- Reviews for this year’s Venice surprise film - Johnnie To’s Mad Detective starring Lau Ching-Wan - are out from the two big trade papers. Variety’s Derek Elley calls it a neat idea that doesn’t quite hit the bull’s eye, and that it’s a rewrite or two away from achieving the rigor of a To movie. On the other hand, Hollywood Reporter’s Ray Bennett, who can’t seem to spell “Johnnie” right, is a lot kinder, calling it concise and artful.

- Sony is changing their focus, putting more emphasis on foreign films when they realized that these foreign films don’t need investors, but rather a widespread distribution network that Sony can offer.

- Takashi Miike’s latest Sukiyaki Western Django had its screening at Venice. However, responses from journalists and festival audiences are quite different. Sorry, guys, I can’t get excited about a Takashi Miike film as some of you may do.

- Leah Dizon is really starting to get huge not just in Japan (forget the fact that her last single didn’t sell much), but in the rest of Asia as well. Her debut album, which will no doubt feature lots of easy-to-sing song with carefully pronounced Japanese, will be released simultaneously in 9 countries. However, I doubt a number of her fans are fans because of her singing. I suspect this might have something to do with it.

- It saw a screening at Venice, and it opens this weekend at home: Japan Times’s March Schilling has a review of Shinji Aoyama’s latest Sad Vacation, which supposedly wraps up a Kita Kyushu Saga. Along with that, Japan Times also has an interview with Aoyama himself. In addition, it’s been out for a while, but there’s also a review of the documentary The Cats of Mirikitani.

- Twitch has a review of Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution from Toronto, calling it the most disappointing film at the festival so far. Ouch.

- By the way, Jacky Cheung is singing the theme song for Lust, Caution, presumably before he got sick and canceled his concerts

- The Singapore-based Asian Film Archive is getting a donation of 90 Malaysian classic films that will be restored and archived (but of course. That’s what an archive is for).

- They never succeed, but they keep trying: a Hong Kong-based sports media company has signed a deal to broadcast National Football League (American football) games across Asia. This comes after several hurdles to bring NFL outside the United States, including the postponement of an exhibition game in China and the closure of the NFL European League.

- They’re outsourcing everything to India these days. Even Sony is outsourcing the production of their direct-to-video sequel to the animated film Open Season to India and New Mexico (that’s in America, not Mexico).

- The Thursday Hong Kong box office was very quiet, considering that it’s the first opening day since the school year have started. I don’t know why they moved a youth-oriented film like Nakara 19 to this weekend, but it did top the box office. However, it only made HK$220,000 from 30 screens to become number 1, which should say a lot about the rest of the chart. The second-biggest opener is the Hollywood musical Hairspray, which made HK$170,000 from 17 screens on opening day. From ticket sales, it should have a healthy per-screen average this weekend.

A film that surprisingly got a higher per-screen average is the Alfred Cheung “romantic” comedy Contract Lover. On only 10 screens (it was on 27 last week), the film managed to break the HK$10,000 per-screen mark to make HK$110,000. After 8 days, the Mainland-targeted comedy has made HK$1.64 million.

Back to the rest of the openers - the Japanese horror film Apartment 1303 (not to be confused with the Hollywood horror film 1408, which will be showing here soon as well) made a weak HK$70,000 from 10 screens; The Last Mimzy made only HK$50,000 from 11 screens (maybe it’ll pick up in the weekend with the kids audience); and the chick flick Evening made HK$40,000 from its 5 screen limited release. With 7 openers, that leaves 2 movies out - the Korean horror flick Arang and the Japanese romance Heavenly Forest. Both films opened on 9 screens and made less HK$40,000. They’ll be gone in a few days.

- Outdated by a few days, but let’s talk Japanese box office numbers. Rush Hour 3 only took a 37% plunge to drop from 1st place to 6th place; Tengoku De Kimi Ni Aetara actually saw a 7% rise to get up to 2nd place. In fact, all the other movies moved by so little that Rush Hour 3 and Taxi 4’s drops seems larger in comparison. Hell, even Harry Potter managed to lose just 7% of its audience in its 7th week. Was it that good?

No news post today, but at least a Song of the Day is coming up. Sorry, but there are just not enough news this weekend to go around.

- The Thursday Hong Kong box office was very quiet, considering that it’s the first opening day since the school year have started. I don’t know why they moved a youth-oriented film like Nakara 19 to this weekend, but it did top the box office. However, it only made HK$220,000 from 30 screens to become number 1, which should say a lot about the rest of the chart. The second-biggest opener is the Hollywood musical Hairspray, which made HK$170,000 from 17 screens on opening day. From ticket sales, it should have a healthy per-screen average this weekend.

A film that surprisingly got a higher per-screen average is the Alfred Cheung “romantic” comedy Contract Lover. On only 10 screens (it was on 27 last week), the film managed to break the HK$10,000 per-screen mark to make HK$110,000. After 8 days, the Mainland-targeted comedy has made HK$1.64 million.

Back to the rest of the openers - the Japanese horror film Apartment 1303 (not to be confused with the Hollywood horror film 1408, which will be showing here soon as well) made a weak HK$70,000 from 10 screens; The Last Mimzy made only HK$50,000 from 11 screens (maybe it’ll pick up in the weekend with the kids audience); and the chick flick Evening made HK$40,000 from its 5 screen limited release. With 7 openers, that leaves 2 movies out - the Korean horror flick Arang and the Japanese romance Heavenly Forest. Both films opened on 9 screens and made less HK$40,000. They’ll be gone in a few days.

- Outdated by a few days, but let’s talk Japanese box office numbers. Rush Hour 3 only took a 37% plunge to drop from 1st place to 6th place; Tengoku De Kimi Ni Aetara actually saw a 7% rise to get up to 2nd place. In fact, all the other movies moved by so little that Rush Hour 3 and Taxi 4’s drops seems larger in comparison. Hell, even Harry Potter managed to lose just 7% of its audience in its 7th week. Was it that good?

No news post today, but at least a Song of the Day is coming up. Sorry, but there are just not enough news this weekend to go around.

We apologize for skipping yesterday’s entry, but school and movie stuff reared its ugly head at the same time, and this blogger chose to write a 3-page script for school than a really long entry in a news blog not enough people read. Plus waiting almost 3 hours to not be able to get Eason Chan tickets this morning really pissed us off. But we’ll make it up in a bit.

- Let’s go over the Oricon charts really quickly. On the single chart, L’Arc~en~ciel’s latest got its number 1 debut, selling over 110,000 copies. The second and third places were close, with Exile finally winning out Utada Hikaru’s latest by only 1,700 copies in total weekly sales. Exile (which really is just two guys singing and a bunch of people dancing) sold 95,299, and Utada Hikaru sold 93, 518. See how close that was? Next week, expect me to possibly not report the number 1 debut of Arashi’s latest single.

As expected, pop rap group Ketsumeishi (imagine a hybrid of reggae, hip-hop, and pop influence blended into one) saw yet another huge debut for their 5th album on the album chart. Selling 430,000 copies (this might be a decrease from their previous album), this makes the group’s 4th number 1 album debut in a row. Hell, I’ll eventually pick up a copy too. Meanwhile, rock-pop group Porno Graffiti’s latest did an impressive 140,000 copies, but could only muster a second place when up against the Ketsumeishi boys. Hideaki Tokunaga’s cover album continues to sell well enough to drop by just one spot. Next week, expect Dragon Ash’s two compilations (I really hate this new trend of releasing one compilation as two albums) to rule the chart.

- It’s reviews time! LoveHKfilm’s Kozo reviews romantic comedy stinker Contract Lover, Jingle Ma’s “where the hell did that come from” romance Love in the City, and the Japanese comedy Bubble Fiction: Boom or Bust. Sanjuro reviews the classic martial arts insult New Game of Death and the Japanese “pure love” film Angel’s Egg (Erika Sawajiri again??). There’s also a review of the Korean satire The President’s Last Bang by yours truly.

Hollywood Reporter has Ray Bennett’s reviews of Jiang Wen’s The Sun Also Rises and Lee Kang-Sheng’s Help Me Eros, the sole “Taiwan” representative at Venice. Lastly, Variety has reviews of Help Me Eros and Jia Zhangke’s latest documentary Useless.

- Speaking of Help Me Eros, Twitch has a link to the trailer. However, everything in that trailer feel so Tsai Ming-Liang, including the detached eroticism, that I’m honestly not all that interested.

- I first thought it was just a really funny rumor, but looks like Kirk Wong’s remake of The Five Venoms looks like it’s on. The funny part? It’ll star Edison Chen, Maggie Q, Leehom Wang, and Wu Jing.

- Under “silly China!” news today, the expected blackout date for non-Chinese/non-communist-patriotic films is coming up, as China comes up to its October Party Congress/Party establishment anniversary date. While it was expected that Hollywood would get blocked out, even Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution is getting delayed until the end of the Party Congress.

- Thanks to D-War and May 18, Korean films just had its biggest month, with the highest recorded amount of admissions within a month. Just August alone, Korean films took up 79.6% of the market.

- While Korean special effects blockbuster The Host took its special effects to Hollywood, a Hollywood film just took its special effects to Korea. OK, China/Hollywood co-production and all, but my point about the reversal remains.

- After news that Fruit Chan is making a film about a young Bruce Lee that’ll be produced by Terence Chang, another piece of news has come out reporting that Hong Kong’s favorite indie director will be directing an English remake of a Japanese horror film. According to the report, this is Chan’s attempt to no longer be labeled as an art-house director. He could’ve made a better choice, though.

Last, but definitely not least; Miyoshi Umeki, the first Asian to win an Academy Award for performance, has passed away. Our condolences to her family.

Coming up on the spin-off tomorrow: Review of Pang Ho-Cheung’s latest, and why the hell did i spend 3 hours to end up not getting any Eason Chan concert tickets.

We apologize for skipping yesterday’s entry, but school and movie stuff reared its ugly head at the same time, and this blogger chose to write a 3-page script for school than a really long entry in a news blog not enough people read. Plus waiting almost 3 hours to not be able to get Eason Chan tickets this morning really pissed us off. But we’ll make it up in a bit.

- Let’s go over the Oricon charts really quickly. On the single chart, L’Arc~en~ciel’s latest got its number 1 debut, selling over 110,000 copies. The second and third places were close, with Exile finally winning out Utada Hikaru’s latest by only 1,700 copies in total weekly sales. Exile (which really is just two guys singing and a bunch of people dancing) sold 95,299, and Utada Hikaru sold 93, 518. See how close that was? Next week, expect me to possibly not report the number 1 debut of Arashi’s latest single.

As expected, pop rap group Ketsumeishi (imagine a hybrid of reggae, hip-hop, and pop influence blended into one) saw yet another huge debut for their 5th album on the album chart. Selling 430,000 copies (this might be a decrease from their previous album), this makes the group’s 4th number 1 album debut in a row. Hell, I’ll eventually pick up a copy too. Meanwhile, rock-pop group Porno Graffiti’s latest did an impressive 140,000 copies, but could only muster a second place when up against the Ketsumeishi boys. Hideaki Tokunaga’s cover album continues to sell well enough to drop by just one spot. Next week, expect Dragon Ash’s two compilations (I really hate this new trend of releasing one compilation as two albums) to rule the chart.

- It’s reviews time! LoveHKfilm’s Kozo reviews romantic comedy stinker Contract Lover, Jingle Ma’s “where the hell did that come from” romance Love in the City, and the Japanese comedy Bubble Fiction: Boom or Bust. Sanjuro reviews the classic martial arts insult New Game of Death and the Japanese “pure love” film Angel’s Egg (Erika Sawajiri again??). There’s also a review of the Korean satire The President’s Last Bang by yours truly.

Hollywood Reporter has Ray Bennett’s reviews of Jiang Wen’s The Sun Also Rises and Lee Kang-Sheng’s Help Me Eros, the sole “Taiwan” representative at Venice. Lastly, Variety has reviews of Help Me Eros and Jia Zhangke’s latest documentary Useless.

- Speaking of Help Me Eros, Twitch has a link to the trailer. However, everything in that trailer feel so Tsai Ming-Liang, including the detached eroticism, that I’m honestly not all that interested.

- I first thought it was just a really funny rumor, but looks like Kirk Wong’s remake of The Five Venoms looks like it’s on. The funny part? It’ll star Edison Chen, Maggie Q, Leehom Wang, and Wu Jing.

- Under “silly China!” news today, the expected blackout date for non-Chinese/non-communist-patriotic films is coming up, as China comes up to its October Party Congress/Party establishment anniversary date. While it was expected that Hollywood would get blocked out, even Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution is getting delayed until the end of the Party Congress.

- Thanks to D-War and May 18, Korean films just had its biggest month, with the highest recorded amount of admissions within a month. Just August alone, Korean films took up 79.6% of the market.

- While Korean special effects blockbuster The Host took its special effects to Hollywood, a Hollywood film just took its special effects to Korea. OK, China/Hollywood co-production and all, but my point about the reversal remains.

- After news that Fruit Chan is making a film about a young Bruce Lee that’ll be produced by Terence Chang, another piece of news has come out reporting that Hong Kong’s favorite indie director will be directing an English remake of a Japanese horror film. According to the report, this is Chan’s attempt to no longer be labeled as an art-house director. He could’ve made a better choice, though.

Last, but definitely not least; Miyoshi Umeki, the first Asian to win an Academy Award for performance, has passed away. Our condolences to her family.

Coming up on the spin-off tomorrow: Review of Pang Ho-Cheung’s latest, and why the hell did i spend 3 hours to end up not getting any Eason Chan concert tickets.

- There’s not much to report in terms of box office numbers, but everyone was surprised as I was that Evangelion 1.0 opened so huge. It was apparently so huge (280 million yen on just 84 screens!) that one cinema couldn’t even accommodate the crowd after moving the film to a theater 5 times larger.

- Slightly outdated, but reviews for Shinji Aoyama’s latest Sad Vacation are coming in. Variety gave it a bit of a pan, while Twitch seemed to like it. Honestly, I’ve never seen a Shinji Aoyama thing, fearing that it’s not really my thing.

- Variety also has a review of Jiang Wen’s The Sun Also Rises, with Derek Elley calling the film’s enjoyment dependent on individual tolerance for cranked-up visuals and acting. Does that mean there’s not much beneath the visuals and acting?

- This has absolutely nothing to do with Asian films, but rather pure interest. Wes Anderson’s latest The Darjeeling Limited had its premiere in Venice, but sadly under the shadow of star/co-writer Owen Wilson’s suicide attempt. The reviews from the two big trade papers are out, with Variety saying that it’s closer to The Royal Tennenbaums than The Life Aquatic (that would be a good thing, although I liked both very much). However, Hollywood Reporter’s Ray Bennett calls it a third rate Hope and Crosby movie with no big laughs and nothing to say.

- Sorry to those who had tickets to the last two Jacky Cheung concert: the second-to-the-last show was canceled at the very last minutes because the legendary singer got ill and he claims that he couldn’t even sing one-third of the songs, failing his basic requirement as a singer. When his cold didn’t get any better, he canceled the final show last night as well. Still, I’ll bet he sings better than those Twin girls even when he’s sick…

Anyway, if you hold those tickets, go and redeem the tickets for the make-up shows at the end of January 2008.

- Imagethief goes over point-by-point on how the report of China Film Group chairman Han Sanping said about China needing more patriotic films is not something that should happen to the Chinese film industry. This quote sums it all up: “…government involvement in any aspect of popular culture, unless it is simply cutting a check, is generally bad form. This is because politicians and bureaucrats are, by and large, crappy arbiters of taste.”

- MCL, whose Kornhill cinema is honestly not that great, is working with a property firm named Shaw (not THAT Shaw, right) to open the largest multiplex in Hong Kong. I hope they have sound separation better there then MCL Kornhill.

- A trailer for the Hollywood remake for the Japanese horror flick One Missed Call is up. I never saw the original, but anyone still complaining about PG-13 horror movies should know that it didn’t even get any restrictive rating in Japan (maybe a PG-12?)

- The live-action Grave of the Fireflies has started filming, but there’s still no information on who’s behind the film.

- Not sure who’s interested, but the Canadian period film Silk, starring Michael Pitt and Keira Knightley (her in another period film??) will be closing the Tokyo International Film Festival this year.

- There’s not much to report in terms of box office numbers, but everyone was surprised as I was that Evangelion 1.0 opened so huge. It was apparently so huge (280 million yen on just 84 screens!) that one cinema couldn’t even accommodate the crowd after moving the film to a theater 5 times larger.

- Slightly outdated, but reviews for Shinji Aoyama’s latest Sad Vacation are coming in. Variety gave it a bit of a pan, while Twitch seemed to like it. Honestly, I’ve never seen a Shinji Aoyama thing, fearing that it’s not really my thing.

- Variety also has a review of Jiang Wen’s The Sun Also Rises, with Derek Elley calling the film’s enjoyment dependent on individual tolerance for cranked-up visuals and acting. Does that mean there’s not much beneath the visuals and acting?

- This has absolutely nothing to do with Asian films, but rather pure interest. Wes Anderson’s latest The Darjeeling Limited had its premiere in Venice, but sadly under the shadow of star/co-writer Owen Wilson’s suicide attempt. The reviews from the two big trade papers are out, with Variety saying that it’s closer to The Royal Tennenbaums than The Life Aquatic (that would be a good thing, although I liked both very much). However, Hollywood Reporter’s Ray Bennett calls it a third rate Hope and Crosby movie with no big laughs and nothing to say.

- Sorry to those who had tickets to the last two Jacky Cheung concert: the second-to-the-last show was canceled at the very last minutes because the legendary singer got ill and he claims that he couldn’t even sing one-third of the songs, failing his basic requirement as a singer. When his cold didn’t get any better, he canceled the final show last night as well. Still, I’ll bet he sings better than those Twin girls even when he’s sick…

Anyway, if you hold those tickets, go and redeem the tickets for the make-up shows at the end of January 2008.

- Imagethief goes over point-by-point on how the report of China Film Group chairman Han Sanping said about China needing more patriotic films is not something that should happen to the Chinese film industry. This quote sums it all up: “…government involvement in any aspect of popular culture, unless it is simply cutting a check, is generally bad form. This is because politicians and bureaucrats are, by and large, crappy arbiters of taste.”

- MCL, whose Kornhill cinema is honestly not that great, is working with a property firm named Shaw (not THAT Shaw, right) to open the largest multiplex in Hong Kong. I hope they have sound separation better there then MCL Kornhill.

- A trailer for the Hollywood remake for the Japanese horror flick One Missed Call is up. I never saw the original, but anyone still complaining about PG-13 horror movies should know that it didn’t even get any restrictive rating in Japan (maybe a PG-12?)

- The live-action Grave of the Fireflies has started filming, but there’s still no information on who’s behind the film.

- Not sure who’s interested, but the Canadian period film Silk, starring Michael Pitt and Keira Knightley (her in another period film??) will be closing the Tokyo International Film Festival this year.

- Hong Kong Sunday box office was pretty well spread out across the top 10, partly because it’s the last weekend before schools start in the city. Standing out above and beyond Evan Almighty, which is performing and holding up surprisingly well. From just 29 screens, the underperformer (at least in North America) made another HK$810,0000. After 11 days, the film has already made HK$8.62 million. Not a blockbuster, but a very healthy take for a sequel with an unknown leading man.

As for those 7 opening films, only 3 made it to the top 10. Disturbia got bumped down to third place with HK$290,000 from 24 screens to make it the best performer out of the 7. After 4 days, the teen thriller has made HK$1.19 million, perhaps only fueled by the success of Transformers. The Korean puppy film Hearty Paws saw an increase over the weekend, making HK$270,000 from 20 screen for a 4-day total of HK$800,000. Hearty Paws bumped down Alfred Cheung’s Contract Lover (my pan here), who almost made the HK$1 million mark on Sunday by making only HK$250,000 from 26 screens. After 4 days, the lazy Mainland Chinese comedy made HK$960,000.

One film noticeably missing from the top 10 is the Japanese animated film The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. The late-afternoon screening I attended yesterday of the Japanese version was COMPLETELY full, but the performance in the Cantonese-dub theaters was probably too weak to push it up to the top 10.

HK$7.8=US$1

So now the Hong Kong summer box office is officially over, the top 3 foreign films this summer are: Harry Potter (HK$50.4 million), Transformers (HK$39.1 million), and Ratatouille (HK$24.61 million and counting). Sadder is the top 3 Chinese films this summer - Secret (HK$13.89 million and counting), Invisible Target (HK$13.21 million), and the award-winning Simply Actors (HK$9.35 million). The general consensus amongst the Hong Kong market is that Hong Kong films need to adapt to the greater Chinese market. Didn’t Hong Kong films work once without having to do that?

- In Korea, the end of summer means a quiet box office. May 18 and D-War is finally on their way out, replaced by Disturbia. The best news is Korean films have rebounded to take 48.5% of total box office in Korea after falling to 42% before the big D-War/May 18 invasion.

- In Japanese attendance rankings, the animated film Evangelion 1.0 took the top spot. However, it seems like you can’t access any video content from outside Japan, so I can even see if it’s any good (oh, don’t worry, you can see it here). The tearjerking biopic Life Tengoku de Kimi Ni Aetara bumped off Harry Potter to take second place for its second weekend. Poor Rush Hour 3 got pushed way down to 7th place.

Speaking of Rush Hour 3, its opening was only 80% of the second film, and the final weekend gross was even bumped up by just over 1 million yen from what was first reported. It was close, but did they want first place that badly?

- Hong Kong Sunday box office was pretty well spread out across the top 10, partly because it’s the last weekend before schools start in the city. Standing out above and beyond Evan Almighty, which is performing and holding up surprisingly well. From just 29 screens, the underperformer (at least in North America) made another HK$810,0000. After 11 days, the film has already made HK$8.62 million. Not a blockbuster, but a very healthy take for a sequel with an unknown leading man.

As for those 7 opening films, only 3 made it to the top 10. Disturbia got bumped down to third place with HK$290,000 from 24 screens to make it the best performer out of the 7. After 4 days, the teen thriller has made HK$1.19 million, perhaps only fueled by the success of Transformers. The Korean puppy film Hearty Paws saw an increase over the weekend, making HK$270,000 from 20 screen for a 4-day total of HK$800,000. Hearty Paws bumped down Alfred Cheung’s Contract Lover (my pan here), who almost made the HK$1 million mark on Sunday by making only HK$250,000 from 26 screens. After 4 days, the lazy Mainland Chinese comedy made HK$960,000.

One film noticeably missing from the top 10 is the Japanese animated film The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. The late-afternoon screening I attended yesterday of the Japanese version was COMPLETELY full, but the performance in the Cantonese-dub theaters was probably too weak to push it up to the top 10.

HK$7.8=US$1

So now the Hong Kong summer box office is officially over, the top 3 foreign films this summer are: Harry Potter (HK$50.4 million), Transformers (HK$39.1 million), and Ratatouille (HK$24.61 million and counting). Sadder is the top 3 Chinese films this summer - Secret (HK$13.89 million and counting), Invisible Target (HK$13.21 million), and the award-winning Simply Actors (HK$9.35 million). The general consensus amongst the Hong Kong market is that Hong Kong films need to adapt to the greater Chinese market. Didn’t Hong Kong films work once without having to do that?

- In Korea, the end of summer means a quiet box office. May 18 and D-War is finally on their way out, replaced by Disturbia. The best news is Korean films have rebounded to take 48.5% of total box office in Korea after falling to 42% before the big D-War/May 18 invasion.

- In Japanese attendance rankings, the animated film Evangelion 1.0 took the top spot. However, it seems like you can’t access any video content from outside Japan, so I can even see if it’s any good (oh, don’t worry, you can see it here). The tearjerking biopic Life Tengoku de Kimi Ni Aetara bumped off Harry Potter to take second place for its second weekend. Poor Rush Hour 3 got pushed way down to 7th place.

Speaking of Rush Hour 3, its opening was only 80% of the second film, and the final weekend gross was even bumped up by just over 1 million yen from what was first reported. It was close, but did they want first place that badly?

The 12th annual Golden Bauhinia Awards just wrapped up. This year, the award attracted controversy when it gave 10 nominations to Pang Ho-Cheung’s Exodus before it screened anywhere publicly. Shown on second-tier TV network ATV, the show was not live and seemed to be edited quickly to compress running time. Even worse, most of the winners didn’t even show up to claim their award, although Charlene Choi recorded a short clip for her previously-informed win for most popular performance in Simply Actors. However, that clip was in Mandarin because any artist signed with big network TVB means they also give the exclusive Cantonese interview rights to them, as in any TVB-signed artist may not speak Cantonese with any Hong Kong network except TVB.

Anyway, without further ado, here are the winners:

Best new actor:

Goum Ian Iskandar - After This, Our Exile

Best Sound:

Kinson Tsang - Confession of Pain

Best music:

Peter Kam - Protege

Art direction:

Tim Yip - The Banquet

Most popular actress:

Charlene Choi - Mostly Actors

Best cinematography:

Andrew Lau/Lai Yiu-Fai - Confession of Pain

Best editing:

Patrick Tam Ka-Ming - After This, Our Exile

Most Creative:

Exodus

Best action choreography:

Donnie Yen - Dragon Tiger Gate

Best supporting actress:

Zhou Xun - The Banquet

Best Supporting Actor:

Goum Ian Iskandar - After This, Our Exile

Best Film Song:

Curse of the Golden Flower/The Banquet (tie)

Best screenplay:

Patrick Tam Ka-Ming/Tin Kai-Leong - After This, Our Exile

Best actress:

Charlene Choi - Simply Actors/Gong Li - Curse of the Golden Flowers (tie)

Best actor:

Lau Ching Wan (he actually showed up!) - My Name is Fame

Best Director:

Johnnie To - Exiled

Best film:

Exiled, After This Our Exile, Battle of Wits (3-way tie)

So in the end, looks like those early nominations for Exodus really did end up hurting its chances. And why the hell did Battle of Wits get so many nominations? In fact, why were Lau Ching-Wan and Pang Ho-Cheung the only two that showed up to receive something? The people that DID show up (Simon Yam, Lam Suet, Nick Cheung) didn’t get anything.

Any thoughts? Who didn’t deserve something? Who deserved something? Who cares about the Golden Bauhinia? Actually, I do; it’s like the Golden Globes of Hong Kong film, people.

By the way, no news post tonight. Song of the Day might come after this.