- I have no idea where the Hong Kong Film blog get their Hong Kong box office stats from, but that’s who we’re going with today. John Woo’s Red Cliff continued to perform extremely well over the weekend, making HK$3.14 million from 57 screens (didn’t it open on 60?) for a 4-day weekend total of HK$10.69 million. I don’t remember a Chinese film performing this well since CJ7, which made HK$15 million from over 100 screens during its opening weekend during Chinese New Years. With somewhat positive word-of-mouth around the city (some are complaining about the unintentional hilarity, some are complaining about the two-part format), it has a good chance at hitting HK$40 million, despite competition from numerous Hollywood films. I don’t know how the complaint about less shows is relevant, as people will just show up some other time if they can’t get into certain showings. But of course, the endless barrage of Hollywood blockbuster means theaters will have to take something off their screens.

The other opener, the animated film Keroro 3, continues to do well with the kids audience, making HK$850,000 from 30 screens for a 4-day total of HK$2.95 million. It apparently didn’t take too much away from Kung Fu Panda, which still managed to make HK$1.25 million from 50 screens for a current 16-day total of HK$25.8 million, and heading straight to beat Enchanted as the highest-grossing foreign film this year. Hancock didn’t do all that badly in its second weekend, either, with HK$1.52 million from 43 screens with a 11-day total of HK$19.62 million. Wanted has passed the HK$20 million mark after 19 days, making 420,000 from 33 screens, though those screens are only giving the film two to three shows a day.

Kung Fu Hip-hop managed to stay on 13 screens, but it made only HK$17,000 for a 4-day total of HK$60,000. I’ll still be catching this…for some reason.

- Red Cliff has made a total of over USD$25 million in its opening weekend all over Asia, including over 800,000 admissions in Korea and over 100 million RMB from China. Remember the film will need to make roughly USD$160 million to even recoup its cost (much of it will have to come from foreign sales).

- And the Japanese attendance figures for this weekend just came in. Hana Yori Dango Final (which has now passed the 3 million viewer mark, which means it’s passed 3.6 billion yen) and Indiana Jones again take the top 2 spots, with Gegege No Kitaro 2 debuted at 3rd place. Climber’s High dropped slightly to 4th place, and the new Anpan Man movie saw a 6th place opening. Speed Racer slowly fades to obscurity at 7th place, and Ponyo will probably wipe the other weaker performers from the multiplexes this weekend. I hope Box Office Mojo will be updating some numbers soon.

Meanwhile, Eiga Consultant revealed that Speed Racer a similar fate in Japan as it has around the world. On 450 screens (some dubbed, some subbed), the overlooked racing film made only 105 million yen. Actually, Japanese audiences have reacted quite well to both subbed and dubbed versions of the film, so it may stick around a little longer.

- It’s Japanese drama ratings time! Remaining Spring 2008 drama CHANGE performed very well ahead of its final episode with a 22.3% rating. However, the finale will have to score over 35% for its final episode to beat Gokusen in season average, which means this will be the first Kimura Takuya drama to not take the top spot that season since 1997’s Gift. Meanwhile, Rookie was apparently not on the air this past weekend, and Hachi-One Diver stayed around its average rating with a 8.5% for its second-to-last episode.

As for the current Summer 2008 season,  Monday night drama Ando Natsu (at a rare Monday 8pm time slot) premiered with a 11.6% rating. Detective drama Shibatora premiered with 13%. Seigi no Mikata got started with a 13.2 rating, Yottsu no Uso started with 11.8% rating, and Yasuko to Kenji saw a 12.3% rating for its premiere. For ongoing dramas, Monster Parents failed to hold onto its audience with a drop to 11.6% in its second week. The same went for last week’s ratings winner Code Blue, which dropped down to a 16% rating after a spectacular 21% premiere. The biggest drop went to the lottery drama Loto 6 de 3 Oku 2 Senmanen Ateta Otoko with ex-GTO Takashi Sorimachi, which lost almost half its audience with a 6.8% rating for its second episode. Tomorrow saw a bit of a drop as well, with a 13.9% second episode after its debut saw a 16.8% rating.

All Japanese drama sypnosis can be found at Tokyograph.

- The people behind the Shanghai International Film Festival and the Shanghai World Expo will be setting up a database of young talents around the world.

- Mark Russell over at Korea Pop Wars gives his mini-review of Kim Jee-Woon’s The Good, The Bad, and the Weird. He also compares the Cannes and Korean versions of the film.

- Hiroyuki Ikeuchi joined the cast of Wilson Yip-Donnie Yen’s Yip Man. In the film, he plays a Japanese soldier who has a showdown with the Yenster himself.

In other casting news, Hiroshi Tamaki will star in another one of those Japanese nationalistic war film, playing a submarine captain during World War II.

- Japanese distributor Movie Eye has announced their release schedule for the rest of 2008 and 2009, one of which includes Nightmare Detective II, which has been pushed to 2009.

- Wanted to post this yesterday: Million Dollar Girl with Yu Aoi will be heading abroad for a festival screening before opening in Japan. Also, there are apparently rumors of Aoi’s behavior on set her TV drama Osen.

- Twitch has a teaser for the Japanese horror flick End Call. What the hell is that all about?

- Some new Hong Kong trailers out there. First is the Stephy underwear flick La Lingerie, then it’s the Charlene Choi starrer Butterfly Lovers, directed by Jingle Ma.

- A Japanese television documentary show that follows celebrities doing homestay abroad is coming to an end, as producers have decided that the show has fulfilled its purpose.

- New York Asian Film Festival co-organizer Brian Naas posts his thoughts about the festival, as well as reveal the results of the audience award, which went (deservedly) to Fine Totally Fine.

- And more reviews are rolling in for John Woo’s Red Cliff. Both reviews are from Twitch contributors, first from Singapore-based Stefan, then one from The Visitor.

Meanwhile, head honcho Todd Brown posts a review of Kenta Fukasaku’s X-Cross.

-Another Japanese comic with fish is heading to the big screen, this time apparently with some professional fishing action enhanced by cgi.

- And here’s another story about Danny Glover wanting to bridge the gap between Japan and American with The Harimaya Bridge, though this article provides a lot more information about the writer-director.

- Western director Jennifer Lynch has signed on to direct an India-based horror film that will be shot simultaenously in Hindi and English.

- The New York Asian Film Festival has announced its jury awards, with Shinji Aoyama’s Sad Vacation surprisingly taking the Grand Prize.  The audience awards will be announced this week.

- The Daily Yomiuri looks at the upcoming Tokyo Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival.

- Nippon Cinema links us to more clips from the upcoming cell phone novel adaptation Akai Ito.

- The blog Toronto J-Film Pow-wow has a short write-up by Friend of Golden Rock Jason Gray about what Japanese film got him hooked.

- Japan Times looks at the Japanese government’s slow progress in promoting the media arts of Japanese culture both abroad and locally.

- Model-turned-Japanese pop star Leah Dizon will be launching her first nationwide tour. The biggest shock is that she actually wrote the lyrics for 10 songs in her latest album. Since she’s still trying to learn Japanese, I assume that they’ll be in English, right?

- Wrapping the weekend up with Hong Kong film news (this being Lovehkfilm), the Hong Kong newspapers suddenly all decided to spill information about the new Alan Mak-Felix Chong film starring Eason Chan and Sammi Cheng. Retitled “Big Investigation” (translated, of course), it’s supposed to be a comedy about a mob boss who needs detective Sammi Cheng to help bring back his son.

Here’s the Hong Kong Film blog coverage.

- It’s reviews time yet again, as Hollywood Reporter’s Maggie Lee has sent in her review of John Woo’s Red Cliff.

- Shiina Ringo has written Japanese band Tokio’s latest single, which will be used for the theme song of a drama this season.  Again, reporting this because I’m a fan.

- Hey, celebrity dancing shows and idol contest, the Chinese government says you can come back now because we’re all done with our collective, state-mandated mourning! They also say you should all be positive because the Olympics are coming!

- This week’s Teleview columns on the Daily Yomiuri looks at I Survived a Japanese Game Show and also some of the dramas this season.

- Instead of Youtube, Japanese public broadcaster NHK will be uploading their content onto video site Joost. I assume that the NHK fee men will not be coming up to your door and ask for subscription fees.

- Finally there’s a trailer for Ryu Seung Wan’s Dachimawa Lee that actually shows something from the movie. Looks like a fun period action romp from here.

- Heads up for those in Hong Kong that the summer edition of the Hong Kong International Film Festival, aka Summer Pops, has revealed their program. Sadly, most of the films either were simply films that pulled from the festival in March or films that already have release set in Hong Kong. I’ll still go, though.

- And it was a huge opening day for John Woo’s Red Cliff here at the Hong Kong box office. Despite a running time of 140 minutes (which means less shows, despite an inflated ticket price), the historical epic made HK$2 million from 60 screens, and newspapers are even reporting sold-out shows in the afternoon. Shows will likely be added over the weekend, and it’ll also likely hit the HK$10 million mark by the end of the weekend.

For kids who don’t care about the Three Kingdoms, Japanese animated film Keroro did fairly well also, opening on 30 screens for an opening day take of HK$776,000, and will also see a fair boost in business over the weekend, as kids films often do. It will also take away a chunk of audience for Kung Fu Panda, which made HK$569,000 from 54 screens on its 13th day of release. More on Monday.

Variety also looks at Red Cliff’s openings in other Asian countries.

- Japan Times’ Mark Schilling has posted what must be the first English-language review of Hayao Miyazaki’s Ponyo on a Cliff by the Sea.

- It first broke on Ryuganji, and now it’s pretty much everywhere: Japanese detective drama Aibou, whose film adapatation is the biggest hit for the first half of 2008, will be going the Bayside Shakedown route already with a spinoff film for one of its supporting characters.

- The latest Mummy film, shot and set in China as one of the highest-profile Chinese co-productions to date, is reportedly having its release held up by Chinese censorship authories, even though they shot with an approved script.

Saving more news for the weekend entries. See you then.

-

OK. Maybe two:

It ain’t bad, but it ain’t great, either. It also has lots of pigeons.

As always, Kozo will be doing the real review.

- It’s Japanese Oricon charts time! GReeeN!!! rules the album charts for the second week in a row, fending off newcomers Ellegarden and Shiina Ringo (debuting at 2nd and 4th place, respectively). Meanwhile, YUI’s latest takes the top spot at the singles chart in its first week.

More over at Tokyograph.

- Not surprisingly, Kung Fu Panda has now made 135 million yuan in China, making it the highest-grossing animated film in China ever.

- Ryuganji translate an editorial that puts into simple numbers why TV drama adaptations will continue in Japanese cinema as long as just a fraction of its audience goes to see the films.

- Grady Hendrix of Kaiju Shakedown writes about Asian actors participation in the latest Batman flick, including thespian/photo-addict Edison Chen’s one line in the film.

- Under “casting news” today, Jun Matsumoto will be starring in a drama special that is part of Nippon TV’s annual charity program. Matsumoto, hot off the success of Hana Yori Dango Final, is one of the two hosts of the 24-hour program.

Meanwhile, Takako Matsu will be starring alongside Tananobu Asano in a new film based on a story by Osamu Daza. Actually, I don’t believe this is Matsu’s first starring role, since she did star in April Story, which runs just barely over feature film running time of 60 minutes.

Lastly, Hideaki Ito will be playing the villain in the troubled Yoichi Sai production The Legend of Kamui. Wait a minute, Ekin Cheng is in it too!

- Major Japanese film distributor Shochiku has finally started its own Youtube channel for their own trailers. My Youtube source got shut down recently, but trailers are not hard to come by if one searches harder for them anyway. They’re at least on official website (with the exception of Ponyo and many Hong Kong films, of course).

- Speaking of trailers, Nippon Cinema has the full-length trailer for Tetsuya Nakashima’s Paco and the Magic Picture Book, and I’d say it makes the film look a lot more promising than its teasers did.

-  China will be the shooting location for a new film that will be shot using the innovative 4k digital technology, which holds 4 times the data of a usual digital movie. Of course, the word “dragon” is required to be in the title.

-The poor 400 orphan films that lost their home when UK distributor Tartan went under 2 weeks ago have found a new home with a new distributor, who will continue to buy films with the Tartan name attached.

- As expected, Hancock topped the Korean box office, as Hollywood films dominate for another weekend. However, Public Enemy Returns is reaching the 3 million admissions mark, though Crossing isn’t making much of a dent.

More at Korea Pop Wars

- Korea is not the only place where local films are suffering at the box office, as Bollywood is also posting a loss of about USD$37.5 million for the first 6 months of 2008.

- The controversy surrounding the “Waiwai” column on the English version of the Manichi Daily News website continues. Apparently, the newspaper is caving to those obsessed Japanese netizens by not only punishing those involved with the column, which translates Japanese tabloid magazine articles to English, but also carrying a thorough investigation into the column. I did read Waiwai, and I enjoyed reading it as trashy fun. While those responsible should’ve made it more clear about its sensational nature, isn’t it becoming a bit of a witch hunt now?

- With Kung Fu Panda now a major hit in China, Chinese filmmakers are asking why they can’t make that same type of film in their own country. Somewhat surprisingly, they get blame the government and live to tell about it.

- Danny Glover made a public appearance in Tokyo to talk about his latest film, the Japan-American co-production The Harimaya Bridge. He said that he hopes the film will bridge Japanese and American prejudices. I assume that means for America, they should get rid of stuff like I Survived a Japanese Game Show. As for Japan, they should probably not do something like this:

Yes, those are two Japanese actors doing Driving Miss Daisy in full make-up.

- It’s reviews time! First up is Variety’s Derek Elley’s very positive review for the Chinese comedy Two Stupid Eggs. He obviously liked it more than I did.  Hollywood Reporter has a few new reviews for some Bollywood flicks, but the one I’m most interested in is Lisa Tsering’s review for the sci-fi epic Love Story 2050.

- The life of Japanese boxer Daisuke Naito, which include being bullied at school and a period of isolation at home, will be turned into a TV movie. It will be shown at the end of the month.

- Jang Dong-Gun will supposedly be starring in Korean director Lee Myung-Se’s next film. However, the report may be talking about the documentary Earth, which is the shortened film version of the TV documentary Planet Earth. In Japan, the film was narrated by Ken Watanabe, and it was definitely not directed by Lee Myung-Se.

Correction: Turns out maybe the report, seems to be badly translated, is reporting that Jang will be narrating Earth after starring in Lee’s latest film M. Maybe.

- A Brazilian telenovela (the South American version of a soap opera) will be shooting in Indonesia. Wait, do they mean the whole thing?

- Another Japanese drama is going to the big screen. However, unlike your usual adaptations, this drama was shown on TV after midnight because it features nudity. No word on whether said gratuitous nudity will be translated to the big screen as well.

- Some netizens have pointed out that parts of the poster for John Woo’s Red Cliff resemble the poster for the Hollywood film 300. Who’s surprised that an Asian film would rip off Hollywood designs, and who’s surprised that there will be people complaining about it? I don’t see any hands raised.

- With Will Smith’s Hancock getting thrown into the mix, three Hollywood films took up a bulk of the Hong Kong box office over this past weekend. As expected, the superhero comedy took the top spot with HK$2.97 million from 58 screens on Sunday for a 4-day total of $HK10 million. Kung Fu Panda wasn’t far behind, either, with HK$2.43 million from 60 screens for a 11-day total of HK$19.45 million. Wanted is down at third place with HK$1.19 million from 41 screens for an impressive 11-day total of HK$17.43 million. This far outdoes Universal’s previous release, The Incredible Hulk, which has made only HK$12.02 million after 25 days.

Nim’s Island, which didn’t have a very impressive opening day on Thursday, saw a siginificant boost from the family business, making HK$206,000 from 19 screens. It doesn’t sound very good, but that’s more than double the opening day gross. After 4 days, the adventure film has made HK$600,000. The French film Ensemble is also still doing very good limited release business, making HK$44,000 from 4 screens on Sunday, and has since made HK$600,000 after 11 days.

-  In Japanese box office attendance figures, (insert adjective here) Hana Yori Dango Final tops the box office again, with Indiana Jones remaining in second place as well. The newsroom film Climber’s High managed to hit third place, while Speed Racer repeats its fate seen around the world with only a 5th place opening. They tried. More when the numbers come out.

- The new Summer 2008 Japanese drama season has started, and the number one show so far (by a mile) is Code Blue, the medical drama about lots of unbelievable pretty people aseembled into one team of helicopter doctors. On Thursday night, it scored a 21.2% rating, making it the highest number for a Summer drama at the Thursday 10 pm slot, and the 7th highest in the time slot’s history since it Fuji started showing dramas then in 1984. Meanwhile, the over-sensational Monster Parents (I saw the premiere episode in Japan. More on its sensational advertising in the future) premiered with a respectable 14.2% rating, especially when Muri Na Renai had that slot last season. This season’s Japanese remake of a Korean source material, Maou, debut with a 14% rating, which is not bad considering its Friday night slot. Doing not as well on the same night is the lottery drama Loto 6 de 3 Oku 2 Senmanen Ateta Otoko with ex-GTO Takashi Sorimachi, as it debut with a 12.4% rating. It wasn’t a very good show either. The latest drama with Beach Boys co-star Yotaka Takenouchi, the medical drama Tomorrow, did much better than Ryoteki Na Kanojo with its premiere episode, scoring a 16.8% rating.

Go to Tokyograph to see the description of Summer 2008 dramas.

As for Spring 2008 dramas still on air, CHANGE took a slight drop to under 20% again, and becoming less and less likely to beat Gokusen in the season average. Rookies has a very loyal fanbase, as its ratings continue to hover around 14-15%, and Hachi-One Diver got a big boost to a 9.4% for its 9th episode after the previous episode got only a 6.9% rating.

- John Woo’s Red Cliff is finally being unveiled this weekend throughout Asia, as its 140-minute part 1 will open in Hong Kong, China, Korea, and Taiwan this Thursday.

However, Korea will be getting a shorter version of the film, with distributor Showbox cutting 9 minutes of the film with Woo’s permission (though not necessarily blessings). If the film was so damn meaningful, then why cut even one minute of it?

- Meanwhile, Kaiju Shakedown looks at the slate of super patriotic Chinese films that will probably never sell at film markets around the world.

- A little late, but Jason Gray has posted what is probably the first English-language reaction to the potentially creepy Kodomo no Kodomo (”A Child’s Child”), and apparently it’s really not that bad.

- The Thai government is planning to attract more foreign productions with tax breaks that should come into effect next year. Currently, three high-profile films - one of them Hong Kong - are shooting there.

- The Korean brotherhood classic Friend is coming to television, with original director Kwak Kyung-Taek said to be including new stories that were not included in the original film. Still being written, the drama plans to be on TV early next year.

- Herman Yau, fresh off his latest gangland flick, is already starting work on a new film. This time, the film will be more in the vein of his 2007 film Whispers and Moans. About Hong Kong prostitutes, the film stars 80s-90s pop star Prudence Lau, Anthony Wong, Race Wong, and DJ Sammy. The current Chinese title of the flick directly translate to “I Don’t Sell My Body, I Only Sell my Uterus”.

- According to a producer at Milkyway, Johnnie To has considerably slowed down on productions and will not be following his usual schedule of 2-3 films a year after Sparrow.

Heading off to Tokyo one last time tomorrow, and heading back to Hong Kong on Sunday, so this will probably be the last entry until Monday.

- Japan’s Emobile has pulled their latest ad, which features their mascot, a monkey, at the podium of a crowded rally for change, which is meant to resemble the Barack Obama campaign. Of course, Americans believe that they’re the center of the world and think that the Japanese actually know about way to insult an African American, one of which is to compare them to monkeys. If Americans are that culturally sensitive, there wouldn’t Rush Hour movies, Kung Fu Panda, and I Survived a Japanese Game Show. Then again, if Japanese are that culturally sensitive, one of the comedians on a variety show wouldn’t have called Bobby Ologun “Jero” and “Billy” (as in Billy Blank).

- According to Apple Daily, Stephen Chow is teaming up with a Taiwanese film company to bring back Journey to the West (which he explored in the Chinese Odyssey films). According to the Hong Kong Film blog, Chow wanted to take the monk role, but was pressured by the financiers to take on the Monkey King role once more. The way the blog spins this story is that Chow is suffering from the critical bashing from CJ7 because he appeased the Mainland censors too much, and now needs to dig back out old material to please his audience and his financiers again. No word on whether he’ll be directing or just acting like he did with the previous films.

- Kaiju Shakedown clears up that the so-called Warlords DVD from yesterday’s post is not the Jet Li-Andy Lau-Peter Chan Warlords.

- Twitch has a 5-minute-plus promo clip from Mamoru Oshii’s Sky Crawlers.

They also have that 9-minute promo clip for John Woo’s Red Cliff that was shown at Cannes. The Oriental Daily asked stars what they thought of the film at the premiere, and they apparently all liked it. Then again, what with saying the trouble one can get in from saying the wrong thing and this being Oriental Daily, take it with a grain of salt.

- Yesterday I reported that Taiwan may lift their ban of Mainland performers, and now Chinese broadcasting organization Phoenix Broadcasting has applied again for landing rights on the island after Mainland media was banned from the island in 2005.

- Jason Gray points out that the official website for Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Tokyo Sonata has been updated with a classy new trailer. The trailer is also on Youtube if you want a slightly larger version.

- Variety’s Derek Elley has a review of Help, which is being touted as China’s first all-out horror film.

See you all back from Hong Kong on Monday.

- Our first and foremost jobs here at Lovehkfilm is to review movies, and we got some of those for you today. Boss Kozo has a review of Lawrence Lau/Scud’s City Without Baseball, a review of Korean hand ball flick Forever the Moment, a review of the Taiwanese film Soul of a Demon, and a review of Japanese dark comedy Funuke, Show Some Love, You Losers!. JMaruyama offers a review of Kwak Jae-Young’s Cyborg She, which he insists is a remake of Park Chan Wook’s I’m a Cyborg, but That’s OK, and that’s OK too. I myself offer a review of Don’t Laugh at My Romance and a review of cute puppy film A Tale of Mari and Three Puppies.

- It’s Japanese Oricon charts time! As expected, Arashi’s theme for the Hana Yori Dango movie debuted at the top, with an impressive 300,000+ copies sold. Shuchishin (aka the “stupid boy band”.  Really, that’s their nickname) not only survived to their second single, but also manage to sell 200,000+ copies of it. The album chart was also fairly crowded, with GReeeN!!! taking the top position for the first week of their second album, Ayaka’s 2nd following close behind, and Ketsumeishi debuting at a somewhat disappointing 3rd place. My newest idol Jero debuts at 5th with his first album.

More at Tokyograph.

- China loves Kung Fu Panda, as it has already become the most successful animated film ever in China with a box office take nearing 100 million yuan after 10 days. I don’t get that two days’ delay in Sichuan, though, which sounds more like distributor’s indecision more than anything else.

The earthquake didn’t exactly affect people’s moviegoing mood anyway, as May’s box office is up 26% from the previous year, prompting China Film Group to post a cryptic message that seem to spell either showing off or amazement.

- The Japanese news shows were all over a Wall Street Journal story this morning, which compared the rather unpopular Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda with current TV Prime Minister Kimura Takuya. Click on the first link, since going directly to the site won’t let you read the whole story.

-  Kaiju Shakedown’s Grady Hendrix looks at what’s going with The Warlords‘ western distribution ambitions, which has now dwindled down to a butchered DVD release.

- A bit late: Jason Gray offers a look by Midnight Eye’s Jasper Sharp on how Tartan UK came to meet their current fate of closing down.

- Lionsgate will be working with CJ Entertainment for Korean Wedding, aka “How Another White Man Falls in Love with Asian Girl and Finds Asian Culture Funny”.

- Taiwan may take a very significant step in continuing to improve relations with China by lifting their ban on Mainland Chinese performers, even though Taiwanese performers have been performing in the Mainland for years.

- An ad sales slump for Japanese television is causing board member of these TV stations to go from earning tons of money to earning just lots of money.

- After the success of the Ayaka-Kobukuro duet Winding Road, their record company is back for round two with another duet to be released.