As both a fan of Wong Kar-Wai and the writer of an Asian entertainment blog, it’s hard to avoid report extensively about the debut of My Blueberry Nights, Wong Kar Wai’s opening film at the Cannes Film Festival. But I realize today that it’s hard to report it as well because of the negative reviews rolling in. I mean, it’s no The Da Vinci Code or anything, but the word-of-mouth is actually somewhat similar to 2046 in 2004.

Before the reviews, there are quite a few features on the man, and he provides some interesting insights while remaining somewhat ambiguous at the same time:

Dialogue: Wong Kar-Wai

Wong Unveils “Blueberry Nights.”

Wong’s Schedule is Too Busy for “Lady” (This would be in reference to “The Lady From Shanghai,” which is supposed to star Nicole Kidman)

Wong Keeps His Favorite in Project House (About the talent agency branch of his Jet Tone Pictures)

Wong Kar Wai: Advertising Director? (Here is his latest ad starring Clive Owen.)

And now: The reviews:

Variety calls it a film whose “ambitions and accomplishments remain modest to the extreme”

The Hollywood Reporter kind of likes it, but says it’s unlikely to “move beyond the arthouses in North America.”

Cinematical thinks the film looks beautiful, but thinks the film is full of moments that “you would rather see than hear.” (That would a reference to Wong’s penchant for voiceover, similar to 2046).

The Independent thinks the characters’ emotional agony comes close to being “tiresome chick-flick naval-gazing,” but thinks the film “looks ravishing” and “has a great soundtrack.”

The Guardian gives it 2 stars out of 5 and thinks it’s full of “false notes.”

Jeffrey Wells says it’s so groan-inducing that he leaned forward a lot, often with his hands covering his face.

Well, like I said, at least it’s no The Da Vinci Code.

- In more WKW related news, Sony Pictures Classics has picked up the North American rights to “Ashes of Time Redux,” the complete reworking of Wong’s 1994 martial arts film that has long been considering his most controversial film. It also remains the only WKW film I have not seen. The film is expected to come out at the end of the year.

- From potentially good movies to potentially very crappy movie, Emperor Motion Picture (associated with the infamous EEG record company) has secured the international rights of “Kung Fu Dunk,” (That title is already screaming at me to stay away) formerly known as “Slam Dunk.” Starring Jay Chou and Charlene Choi of Twins, the film is directed Kevin Chu Yin-Ping, who also directed the masterpieces Shaolin Popey 1 & 2. Those films are considered gems in Europe.

- Takeshii Miike, in addition to his “Sukiyaki Western” film “Django,” also has the comic adaptation Crows Zero, which apparently features a lot of schoolboys fighting each other. Cool. Twitch has the link to the website, which includes a teaser trailer.

- After watching Hot Fuzz, I realized that it’s going to be hard to watch another big Hollywood action flick again. One of those films that Hot Fuzz targeted was Point Break, starring Keanu Reeves (his acting is apparently considered a gem in Europe too) and Patrick “Dirty Dancing” Swayze. That film saw Keanu Reeves playing an undercover agent who infiltrates a group of surfers/bank robbers. Now, 16 years later, the original writer of the film is working on a sequel. Why is it in this blog, you ask? Because Point Break 2 is going to be set in Southeast Asia, and is mostly financed by Asian firms.

- Oh, yeah, there are the Oricon ranking in Japan too. This week on the singles chart, the new single by B’z ruled the charts as expected, selling 152,000 copies. Even though this is the 39th consecutive number 1 single for the band, the bigger news this week in the singles chart is the debut of enka star Kiyoshi Hikawa’s two singles at second and third place. Apparently, Hikawa is the first solo male singer in 26 years to have two of the top three singles, and the first enka singer is 34 years…probably when enka was actually still considered as pop music. Next week, the Keisuke Kawata single, which was our Song of the Day on May 7th, is expected to get the number one spot since it debuted at number 1 yesterday.

On the album charts, Mr. Children’s B-side album debuts at number 1 with 281,000 copies sold, which is far weaker than the sales of their previous album “Home.” Of course, the difference is that “Home” was an album of new tracks, while B-side is just a compilation album of companion tracks on past singles. No other Japanese albums debuted on the top 10 this past week. Sad. What’s sadder is Linkin Park’s new album looks to be ruling the charts next week. Very sad.

- Japan, the Grindhouse movies by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodridguez are officially coming your way in the fall, although I have never heard of this BMS company.

- With the benchmark being set at 2 million viewers for a Korean film to have considered broken even (This is considering that Shiri was considered record-breaking back in 1999 when it crossed the 1 million viewer mark), Korean film productions are now looking to cut costs.

- The Asian Television Awards is now allowing Australian and New Zealand productions to be considered for awards. Last time I checked, Australia was its own continent, wasn’t it?

- In less than 24 hours, the Cannes Film Festival will open with Wong Kar-Wai’s English feature debut My Blueberry Nights. I’m not going to be in France, and as an example of positive thinking, I don’t think I’ll ever be at the Cannes Film Festival. Nevertheless, I will try and keep track of the Asian films playing and selling there over the next 12 days.

The Hollywood Reporter has a roundup of the Asian presence at Cannes this year(not including the marketplace).

- The promotion for opening film My Blueberry Nights is getting out there. I found a promotional kit floating online that offers some beautiful stills(link is .pdf), and Twitch has the poster, which for some inexplicable reason places star Norah Jones in the little corner.

- Tsui Hark, Ringo Lam, and Johnnie To’s Triangle is no slouch either, as Twitch has also found the film’s own promotional kit online. It’s definitely worth a look.

- Enough with festival stuff for now, let’s get to some box office.

Variety Asia reports that the Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara-penned war drama “For Those We Love” opened pretty big this weekend, when that’s actually not really the case. Eiga Consultant reports that the film actually opened a lot weaker than similar war films. Compared to “Otoko Tachi No Yamato,” which opened on less screens, “For Those We Love” made only 53% of its opening in December 2005. When compared to “Letters From Iwo Jima,” which Ishihara panned to make his own film sound better, the opening is only 37% of Iwo Jima’s. Both films opened around the same year-end period and had similar final gross. At least it might make back its budget.

- In other Japanese box office news, seems like Gegege no Kitaro is now poised to be the highest-grossing film in the “Yokai” genre(I guess mythical creatures would be the best way to translate that).

- In Japanese drama ratings, it stabilized slightly after the Golden Week holiday in Japan.

See here for all drama information.

Proposal Daisakuen (also known as Operation Love) regains its footing for its 4th episode with a 16.4 rating. As you can see, the rating for this week’s episode even went up (more on that next week). It’s now currently the highest-rated drama this season.

Looks like Sexy Voice and Robo found a fan base, as the ratings are now floating around the 7.0 range for 3 weeks now. We’ll see if that happens for the 4th week later tonight when the Tuesday ratings are up.

The biggest disappointment of the season Joudan Janai! (which sounds like it would fit right in as an American sitcom) also seem to have found a fan base, as the ratings are now staying around the 14.0 range. Considering that Yuji Oda’s last TV Drama Last Christmas had a 21.5 average, this does not bode well for Yuji Oda’s future career in TV.

The Oricon website has compiled a ranking of the satisfaction rate for the current dramas. So far, it’s the returning drama Kaette Kita Jikou Keisatsu, followed by the comic adaptation Liar Game, and Operation Love in 3rd place. Sexy Voice and Robo and Joudan Janai are at 8th and 9th place, respectively.

- Korea Pop Wars has a pretty thorough analysis of Korea’s box office this past weekend. Spiderman 3 continues to reign, but it’s not reigning very well - the opening boom was there, but staying power simply isn’t. This actually gave a chance for Asian films to perform pretty well at the box office.

- In today’s “bad idea” file, director Kirk Wong is possibly casting his remake of the classic Hong Kong martial arts film “Five Deadly Venoms” with Jay Chou, Edison Chen, and Maggie Q. I haven’t seen the original, and I’m already dreading this.

- This weekend, 7 films will try and bring down Spiderman 3, including two of the Herman Yau films I mentioned yesterday. Another one of them is the Mainland Chinese thriller “The Matrimony,” starring Leon Lai and Rene Liu. Variety already has a review.

- In case anyone cares, Universal Studios Japan in Osaka is finally making money.

- The MPA is launching a new anti-piracy campaign in Asia with new trailers in theatres. Which makes me wonder whether those trailers in America with the explosion expert talking about how hard he worked for the movies worked in the first place, when every opinion I’ve read of it has been overwhelmingly negative? And what makes them think that the guilt mentality is going to work?

- In other stupid media tactics, the New York Post talks about how American broadcasters are trying to keep viewers tuned in during commercials. I have to say I had no idea what was going on in that Fox cab driver thing, but it sure was annoying.

Not much news today, and since I haven’t talked much about the films I’ve seen lately, this would be a good place to start.

Thanks to the Netflix streaming “Watch Now” option, I managed to check out the Japanese film “Who’s Camus Anyway?” It’s so hard to find that it’s not even available on Japanese DVD (If anyone can find one, great, but I looked through Yesasia and CDJapan and found nothing, but you can find the American DVD easily). Anyway, it’s a comedy-drama chronicling a week before the shoot of a student film. The ambitious 9-minute opening shot, which whips through a real Japanese college campus (I believe it’s Rikkyo University) introduces all the major characters - the promiscuous director, his conflicted assistant director, the new lead, the widowed professor, and members of the crew that love to talk about opening shots.

Inserting references to Camus, Death in Venice, Tarantino, and who knows how many more, you don’t exactly need to understand what the film is really about to “get” Who’s Camus Anyway. Confidently written and directed by Mitsuo Yanagimachi (I honestly thought a much younger director made this), anyone remotely interested in filmmaking would find the film interesting at just how tedious the whole process can be. Egos collide, romantic entanglements ensue, and someone’s eventually going to get hurt. Of course, those who aren’t interested might be wondering why art students are so in love with themselves, but as one of them, I can just say that’s the way it is.

It’s not much of a review, but call this a recommendation: Who’s Camus Anyway is well-written and directed enough to be entertaining, even when you can’t quite pick up every layer of the story.

- They’ve done it before, and now they’re doing it again. After the Weinsteins infamously gave up their rights to Chen Kaige’s stinker The Promise (sadly, rightfully so too), they decided to give up the outside-Asia/UK worldwide rights they got for Ong Bak 2 a year ago, except they’ll still hold North America rights. So good news: Weinstein no longer in charge of Western distribution of Ong Bak 2. Bad News: They’re still in charge of it in America.

- Looks like Hollywood is singing the tune “blame Canada” these days after Warner Bros. found that 70% of the camera-recorded pirated versions of their films come from Canada. Since then, Warner Bros. have canceled all advanced screenings of their films, and 20th Century Fox is contemplating delaying releases for major films in Canada. Believe it or not, since Canada has no laws banning recording films in cinemas, it’s now one of the major piracy nations in the world.

- On the other hand, Warner Bros. have secured a video-on-demand program deal in Hong Kong, which may or may not help combat piracy. Now let’s see whether they can make it accessible enough for people to actually take advantage of it.

- Speaking of Hong Kong and piracy, Hongkie Town reviews two reports of the same trial - the appeals hearing of the first person to be convicted of uploading films using Bittorrent. I’ll have to say, though, that the defense is really stretching why this guy might be innocent.

- Speaking of internet behavior, bloggers and forum posters beware - Your hyperlinks can get you in trouble with the law.

- I can’t believe I paid 35 bucks for this. I originally didn’t think that Ken Watanabe’s “Memories of Tomorrow” would actually get anywhere beyond Japan. Character dramas, especially those not produced by the big three - Toho, Shochiku, and Toei, don’t usually see their day outside the region. So I bought the English-subtitle-less Japanese DVD for my mother when I was in Japan, and I hoped that I can understand at least 50% of it with the subtitles on. Then they released it in Hong Kong, and now they’re even releasing it in America theatrically, thanks to Watanabe’s star power. I should be thankful that a film like this got international distribution, but what took them so damn long?

- I knew it was a pretty big hit, but who would’ve guessed that Gegege No Kitaro would actually be breaking box office records? That’s right, the film’s first full week take just over 1 billion yen is actually a record for distributor Shochiku.

- The first trailer for Benny Chan’s Invisible Targets is up, and wow. It’s not a very long clip, but it has a lot of crap blowing up, people jumping off stuff, and even has Nicholas Tse getting hit by a bus. It’ll probably have a crappy story with overacting everywhere, but this looks like a pretty promising action flick.

- Just when you think it’s out, they pull ‘em back in. After the so-so Terminator 3 promised to take the franchise to a brand-new level while also providing a satisfying yet grim end to the series, another private firm has bought the rights, intending to continue the franchise. Shall we file this under “bad idea”………

- Lastly, Korea Pop Wars looked at the Korean Film Council’s Korean film history book for you, and Mark lets you know whether you should read it or not.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Been gone for a bit, now I’m back, hopefully sticking to a regular posting schedule again.

- Obviously, the big story is the domination of Spiderman 3 pretty much all over the world. In North America alone, the second sequel to the popular franchise made US$151 million. I’ll break down the individual Asian box office results (at least the ones I have) later, but after 5 days of release, it has already shattered all types of box office records (though the Box Office Mojo article suggests that’s due to the super expanded release.) AND well on the way to recuperating its US$250 million budget (plus at least 150 million for advertising and print, minus 50% for exhibitors, actors’ back end salaries, etc.), or dare I say - make a healthy profit.

- And when Box Office Mojo meant super expanded release, they mean Sony pretty much took up a majority of the screens available in the countries they invaded. Case in point - the film made another HK$5.78 million from 127 screens on Sunday in Hong Kong, bringing the 6-day total to an amazing HK$28.6 million already. This sucker is on the way to an at least HK$50 million take, which will be the biggest performer in Hong Kong since Initial D back in 2005. But don’t expect it to surpass the HK$60 million box office take set by Kung Fu Hustle.

With 127 screens taken up already, there’s not much room for anything else - Love is Not All Around (which Ming Pao columns are treating like it’s the second coming) continues to succeed with HK$240,000 on 31 screens for a 18-day total of HK$11.41 million, Paul Verhoeven’s Black Book continues to perform strongly on its 2 screens with HK$40,000 on Sunday, and well….everything else is just kinda embarrassing.

(US$1=HK$7.8)

- The same thing happened in South Korea, where Spidey took up 816 screens and attracted 2.56 million viewers (just a tad under The Host). And just like Hong Kong, everything else got left in the dust.

- In Japan, on the other hand, Spiderman still made a boatload of money, but since people in Japan got the entire week off, the box office was quite strong. After 6 days, Spidey managed to make 3.18 billion yen and recording 2.57 million viewers already. But most films on the top 10, such as Gegege no Kitaro and Conan, actually managed to record increasing box office for the latter half of Golden Week (Gegege actually recorded the biggest increase). Last weekend’s other big opener Babel lost about 20% of its audience, but still scored a strong 218 million yen and has already passed the 1 billion yen mark.

In fact, remember last weekend, when Gegege no Kitaro opened, and Shochiku proclaimed that it’ll make 3 billion because The Great Yokai War made 2 billion? Turns out they were right! Eiga Consultant realized that the opening weekend for Gegege was actually 175% of The Great Yokai War, which means it’s now on the way to make at least 3.5 billion yen. Wow, they got it right for once.

(US$1=120 yen)

- Since many in Japan travel during Golden Week, TV ratings also went further down for a bit. Last week’s ratings winner Proposal Daisakusen takes a huge dive because of its Monday time slot, losing 21% of its audience for a 13.4 rating. However, ratings for other dramas also stabilized a little bit - ratings disaster Sexy Voice and Robo steadies with a 7.0 rating, Bambino falls a little bit for its third episode with a 13.7 rating, sequel Kui-Tan 2 drops to its lowest rating with 11.8, and ratings disappointment Joudan Janai goes up a little bit again with 14.4, up from 13. 2 last week, when it was the beginning of Golden Week.

- Anyone that doesn’t feel like shelling out a lot of money for a book on Korean history can now just get the official version. According to Twitch, the Korean Film Council now has an English version of a book of Korean film history on their website.

- Johnnie To is no longer under the control of Dennis Law. Milky Way Image, which is under Law, can no longer afford To’s movies, so To decided to just buy his way out, taking two subsidiaries, which includes his own Milkyway Image, and his production team with him. Once the split is approved, Law’s company will no longer be Milkyway, but Brilliant Arts (which is just plain ironic, considering Law’s quality of work).

- I still haven’t seen War of Flowers (or Tezza: The High Rollers), and they’re already making a sequel. Even though the sequel won’t be made by the director of the original, they were creative enough to bring on Jang Joon-Hwan, the man who made the cult favorite Save the Green Planet (file this under “like, but don’t love” category for me), to do it instead. Like I just wrote, I haven’t seen the original, but is a director who made something as crazy as Save the Green Planet really up for a high-profile sequel for a blockbuster film?

- The Thailand film censorship issue continues, this time with Variety Asia writing about Thai filmmakers’ petitions for a new Film Act that allows freedom of expression.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For reference: US$1=HK$7.8

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Watched The Break-Up starring Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston last night, and was a little pleasantly surprised. I was only going to watch it for about 40 minutes before going to bed and ended up watching the whole thing until almost 3 in the morning. Anyone expecting a light romantic comedy can probably stay away from this, because the title itself should suggest that this movie isn’t gonna be romantic, and this sucker can really sting. While the trailer may suggest this to be a fluffy battle of the sexes, it actually gets pretty down and dirty. The film pretty much chronicles the ugly break-up of a couple and the brief aftermath, and there are even some hidden truths in it. Sure, Vaughn plays his character a little too much on the creep side (even when he’s actually one of the producers and helped craft the story), but he begins to grow on you at the end. And who knew Jennifer Aniston had a mean side to her? Looks like a mainstream commercial comedy, tries to be a commercial comedy, but at the heart of it, it’s a little too close to comfort for the masses. It’s good, it’s occasionally funny, it’s entertaining, just don’t expect to come out too happy.

SPOILER WARNING

Actually, I would rather see the alternate ending where the two characters meet again, only to find that they’re both dating people that look like them (Vaughn’s new girlfriend looks like Aniston, and vice versa). The ending now seems too tacked on.

SPOILER END

- The big news out of Hollywood is the death of former MPAA head Jack Valenti, who is known as the father of the American rating system. Some may blast him for that rating system, but considering that this is the man who helped eliminate the Hays code, he deserves all the respect he can get.

- Despite all the hoopla about Kenichi Matsuyama’s rising popularity thanks to the Death Note movies, it seems like that guy just can’t catch a break. After the abysmal ratings for his new drama “Sexy Voice and Robo,” his new film, Koji Hagiuda’s musical prodigy drama “Shindo,” opened on 35 screens in Japan this past weekend with only 15.68 million yen. According to Eiga Consultant, that’s 26% of Honey and Clover’s opening, although Honey and Clover opened on 110 screens. Still, for a limited release with a rising star, it’s not a real impressive opening at all.

- Meanwhile, it’s another opening Thursday at the Hong Kong box office. As expected, Love is Not All Around is at the top again with HK$380,000 on 35 screens for an 8-day total of HK$7.16 million. It’s going to surpass the total for the team’s last film Marriage with a Fool (sounds like a metaphor for the viewing experience itself). Meanwhile, the “modern wuxia” flick Ming Ming by MTV director Susie Au opens real weak with only HK$110,000 on 12 screens. That’s probably because the hipster who wanted to see it already saw it at the Hong Kong International Film Festival. Francis Ng/Marco Mak’s Dancing Lion flops on its opening day with just HK$70,000 on 20 screens. Ouch.

As for limited releases, the Genghis Kahn movie flops even worse in Hong Kong than it did in Japan, with only HK$30,000 on 8 screens. Paul Verhoeven’s Black Book does slightly better with HK$20,000 on 2 screens. Looks like it’ll be a pretty boring weekend at Hong Kong cinemas this weekend.

- Twitch has a friendly reminder that the DVD for Park Chan-Wook’s I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK is coming out on DVD next Friday, May 4th. Expect a Hong Kong edition to come within the month.

- The new film Dark Matter, starring Chinese actor Liu Ye and Hollywood legend Meryl Streep, is being delayed indefinitely due to the film’s subject matter being too close to the Virginia Tech Shootings. OK, let’s delay all war movies from release until the war’s over too, while you’re at it, Hollywood, in respect for the 200 people killed in Iraq during that same week.

- A huge move in the gaming world, as Sony Game Unit CEO Ken Kutaragi, the man credited as the creator of the Playstation console, has stepped down as a way of taking responsibility for the failure of the Playstation 3. Meanwhile, Nintendo has reported soaring profits for 2006 thanks to the DS and the launch of the Wii.

- Sony has something else up its sleeves, though. They just announced the Sony eyeVio, a Youtube-like service that allows people to post videos 24 hours at a time for free. It’s not exactly what people are asking for, but it’s a good start.

That’s it for today. Gotta save some of these news for the weekend.

Friday is upon us, which mean it’s a smaller edition of the daily news because I’ll be spreading them over the weekend.

- Let’s start, as usual, with the Thursday opening day numbers in Hong Kong. I should have seen it coming, but Gold Label’s latest film Love is Not All Around, which promises to continue the mean streak left by the ending of director Yip Lim Sum’s previous effort Marriage with a Fool, shot to the top of the box office after preview screenings last weekend. On 34 screens, Love is not All Around made HK$770,000 for a total of already HK$1.35 million after previews. Look for this to do pretty well this weekend, and sadly for Gold Label to keep making more films.

As for other openers, Hollywood stinkers Epic Movie and Shooter both make HK$200,000 on 26 and 29 screens, respectively. Meanwhile, the Edward Norton/Naomi Watts art film The Painted Veil, co-starring Anthony Wong and shot in China, makes HK$60,000 on 5 screens on its first day, making it the best limited opener this weekend. But look for Spider Lilies, which expanded by one more screen, to rule the limited-release box office this weekend. On Thursday, it made HK$100,000 on 10 screens. However, I do expect Love is Not All Around to take away business because of a similar target audience.

- Continuing from yesterday’s report of the Cannes line-up, Variety Asia also recognizes the absence of Asian films in this year’s festival, despite an Asian filmmaker being chosen to open the festival.

- Meanwhile, Jason Gray has not only more on the sole Japanese selection in competition this year, but also the Udine Far East Film Festival, which got a hilarious mention in Edmond Pang’s AV.

- Before its appearance at Cannes, there’s already a review up for one of the two South Korean films in competition - Kim Ki-Duk’s Breath.

- Speaking of review, Variety also has an early review of Spiderman 3, and it pretty much echoes the review I posted up yesterday. On the other hand, Hollywood Reporter seemed to have loved it. Sounds like it’s gonna be fun, but a bit of a mess as well.

- Since we’re already talking about reviews, Hot Fuzz, the much-anticipated (at least on my list) follow-up by Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright to Shaun of the Dead opens today in the States. I could be a big fan and go opening day, but I prefer to go next week to avoid the human traffic. Anyway, the reviews are mostly positive, with an over-80% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I consider that a good thing, yes.

It doesn’t seem like much, but tomorrow I still have plenty of news, including plenty of reviews and film news. It’s all an effort to make this blog more readable from day to day.