The Podcast is ready, just waiting to be uploaded.

- Who is actually surprised that Harry Potter is the number one film this weekend in Hong Kong? According to the Sunday box office numbers, Pot-tah expanded to 105 screens on Sunday and made HK$5.23 million for a 5-day total of HK$20.71 million. I don’t anticipating this thing slowing down soon, so it should pass the HK$40 million mark. However, also note that this gross is after ticket price inflation of HK$10 and a ticket for the IMAX showing cost double the usual ticket. Again, number of admissions, in my mind, is the true measure of success, but they don’t roll like that in Hong Kong.

Meanwhile, Die Hard 4 is actually still bringing in the audiences (good word-of-mouth?), grossing another HK$840,000 on what is officially its second weekend (though it’s actually its third, thanks to a full week of “previews”) from 36 screens for a 18-day total of HK$15.6 million. Shrek 3, on the other hand, lost a ton of business to Harry Potter and made only HK$400,000 from 33 screens for an 18-day total of HK$19.8 million.

The top Hong Kong performer this weekend is still Hooked On You, making a so-so HK$250,000 on 19 screens for an 18-day total of HK$8.74 million. The question everyone that cares is asking is whether Hooked On You will pass the HK$10 million mark. With HK$1.25 million to go, I’m personally not expecting it to happen, but it’ll get pretty close. Wonder Women continues its slow fading process with only HK$90,000 on 9 screens (it’s already down to two to three shows a day in most theatres) for an 11-day total of just HK$1.36 million. This weekend, I’m not just expecting, but really hoping that Invisible Targets would do well. Pretty please?

- Transformers (reviewed in the Podcast today) broke the opening day record for a foreign film in China and also had a very impressive weekend overall.

- Elsewhere, Japan had a national holiday on Monday, so no box office figures or drama ratings have come in yet. We might get to it tomorrow.

- Just like the movie business in Hong Kong, even Universal music is now turning to China to make more bucks.

- Loft, known to be Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s crappier film from the past year, is now on an English-subtitled Malaysian DVD. Watch at your own risk.

- The Korean film Public Enemy was a critical and commercial success, which led to its not-so-critically successful sequel Another Public Enemy. Apparently, director Kang Woo-Suk doesn’t know how to take a hint, and now he’s making a third movie. At least the good news is that Sol Kyung-Ku will return to his role as a corrupted detective from the first film.

- After Sonny Chiba made a sudden announcement last week on television that he is to quit acting, he finally explains it all at a press conference. Apparently, he doesn’t plan to retire entirely, but rather cut back and turn to doing other things instead. Hey, I’d join the Thousand Leaves Hollywood school just to ask him how he killed a bull and a bear with Karate.

- Turns out the reason for 20th Century Fox not selling their remake rights for Prison Break isn’t really their doing - The Writers Guild of America have policies that prohibits studios from selling their shows to China for remakes (is this ONLY for China, or what?). Nevertheless, Can’t Fox still sue the production company if they actually register the name?

- Anti-smoking groups in China are complaining that the drama New Shanghai Bund (based on the classic Hong Kong drama Shanghai Bund) features too much smoking. These guys should just light one up and chill.

- The Hollywood Reporter has an interview with Han Sang-Jun by Korea Pop War’s own Mark Russell. Han is overseeing his first Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival after the controversy last year, but the festival seems to be back to running smoothly this year.

- There was also a panel with several young Korean directors about the recession of the Korean wave and trying to offere possible ways to stabilization.

- TV Asahi is adapting the novel Hanochi for a drama special (or a mini-series). The novel was already adapted in 2004 for film, and it even won best film and best actor at the Japanese Academy Awards. However, the drama is to make some alterations from the novel and the film. Hell, at least they waited a couple of years.

- The historical Queen’s Theatre in Hong Kong is closing down, continuing to signal the death of a golden age in Hong Kong cinema. Now, theatregoers mostly favor multiplexs in malls over single screen theatres such as this. There are still, however, a few older single-screen theatres in Hong Kong, but who knows how long they’ll last.

- One of the things I hate most about Japan are street scouts. Stationed on busy streets in neighborhoods like Shinjuku and Shibuya, these men harass women that they think might be suited to join adult business (or the AV industry as well?) and would pretty much be on them like flies on sweets until they reach the train station or they show any interest. Now TV Asahi is making a drama about what is probably one of the crappiest professions in all of Japan.

- When a Hollywood film fails, they tend to have international gross to try and salvage back the rest of the budget. But now the family comedy Evan Almighty, infamously known as the most expensive comedy ever made, can’t even rely on Japan, one of Hollywood’s largest markets. That’s because the Japanese distributor canceled the theatrical release altogether.

- According to writer/director David Goyer, director Alex Proyas is going back to cult favorite sci-fi film Dark City for a brand-new special edition. I myself like Dark City as well, but I wonder if it really needs such an edition.

- Robert De Niro is putting on his ethnographic glasses to produce a film about the Chinese Revolution in 1949 told through the eyes of one of the few foreigners in the country. Not to be a man of little faith, but I predict this is going to suck already.

I couldn’t find the time to record and edit the Podcast today, so it’ll most likely come tomorrow.

- Kenichi Matsuyama got his big break playing the eccentric detective L in the Death Note movies, but except for scoring his own spin-off film, he has found little success beyond the successful franchise. For instance, his drama Sexy Voice and Robo crashed and burned in the ratings, and his last starring role in the indie film Shindou didn’t even attract the audience to make it a successful indie film. Sadly, his latest film Dolphin Blue continues his slump at the box office. On 100 screens, Dolphin Blue opened with only 25 million yen for only a 250,000 yen per-screen average. His last challenge, and the one most likely to resuscitate his popularity, is the Death Note spin-off L. If even that doesn’t bring back to audiences, he can kiss his leading man status goodbye pretty soon after that.

- Meanwhile, the biggest release in Japan this holiday weekend, next to the Harry Potter previews, is Saiyuki, the film adaptation of the TV drama based on the famous Chinese tale Journey From the West. Apparently, its release on 461 screens is the widest release ever for a Japanese film (even the Death Note sequel got only a comparatively moderate 362 screen-release), and distributor Toho somehow pinpointed on predicting the film would make 5.9 billion yen. Maybe? Judging from the trailer, I’m leaning towards “maybe not.”

- A week or two ago I wrote about the first Disney Chinese production about to open in China. After two weeks, The Magic Gourd has done rather well, already having attract 750,000 admissions for a 16 million yuan total so far. With the weekend gross dropping very slowly, this movie might overtake Protege as the highest-grossing Chinese film of the year. Thus continues Disney’s plan of global domination….

- After the Japan Society in New York’s own Japanese film festival, the Korea Society has announced the lineup for their own Korean Film Festival. However, the lineup just simply isn’t as exciting as the recent Asian film events in New York. Secret Sunshine isn’t even on there.

- Two Chinese directors have just finished documentaries that are worth noting, but for different reasons: First, Jia Zhangke has already finished his follow-up to his award-winning narrative film Still Life and companion documentary Dong with Wu Yong, a documentary about the path of fashion from the assembly line to the catwalk. The other is a documentary on the Yasukuni Shrine by unknown Chinese filmmaker Li Ying, who filmed at the controversial Japanese Shrine for over a decade. It’s a brave attempt at what seems to be an unbiased view at a subject that has caused such strong emotions in China.

- This weekend, the long-awaited Hong Kong action film Invisible Target finally comes out, and there’s a new poster out to further whet your appetite.

- Reviews from the Daily Yomiuri this weekend include the animated omnibus film Genius Party and three of this season’s Japanese dramas.

- Speaking of TV in Japan, the American cartoon Spongebob Squarepants (heard of it, never watch it) has caught on after arriving on the public television NHK network. And it’s not even the kids that are loving it.

- The next “city” omnibus film to follow Paris je t’aime is, as reported previously, Tokyo! (That’s the title. And I know that a New York I Love You is on the way as well). In addition to the three directors involved - Michel Gondry, Leo Cerax, and Boon Joon-Ho - there’s also more information about the films, courtesy of Tokyograph.

- I wrote about Twitch’s coverage of the film The Wonder Years, about a young girl’s search for a rock star she presumes to be her mother, a while ago. Turns out the movie flopped at the box office, and it’s coming to DVD with a mere 6-week theatrical-to-DVD window.

- The Motion Pictures Association continues to stick their nose into Asia’s business by helping Japan in a campaign to stop Peer-to-peer downloading.

- Get ready to start looking around eBay, because a thief just stole about 25,000 yen worth of clothes from the set that was used for the hit Japanese film Tokyo Tower. The set remained opened for public visitors after the film finished shooting.

- Yuki Tanada, whose last film credit is apparently the screenplay for Sakuran, signed award-winning actress Yu Aoi on for her latest directorial effort Hayakumanen to Nigamushi Onna, about a girl who flees from home to save up money after she was convicted of a crime.

- I’m not a fan of Ayumi Hamasaki at all, but for your information - the second MTV of her short film with Hong Kong actor Shawn Yue is up as well. While the annoying flashes and whooshes are gone, it runs out of steam and logic halfway.

- This weekend, Japan Times’ Kaori Shoji reviews the kamikaze documentary Tokko (Wings of Defeat), while also turning in a feature on the film, its director Risa Morimoto, and producer Linda Hoagland (one of the most top subtitlers in Japan). Meanwhile, Mark Schilling reviews the Cannes participant dark comedy Funuke Domo, Kanashimi No Ai Wo Misero ( Funuke, Show Some Love, You Losers!)

Meanwhile, other critics in Japan has been praising the film as one of the best of the year, which helped Funuke score a pretty big opening weekend on July 7th. In one Shibuya theater, the film attracted 1870 admissions, grossing 2.84 million yen. However, since the theater actually sits 303 people, and let’s say it opened at 4 shows a day (it’s now at 5 shows a day), that’s just a “pretty good” 77% capacity. Still, you can’t ignore that 2.84 million yen gross.

By the way, the film will play with English subtitles from August 4th to August 10th, so you can check it out for yourself which critics are right.

- As the Hong Kong Broadway Cinema chain website has reflected, the Carol Lai-directed horror film Nakara 19, starring EEG stars Gillian Chung and Vincy Chan, has been pushed back from an early August opening to the post-summer date of September 6th. This signals either: 1) Hong Kong films are learning to get out of Hollywood blockbusters’ way, or 2) The powers that be don’t have much faith in the film. This leaves only two Hong Kong summer films left - Benny Chan’s Invisible Target and Wilson Yip’s Flashpoint. The Hong Kong Film blog also lists Triangle as an August 23rd opening, but no Hong Kong cinema chain website has confirmed that. More on the Hong Kong summer tomorrow on the Podcast.

- Dave’s Trailer Page has a trailer of the Hong Kong limited release hit Two Days in Paris, directed by and starring Julie Delpy. Honestly, it doesn’t even look like an arthouse film.

- Everyone has completely forgotten, but it looks like Derek Yee’s long-awaited The Shinjuku Incident, featuring Jackie Chan playing a rare dramatic role, is actually now set to start shooting in November. Yes, Jackie Chan is still playing an exchange student in Japan. Actually, now that I think back to my days in Japan, there were some somewhat old Chinese exchange students there, so it MIGHT work. Maybe.

- Posters, posters, posters everywhere. First, we have the latest posters for Yoshimitsu Morita’s remake of Sanjuro, then we have the individual character posters for Peter Chan’s Warlords.

- In China, a sci-fi writer lost his case against 20th Century Fox and director Roland Emmerich, whom he accused of stealing his play for the hit film The Day After Tomorrow. He lost because 1) He couldn’t prove when he wrote the plays, and 2) that 20th Century Fox ever had access to his plays. Ouch. Then again, is Hollywood the only one doing the plagiarizing?

- Spain’s Neptuno Films has bought up distribution rights for the China-Singapore co-produced animated series Katakune. So far, the show is set to broadcast in China, Taiwan, and Thailand, with Neptuno planning to bring it to all areas outside Asia and North America.

- The Japanese film University of Laughs, about a clash between a playwright and a government censor, has been adapted into a play by British playwright Richard Harris. In fact, the whole crew just took the play to Japan.

- Remember yesterday I reported that the new Harry Potter played on only 42 screens in Hong Kong? According to the Hong Kong Thursday opening day numbers (where nothing officially opened since Potter opened on a Wednesday), it’s actually playing on 92 screens! This is probably because Ming Pao daily meant 42 theaters, and most of these theaters are multiplexes that are playing the film on multiple screens. This makes the negative reporting on Ming Pao’s part more accurate, since the film managed to take in “only” (”only” being a comparative term with Spiderman 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean) HK$3.15 million for the two-day total of HK$6.68 million. Simple math would show that the opening day gross was HK$3.53 million on 92 screens. Still, the opening is the highest in the Potter series, and apparently it’s the highest non-holiday opening day ever.

Meanwhile, Die Hard 4 begins to slip with only HK$360,000 on 36 screens after a 15-day official total of HK$13.48 million, and Shrek 3 also dies down with just HK$190,000 on 34 screens with a 15-day total of HK$18.85 million. Believe it or not, there are still four movies on the top ten, even though their grosses are pretty weak - Hooked On You leads the pack with HK$140,000 on 19 screens for a 15-day total of HK$8.09 million; Wonder Women made HK$60,000 on 9 screens for 8-day total of HK$1.11 million (making it the lowest-grossing handover commemoration film out of the three); Eye in the Sky made HK$10,000 on 4 screens for a 22-day total of HK$4.12 million; and Simply Actors made a measly HK$4,000 on 3 screens for HK$9.3 million after 24 days. This is scary: Only two HK films have broken that HK$10 million mark this year - Protege (good) and Love is Not All Around (bad).

(HK$7.8=US$1)

- In a prediction of how the latest Pokemon film will do in Japan, 2 million advance tickets have already been sold before the film’s opening this weekend. While these tickets are cheaper, at least they’re money in the bank before the film has even opened. Plus, we know with kids’ films that admissions is the true gauge of success, not money.

- A month ago or so, the Hong Kong press covered the hell out of Japanese pop diva Ayumi Hamasaki’s visit to Hong Kong to shoot the MTV for her latest single, which also stars Hong Kong model-turned-serious-actor Shawn Yue (no kidding, he went to New York for three months for acting lessons, with a translator in tow and all). Turns out the whole thing is a short film that’ll be featured on the DVD accompanying the single, which apparently will be out on the 18th.

The MTV, which I guess is part one, is now on Youtube. Hong Kong certainly looks real pretty, but director Wong Hoi (I think he does music video in HK) edits the whole thing as if he’s trying to make Infernal Affairs 328, which again shows the ineptness of MTV filmmaking in Hong Kong (EDIT: Now I remember. Wong Hoi was the editor on Initial D, which means he was responsible for the incredible annoying editing style that single-handedly ruined the film. It all makes sense now.). Plus, the whole communicating by dictionary thing just reminds of that episode of Undeclared where one of the main character can only communicate with his new Japanese girlfriend through talking dictionaries in each other’s languages. The storyline, in which Ayumi plays herself falling in love with her bodyguard during a video shoot in Hong Kong, is especially strange, seeing how she had just announced her break-up with her boyfriend of 7 years.

- Speaking of Youtube, Tokyo local broadcasting network TokyoMX, which is like the community news channel, has signed a deal to put their program on the video site. They are the first Japanese television station to do so, and I hope more stations will follow their lead.

- Jason Gray talks about the latest film by Isao Yukisada, who is getting out of his period drama slump after making THE movie of 2004 Crying Out For Love in the Center of the World. Amazingly, this childhood fantasy film is actually an original screenplay rather than based on preexisting material.

- The Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival (better known as PiFan) launched on Thursday after years of turmoil. However, this year will see 215 films screened in 10 days, and ticket sales are up.

- In more festival news, Ang Lee’s latest Lust, Caution has officially been invited to the Venice Film Festival. This year’s festival, whose jury will be headed by Chinese director Zhang Yimou, is already feeling the Chinese influence after this week’s announcement of Alexi Tan’s Blood Brother’s placement as the festival’s closing film.

- Lastly, Benny Chan’s Hong Kong summer action flick Invisible Target, which is one of Hong Kong films’ final hope this summer, has already been bought up by the Weinstein Company for distribution in North America, Australia, and South Africa. Distribution means they’ll hold it until everyone also bought the Hong Kong DVD, then release it with a corny English dub, straight-to-video style.

- The closest thing to a box office report today is that while Harry Potter is breaking records in North America, Ming Pao Daily in Hong Kong reports that it didn’t even get anywhere close to hitting the opening day records set by Spiderman 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean. On only 42 screens (Pirates and Spidey opened on doubled that number), Potter made reportedly HK$3 million, after ticket price inflation (It’s not even 140 minutes long!!!!!) and the IMAX 3d ticket sales, which is double the price of a normal ticket. Still, it’s the highest Potter opening in Hong Kong yet, and it didn’t even open on a public holiday, so it’s still safe to say that this movie is going to be huge.

- The new Japanese horror film Densen Uta (Infectious Song) has a simple idea - there’s a song that kills whoever sings it (come on, I have enough trouble finding enough Japanese songs to sing at Karaoke already!). I know it sounds like a horror comedy to poke fun at the sometimes infectiously fun (ha ha, I made a pun) Karaoke culture of Japan, but they are actually taking it seriously (click on 動画 for the teaser). According to the introduction on the site, it’s inspired by the urban legend surrounding the song Gloomy Sunday.

Still, you have to give it to Shochiku for finding creative ways to promote the film. First, they will put two versions of the song in Karaoke machines across Japan, and people who choose the wrong version will get a bit of a scare. They’re also planning on releasing the actual song as a single two weeks after the film’s release, and a second version will be released depending on whether the song is really infected or not. And Jason Gray reports that they’ve even gone as far as putting QR codes around strategic locations, including bathrooms at popular department stores.

In case you are not quite caught up with cellular technology, a QR code is usually a square of strange patterns that cellular phones can decipher. In most case, reading certain codes can lead users on mobile website the advertisers want you to go to. I personally didn’t find much practical use of it since it took me a while to figure that out when I lived in Japan. But now you can use it to buy movie tickets in Hong Kong. Anyway, I digress. Good advertising, Shochiku. Now I hope the movie is watchable.

- Gamers in China are pissed off because they waited a long time to buy their legal versions of the popular online game World of Warcraft, only to find that it’s been censored by the Chinese government. According to the game distributor in China, the skeletons used to symbolized dead characters were changed to graves in the Chinese versions because of the government’s agenda to promote “a healthy and harmonious on-line environment.” Now everyone can just go buy an uncensored American version down the street for one-tenth of the price. Yay.

- On the other hand, maybe they won’t find a copy, because a month-long piracy sweep across Asia saw millions of discs and thousands of burners confiscated, and the MPA promises there will be more. Of course, that’s not stopping people from being able to find copies of Transformers in the streets of Beijing.

- There’s a new trailer for Peter Chan Ho-Sun’s Warlords, starring Andy Lau, Jet Li, and Takeshi Kaneshiro. They’re not showing much, but at least it looks like it’ll pull no punches as a gritty period action flick. At least it wasn’t “illegally” leaked.

- There’s something special in the latest Rip Slyme music video, for those of you who know that sort of thing (I certainly don’t!). WARNING: The video is barely work-safe.

Then again, if that’s not work-safe, you can forget about watching American hip-hop videos on Youtube too.

- Johnnie To’s Hong Kong Western gunplay masterpiece Exiled is going to Korea, and I’m not exactly clear on how they want to promote it. They’re certainly not promoting the stars, that’s for sure.

- Speaking of distribution in Korea, major investor Sidus, who has seen its name on many Korean films, is going into distributing their own films themselves. This is a gutsy move, considering the somewhat dire state Korean films are in this year.

- Japanese-Canandian band Monkey Majik (as in their lead vocalist and guitarist are Canadian, and the other two members are Japanese) have a hit song on their hands without even releasing a single for it. Their song “Sora Wa Maru De” first appeared on a Japanese commercial earlier in the year, and has made its way up to the number one on the USEN request charts since then. I don’t have the commercial for it, but I personally don’t see the appeal.

- Naomi Kawase may be complaining about the government not supporting films on a national level, but the Sapporo city government is sure as hell doing plenty of good. Not only will they send film students from local colleges and Hokkaido University to go work on film and TV shoots in the Sapporo area, they are also sending four students every year to visual media internships in Tokyo. Now the Hong Kong government needs to do something like that before they just pour US$35 million into subpar films.

The Oriental Daily from Hong Kong reports that director Joe Ma has confirmed that his last good comedy Love Undercover has been bought up by a Hollywood studio for remake. Despite no official casting having been announced, Ma said that he would personally like to see Drew Barrymore take the role Miriam Yeung made famous. This news comes after Stephen Fung’s Enter the Phoenix and Andrew Lau/Alan Mak’s Confession of Pain were bought up for Hollywood remakes earlier in the year.

Good news? Bad news? Don’t care? I personally think it’s going to suck already.

You know the procedure for Wednesdays - it’s the Oricon charts!

- We’ll first look at the monthly rankings for June. On the singles chart, it’s no surprise that Kat-tun’s latest won, but I’m a little surprised that it won by such a large margin. Released on June 6th, the single sold 332,000 copies within the month of June, despite the song sucking quite hard. Meanwhile, the only two songs that are not new releases on the top ten are Keisuke Kuwata’s Ashita Hareru Kana and new band GReeeeN’s Ai Uta, both of which saw rising sales from the previous month.

Meanwhile, the competition on the album charts is a little closer, as Mariya Takeuchi’s latest album sold 357,000 copies in the month of June after being released on May 23rd. Not too far behind is Johnny’s Entertainment’s Kanjani, who sold 226,000 copies of their latest after it was released on June 6th. Zard’s last compilation album “Golden Best” sold an additional 155,000 copies due to the untimely death of singer Izumi Sakai. Sad for J-pop, 4 of the albums on the top 10 are American albums from Linkin Park, Avril Lavinge, Maroon 5, and Ne-Yo, respectively.

On to the weekly charts. On the singles side, Erika Sawajiri’s first single as herself debuted at the top spot, but with a fairly weak sales figure of 50,000 copies. Sawajiri is now the first female artist to have her first two singles debut at number 1 since Hiroko Yakushimaru became the first female artist to do it in the early 80s. Not very far behind is the much-touted new single from young artist Ayaka, who just announced she will hold a concert at the famous Budokan in December. Despite all the hoopla surrounding the song’s release, it only sold 38,600 copies in its first week. Still, I actually like the song quite a bit. Meanwhile, high-pitch boy band w-inds’ new single, which is apparently the Japanese theme for Shrek the Third, only mustered a 4th place debut after selling 28,7000 copies. As for returning singles, Koda Kumi’s latest lost about 67% of its first-week sales with only 35,000 copies sold this week, and Ketsumeishi’s latest suffered similar damage with their latest single as well. If daily rankings hold up (and they usually do), then the new single by a collaboration known as the Golden Circle should win the week with very weak sales.

As for the album chart this week, Namie Amuro’s latest also suffered a 64% drop in sales, selling only 90,500 copies despite staying at the top spot. In comparison, GReeeeN’s debut album lost only roughly 35% in sales for their second week, selling 85,700 copies at a close second place. Meanwhile, Zard’s Golden Best sells another 32,200 copies, while R&B/ballad pop act Melody, who I’ll always know as the girl in that cool M-Flo song, sees her latest album debut at 6th place with only 22,000 copies sold. Get ready for Arashi’s latest album to blow away all competition by the end of the week.

- As we reported yesterday, Andrew Lau/Alan Mak’s Confession of Pain arrived dead on arrival in Japan. On its opening weekend, the film made 23.7 million yen. That’s only 27% of the opening for Daisy and 54% of the opening for Infernal Affairs III. Eiga Consultant sees it as a failure of Ayumi Hamasaki’s theme song to bring audiences in, but I see it as a freefall of Takeshi Kaneshiro’s popularity in Japan. Even teaming up with who is arguably one of Asia’s top actors couldn’t lift this thing up. Then again, the movie isn’t all that great.

- Just a little preview of Friday’s Hong Kong box office report - Harry Potter is going to be huge, just look at the IMAX presales. Those tickets are twice the price of a normal ticket. Red means sold out, by the way.

- Twitch has a ton of reviews from the Fantasia - Dog Bite Dog, The Restless, Kim Ki-Duk’s Time, Hazard, and The Show Must Go On.

- Meanwhile, Variety reviews the Japanese-Chinese co-production The Longest Night in Shanghai, which this blogger actually would like to watch.

- This can’t be real, right? Dicky Cheung, best known as Hong Kong television’s answer to Stephen Chow, is starring as the Monkey King in a Hollywood film after he played the famous character in two different television dramas.

- In an attempt to search out for new inspirations for films, a popular blog about a group of students’ war of pranks with a local resident in a rural town is being adapted into a film. If it all goes well, I bet you they’ll be making various versions of TV as well. Then again, the film is being directed by Renpei Tsukamoto, whose last theatrical work is One Missed Call 2.

- There’s a new trailer for Benny Chan’s Hong Kong actioner Invisible Target online, except it just have a little bit more plot and it’s all dubbed in Mandarin. It didn’t get me anymore excited about the film than I already did, so watch at your own risk.

- The Tribeca Film Festival held a mini-edition in Beijing, and it seems to be a success, as it has attracted not just over-glamourized celebrities, but hip film buffs as well.

- MTV and Motorola held a series of concerts featuring Taiwanese star Jay Chou and Chinese star Cui Jian to remind people that music comes from real musical talent, not just getting lucky on some talent show. Wow, so MTV actually promotes music anywhere that’s NOT the United States.

- After all the pushing and pulling and the rumoring, the producer of John Woo’s Battle of Red Cliff has confirmed that Chow Yun-Fat will simply not be joining the production in any capacity.

- In DVD news, Studio Ghibli’s Tales From Earthsea is coming is a cheaper Hong Kong DVD on July 20th, while the Korean dark comedy Driving With My Wife’s Lover, which I linked a review for a while ago, is coming out in August. I actually want to watch both, despite the less-than-good reputation for Earthsea.

- The Thai government is just pissing off everyone in the Thai entertainment industry, as even the TV industry has come out against the new ratings system. They argue the new system, which they say was thought up without any careful consideration, will restrict artistic freedom and impossible to put into practice. Case in point: A program is rated PG if it contains “use of wrong grammar not used for comic effect.” Man, that’s worse than China.

Seems like I accidentally used this title for yesterday’s Song of the Day, my apologies.

- The Japan box office numbers are out on Box Office Mojo….kind of. They have a bunch of numbers and percentages, but I’m guessing that because not all the distributors delivered their numbers, so the rankings are somewhat incomplete. The only conclusions I can make out is that 1) No film took a real big hit. Not even Pirates of the Caribbean, which just would. not. go. away. and 2) Confession of Pain preformed pretty disappointingly, despite the presence of Takeshi Kaneshiro. Is he just not that popular in Japan?

On the arthouse side, the Finnish film Lights in the Dark by Aki Kurismaki. The only reasons I’m writing about the performance of this film are 1) it actually looks really interesting, and 2) The advertising suggests that director Kurismaki has some kind of small following in Japan. Anyway, the 2006 Cannes contender opened in one small theatre in Shibuya on the 7th, and attracted 703 admissions for an even 1 million yen gross on the opening day. With a capacity of 145 and 5 shows a day, that means each show had an average capacity of 97%, which is pretty damn good.

- Lovehkfilm has a couple of new reviews - The Milkyway “Handover commemoration” comedy-drama Hooked On You, the Barbara Wong-directed official “Handover film” Wonder Women, plus a review of A Ball Shot By a Midget (don’t let the name turn you off, it’s really pretty good) and Resurrection of Golden Wolf by yours truly.

- MTV and EMI asks all Asian songwriters and aspiring directors: “Are you proud to be Chinese?” I certainly hope this song isn’t the winner.

- Despite bad word-of-mouth pretty much anywhere it played, Studio Ghibli’s Tales From Earthsea managed to sell 147,000 copies the first week and is the best first-week sales of any animated DVD this year.

- After Tokyo International Film Festival found a new programmer, the AFI festival in Los Angeles found themselves a new artistic director too.

- Even though it’s easy to attack the Hong Kong print media for spending most of their pages on celebrity gossips, you can actually find some little pieces of news that matter. For example, while this report is about Hong Kong stars Gigi Leung and Lau Ching-Wan having to lose weight for their respective upcoming film roles, you also learn that Wai Ka-Fai is making a new movie starring Lau as a blind man this August.

- The hit drama Nodame Cantabile is coming back for a two-part drama special in January. Next stop: the movie? For those people in Hong Kong that hasn’t downloaded it yet (I’m sure there are a few of you out there), this will be showing on TVB in August.

- TV Tokyo is under fire for biased reporting of the upcoming elections for the House of Councilors. News agenda exists, but I doubt that TV Tokyo is the only TV station that has it.

- Hollywood continues their formulaic filmmaking by finding ways to either continuing franchises or starting new ones. I swear, I’ll never watch another Harry Potter film if they manage to just make one up out of thin air.

- MK Pictures, most well-known for producing Korean director Kang Je-Gyu’s Shiri and Taegukgi (if you know Korean films, you should know these films anyway), has been bought up by cable TV. One of the people who sold his shares? Kang Je-Gyu.

- The promotion for Wilson Yip’s Flash Point has started in Hong Kong, and is it quite possible that they’re centering the promotion on Louis Koo? No way, Donnie Yen’s bus is probably right behind it, probably with a larger close-up too.

- I totally missed it when it got reported on Tokyograph, but the troubled Yubari Film Festival is finally coming back in March.

- In the Sunday box office numbers from Hong Kong, Hollywood films split the box office booty as Die Hard 4.0 wins the day with HK$1.64 million on 51 screens for a so-called “4-day total” (it already had a week of previews) of HK$11.46 million. Not far behind is Shrek 3, which played on the same amount of screens and made another HK$1.59 million for a 11-day total of HK$17.25 million. Farther behind is the handover commemoration film from Milkyway Hooked on You, which is still going relatively strong by making HK$600,000 on 30 screens for a per-screen average of HK$20,000. After 11 days, the Miriam Yeung/Eason Chan starrer has made HK$7.1 million, and might even cross the champagne-worthy HK$10 million mark.

Meanwhile, this week’s Hong Kong opener Wonder Women, which opened on a lackluster 12 screens, bounced back a little bit from its soft opening to make HK$210,000 for a 4-day total of HK$660,000. Robert Rodriguez’s Grindhouse segment Planet Terror made only HK$180,000 on 15 screens for a 4-day total of HK$840,000. This would probably be because of the subject matter and the category-III rating (no one under 18 admitted). On its 20th day of release, Hong Kong comedy Simply Actors made HK$140,000 on 20 screens for a HK$9.13 million average. It’s not very likely this will pass the HK$10 million mark. Lastly, Julie Delpy’s Two Days in Paris continues to play strongly on its 4-screen limited release, making HK$70,000 for an 11-day total of HK$70,000.

US$1=HK$7.8

This week, the Harry Potter movie opens in Hong Kong, which pushes everything out of the way. This one is especially big because it’ll be the first major IMAX film to play in Hong Kong’ spanking-new IMAX theater, and lines for advanced tickets have already gotten quite huge.

- In South Korea, Transformers remained very very strong, losing only 2% in total market shares this past weekend. It’s also looking to break the attendance record for a foreign film, which was set by the final Lord of the Rings film at 6 million (Tranformers has already hit 4.2 mil). For how everything else is doing, check out Korea Pop Wars.

Meanwhile, Hollywood Reporter beats a dead horse on the declining local film industry in Korea.

- In Japan audience rankings, just about every film stays where they are, except for the entry of Dolphin Blue starring Kenichi Matsuyama at number 7 and Andrew Lau/Alan Mak’s Confession of Pain at only number 8. More numbers tomorrow from Box Office Mojo.

- In Japan drama ratings (yes, a majority of the Summer 2007 season has started), Fuji’s comic adaptation Hana Gi Kari No Kimi Tachi He (which, like Hana Yori Dango, was first made into a successful live-action drama in Taiwan) started ok with a 15.9 rating (roughly 10.3 million viewers). That’s lower than the premiere for TBS’ Hana Yori Dango, which opened with an 18.3 rating back in fall 2005. TBS’ Jigoku No Sata Mo Yome Shitai, which sounds eerily similar to the TV Asahi drama Erai Tokoro Ni Toide Shimatta, premiered with only a 13.7 rating (roughly 8.9 million viewers) up directly against TV Asahi’s third installment of Kikujiro to Saki (based on Takeshi Kitano’s childhood), which premiered with an even weaker 10.9 rating (roughly 7.1 million viewers).

By request, the Misaki Ito/Kyoko Fukada Fuji Thursday drama Yama Onna Kabe Onna does OK with a 14.1 premiere (Last season drama in that time slot, Watashi Tachi No Kyokasho, premiered with a 14.2 rating), scoring roughly 9.2 million viewers. At the same time slot is TBS’ Katagoshi No Koibito, which premiered with a 10.2 rating (roughly 6.6 million viewers, which is even lower than last season’s ratings poison Kodoku no Kake). The highest-rated debut this season so far is TBS’ Yamada Taro Monogatari, which stars two members of Arashi and takes up the old Hana Yori Dango timeslot. It premiered with a 17.4 rating (roughly 11.3 million viewers). The two dramas that are already in their second weeks , Fuji’s Life (their second in the successful Saturday 11pm time slot) and Papa To Musume No Nanakakan, are both holding up well. Life actually saw an increase in viewership, going from the premiere’s 11.0 rating to this past week’s 11.7 rating (roughly 7.6 million viewers). However, it’s still performing weaker than last season’s surprise hit Liar Game. On the other hand, Papa To Musume No Nanakakan, which was praised by the Daily Yomiuri this past weekend, saw only a small drop from 14.0 to 12.8 (roughly 8.3 million viewers) for its second episode.

Whew. I’m covering less drama ratings next week. Just leave a comment if you want me to cover a specific drama.

All Summer 2007 drama information here.

- According to the Hong Kong Film Blog, Derek Kwok’s The Pye-Dog, which was supposed to be released back in May, is now eyeing a September release date. However, someone in the comment section writes that it might even be looking at November. The mystery continues.

- In my continuing love for the Japanese government advisory panel that is encouraging wider distribution of Japanese entertainment, they have asked DVD recorder manufacturers to allow the limit for copying programs on DVDs be increased to nine from the current one. In other words, if you recorded something from a digital broadcast, you can only copy it onto a DVD once. Now, that limit is being upped to nine, in case the user fails to burn it completely. This is already after a compromise by the panel, who initially ordered that limit be removed.

- Twitch has a full trailer for Kenneth Bi’s The Drummer. Considering I didn’t like Rice Rhapsody very much, this film is actually looking very promising ever since I started following its production on Bi’s blog.

- Although the launch of the reinvented Bangkok International Film Festival has been a little bumpy, the Bangkok Film Market is going very well, with all the booths on the market floor already taken.

- Jay Chou’s directorial debut Secrets isn’t coming out until the end of this month, so I can’t say whether this is good news or bad news. But apparently Jay found the experience rewarding enough for him to say that he prefers directing over acting. Then again, someone with an ego like Chou probably can’t resist acting in his own films anyway.

- The New York Asian Film Festival (who I named one of the winners of the week in the Podcast) has ended, and Memories of Matsuko ended up taking the audience award!

- Twitch has a review of Invisible City, the Singaporean documentary that I wrote about two weeks ago.

- Lastly, my feature article about Hong Kong filmmakers that emerged in the last ten years is up. My most sincere thanks (and apologies) to the Yesasia editorial team for their work to get it to its current form.

The Podcast is all done, but will come a little later.

- As reported early in the week, Die Hard 4.0 had quite a huge opening in Japan, making 600 million yen on its opening weekend (to add to the advanced preview gross). That opening is actually 99% of Die Hard with a Vengeance’s opening, which ended up making a pretty amazing 7.2 billion yen 12 years ago. However, considering that the series has made gradually more money with each installment (the first film did 1.8 billion, and the second film did 5.11 billion yen), so will this become the downward trend in the series?

- In “Why do celebrities matter that much” news today, Ozzy Osbourne has been enlisted to help Taiwan get recognized by the UN by joining a gothic band on a tour around the world. What the hell were they smoking when they came up with that idea?

- A humorous observation by the Hong Kong Films blog from Hong Kong looks at the classification papers for the new Hong Kong film Mr. Cinema. It has been somewhat controversial for glamorizing the left-wingers in Hong Kong by telling a selective version of Hong Kong history, including taking out the Tiananmen Square incident. Ironically, the classification for the film was issued on June 4th, the 18th anniversary of the incident.

- The TV Tokyo Thursday Night Western Theater, unlike the weekly movie time slot on American networks, has lasted 2000 weeks and seems to be going strong. On the other hand, the big networks in the United States have pretty much stopped showing movies during primetime on any set schedule. I don’t know why this is news, I was kind of desperate.

- Twitch has a link to the first 12 minutes of Fumihiko Sori’s Vexville, which is being streamed on video rental chain Tsutaya on their server. I got lazy and didn’t get to check out the clip, but I’m sure it’s visually exciting, if what’s in the trailer is an indication of anything.

- Baidu, the website that was once accused of providing illegal download of music to its users, has now struck a deal with Rock Music to provide music streaming, with the record company getting advertising revenue. Finally, someone that gets the “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” concept.

- I forgot to do a review for Deadly War in Hiroshima, the second episode of the classic Yakuza Papers series. It features a crazy overacting Sonny Chiba as a reckless gang leader with an oversized ambition. I mention this because Sonny Chiba has mentioned that he is planning to quit acting at the end of the year.

- Lastly, Michael Wells turns in his last report at the New York Asian Film Festival, although I personally don’t mind if Hula Girl gets the audience award.