- The biggest news out there, as I started teasing yesterday, is Tony Leung Chiu-Wai signing back onto John Woo’s troubled production of Battle on Red Cliff. As mentioned, Oriental Daily first broke the news without official confirmation. Ming Pao waited until this morning Hong Kong time to do it. Excerpt as follows:

昨晚《赤壁》監製透過網上承認此消息，他說﹕「經與梁朝偉先生聯絡後，梁朝偉先生基於與吳宇森導演20多年的友誼，又見到周潤發離開了《赤壁》劇組，《赤壁》又是一部令人期待的作品，必須要拍下去，所以當吳宇森邀請他重返劇組時，他一口答應，替吳宇森解決燃眉之急。」

Last night, “Red Cliff” producer admitted to the news via the internet: “After communication with Mr. Leung Chiu-Wai, based on his 20-year friendship with John Woo, Chow Yun-Fat’s departure, and the need to continue shooting the much-anticipated film, he decided to rejoin the film after John Woo invited him, helping John Woo due to the pressing need.

張家振表示，因偉仔已經熟讀劇本（去年初第一稿出時，已經給了偉仔）不會有發哥最介意的劇本問題（究竟發哥最介意的劇本問題是什麼，張家振未有回答）

Terence Chang said, since Tony have already read the script thoroughly (The first draft was given to him early last year), Chow’s problem with the script will not occur (But Chang has not responded to the question of what specific script problem Chow had).

Original Chinese report.

Variety Asia also has an English report.

- The other big story is the geniuses at New York Times finding what drove Virginia Tech student Cho Seung-Hui to kill 32 of his peers. Apparently, a package he sent to NBC just before he killed 30 students in a school building contained a picture of him holding a hammer that looks like he’s trying to imitate an image from Park Chan-Wook’s Oldboy. You know, it’s obvious because he’s a Korean, so of course violent Korean films would drive this poor disturbed bastard to murder.

OK, so how long before the American press starts blaming John Woo movies for the murders too?

Oh, wait, they’re not Korean, so Cho cannot possibly be influenced by those movies. Personally, I think anyone that blames movies for real-life crimes are just looking for false scapegoats so they can avoid dealing with real problems with society, like why he was mentally disturbed in the first place, and why he wasn’t properly treated by the authorities.

Plus, if Cho knew how fucking silly he looks with that hammer, maybe he would’ve woken up, but that’s just me.

In related media news, not only has there been reports of South Koreans coming out and apologizing for Cho’s rampage (what the hell for? They’re just feeding into this racial scapegoating the media is doing. The man has been in America so long he’s more Americanized than I am, for crying out loud), the Korean media has also taken a “it’s America’s fault” approach as well. (Thanks to Japan Probe for the link)

- Back to more relevant news to this blog, the Cannes 2007 lineup has been announced. As predicted, Wong Kar-Wai’s English-language debut My Blueberry Nights will be opening the festival, assuming that Wong is actually done with post-production. Representing Asia in competition will be South Korea’s Kim Ki-Duk with “Breath,” South Korea’s Lee Chang-Dong’s “Secret Sunshine,” and Japan’s Naomi Kawase with “Mogari No Mor.” Except for Wong, no Hong Kong films will be screened in or out of competition, despite predictions that Tsui Hark-Ringo Lam-Johnnie To actioner Triangle might make it. Nevertheless, the lineup looks pretty solid.

- Speaking of Korean films, Asian Cinema - While on the Road has reviews of a few Korean gangster films that are sure to corrupt another Korean-American youth’s mind (that was sarcasm, by the way).

- With the Hong Kong Entertainment Expo being a huge success, who can resist holding another film market in Hong Kong? That’s right, another film market event is going to Hong Kong, this time it’s Amazia, and it will open in November 2008. Yay.

- However, I don’t think the Amazia folks would be very happy to find what Hong Kong celebrities are doing with their Nintendo DS - some publicity photos have caught these celebrities playing their DS’s with an add-on that’s designed to enable the DS to play pirated games.

- I’ve never pushed box office news this far down an entry before, but I don’t want seem like I’m beating a dead horse. Eiga Consultant analyzes just exactly how bad Sunshine has done in Japan. According to his figures, it only grossed 52% of The Promise in its opening week in Japan. 52%?! I’m pretty damn sure Sunshine is better than The Promise based on this photograph alone.

- Ryuganji apparently has this report as well, but I saw it on Twitch first, so I gotta be fair. Anyway, Takeshi Miike is working on another new film, and apparently it’s a manga adaptation. I don’t care much for Miike, so you can find out more for yourself here as well.

- The troubled Bangkok Film Festival is making progress on its comeback, and this year they’re promising more Asian films. Good for them.

- I consider myself a fairly big fan of Japanese films. Sure, I’ve missed out on a lot of classics (I.have.not.seen.Seven.Samurai.), but I’m still a fan. So who’d know when Japanese people what 10 films they would recommend to foreigners, they would not only recommend a non-Japanese film (Letters From Iwo Jima), but they would actually recommended 57 films instead (the Tora-san series contains 48 films. I assume the Japanese people want us to watch them all)?

- Japanese new artist Ayaka has become the first female artist in over 4 years to sell more than 1 million copies of her album. Good for her too.

- I discovered Kon Ichikawa’s work when I took a Japanese cinema class last year. I discovered Shunji Iwai’s genius when I followed up my first viewing of Swallowtail with Love Letter. Too bad Iwai hasn’t done a new narrative film since Hana and Alice, but at least he made a documentary about Ichikawa, and it’s coming on DVD.

- Aside from making his war film The Assembly, Chinese director Feng Xiaogang is making a short film for China’s anti-piracy campaign. It even features one of the best metaphors for pirated films I’ve ever read.

- Jeffrey Wells has a link the the first legit review of Spiderman 3, and the verdict isn’t good.

Watched the rather unprofessionally edited version of the Hong Kong Film Awards last night on the local TVB. At one point, it was so badly edited down for time that they actually cut off an entire section, then played that section about 15 minutes later. Acceptance speeches were cut down, and somehow they still had time to cut to TVB’s own host sitting in an empty studio for a round-up. Either the show was on tape delay in HK as well, or they just botched the little time they had to edit the show down. I probably should have been thankful that I got to watch it so quickly on TV in the first place, but how hard is it to just show the whole thing uncut?

This year, the show was hosted by Eric Tsang’s daughter Bowie, who actually hosts several TV shows in Taiwan, Lam Chi-Chung, and Nick Cheung (Yes, Johnnie To recent favorite Nick Cheung). Unlike the Asian Film Awards, which featured awkward English bantering between Fiona Sit and David Wu or a solo Wu doing his Tarantino impression, the hosts this time actually got some good bantering in. But Nick Cheung, a stranger to hosting awards, had trouble remembering the script, which made him the butt of jokes by the other two hosts. At points, at least one of the host had to look at the script on the podium. Note to Hong Kong award shows: get a teleprompter.

Apparently, people complained about the large amount of Mandarin presenters for last year’s ceremony, so what do they do this year? Bring even more and lesser known Mandarin-speaker presenters to the stage! Thankfully, TVB provided subtitles for most of the Mandarin presenters’ lines (another sign of a tape delay).

The now-defunct mock boy band alive also came out for a performance. Instead of singing their single “Adam’s Choice” themselves, they brought out Paul Wong on the guitar and a bunch of local independent bands to sing most of the song while the Alive boys took out cue cards featuring messages they have for the entertainment industry (”Don’t Copy, support original creation!”). Of course, if I didn’t know that Paul Wong was putting on a concert with these independent bands next month, I would’ve actually saw it as more than a promotional gesture. I couldn’t even see 1/3 of the cards/band members performing because TVB kept cutting to cameras that WEREN’T shooting where things were happening, as if TVB doesn’t want us to see the Alive boys promoting independent music.

Of course, this year the Hong Kong Film Awards has something to be proud of - the Oscar win of The Departed. They use it as a way of encouraging the business, telling them to write scripts that Hollywood will want to buy. Personally, I thought Patrick Tam winning the best screenplay award with his student was a better encouragement to this budding filmmaker than any Hollywood awards.

After the way rabid fans acted for Rain and Andy Lau at the Asian Film Awards, the fans for EEG artist Isabella Leung also showed up to see her lose twice for the supporting actress and best actress. It was refreshing to see Anthony Wong getting so pissed that he said if the fans didn’t shut up, he would announce someone else as the winner even if Isabella won. I can’t wait to earn that type of respect.

As for the awards, I’m glad Lau Ching-Wan found that the 7th time’s the charm, and that a 17-year absence behind the camera would bring Patrick Tam some of the biggest applause of the evening. However, I’m a little saddened that Johnnie To went home empty-handed (Exiled’s editing was hands-down some of the best in HK film), probably because of multiple nominations in one category. and that young filmmakers not named Daniel Wu didn’t see their films recognized. Next year, I’ll get to watch the whole thing live (on TV or at the venue, either one is good), I just hope the movies will be just as good, if not better.

Here is the Variety Asia report on the awards, if anyone wanted it.

- Let’s start with Hong Kong Sunday numbers. As expected, Mr. Bean’s Holiday hangs on at number 1 with HK$1.09 million on 32 screens (US$1=HK$7.8) for a 11-day total of HK$17.83 million. As for openings, Taiwan lesbian romance Spider Lilies expanded from Thursday’s 6 screens to 9 screens over the weekend, earning an impressive HK$320,000 on Sunday for a 4-day total of HK$1.23 million. Hong Kong director Yip Lim-Sum follows his cynical romantic-dramedy Marriage with a Fool with an even more cynical take of love with Love is Not All Around, starring a bunch of Gold Label idols. It had preview showings over the weekend, and it made HK$200,000 on 32 screens (not sure how many showings per day) for a HK$540,000 3-day total. It opens next week.

- As reported yesterday, Tokyo Tower managed to open huge enough that it got the number 1 spot in Japan this weekend. In a continuing slump of futuristic films, Sunshine opens weak at 7th place, despite the presence of Japanese star Hiroyuki Sanada. More tomorrow when the numbers come out from Box Office Mojo.

- As for the North American box office, Rear Win…I mean Disturbia opens huge with 28 million. The big story is, of course, Grindhouse’s 63% freefall. Made for nearly $100 million (with prints and advertising), the double feature has only made $19 million so far.

- On Saturday, I was going to report on the latest attempt of censorship by the Thai government, this time for the independent film “Syndrome and a Century.” Basically, as Variety Asia reported, the Thai censorship board asked for several cuts to the film that show doctors behaving (comparatively) badly. When the director refused, the board refused to give the film back and threatens to make the cuts anyway. Now, the whole issue is getting huge, as Jason Gray reports that there is now an internet petition against the Thai censorship board, calling for a free Thai film industry.

On a related note, Twitch has an interview with director Apithatpong Weerasethakul, even though it makes no mention of the censorship issue because it was done probably during the San Francisco Asian American Film Festival.

- In light of the complaint by the United States against China at the World Trade Organization, China held a huge display of pirated materials burning to raise awareness of the government’s attitude, and again to show American a big red middle finger.

At least it wasn’t a book burning.

- Here’s something to get excited about for today - the first full length trailer for Takeshi Kitano’s comedy “Kantoku Banzai,” courtesy of Twitch. It looks crazy as hell, and a lot of fun too.

- In the history of bad ideas, Edward Norton has signed up to star in “The Incredible Hulk,” Universal’s sad sad attempt to undo Ang Lee’s film. But rather than resetting the whole franchise, it will actually be a continuation from the first film. It’ll be directed by Louis Leterrier, who did the Transporter films, and I assume it’ll be much less ambitious that Ang Lee’s misunderstood film.

That’s right, I actually liked Ang Lee’s version of The Hulk. The freefalling of my credibility continues.

Managed to find 3 hours to check out the Rodriguez/Tarantino double feature Grindhouse. Overall, I thought the 3 hours went by fairly fast, and I found it funny that the multiplex I saw it at were playing the film like a grindhouse theater might have, though unintentionally. First, someone forgot to start the previews as the screen froze on the “please turn off your cell phone” screen for a good minute or so. Of course, someone realized he or she was asleep at the wheel and finally started the film. But then the first trailer was misframed for a good 5-10 seconds before the same person fixed it. After about 7 trailers or so (for a movie that’s already 191 minutes long!), the movie (which opened with the Machete trailer) started playing with the lights still on “trailers setting” until Planet Terror was playing for a good 5 minutes already, when someone finally turned the lights fully down.

Then after Planet Terror, people who either needed a good toilet break or just didn’t get the concept started walking out. They were either aware of the 90 minutes of stuff still coming or felt ripped off that they only got the movie with the rocket leg, and about 5-10 people started leaving. Only a few of them come back, and a pretty huge group of 7 people or so also walked out just after Death Proof started. Why? I had no idea. I guess that’s what Harvey Weinstein meant about not “educating” people enough.

Oh, right, the movies. Grindhouse starts with a fake trailer for a film called Machete, starring Danny Trejo as the title character. Machete is, as a character says “a Mexican day-laborer that’s really a Federale.” He gets crossed by some evil men, talks a priest into helping him get revenge, and kicks a whole lot of ass. By the end of Machete, I was more than amused - I was pumped.

I wasn’t really looking forward to Rodriguez’s Planet Terror. I thought Rodriguez is a great technical filmmaker - his ability to DIY everything is impressive to this aspiring amateur director - but he was never a very good storyteller to begin with. His scripts are usually shallow, filled with some “whoa” moments or tons of plot developments to stuff what is essentially an empty story. That’s why I was surprised that I was having so much fun with Planet Terror. Again, he makes up a complicated story about biological weapons that has something to do with viral infections (with an intentionally complicated “here’s what really happened” explanation scene) and essentially makes a very gross zombie film out of it. Any plot description is useless, just know that it’s about a bunch of people fighting really really gross “infected” people and go with it. Everything is tongue-in-cheek and really into that exploitation shoot-and-run spirit (the camera crew shows up very clearly in the mirror in a shot during the opening dance sequence). As for the machine gun leg? Honestly, the trailers showed almost all the money shots out of it already.

Then the bulk of the fake trailers come out - Rob Zombie’s “Werewolf Women of the SS” is only amusing because of its title and a surprise appearance by a big-name actor. Edgar Wright’s “Don’t” is more amusing with better make-up and really good editing, but it’s obviously not much of a feature film idea. Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving is already all over the web, and it’s the best of the bunch. It’s sick, gross, and actually has my favorite lines in the film:

A: [licks blood coming out of headless carcass] “It’s blood.”
B: “Son of a bitch!”

I’m a bigger Tarantino fan - he may have essentially just made a bunch of homage movies (some call them rip-offs, which I can see is a valid complaint.), but he knows how to make a movie. He usually has a good enough handle on dialogue, pacing, and technique that make his movies well worth-watching. I had pretty big expectations for Death Proof; I figured if anyone was going to make an 85-minute movie with mostly girl-talk (which I had read about in reviews), it was Tarantino. However, I have to say I was somewhat disappointed by Death Proof. I was fairly involved the first 45 minutes - Tarantino hooks you with the 70s visual aesthetics, from the credits to the music to all the scratches and missing frames. And the car crash was rightfully intense. Then he resets everything and then it’s another 20 minutes of dialogue before the big finale comes out of nowhere. I usually dig Tarantino’s dialogue, but here, his indulgence is far too apparent. The dialogue in both halves of the film are either repetitive girl talk, endless tidbits of 70s pop culture references, or talk about car movies. What’s worse is that Tarantino has been all over the talk shows, just regurgitating all those stuff he wrote in Death Proof, making all the dialogue feel even more self-indulgent. Hell, Tarantino even flat out gives up on the 70s visuals halfway through the film, and Death Proof suddenly looks crisp with colors and no missing frames. Talk about killing the atmosphere.

Of course, Death Proof does have two redeeming values - car chases and Kurt Russell. Tarantino does live up to his complaint about CGI in car chases by delivering two intensely real car chases, one with real-life stuntwoman Zoe Bell sliding around the hood of a car as Kurt Russell tries to run it off the road, and the other through the highways of Texas. They were well-filmed and well-edited all around. The “avenging chicks” ending felt like Tarantino suddenly woke up and found a direction to take the movie, and I was all the more thankful for it. Kurt Russell, meanwhile, plays his stuntman Mike with a great evil smirk in the first half, only to be reduced to a scared pathetic over-the-top psycho at the end. His transformation is abrupt on paper, but Kurt’s performance eventually made the whole thing work. Would’ve liked to see what Mickey Rourke would’ve done with the character, but I didn’t mind Kurt Russell in the role either.

OK, so some people would say “hey, Tarantino just wrote a bunch of dialogue scenes because that’s how low-budget exploitation films were like.” My problem isn’t exactly with the amount of dialogue. Like I said, I liked the buildup in the first half, but Tarantino could’ve just merged the two groups of girls and made a real revenge film out of Death Proof. But in the end, Death Proof felt like it would’ve made a better extended fake trailer than a feature-length film.

In any case, Grindhouse was actually a lot of fun to sit through. I personally didn’t mind the length, but I could see why people would be turned off by it. The saddest thing is that both films really could’ve been trimmed to a more audience-friendly length - Rodriguez could’ve simplified the convoluted plot and took out the gratuitous explosions to save a couple of bucks; Tarantino could’ve saved himself a good 15 minutes of talking by not making two films out of one. But it is what it is, and I can live with it.

So which director wins the battle of Grindhouse? Just for sticking closer to the genre, making a better missing reel gag (not to say that Tarantino’s missing reel gag wasn’t amusing), and managing to overcome the gossips, I say Rodriguez actually triumphs over Tarantino this time. I think when the films are split up for international release, I dare say word-of-mouth will actually make Planet Terror a bigger success.

Since the weekend isn’t gonna bring much news, I’m moving the news reporting to the weekend entries.

The news today come from random corners of the world, so I’m just going to dive right in without much organization.

- Yesterday I mentioned Nikkatsu’s line-up, which includes the Death Note spin-off film about the L character. We find out today that horror director Hideo Nakata, who made the Japanese versions of the “Ring” and “Dark Water,” will take on directing duties. Well, at least he’s better than the director of Gamera films (that would be the guy who did the Death Note movies).

- On the less commercial side of things, Twitch introduces a film from a country we rarely associate with any film not about war - Vietnam.

- Remember the highly-anticipated Jackie Chan-Jet Li project that turned out to be a kids’ movie? Variety Asia offers us more details, including the director (guy who did Lion and Stuart Little), and the plot, about an American teenager transported into ancient China, where he would join a crew of warriors (with it reportedly based on Journey to the West, it would probably be the monk and his disciples, which include the Monkey King) to free an imprison king. Holy ethnographic gaze, Batman!

- Speaking of Jackie Chan, Rob-B-Hood opened this past weekend in Japan to satisfactory results. According to Eiga Consultant, Rob-B-Hood (called “Project BB” in Japan, which is a direct translation of its Chinese title) grossed 25.6 million yen on 60 screens for an OK 426600 yen per-screen average. The opening is 162% of “The Myth,” but only 58% of “New Police Story,” which grossed 200 mill yen.

- Korea Pop Wars offer some random notes about Korean films and beyond (include Korean films playing at beyond).

- While I said that Grindhouse flopped because it lacked the audience, not shows per day, New York Post critic comes out and says that wasn’t the case in New York, where the per-screen average was actually over $30,000! We’ve just found one more thing to blame rural America….

- Last week I posted a link to the poster of director Benny Chan’s upcoming flick “Invisible Targets,” and now Twitch has delivered again with a report from Chinese TV that contains a bit of footage. That roof jump looks mighty impressive, I hope the rest of the movie can live up to that.

- In Shaolin Soccer, there was a goalie character that was a dead ringer for Bruce Lee. Of course we know that it was intentional that the actor was probably casted in that role because of his looks (Stephen Chow held a huge audition before filming, so I wouldn’t be surprised that’s where he found the actor). That man was Chen Guokun. Who would expect that he was actually casted to play Bruce Lee himself in a biographical TV series based on Lee’s life? Well, believe it, because its shoot starts next week.

- The Tokyo governor’s election has been over and done with for a while (with everyone’s favorite xenophobic nationalist politician Shintaro Ishihara getting his third term in office, just in time for his movie to open!), and the video has been out there for a while. Anyway, as part of the campaign, each candidate has the right to do a 5-minute video explaining their position on issues and why people should vote for them. Out of nowhere comes Koichi Toyama, an ultra left-wing musician and his kooky campaign video. The reason I waited this long because I finally found an English subtitled version. Someone even made a South Park version of the campaign video, because it’s so crazy, baby.

Of course, he’s not the only guy that’s done a kooky campaign video. Rocker Yuuya Uchida also ran for governor in Tokyo in 1991, and he did a similarly entertaining video as well (you don’t even need English subtitles for this, it’s in English already).

Obviously, Uchida lost the election, but what happened to Koichi Toyama? He was in 7th place with 15,000 votes!

What does this have to do with The Golden Rock, you ask? It’s Asian entertainment, isn’t it?

- While I can’t really gauge how the Easter weekend went in Hong Kong until the midweek numbers come out later tonight (since Monday was also a public holiday), Mov3.com uploaded the Sunday numbers, which was a surprisingly clear indicator of who won the weekend. With a HK$2.16 million gross on Sunday from just 32 screens and a 4-day HK$9.43 million total, Mr. Bean’s Holiday ruled the holiday box office. This result is extremely surprisingly, at least for me, considering that the TV show is long over, Rowan Atkinson’s films aren’t huge draws at the box office (Johnny English excluded), and that it’s been 10 years since the last Mr. Bean movie. Its gross is as huge as Night at the Museum, and that made over HK$40 million, so how far will Mr. Bean go, especially with that amazing per-screen average?

As for the other movies, my predictions were pretty far off. I said Sunshine would do moderate business, but it actually did worse than Disney’s Meet the Robinsons (Easter IS a family holiday, after all) and the biblical horror film The Reaping, which has 4-day totals of HK$3.33 million and HK$2.51 million, respective. As for Sunshine, it made HK$430,000 on 30 screens, which is OK, but not spectacular. After 4 days, it’s made HK$2.07 million. Hong Kong’s sole representative, the Eric Kot-directed Super Fans, was a pretty big loser with only HK$270,000 from 29 screens on Sunday, and after 5 days, it’s only made HK$1.65 million. Good thing it was only a moderately-sized production, which might’ve been what killed it.

- Box Office Mojo also posted the top 6 at the Japanese box office, this week at the exchange rate of 119 yen=$1. Even without the small change, one can see that the top 10 films all fell by fairly large percentages, which only helped show how weak Blood Diamond’s opening was. In case it’s not apparent to you enough, Eiga Consultant puts it all in perspective - it was only 52% of the Japanese opening for The Departed (which ended with a 1.6 billion yen total) and only 92% of The Aviator (which had a 1.07 billion yen total).

- Korea Pop Wars also has the Korean box office, and The Show Must Go On starring Song Gang-Ho obviously made the number 1 spot. More analysis over there courtesy of Mark Russell.

- Plagiarism is a plague in the Asian music industry - everyone is copying off each other, and they’re only spread around like urban legend on the net while it continues. That’s why I’m happy to see one of these cases go to court, as a South Korean court ruled that a MTV for a song by Korean pop singer Ivy was illegally copied off a scene from the movie Final Fantasy: Advent Children. According to the comments there, representatives for Ivy’s side are just blaming it on some Chinese guy. Riiiigggght.

Look for the rip-off of the song by Mark Lui for the HK pop market in the coming months.

- Even the Chinese are in legal trouble, as the U.S. has officially filed a complaint with the W.T.O. over the rampant piracy of Hollywood films in China. That’s probably because Chinese censors keep banning the damn things that people have to find other ways to watch them.

- Funny that on the same day, Variety Asia also has a report about China’s effort to cut down on piracy, which is true since I saw a report of a raid by Chinese officials on the Hong Kong news a few days ago.

- If anyone still cares, the creator of Ghost Rider is suing Sony over copyright infringement for its film adaptation. Wait, wasn’t this produced by Marvel?

- Anyone in for a blockbuster comedy that promotes plastic surgery can turn to 200 Pound Beauty, which is being released on DVD on April 20th. I’m not a big fan of plastic surgeries, but hey, it might be worth a look.

- More on the Jackie Chan successor show - apparently, over 100,000 people have already signed up for a chance at martial arts stardom. Not clear is whether son Jaycee is one of those 100,000.

- Hoga News has some info on new films coming out, one of which is the sequel to the successful drama about ethnic Koreans in Japan “Pacchigi!”

- Just because you pay to watch TV in China doesn’t mean you can watch anything you want, alright? At least that’s what those damn watchdogs say.

- Of course, the big news post-weekend is the fallout from the disappointing opening of Grindhouse. And it’s pretty bad. People blame that there are not enough shows a day, so not enough money, but even with the 3-hour running time, people were projecting 20-25 million. Why? Simple math.

This weekend, Grindhouse grossed $11.5 million, at a $4,419 per-screen average. Divide that number by 3 for the weekend, that’s $1,473 dollars a day. Divide that by 3 again for the 3 shows a day, that’s $491 per show. Divide that again by the the national average ticket price, which is $6.55, that means only there were only an average of 75 people for each showing. That would look pretty empty for the multiplex that put it on their bigger 250-people auditorium, wouldn’t it?

Of course, Harvey comes out and says that the length pushed audiences away, which is true, and bloggers are saying that Weinstein should’ve pushed for Tarantino and Rodridguez to not be so self-indulgent and grind down the running time for each film, which is probably also true. But honestly, who expected it to do this bad when advertising and buzz was literally everywhere on the web? Now the Weinsteins are hoping for word-of-mouth, even though the daily gross actually dropped over the weekend (most films experience a rise for Saturday, then a drop on Sunday). I’ll be watching it this week myself, and LoveHKfilm’s Sanjuro has reviews of the separate films (even one for the trailers). Will the people show up eventually? Probably, but I doubt this will make back its reported $52-million budget (although reports say it’s closer to 70 or even 100 million).

- In other Grindhouse news, Korea Pop Wars confirms that Sponge, who grabbed the film at Hong Kong’s Filmart, will release the films separately in their extended versions.

- No Hong Kong Easter weekend numbers (maybe by tonight, who knows), but we have Japanese audience rankings for the weekend. Night at the Museum and Doraemon hang on again for the first and second spot, respectively. Meanwhile, Blood Diamond opens at third (maybe not at a very good gross, seeing how Night and Doraemon have been around for about a month now), the Japan Times-reviewed Taitei no Ken opens at 8th, and more when the numbers come out.

- Those censors strike again. No, not China (more of those guys later), this time it’s Thailand, who has banned internet video service Youtube after anti-monarchist films appeared on the site. Youtube offers to help the Thai authorities delete the films in question without really going to the point of censorship.

- OK, China, your turn. Remember the Chinese idol show Super Girl that got renamed to Happy Boy? Well, not only does the Chinese government hate girls that are happy, they are forcing the show to follow a strict set of guidelines that include no “weirdness” or “low taste,” allowing only “healthy and ethnically inspiring songs,” and no screaming fans or crying contestants, because god help them if the winner might be popular enough to be the next Premier of the Communist party.

This is the winner of Super Girl. Yes, that’s a girl. Is this the SARFT’s idea of “weirdness” and “low taste?”

- With Super Girl gone, its male counterpart “My Hero!” has taken over the Chinese airwaves. Here, the men not only sing, but also dance and do push-ups to impress the judges. The more amusing part of this write-up by Variety Asia is actually seeing the writer trying to explain what “add oil” in Chinese means in English (It really means “work hard!”).

- Japanese pop queen/suspect outer space alien Ayumi Hamasaki had her sold-out concert in Hong Kong, and with Eason Chan’s tendency to speak his mind, he decided to say that she was probably lip-syncing. Ming Pao has the report, and excerpt is as follows:

Eason形容濱崎步的演唱會是高成本製作，燈光、爆破效果，以至整個演唱會的製作都很好，水準之高是本地演唱會難以做到；不過，他說：「看見濱崎步的勁歌熱舞，懷疑她有三分之一時間是『咪嘴』，而且『咪嘴』功夫很到家。我看麥當娜的演唱會就覺得沒有『咪嘴』，雖然歌聲可能沒有唱片中的水準，但也很好看。」

Eason describes Ayumi Hamasaki’s concert as a high-budget production thanks to the lights and pyrotechnics. That type of quality is one that Hong Kong concerts have difficulty achieving. But he said “Seeing Ayumi Hamasaki’s singing and dancing, I suspect that she’s lip-syncing for 1/3 of the time, and her lip-syncing skills are quite good. I saw Madonna’s concert and didn’t feel she was lip-syncing. Though she didn’t sing as well as she does on her albums, it was still very good.”
對此，主辦單位強調濱崎步並無「咪嘴」，「濱崎步唱得太好，加上所有音響設備都來自日本，才會惹起誤會」。

In response, the organizers insist that Ayumi Hamasaki was not lip-syncing, “Ayumi Hamasaki sings too well, and plus all the audio equipments came from Japan, so that’s why there’s such a misunderstanding.”

Original Chinese text is here.

I’ve seen Ayumi Hamasaki’s live performance videos, and she can’t even hit those high notes when she’s NOT dancing. Plus, from Eason Chan, who still lip-sync some of his TV performances, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is true.

- Then again, it’s hard to tell whether one can trust Ming Pao’s reporting. Yesterday, they reported Professor David Bordwell’s visit to Johnnie To’s set for “Triangle” (which they got from his blog), but they seemed to have gotten some facts wrong, particular in its last section. Chinese excerpts (followed by translation) are as follows:

發覺杜琪㗖喜用手提拍攝，與荷李活所用的路軌拍攝不同，不過用手提拍攝確較靈活。David Bordwell亦認為香港製作有時不夠精細，如電影《放逐》中有一幕講述澳門酒店的場景，原來是在杜琪㗖公司的天台搭景，就嫌太過草率了。

[David] discovers that Johnnie To likes using handheld camera, unlike Hollywood, which favor tracking, but using handheld camera is more flexible. David Bordwell also thinks that Hong Kong productions are not meticulous enough, such as the hotel scene in “Exiled.” Turns out that the “hotel” was a set on the roof of Johnnie To’s production company, and he thinks that it’s too sloppy.

Original Chinese text is here.

The entry that report is referring to is here, and here are the mistakes the reporter at Ming Pao made:

The report writes that Johnnie To prefers handheld, but this is what Professor Bordwell wrote:

“To’s art is furthered by his craftsmanship in shot composition. Composing in anamorphic (2.35:1), nearly always putting the camera on a tripod or dolly, he gets precise results with few lighting units. When I complained that all the new films I saw at Filmart were shot shakycam, Shan Ding reported a neat saying that HK DPs have. The handheld camera covers 3 mistakes: Bad acting, bad set design, and bad directing.”

The report also wrote that Professor Bordwell complained that the hotel set in Exiled shows the sloppiness of Hong Kong filmmaking, but there is no such complaining in his entry. This is what Professor Bordwell wrote in regard to the rooftop set:

“In another echo of old production methods, To’s films sometimes use rooftop sets. Last year the set for the hotel in Exiled was erected on the top of the Milkyway building. Its Demy-like pastels looked very artificial in daylight.”

Any complaining in there? I don’t see it. That’s why Hong Kong Chinese reporting should always be taken with a grain of salt.

As mentioned yesterday, there aren’t many news coming out, even Variety Asia seems to be taking a break. But there are still news elsewhere, and I’ll just even them out for the weekend. I might even go into my own collection a do a bit of a feature.

Watched The Prestige on DVD, better known as Christopher Nolan’s break between the Batman movies. It’s a hell of a mind-bender about two magician’s relentless pursuit to top each other. You might expect them to eventually band together and become friends, but no such luck. They get dirty all the way to the end, and they really know how to duke it out. While there’s not much real thrills to be had (much of the thrills are in the complicated puzzle the Nolan brothers and novelist Christopher Priest put together), the movie moves at a constant pace, moving forward and backward in time enough that audience participation is guaranteed. The movie is well-shot, well-acted, well-written, and even most of the final twists work (even though the sci-fi twist was a bit of a stretch). It makes me wish Nolan would do another small personal film like this before spending 2 years of huge blockbusters.

- This weekend is kind of considered a holiday weekend here in the United States, although Easter is not an official holiday. But in Hong Kong, it’s a 5-day weekend, and that means a huge weekend at the movies too. At least 7 movies open this weekend - Mr. Bean’s Holiday (which dominated world box office last weekend), Danny Boyle’s Sunshine, Luc Besson’s Arthur and the Minimoys, Happily N’ever After, Disney’s Meet the Robinsons, The Reaping (which also opens in the US this weekend), and the sole Hong Kong entry is Eric Kot’s idol comedy Super Fans.

As far as ticket sales go, my unscientific research method is showing that Mr Bean is selling like hotcakes, and Sunshine seems to be doing moderate business (probably because it’s being put on smaller screens). Super Fans seems to be doing ok as well, although I doubt it’ll make a huge dent. We’ll know the results on Tuesday.

- China has this silly rule where they would block foreign films from opening in order to allow domestic films to thrive at the box office. This happened to The Da Vinci Code last year, although some say it was pulled because the government didn’t want to piss off the Catholics, which I wouldn’t be surprised at. This year, Spiderman 3 is lucky enough to squeeze in on May 1st before the July blackout period, and they’re gonna open it on a record 500 screens. That still won’t stop the millions of pirated disc soon to flood the streets of China, though.

- Are you ready for more Self-Defense Force Zombie? I am.

- Brian’s Asian Cinama - While on the Road has two entries of reviews. For chronological order’s sake, here’s his review of the Japanese hair scare thriller Exte.

- One reason for this film scholar to go to France this May? To see Martin Scorsese give a masters class in filmmaking at the Cannes Film Festival.

- Speaking of which, Hong Kong’s Oriental Daily (which means it should be taken with a grain of salt) reports that they have asked Jet Tone directly about the status of Wong Kar Wai’s My Blueberry Nights, and apparently the representative has responded it has been officially invited to open the festival, which would be an enormous honor for a Chinese director to go through. But apparently people are liking it so much that they think it should be going into competition, and that now it’s undergoing post-production. More as this develops, but it seems like no English media has picked this story up yet, so no idea how credible the report is yet.

- New York Times has a guide to Hong Kong, although it’s certainly a little to bourgeois for my taste. But hey, if it rocks your boat, go for it.

That’s it for today, hopefully more tomorrow.

I hate to rely on sources for news, but that’s what happens when you have limited resources. This means when mov3.com doesn’t update their Sunday numbers on Monday HK time, I’m stuck Monday afternoon with no numbers to report.

- But good thing Box Office Mojo came through with their Japan numbers, which isn’t particularly hard, since they only have the top 6. Rest assured, you’re not missing much. The rankings stayed roughly the same, as all the films enjoyed only very small drops. Happy Feet actually gained more audience to beat The Holiday in the attendance rankings, but, as it is the case with kids films, it brought in less money than The Holiday because kids tickets are quite a bit cheaper than adult tickets. Such is life.

- Meanwhile, The Host enjoyed a healthy 4th week at the American box office, as Magnolia expanded the film again by another 22 screens for a small 4.8% increase in grosses. Of course, that means per-screen average has gone down to a not-very-good $2,437 (down $400 from last week), but at least it’s hanging in there.

- During Filmart last week (with the deal finalized a week later, as in yesterday), Sponge, a small Korean distributor that specializes in importing small foreign films, acquired the Quentin Tarantino-Robert Rodriguez double feature Grindhouse in its biggest deal ever. No word, however, on whether Sponge will split the two films up (as it was announced to be done for the international market) or release both films together.

- At the risk further damaging my credibility, I’ll admit that I’ve never seen a Kim Ki-duk film. I’ve read about quite a few, and I’ve been turned off enough by fish hooks and plastic surgeries to stay away from them. Nevertheless, I have followed his career, including his public denouncement of Korean media and Korean cinema. I guess he must’ve taken it back, because he has yet another new film coming that he shot in just under two weeks. Wow.

- China isn’t the only place in Asia with strict censorship. India has banned Fashion channel FTV for two months for indecency. This isn’t the first time, as AXN, Asian’s answer to Spike TV, was also banned for two months. Man, wait ’til they watch American TV, there’s plenty to ban there.

- When you have a soon-to-be-defunct TV tower and a huge Hollywood blockbuster to promote, what do you do? Nagoya has found the answer.

- I’m looking more and more to Yau Nai-Hoi’s Eye in the Sky. Why? Because of that review from LoveHKFilm that I just linked to and this review.

- But you can quench your thirst with teasers today - one for Eye in the Sky, and the other for Feng Xiaogang’s latest The Assembly.

- While I’m reading Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore (I’m about halfway through, thanks to my newfound discovery of the ability to read at the gym), I just found another book with a killer concept: A real-life Yakuza princess. Unlike Nakama Yukie, I don’t think she’d make much of a high school teacher.

Another short entry today, but can’t help it if the news world is quiet as usual.

Another month, another new beginning. If you noticed, the profile has been updated.

- The Hong Kong customs have been desperate in catching those Bittorrent pirates. They’ve been trying to save time and money by implementing a new automated system to catch who’s uploading and who’s downloading. This is the result.

- While Johnnie To’s Election series is a masterpiece unto itself, I don’t know why Tartan bought it and thought people would like the second film better. It asks for more patience, it moves slower, and it requires character background. The first film is a mixture of a tight thriller and involving look at triad politics, and it’s a better blend of commercial and the arts. Anyway, it seems like Tartan has decided to release both films at once, at least in New York, where out of five showings, one will be for Election 1, and the other 4 for Election 2.

- Twitch went to the AFI Dallas Film Festival, and Peter Martin has a slew of reviews from it.

- Professor Bordwell has checked in with two new reports - one is film-oriented, the other is not. Both are equally interesting.

- DJ Ozma is known in Japan as the man who managed to make Kohaku (the annual singing extravaganza on New Year’s Eve for who-knows-how-many-years-running) show entertaining by getting all his female dancers into naked body suits and wearing a dildo on stage (more details, including video, here). Apparently, this year the parks of Tokyo are selling said body suits during Hanami (the yearly period when people gather to look at blooming sakura and get trashed like it’s 1999).

- Grindhouse is coming out next week, and the faux-trailer by Hostel director Eli Roth is already online.

- An official release date for the modern-day pink film The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai has been announced.

I took this shot from a TV just above the streets of Shinjuku on my trip. I thought it was weird how they had a random cell phone ad of Cameron Diaz talking on the phone. I mean, considering how much Cameron got paid for the commercial, I’m not surprised why she took it. I guess people would want to use Softbank phones more if Cameron Diaz uses it?

Anyway, Tokyo Times offers another shot, this time on a billboard and I’m guessing that’s Akihabara.

Next, best of the week, and a special song of the day

Thanks to TVB, whose English channel showed the Asian Film Awards, I’m watching the TVB USA broadcast of it right now. The award, done completely in English, is hosted by actor/VJ David Wu, Hong Kong pop star Fiona Sit, and at one point, also by actress/singer Karen Mok. All three of these people speak fluent English, which I guess means they meet the most basic requirement. But while I’m sure that David Wu is a perfectly competent VJ on TV in Taiwan, he has this annoying need to end a lot of his sentences with fillers like “OK?” or “alright?” Yeah, kind of like what Quentin Tarantino does when he does interviews. While his fillers, which makes him sound like he’s speaking in a normal conversation, works better when Fiona shows up and does the co-hosting thing, his monologue skills is something left to be desired.

All in all, it’s an impressive effort, considering it’s the first time Hong Kong is in charge of a global award show like this (they’ve never done well with foreign presenters at the Hong Kong Film Awards either). It’s also great to see Professor David Bordwell get an award, Josephine Siao Fong Fong getting the only standing ovation of the night (why isn’t she in films anymore anyway? If the Hui brothers can still stage a pseudo-comeback these days, I think she’s due for another great performance), and Sandy Lam doing famous film songs in their original languages. But I think I can see a teleprompter in their future, because it’s really distracting seeing people reading into cards in their hands. It was also funny to see people sitting there not applauding (like when Andy Lau got his award, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai is caught just smiling politely when everyone else is applauding), Professor Bordwell snapping a picture of Jia Zhangke when he won his best director award, and people talking on cell phones even when the camera is on them.

So next year, get Michelle Yeoh (or at least have consistenly 2 hosts at the same time) to be the host, get everyone to at least appear to be prepared, and try to actually fill up the place with more than just idol fans and celebrities.

Watched Ridley Scott’s A Good Year last night. It’s basically an adult escapist fantasy about a rich guy, played by Russell Crowe, who inherits his deceased uncle’s beautiful French vineyard where he spent a big chunk of his childhood. He means to sell it so he can go back to his super stockbroker job in modern London, but first he has to fix it up. Considering it’s from the man who made Alien, Blade Runner, and Gladiator, A Good Year is obviously a pretty minor effort. It’s also Ridley Scott’s rare attempt at a full-on comedy; it even features the Crowe man falling into a pool of dirt and dead leaves.

The result is a very relaxed and minor effort. The whole thing, like Gordon Chan’s Okinawa Rendezvous, feels like an excuse for the cast and crew to spend a few months at a beautiful French villa. But that’s OK, because Scott has a sure handed approach on the material, making what could’ve been a mediocre “city guy learns about the simple life” story into a classy but somewhat uneven piece of filmmaking. Then again, maybe I’m predisposed to like everything Scott and Crowe do. Or it’s just nice to see Crowe not taking on heavy roles, he might just throw less things at people in real life.

Not much news out there today, but let’s try and get through this anyway.

- Japan Times has two notable reviews for the weekend - first, the latest film from the man who is supposed to be the next Miyazaki (blasphemy!!!), Makoto Shinkai’s latest: Byosoku 5 Centimeters. Second, one of the great discoveries of 2006, the high school-noir film Brick.

- The Weinstein Company’s “Dragon Dynasty” line is an attempt to make up for the cinematic crimes they’ve done to Asian movies over the years. Of course, a line of DVDs isn’t gonna make up for what they’ve done, but it’s a good step. Twitch has a look at their line-up for the rest of 2007, which includes a 2-disc edition of Hard Boiled, City of Violence, and even Fist of Legend! Took them long enough, no?

- Celebrity fandom hit a tragic note this week with the story of Yang Lijuan. She spent the last 13 years obsessing over Asian superstar Andy Lau by not having a steady job nor much of an education. Her parents loved their daughter so much that they supported this habit, even to the point of spending the family fortune to accompany her to Hong Kong to meet him. She shows up at a fan club activity, takes a picture with the man, and was sent away. However, it wasn’t enough because she wasn’t able to spend more time with the man. Out of disappointment and a strange sense of anger, the father commits suicide, leaving a letter blaming Andy Lau for not meeting his daughter.

Now the family’s out of money, and Andy Lau still won’t meet her, even though he has sent his staff to help her out any way they can. But apparently Ms. Yang’s mother has taken this opportunity to blame Andy Lau for her husband’s death and demands half a million RMB from Lau himself. How sad.

- I like Bae Doona. Even though she sometimes looks a bit like an alien, I’ve always enjoyed her performances. Korea Pop Wars has written an entry about her recently released photo album, which chronicles her travels in London. I’m actually kind of interested in the Tokyo one too.

- The date for the announcement of this year’s San Francisco International film Festival’s lineup is inching closer, and Twitch has a preview of the films that will be shown. Too bad I’m not interested in any of those films yet.

I know it ain’t much, but that’s all I got today, alright?