmmaker. And honestly, the battle scenes look like they were taken straight out of Taeguki, which took its battle scenes out of Saving Private Ryan.

- Who says that playing video games ruins your mind? Well, maybe in America, but in Japan, the Nintendo DS is actually being used effectively to learn English.

- Oh, there’s another positive review for the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie, though right now it’s only at 50% fresh at Rotten Tomatoes. I still can’t get over the 2 hours and 48 minutes length myself.

- China is not just looking to Hong Kong for co-production. Those promiscuous bastards are looking all over the world.

- Isabella Leung is going to Hollywood. The star of…Isabella is set to play Michelle Yeoh’s daughter in The Mummy 3, also known as “the latest way to fuck up Chinese culture for worldwide consumption.” Stop taking our people down with you, Hollywood.

- Cannes isn’t even over yet, and the Venice Film Festival is already announcing that Robert Zemekis’ latest film, the 3D Beowulf (can he just go back to doing live-action films already?), will be opening the festival. Also, Ang Lee and Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest films also have a pretty good chance of showing up there as well.

The big Cannes screening this past day was the director’s cut of Quentin Tarantino’s self-indulgent Death Proof. Essentially, the new cut extends the film by about 20 minutes with two major scenes - the missing reel with the lap dance, and a scene where Stuntman Mike (played by Kurt Russell) actually meets the girls in the second half. Variety likes it even more than the theatrical cut, saying that now the film benefits from the additional details in the second half. And I guess Hollywood Reporter doesn’t really have much of a problem with it either, which probably means that the director’s cut is pretty much a longer version of the same film. On the other hand, Jeffrey Wells, who actually liked the Grindhouse cut of Death Proof, is indirectly slamming it all of a sudden. Lastly, the Risky Biz blog by Hollywood Reporter has more on the press conference.

This didn’t happen yesterday, but someone uploaded footage from Hitoshi Matsumoto’s introduction of his film Dai Nipponjin at the Cannes premiere.

Hollywood Reporter critics Ray Bennett and Kirk Honeycott talk about the critical reception to the Cannes Festival films so far, including a reprieve for the panned-opening film My Blueberry Nights.

Meanwhile, there have been quite a few business deals made in Cannes:

Martin Scorsese, with other directors from around the world such as Wong Kar-Wai, Walter Salles, Alfonso Cuaron, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, and Stephen Frears, have started the World Cinema Foundation, which is committed to restoring and preserving old neglected films.

Meanwhile, the Independent Film Channel (IFC) picked up the North American rights for Cannes front-runner “4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days,” among other films.

Colombia Films, owned by Sony, has signed a production deal with Stephen Chow’s production company Star Overseas. The first film under the deal is the Stephen Fung-directing effort Jump, starring Hong Kong’s spoiled bad boy Edison Chen. This doesn’t seem like a surprising decision, considering that Sony handled the distribution for Kung Fu Hustle and will do the same for Chow’s latest A Hope.

In the past few years, Korean films have hit it big in Japan, with huge distribution deals being made at film festivals around the world. Seems like the tables have turned, with Korean distributors now buying up Japanese films for their market after their recent relative success.

Yet another film investment fund has now established. A3 International will produce films with Korean, Chinese, and Japanese films in the mid-budget range. No films have been announced under the fund yet.

Now back to regular programming:

- Speaking of launching funds, the Pusan International Film Festival has also launched a film fund for Asian filmmakers. But there’s a catch - the fund is for documentaries.

- Numbers from the Japanese box office ranking this past weekend are in. As I mentioned yesterday, only two films penetrated the top 10, with the other 8 remaining films staying at the same place as last week. And most impressive is that none of the remaining films dropped by more than 30% from last week’s gross. Even Spiderman 3, which has been suffering pretty big falls around the world, dropped only 24% after losing only 21 screens.

- Eiga Consultant analyzes the 10th place opening for Will Farrell’s Stranger Than Fiction. He basically compares Farrell to Adam Sandler, another American comedy actor who has a huge following at home, but whose films fail to perform in Japan. At 26 million yen, the Stranger Than Fiction opening is only 17% of Bewitched’s opening in Japan, but it’s also 113% of Click. I doubt that Japanese people buy Farrell’s type of humor anyway.

- There were a few Asian films on the North American box office as well, excluding Shrek 3, which was co-directed by an Asian. Sad news is they’re at the 101st and 102nd place. The two films are Triad Election (which moved on to a San Francisco engagement this week with almost no fanfare) and Ken Watanabe’s Memories of Tomorrow, which also opened with pretty much no advance word at all.

- Following in the footsteps of Variety Asia, Hollywood Reporter has recently decided to expand their coverage into Asia with new offices in Hong Kong and Beijing. Good for them.

- I guess it’s pretty important for some people. Variety has the first major review of the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie, and it seems to be more of the same. I’ll probably go watch it, as soon as I get myself to go catch Spiderman 3.

- New York Post critic Lou Lumenick warns that Evan Almighty, now officially the most expensive comedy ever made, might not be any good. Come to think of it, I’ve never heard of a good comedy that runs under 90 minutes.

- Yesterday, I reported that the winner of the Shanghai International Film Festival will be allowed to see a release in China without worrying about import quotas. And now, here are the official selections.

- EastSouthWestNorth has a link to an English TVB-produced special about The Society For Truth and Light, a conservative group in Hong Kong that is very much on the opposing side against the Chinese University of Hong Kong student newspaper controversy, and is a strong opponent against laws that outlaw discrimination of “sexual minorities” (that would mean the gays). The focus of the program is that they have recently been teaching a human rights course to schoolteachers. My favorite quote about the course: “If you think your time is valuable, don’t try to join this course.” Sounds like a quote ready for print.

- Japan must really love Richard Gere. After being featured in several ads in Japan and dancing with former Prime Minister Koizumi, now he’s taking part in one of Japan’s most beloved pet stories. That’s right, Richard Gere has signed on to star and produce “Hachiko: A Dog’s Story,” playing the role of the professor owner who meets a tragic end. At least Japanese distributor Shochiku has its hands in it, or Japanese audiences might be crying foul.

- Korea, you guys are getting an Universal Studios theme park. I guess there’s no need to go to Osaka anymore, huh?

- I’m sure many people know that there’s such thing as a news agenda, which means news producers has an agenda in putting what they think is the most important story early in the newscast. This, I believe, is the reason why perhaps such agendas may be a little misguided sometimes. If you look at the top left corner, this news came on 12 minutes into the newscast. Are there actually less important news out there then a Civet running around in a TV station, or is it just to show the Japanese police’s lack of priority in solving crimes?

Considering that I post twice a day, it wasn’t long before I hit another 100 entries. Not much has changed since back in the middle of March - readership continues to be steady, although I’d like to see it go even higher. But it’s only been a month and a half, so can’t really ask for much.

Tell you what, if my average readership gets up to 200 by the time of the 300th entry (which I guess is about 4 to 5 months from now), I’ll give out one of those cool posters I got in Japan (I have a lot of Spiderman 3 and Star Wars Episode 3 ones to give away anyway).

Still not much new major Asian film news at Cannes. Looks like Dai Nipponjin is screening tonight, while Wilson Yip’s Flashpoint and Benny Chan’s Invisible Targets are screening 30-minute reels, and the Japanese animated film Vexville also get screening for possible buyers. On the other hand, it looks like Soi Cheang’s Shamo has already saw its premiere (again, for buyers), and Twitch’s Todd has a review. It doesn’t sound too promising, but I’m watching it for the aesthetics anyway, so I still look forward to it.

Meanwhile, The Coen Brothers’ (who hasn’t really done anything that great, in my opinion, since The Big Lebowski, and that was good just because it’s so quotable) latest No Country for Old Man is getting rave reviews from pretty much everyone. Variety calls it one of the Coens’ best films. Jeffrey Wells says it’s an obviously brilliant action thriller. Of course, leave it to Hollywood Reporter to be sour grapes and pan its ending, to the point that it’ll affect the box office.

Michael Moore (whose films I like on a pure filmmaking point of view. I’m a liberal, but even I don’t agree with some of his methods, however hilarious they can be. And whoever calls him Anti-American doesn’t know how to be an American in the first place.) showed his latest documentary Sicko, an attack on the American healthcare system. Obviously, it’s controversial, especially for painting a glamorized portrait of the British and French healthcare system and the sequence where he takes 9/11 workers to Cuba for treatments. Still, Variety says it’s an entertaining and affecting dissection of the American healthcare industry. Hollywood Reporter thinks it still has the usual Moore oversimplification and stunts, but likes it anyway. Hell, even Jeffrey Wells said he came out teary-eyed.

There’s also Boarding Gate, by Maggie Cheung’s ex-husband Olivier Assayas, and it’s a pseudo-Asian film because it was partly film in Hong Kong and also feature Carl Ng and Kelly Lin. Reviews are fairly negative, though, with Variety calling it limp and sleazy.

- A few weeks ago, I linked to the Japan Times review of Ahiri to Kamo no Coin Locker, which is currently playing only in Miyagi Prefecture (whose capital is Sendai) because that’s where the author of the original work is from. And it seems to be doing quite well. According to Eiga Consultant, on its opening day on May 12th, the film attracted 5061 people, or 6.76 million yen on 10 screens. Considering they’re probably mostly small arthouse screens, that’s a pretty good per-screen average. However, its ultimate test will come when it expands into Tokyo on June 23rd. Still, hopefully this opening will attract small films to open in smaller cities first, which just doesn’t happen in America.

- Speaking of Japan Times, this weekend we have a review for the sequel Pacchigi - Love and Peace, along with an interview with the film’s director, who was recently called a “dickhead” for attacking the war drama “For Those We Love” for potentially brainwashing Japan teens into war lovers. They also reviewed Feng Xiaogang’s critically mauled blockbuster The Banquet, which they actually liked quite a bit. There’s also a feature on Wong Kar Wai’s choice to cast singer Norah Jones in his film My Blueberry Nights, and an interview with Jones herself.

- Japan Probe has an interview with Christian Storm, a regular in Takeshi Miike’s films who also work as his subtitler and the translation supervisor for the Japanese version of South Park.

- Chinese director Lou Ye may be banned from making films in China for 5 years, but he decided to find ways around that by shooting his next film in the Middle East, specifically Palestine territory. That must still be safer than protecting artistic integrity in Mainland China.

- Twitch reports that the website for Peter Chan Ho-Sun’s Warlords is up, and it contains the teaser that was leaked online earlier. At least now you can watch it legally.

- What is it about Andy Lau that attract so much attention? Apparently, there’s yet another obsessive fan doing something stupid trying to get the superstar’s attention.

- A while ago I mentioned about the Seoul government offering incentives to foreign films that choose to shoot there. Now a group of producers are getting together to try and help foreign productions coordinate and scout locations, among other jobs.

That’s it for now. See you in another 100 posts.

As the Cannes Film Festival gets its gears rolling, the fallout from the chilly reception of opening film My Blueberry Nights continues.

Well, perhaps not so much fallout. I’ll leave to the Hollywood Reporter to talk about that.

Premieres of works by major Asian directors continue, as the Tsui Hark/Ringo Lam/Johnnie To collaboration “serial film” Triangle and Taiwanese filmmaker Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s The Flight of the Red Balloon both received their premieres out of competition, with reviews coming in already.

Variety kind of likes Triangle, noting that “Lam and To come off most successfully, while Tsui’s material seems unnecessarily complex and fussy.” Sounds like typical Tsui Hark stuff to me.

Hollywood Reporter pretty much hated it, calling it “an inedible mess where ingredients war with one another and no one has paid any attention to the poor fellow who must consume the meal.”

As for Hou’s “Flight of the Red Balloon,” I swear that I saw a Hollywood Reporter pan on it earlier in the morning that’s no longer on the site. On the other hand, Variety sees it as business as usual for Hou, whose penchant for medium long takes has divided audiences for years.

- With Lee Chang-Dong’s latest Secret Sunshine in competition at Cannes, the Korean Film Council has published an English book on the director, which is free for download on their website.

On to other news:

- The Korean film wave is slowly on its death rattle in Japan, so now they’re trying to incorporate Japanese elements. Such is the cast with the film “Virgin Snow,” which stars Korean actor Lee Jun-Gi and Japanese actress Aoi Miyazaki. According to Eiga Consultant, the film opened with 30.2 million yen, which is good enough for a 9th place at the rankings. That’s only 26% of Miyazaki’s previous film “Tada Kimi Wo Aishitteru” and 95% of The King and the Clown’s opening in Japan. However, Box Office Mojo’s ranking shows that it opened on 9 screens….with only $25,352, which is only 3.04 million yen. Did the Mojo leave a zero out, or did Eiga Consultant added a zero in? I myself trust the rankings from Japan.

- Variety finally catches on with how Japan uses classy ads to attract audiences into small arthouse films. The key: appeal to young hip Tokyo girls.

It’s that kind of thinking that managed to create such a kick-ass poster for Election, although I doubt that it’ll appeal to any girls. That’s my carpet in the background, by the way.

- I don’t usually try to plug Yesasia directly, though they’re great enough to actually put up what I write. This is really more of a plug for the Sakuran DVD, which is coming out on August 3rd with English subtitles.

- Under “shitty movie wannabe” today, we finally have the trailer for Jet Li’s latest “War,” originally named “Rogue.” As much as I like Jason Statham AND Jet Li together again after “The One” (Oy vey….), I agree with Twitch: it looks pretty shitty.

- I still haven’t seen Dennis Law’s Fatal Contact yet, thanks to the traumatic experiences that were Marriage with a Fool and Love @ First Note. Anyway, the Weinsteins have just bought the North American rights to it, and since the title is so derivative already, I don’t think they even have to rename it.

- Remember a few months ago when everyone expected the worst when Edison Chen was meeting with Stephen Chow on a collaboration project? Turns out that project is actually Stephen Fung’s latest film about dancing. Edison Chen is starring, in a role where he can probably just play the spoiled hip-hop boy he is in real life, and Chow is probably producing. Just read the original Chinese report that mentions it.

- I was going to write a review of Matsuo Suzuki’s Otakus in Love (Koi No Mon) a few years ago, but I found it so crazy and overloaded with excess silliness that I didn’t know how to quite approach it. It was simply too much of what it had for its own good. Anyway, Suzuki’s latest Welcome to the Quiet Room (which seems to be based on his own novel) has a teaser on its website.

- Sony may be (barely) making big bucks with Spiderman 3, but its Playstation 3 is sinking the company fast. Because of the Playstation 3 (which I still believe is being released way too ahead of its time), Sony is now operating at a US$573 million loss. I’ll buy one eventually, I’m sure, but I just don’t see it happening this decade.

- Breathe slowly. Robert De Niro and Al Pacino had just signed on to a film where they’ll spend 90-95% of their screen time together. I don’t even care if the movie’s going to be crappy, or that the two have been making crappy movies (De Niro WAY moreso than Pacino), it’s finally happening, baby.

- Chen Kaige is going back to the well that brought him international fame. Somewhat reminiscent of Farewell My Concubine, Chen’s latest film is the biopic Mei Lan-fang, about the famous Peking Opera singer of the same name. Good news: The film will cost half of what The Promise cost. Bad news: Leon Lai is in the starring role.

- China is beginning to soften their stance against bloggers, stopping their campaign for mandatory registration of real names for all Chinese bloggers. Instead, they’ll just “encourage” blogging companies to do so. Blogger doesn’t have my real name, does it…..?