Note: This blog expresses only the opinions of the blog owner, and does not represent the opinion of any organization or blog that is associated with The Golden Rock.
Like most “top 10″ lists, this list has its own bias. Since there is no real single market in Hong Kong music, I base my definition of qualified singles as songs that made it to the weekly 903 Top 20 chart from Hong Kong’s Commercial Radio 2 (Hong Kong’s most listened-to station) during the year 2007. This means songs from albums released in 2006 may get excluded because it was plugged in 2007 (Sorry, Juno Mak and Chapel of Dawn). I also only pick songs from Hong Kong-based artists, which means Mandarin artists such as Khalil Fong would be included since he’s based in a Hong Kong record company. Of course, I don’t expect everyone to agree with this list, either, as this is simply a matter of showing whatever is popular out there that also happens to agree with personal taste.
(In no particular order)
1. Denise “HOCC” Ho - Grain (木紋)
Though it’s written like your typical Karaoke-friendly ballad by Hong Kong pop’s Dad of the Year Louis Cheung, there’s something about Ho’s delivery and Carl Wong’s arrangement that makes this song stand up above the rest. And then there’s that minute-and-a-half prolonged outro, which is sadly not included in the MTV below.
2 - Khalil Fong/Fiona Sit - Foursome (四人遊)
A soulful ballad that works despite Fiona’s subpar Mandarin, this R&B Duet was the first standout track of 2007 and was one of the prime reasons I bought Fong’s album. The best part is that this isn’t even the best track of the album, but it’s probably the best Hong Kong pop duet of 2007.
3 - Zarahn - Strange Christmas City Night (怪誕城之夜)
In the liner notes, it was made clear that this song is a tribute to Tim Burton, with lyricist Wyman Wong sprinkling various references to his movies throughout. Even the song’s Chinese title is the Chinese title for A Nightmare Before Christmas. But forget the lyrics, this is what Hong Kong progressive rock ought to be.
4 - Hins Cheung - Lost in Omotesando (迷失表參道)
I know the big hit from the album is Ardently Love, but I think this hypnotic alternative genre-defying track is the best song of the album. Thanks, Hins, for not singing like you’re trying too hard on this song.
5 - Kelvin Kwan - What Am I To You? (你當我什麼)
I paid no attention to this 2006 newcomer until this super Karaoke-friendly ballad, which show that this guy might have some talent. Then again, it was really the melody (apparently written by a buddy of his) that captured me more than his singing. At least he can pull it off live.
6 - Fama - Feng Sheng Shui Qi (風生水起)
Cantonese rap with pop flavor and Chinese superstition thrown in, the silly hit rap-pop from the DJ Tommy-produced duo has an insanely addictive chorus. Even a contrived appearance by real Feng Shui expert Mak Ling Ling couldn’t sink this song.
7 - Miriam Yeung - All About Love
It’s the least Karaoke-friendly ballad by Hong Kong’s laugh queen, and it beats all the plugged songs from her previous album. All About Love sounds more like it could be by some European female-led pop group than a Hong Kong pop singer. That would be a compliment. Sadly, this live version isn’t the best way to show that.
8 - Juno Mak - Borrow a Light (借火)
Sorry, the duet track on Chapel of Dawn wasn’t as good as his first plug from his upcoming album. Vicky Fung, who wrote Poor U on Chapel of Dawn, returns for this Karaoke ballad about a romance that almost happened simply from borrowing a light for a cigarette. I don’t care whether Juno can sing this live, but I do care about the respiratory systems of those who attempt the verses at Karaoke.
I don’t have videos for these songs, but they deserve to be on the top 10 anyway:
9 - Kay Tse - The First Day (第一天)
Hong Kong pop’s Mom of the Year last single before giving birth to her first child is a light guitar-driven affair that brightens up the day of any hopeless romantic. Maybe the extra syrupy-sweetness comes from the fact that she was a newlywed at the time.
10 - Chan Fai Young/Lee Heung Kam/Shirley Kwan - 3000 Years Later (Remix) (三千年後)
A strange collaboration results in one of alternative Cantopop’s most haunting and beautiful singles of the year. The bittersweet monologue by Lee, the near-operatic chorus by Kwan, and Chan’s arrangement all come together nicely here. Too bad you need to understand Cantonese to truly appreciate it, especially that heartbreaking final line.
The blogger is on vacation right now in Japan, but that doesn’t mean he’s not tracking things in the Asian entertainment world: this morning I just saw a report on tv about divorcing Japanese celebrity couples.
Meanwhile, the 4 big movies are battling it out at the box office in Hong Kong, with Pang Ho-Cheung’s Trivial Matters making chump change on the side.
We’re also monitoring the middle finger Chinese authorities gave to Hollywood by allowing The Pursuit of Happyness to be played in China, but only on the country’s handful of digital screens.
Lastly, I realized the blog has hit its one year anniversary. I’ll acknowledge that properly in a day or two.
Until then, Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year to all of you!
We took a short break with the news stuff because of the general lack of news this week. But now we’re back.
- In Japanese drama ratings, several dramas have already wrapped up. Sadly, no drama has wrapped on their season-high ratings yet. Especially disappointing is the finale to this season’s hit drama Galileo, which wrapped up with a season-low 19.6 rating, which makes me wonder what they did to piss of the viewers. Nevertheless, it’s by far the hit of the season with a 21.9 average rating overall. Abarenbo Mama also wrapped up with an OK 14.2 rating after hitting a season low last week. Meanwhile, Dream Again and Mop Girl also saw a rebound in their ratings for their final episodes, wrapping up with 11.9 and 9.4, respectively. Even the super disappointment of the season, Hatachi No Koibito, managed to recover slightly for an 8.2 rating for its finale.
That should wrap up The Golden Rock’s coverage of this disappointing Japanese drama season.
- The nominations for the Japanese Academy Awards were announced. I was wondering where Tokyo Tower was when those other small awards were being announced, and now it shows up with a leading 13 nominations. That means it was nominated in every single category it was eligible for. While these type of films tend to end up sweeping the awards, this year there’s also Always 2, whose first installment swept that year’s awards. The hit sequel scored 12 nominations, with it not nominated only in the best actress category.
Also, there’s the current awards favorite, Masayuki Suo’s I Just Didn’t Do It, which picked up 11 nominations. With no clear leaders in the nominations (they tend to just nominate the same movies in every category, regardless whether the lighting direction in Tokyo Tower is good or not), these three will probably be be very close in awards count by award night.
- Almost forgot those Oricon charts. Exile ends up selling 670,000 copies of their latest album after they announced a million copies were shipped (as in shipped to stores, not sold, while V6 wins the singles chart, though Zard’s posthumous single managed to be right behind at 2nd place. Don’t be surprised if “Tupac”-like rumor starts popping up about Zard.
Forget Exile, Koda Kumi is still the queen of the Oricon charts, selling 7.3 billion yen worth of CDs and DVDs in 2007. Meanwhile, Sen No Kaze Ni Natte wins best-selling single, and Mr. Children has the year’s best-selling Japanese album.
- Hong Kong’s new Film Development Council is working on greelighting the first project to use their pool of US$38.5 million. However, while the conditions about the major talents being from Hong Kong are reasonable, the ones about having at least 50% financed by private sector and the director/producer having released at least two films in the last ten years….not so fair. Oh, and they’re not even judging on artistic merit, which means a Jingle Ma comedy - commercially appealing, but probably artistically vomit-inducing - can potentially get government funding.
That’s it, The Golden Rock is going on vacation. That means daily posts will not happen until after the new year. There’s still a few entries coming up, but this will be the last news post of the year, unless something big comes up.
I decided not to write an entry last night because 1) There wasn’t enough news to cover, and 2) Most box office figures weren’t out yet, especially for the I am Legend vs. The Warlords battle in Hong Kong. Turns out those Sunday box office figures came out later last night, after I decided not to write an entry and did something more worthwhile with my time (read: stuff I get paid to do with deadlines attached). Then it was too late, as now.com has already posted the Monday numbers. It’s ok, though, because I was blessed with the gift of subtraction.
- Thanks to the sheer number of screens, The Warlords win over I am Legend by making HK$8.55 million over 4 days from 68-71 screens. Meanwhile, the Will Smith apocalyptic drama made HK$7.77 million from 55-61 screens (how these films gain and lose screens I have no idea). So in per-screen averages, I am Legend actually beats The Warlords. However, one excuse for that is that The Warlords runs half an hour longer than I Am Legend, hence one less show per day. That means these two are actually pretty much neck-to-neck in terms of box office success. Of course, with 10 more screens, The Warlords is going to win in pure cash, and it has much more positive word-of-mouth that Legend right now. So in the long run, I predict The Warlords will be the winner of the season, unless The Golden Compass has some latent potential.
Do remember that at least half the theaters in Hong Kong have a price inflation system for both Legend and Warlords, which means their grosses are inflated by about 5-10% than a film at normal ticket prices.
Looking at other opening films, Alvin and the Chipmunks managed to make HK$1.31 million over 4 days from about 30 screens, with business seeing a significant rise over the weekend. Considering that it already saw decreased shows per screen (I don’t remember seeing any showings for it after 8 pm), it’s a respectable figure. The French animated film Persepolis (saw this yesterday and liked it) opened on 2 screens (one with the French version, one with the English) and made a respectable HK$137,000 over 4 days.
As for holdovers, Mad Detective is hanging on, with HK$10.79 million in the bank as of Monday, and so did Lust, Caution, which still managed a HK$10,000-and-above per-screen average on Monday, despite it being released on DVD this week. Lastly, Tokyo Tower passed the HK$5 million mark, while Danny Pang’s In Love With the Dead will likely not get there with just HK$4.85 million and counting.
- I am Legend, meanwhile, opened on top of the Japanese box office with 580 million yen over two days from 422 screens. That opening is 115% of I, Robot’s opening, which led to a final gross of 3.75 billion yen. However, the word-of-mouth on it isn’t very good (scroll slightly down to see the vote results), but big Hollywood blockbusters tend to have some legs, and it’ll pass the 2 billion yen mark anyway.
Meanwhile, the Tamagotchi movie (yes, that Tamagotchi) opens at third place, while last week’s winner Mari and the Three Puppies loses only 18% of last week’s business. On the other hand, major fall hits Koizora and Always 2 both drop by nearly 40%. With big year-end movies opening, Tsubaki Sanjuro and Beowulf are losing their businesses big time, dropping by 36% and 53%, respectively. Neither films are likely to each the 1 billion yen mark now. Lastly, the Korean hit comedy 200 Pounds Beauty opened fairly weak at 12th place and a per-screen average of less than $1,200.
- In Korea, I Am Legend opened at first with nearly one million admissions, while Sex is Zero 2 opens at second place with a fairly impressive gross (no pun intended) as well. More details at Korea Pop Wars.
Meanwhile, in box office-related news from Korea, producers have been suffering from low ancillary income (DVD, TV, etc) as well as foreign sales. So now they’re turning to the last resort: raise ticket prices.
- I’ve been trying to post this for days - it’s the first trailer for Empress and and the Warriors, starring Donnie Yen, Kelly Chan, and Leon Lai. I’ve been suffering from big-budget period film fatigue since I saw The Warlords on Thursday so badly that I really wish a few of these things flop so we’d see something new. Then again, this will probably be a hit anyway, and we’ll probably see more big-budget martial arts flick co-produced with China for years to come, keeping famous action choreographers working. At least this one looks like it’ll be in Cantonese.
- Jason Gray checks out the Japanese indie comedy Zenzen Daijobu, starring Arakawa Yoshiyoshi, and he seems to like it. Too bad it won’t be in theaters when I’m in Japan.
- The cast list for the Stephen Chow-produced Hollywood version of Dragonball is shaping up, with Emmy Rossom having just signed on. Sorry, I still have quite a bit of doubts about whether this movie is going to work or not.
- Japan Times has an interview with Ken Watanabe, who just took a year off and is coming back out to do the Japanese narration for the documentary Planet Earth.
- I’m assuming that Takeshi Kaneshiro is done with his latest film about death, because he has just signed on to star in Fiend With Twenty Faces with Takako Matsu. Kaneshiro will play a master criminal and Matsu his victim. Does that mean he’ll be playing a villain? Interesting….
- Another Japanese movie you can look forward to is Homeless Chugakusei (Homeless Middle Schooler), an autobiography by a comedian recalling his days in poverty. The book achieved one million sales within two months, which would explain why the movie was announced within three months of the book’s release.
- In a preview of Wednesday’s report on the Oricon charts, Exile (which is just two guys singing and 4 backup dancers) announces their latest album has shipped one million copies, and has sold hundreds of thousands of those copies since its release on Wednesday.
Cantonese film is sadly dying a slow death. Last year, the Mandarin film Curse of the Golden Flower ruled the box office, though Andrew Lau/Alan Mak’s Confession of Pain gave it a run for its money. This year, the big Chinese flick is once again a Mandarin film, though the director and one of its star are Hong Kong-based. Thankfully, Pang Ho-Cheung comes to the rescue with Trivial Matters - an adaptation of seven short stories Pang wrote and directed himself. This time, Pang and producer Chapman To called in all their favors and got a ton of young stars - including Eason Chan, Edison Chan, Juno Mak, Gillian Chung, Stephy Tang, Stephanie Chang, Chapman’s wife Crystal Tin, Jan Lam, Shawn Yue, Conroy Chan, and even director Feng Xiaogang and composer Peter Kam.
The films themselves range from 3 minutes to 15-20 minutes, and push the limits of the II-B rating. It’s amazing that they would give Mad Detective a category III for an ear slicing when Trivial Matters got passed with a II-B, despite Cantonese curse words, nudity, sex, and drug content.
There are short clips from almost all the short stories floating around online, but I won’t post them here. I can assure you that not watching these clips actually help the enjoyment of the film, though they really helped raise expectations. I can also tell you that the good shorts far outweigh the bad. The only one that really didn’t need to be there is the short 3-minute film (more “scene” than “film”, really) with Edison Chan and Stephanie Chang that is completely in English. Amusing, but needless.
So instead of watching a ton of money spent on screen blowing shit up, why not spend a few bucks to support the last true Hong Kong movie of the year? I highly recommend Trivial Matters.
I apologize for the incomprehensible front page blurb yesterday, and kids: remember to actually click “publish,” even when you’re too sleepy.
- It’s review time! Twitch has two reviews of Peter Chan’s The Warlords: review one, review two.
I know no one wants to know what I think about The Warlords, but I’ll say it anyway: Battle of Wits was a better war movie. The Warlords had better drama. You know what that means? Peter Chan: Stick to what you know best.
- One drama that will probably not end up winning a Teleview Award is the Japanese drama adaptation of My Sassy Girl coming in the Spring starring SMAP member Tsuyoshi Kusanagi and Rena Tanaka. Still, it might actually be entertaining for what it is, or it could contrived and needlessly melodramatic. In case of most Japanese dramas, it’ll probably be both. They’ve got a SMAP member playing a Marine Biology Professor, for crying out loud.
That’s it for today. Tomorrow - perhaps a short review of Pang Ho-Cheung’s latest Trivial Matters. We’ll see how we recover.
- Let’s start with a wrap up of this past weekend’s Japanese box office. A Tale of Mari and Three Puppies opens pretty big with 280 million yen, which is actually 118% of the opening for another hit puppy film Quills (which grossed 2.22 billion yen). Meanwhile, it’s revealed that Always 2 lost its position because it lost 39% of its business while Koizora lost only 27% of its business. However, Always 2 still has the higher gross, and Koizora is not likely to beat it.
In holdovers from last week, Beowulf dropped 41% from the last weekend, and 1 billion yen is going to be a bit of a climb. The Sanjuro remake dropped by a little less, but still suffered a loss of 38%, and will also have a tough climb to that 1 billion yen mark.
Kenta Fukasaku’s X Cross finally showed up to the box office charts, except it doesn’t look good: It’s all the way down in 14th place, despite opening on 148 screens.
- How about them Oricon charts? In summary - B’z wins again, Yui Aragaki scores an OK debut album, Keisuke Kuwata finds another reason to stay a solo artist, and DJ Ozma still has a music career? More over at Tokyograph.
- Peter Chan’s Warlords finally opens tomorrow in Hong Kong. It’s the big-budget action war epic of the season (worthy of a ticket price bump is most Hong Kong theaters, even), but Chan says he actually wanted to make a movie about something.
- Under “big celebrity news” today, Hong Kong film star Rosamund Kwan has announced that she is officially retiring from film work and will concentrate of working outside the entertainment industry. This was kind of expected, considering that her last film was all the way back in 2005, but I thought she was just taking it easy.
Sorry for the short update. This blogger is really sleepy tonight. Posting will resume as soon as possible.
- Let’s look at the Japanese TV drama ratings. As previewed last week, Galileo dipped below 20% rating for the first time all season, though only to a 19.9 rating. It’s no disaster yet, but it’s still the lowest rating of the season, though its average rating is still at 22%. Other dramas that saw their season-lows this past week: Abarebo Mama (at 11.0), Suwan No Baka (at 6.8), Hataraki Man (which dropped ALL THE WAY to 7.9 from 13.2 the previous week), Kimpachi Sensei (at 7.1), Joshi Deka (at 7.1), Mop Girl (at 9.2), and as always - Hatachi No Koibito (at 6.4).
On a positive note, Iryu 2 is on an upswing, with its ratings going up for a second week in a row. Utahime is also climbing a slow road up, and SP is still as solid as ever with a 14.6 rating.
- John Woo’s enormous and troubled epic The Battle of Red Cliff finally wrapped principal photography, though second unit photography is continuing until February. And by troubled, we mean there were rumors of deaths on the set, though producer Terence Cheng denies them.
- As the Korean Wave begins to recede, a new Japanese wave is slowly hitting the shore of Korea, as 21 films in the past 2 years were actually based on original Japanese content, much higher than the 5 produced between 2001-2005. Does it have anything to do with cramming too much into a marketplace that doesn’t have enough talents to begin with?
- The Hong Kong Sunday numbers are out (seemingly coming out earlier and earlier after mov3.com went down for good), and Mad Detective takes the weekend again. It didn’t see a very big drop, as the Johnnie To/Wai Ka-Fai film made another HK$806,000 from 36 screens on Sunday for an 11-day total of HK$8.55 million. It’s extremely likely that the film will pass the HK$10 million mark, making it Milkyway’s most successful film since the Election flicks, which were also the last Milkyway category III (no one under 18 admitted) films.
In Love With the Dead, the latest from Danny Pang (of the Pang Brothers), also managed to hang on to second place in the second weekend. However, it only made HK$290,000 from 31 screens on Sunday for an 11-day total of HK$4.29 million. It will likely wrap up its run with a take similar to brother Oxide’s The Detective (I predicted last week that it wouldn’t). More astonishing is the staying power of the Japanese tearjerker Tokyo Tower, which made another HK$220,000 from 12 screens for a 25-day total of HK$4.56 million. With steady word-of-mouth, it may even surpass the Hong Kong gross for Kimura Takuya’s Hero when it’s all over. Meanwhile, the Hollywood comedy The Heartbreak Kid is also enjoying a healthy run as it stays in 3rd place on Sunday with HK$247,000 from 25 screens for an 18-day gross of HK$5.15 million.
The weekend’s only opener on the top 10 is Robert Benton’s Feast of Love, which did OK with HK$124,000 from 10 screens for a 4-day total of HK$450,000. Golden Horse winner Lust, Caution is still alive and well with HK$133,000 from 10 screens on Sunday for a 75-day total of HK$47.65 million, inching ever-so-slowly to HK$48 million. Still, I don’t expect it to pass the HK$50 million mark. Lastly, Andrew Lau’s Hollywood debut The Flock made just HK$42,000 from 16 screens for a 11-day total of just HK$650,000.
Speaking of Hong Kong directors in Hollywood, the Hong Kong Film blog actually mentions that Hong Kong directors’ Hollywood debut don’t fare well in Hong Kong anyway. For instance:
John Woo’s Hard Target - HK$2.56 million
Ringo Lam’s Maximum Risk - HK$2.38 million
Tsui Hark’s Double Team - HK$3.79 million
Ronny Yu’s Warriors of Virtue - HK$430,000
Kirk Wong’s The Big Hit - HK$1.32 million
Peter Chan’s Love Letter - HK$870,000
and of course, to add my own figures - The Pang Brothers’ The Messengers made around HK$4-5 million earlier in the year.
- In South Korea, the Hollywood family flick August Rush (partly financed by CJ Entertainment) made the top spot again, now with 826,000 admissions after two weekends. Lust, Caution continues to roll with over 1.6 million admissions, and expected to continue growing after its wins at the Golden Horse Awards. More over at Korea Pop Wars.
- In Japanese attendance charts, Always 2 have been bumped off its number 1 spot to third place by the new family film A Tale of Mari and Three Puppies (A family film with dogs in natural disasters), while Koizora stays at number 2. Everything below that moves down one place. We’ll see how much business they lost in a day or two.
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