“More people die on the East Bay commute than this idiot’s ever killed…”

Just came back from watching Zodiac, the latest from director David Fincher about the unsolved Zodiac serial murder case in the 1970s. I once said that if it was anything like the Korean film Memories of Murder, I’d be extremely happy. Well, I can say that it’s both like and not like Memories of Murder, but I’m extremely happy anyway, because it’s the first masterpiece of 2007.

Like Memories of Murder, Zodiac is about a real-life unsolved murder case from decades past. Specifically, a chain of murders occurred in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 60s and early 70s. He sent a bunch of letters to different newspapers in towns where these murders took place, taunting the police and threatening to kill school children. Fincher was a child living in Marin County at the time (fairly close to where one of the murders took place), so he probably captured the period fairly well. Having lived in SF for only 14 years, I wouldn’t know much about it back then, but I even recognized some of the locations, including a glaring mistake where a scene that was supposed to be in neighboring Daly City was shot in the Sunset District. How do I know this? The local Chinese supermarket, which has only been around in the last 10 years, is placed prominently in the background. Its name? Sunset Super.

Anyway, Zodiac follows two different paths in the investigation: the police, led by Dave Toschi (brilliantly played by Mark Ruffalo), and the San Francisco Chronicle, with reporter Paul Avery and cartoonist Robert Graysmith (whose books are the source of the film). While one may expect their paths to cross and they collaborate just like a Hollywood buddy film, they rarely do and only does so when Avery becomes a distraction. The film, at 158 minutes, is a meticulous look at existing files regarding the case. Graysmith is the natural protagonist not only because he was the only person that remained obsessed until he wrote a damn book about it, but also because it’s obvious that Fincher and writer James Vanderbilt were both equally obsessed with the subject as well. It may not be as sensational or have the emotional resonance of Memories of Murder (this is where they differ), but Fincher makes up the lack of emotions with tons and tons of details. Critics have compared watching Zodiac as reading case files for 2 and a half hours. I’d say that’s half-true - reading files for 2 and a half hours is boring, and Zodiac is certainly not boring. It’s an involving look at obsession, how man can continuously gnaw at something as long as they cannot make it go away. It’s Fincher’s most mature work to date, and it’s a masterpiece. If you think you can’t sit through the 2 and a half hours in a theatre (and you will feel those 2 and a half hours, no doubt), you owe it to yourself to at least check it out on home video.

A friend said that he felt Fincher didn’t know whether Zodiac should be a thriller or a procedural because they stopped showing the murders halfway through - that’s because the Zodiac killer has only confirmed to have committed 4 murders, and three of them were shown onscreen, while quite a few of the other murders that were not shown were simply speculations.

And now, more news:

- The Death Note films are finally finding their home video release this week (rental versions have been out in Japan for the first film, though, which allowed the HK version to be released as well), and Warner Bros is shipping 500,000 copies of the two-film set on the release date. It’s not a huge launch, considering that it’s the second highest-grossing film market in the world. But since they are charging over 60 bucks for each set, and that this is the highest shipment for a domestic Japanese release in 2006, maybe it is a pretty big deal after all.

One note to correct in that story - Death Note part 1 was shown on TV in a director’s cut (which, according to an imdb poster - so take it with a grain of salt - it took out footage rather than added) before part 2’s release (it even scored an excellent 24.5 rating), part 2 was never shown on TV - NTV has no reason to since it would just take away from the video sales.

- Twitch mentions today about Rinko Kikuchi’s first Japanese film after her encounter with the Oscars in Babel. But give credit where credit is due - Ryuganji actually picked up this story a few days ago first. Judging from the description and the trailer, it doesn’t seem to be a particularly appealing film, so watch at your own risk.

- Speaking of watch it at your own risk, Palm Picture has a red-band trailer for their latest acquisition - The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai. Twitch has picked up the trailer, and it’s weird as hell, just like the plot sypnosis. Do I dare go watch this?

- Anyone who has more faith in their reading Japanese than their listening can go watch Sakuran with Japanese subtitles all day this Saturday and Sunday at this theater in Tokyo. I might’ve gone, but I would have to live in Tokyo first.

- Looks like the Academy Award isn’t much of a commercial factor when the film arrives in Japan. Last year’s winning film for best actor, Capote, opened on 4 screens and eventually made 100 million yen (117 yen=$1, at least for today). Eiga Consultant analyzes the 12.1 million yen opening of this year’s winner, The Last King of Scotland, and while it did open with 200% of Capote’s opening weekend, it also opened on 12 times the screen Capote opened at, so the per-screen average is actually only 16.7% of Capote’s.

- Apparently, seeing South Korean entertainment’s boom in the last decade, Variety Asia thinks that the rest of Asia would like to do that. While I do see the point of the Singapore part, Hong Kong already has a full-grown entertainment industry that, while absorbing some of South Korea into its mainstream, is much in need of a revival more than a boom, and maybe that’s what this new government grant is for.

- The new 3D animation trend is so huge that even Hong Kong is joining in on the fun, and the person doing it is none other than Brian Tse, who carved out Hong Kong’s most famous contemporary animated franchise with McDull. According to Twitch, he’s developing a 3D animated feature about a duck liver sausage that finds out he’s a piece of poop. No kidding. At least the duck liver sausage idea is pure original HK humor.

- With increasingly successful Chinese films being funded from foreign funding, the Film Bureau realizes that they should modernize their existing government funding system. Insteading of finding government subsidies or a rich financier, an official at the Film Bureau says, “We now urgently need film producers who are politically sensitive, aesthetically sophisticated and have a flair for marketing.” Politically sensitive means communist, right?

- I mentioned about those Southern boys trying to do awesomely bad Japanese rap a while ago on this blog, and that they were putting a show in a Shibuya club. Well, their gigs already happened, and Japan Probe is awesome enough to provide a video of those Kokujin Tensai (literally means Black Person Genius, or a grammatically correct title of Black Genius). I searched on Youtube, and trust me, this is the best quality one can find of that show. Believe me, I don’t think the Japanese people who are there are laughing with them. They’re probably laughing at them. I know I would, and I’m not even Japanese!

Song of the day coming up after this entry.

Today comes with even less news (or maybe less interesting news) and less surprises, so try and hang in there.

- Those continuously changing Japanese box office numbers are out, courtesy of Box Office Mojo. This week’s box office is at an exchange rate of 118.384 yen per dollar, so the box office earned less money overall. The big winner is the latest Doraemon movie, which took it a huge 560 million yen. According to Eiga Consultant, that’s 130% of the last Doraemon film’s opening weekend, and 111% of the last Pokemon movie (yes, Pokemon actually still attract audiences). Considering a lot of the ticket sales are from cheaper-than-usual kids tickets, the attendance is pretty amazing. The final take may even be 4 billion yen, which means Doraemon is going to be a viable franchise for a long time to come, and it will still make me feel really young because Doraemon is my childhood idol.

The Genghis Khan movie earned 154 million yen this week, signaling a 22% drop from last week’s 198 million yen take. The rest of last week’s openers all dropped 20-something percent from their opening week, except for Ghost Rider, which dropped nearly 40% from last week, and won’t be repeating America’s surprise performance.

- Sales of Japanese home video have been sliding, as Japanese animation (which takes up the biggest piece of the pie with 24.5% of sales….why am I not surprised by this?) drops by 14.5 %, foreign films (which takes up 20% of sales) drop by some 40% this past year, while Jpanese films performs better with a 5.8% gain and a 9.8% share of total sales. Sales overall has fallen by 10%, although a Japan Video Association Manager has said that they can definitely recover from a 10% drop.

Actually, one interesting portion is that sales of television dramas have risen. Perhaps with a long-term trend, this would encourage television stations to begin to branch out to international market, as the Korean drama has over the last few years.

- Or they can learn from America, who is seeing a decline of theatrical window in the past year. Basically, theaterowners are worrying that the window between theatrical exhibition and home video release is getting smaller and smaller (this year, the average shortened by 10 days), making this an even bigger problem than piracy. Even though films do make a bulk of their money from theatrical exhibition, the home video market is still a very very viable way of making money, and the studios have no idea whom to please these days.

Hong Kong adapted this shortening of theatrical window years ago to combat piracy, only to find the emergence of bittorrent to actually take a huge chunk of money away from home video sales. Of course, the distributors got smart and decided to amp up the technical specs to appeal to home theater fanatics, but it seems like now studios are asserting more pressure to release region-coded DVDs for Hong Kong films in order to protect oversea distribution deals. This doesn’t help the home video market, since a huge amount of these downloaders are actually overseas Chinese who have no idea what region codes are, and just flat out get pissed off when they can’t play the DVDs they buy. So sales are down, more people download, and only the film studio wins because they can squeeze more money out of those rich overseas company.

And does that have anything to do with theatrical window? Not really, I was just digressing.

- And who was the first filmmaker in Hong Kong to push the shortening of theatrical window? That would be Wong Jing, Hong Kong’s answer to cheap, fast comedy entertainment-making. His ability to quickly take whatever is popular in Hong Kong at the moment and milk as much cash out of audiences has allowed him to survive in Hong Kong for over 20 years, and his idea of releasing theatrical releases into the video market as quick as he could (The news of this tactic was first broken when customs seized those early releases, mistaking them for bootlegs) has given him the idea of making shitty comedies with TVB stars (why? Just pay them slightly higher than TVB salary, which is pretty much shit anyway, and they’ll do anything) and throw them into video stores after short theatrical runs.

Lovehkfilm’s Kozo has a review of his latest concoction The Lady Iron Chef, a rip-off of the TVB cooking contest Beautiful Cooking, which they ripped off from Japan’s Ai No Apron by adding crappy musical performance and canned laughter.

- If you read my profile on the right, you’d know that my main interest is the new “Panasian” films and their effect on national cinema. In light of the upcoming Hong Kong entertainment expo, Variety Asia’s Patrick Frater has turned in a report on the new Asian style of film finance. Very very informative if you’re into that kind of stuff like I am.

- And it looks like the expanded scale of the Hong Kong Entertainment Expo this year has attracted the attention of Hollywood Reporter, who chimes in with this report.

- Of course, their competitor Variety also has this report on this year’s Asian Film Awards and its plan to honor veteran actress Josephine Siao Fong Fong and film theorist David Bordwell for their contributions to Asian cinema (although for Ms. Siao, it’s more Hong Kong than Asia).

- Speaking of film festivals, Twitch has a preview of the upcoming San Francisco Asian American film festival, which I probably won’t be going because the films I want to see aren’t at ideal times, and at the ideal times, there aren’t any films I’m interested in. Nevertheless, it looks to be a fairly interesting festival, and I regret not being to able to attend it this year. Then again, there’s always the higher-profile San Francisco Film Festival later this year.

- Variety Asia also has more about the Wong Kar Wai/Stanley Kwan lesbian film collaboration, but they’re not even sure what Wong Kar Wai is doing with it.

- Lastly, Variety also has its first review of Judd Apatow’s latest Knocked Up, and critic Joe Leydon seems to have enjoyed it immensely. And I don’t blame him, it does look hilarious, and I can’t wait for a sweet comedy like this opening amidst the hyped-up and amped-up sequels this summer.

The suitable-for-all-audience trailer is here

The red-band-contains-strong-language-but-far-funnier-trailer is here too.

I’m not a fan of Japanese comics or anime in general. No offense against them, I’ve got my hands full with movies and music enough that I don’t have time to follow them. So I’m simply judging Death Note as a movie, not by its source material. Maybe that makes me unqualified to review it, maybe it makes me more qualify to review it, who knows? You tell me.

Death Note has a simple premise with a complex set of rules - If your real name is in the book, you die. But of course, creator Takeshi Obata and Tsugumi Oba made sure there weren’t any plothole in that, so the notebook comes with a ton of rules, which you will find out when disillusioned law student Light picks up the notebook and starts playing the Grim Reaper with criminals. Having gotten a little overzealous, his killing attracted the attention of law agencies all over the world, including the FBI (or as Da Ali G would say “FB…aiiiiitte”) and genius detective L. And that’s about all that happens.

Unlike recent comic book films, Death Note isn’t purely an origin movie. In fact, the origin is simply done in a flashback, and we’re thrust right into the action with a chain of death note-induced murders. That in itself should tell you that this one’s for the fans. Of course, the blanks are filled in before the end of the first act: Light’s own father being the head of the investigation team (and also the chairman of the culinary academy Chairman Koga!), and the existence of Shiori, Light’s girlfriend. Meanwhile, everyone talks about “Kira” (or Killer in Katakana) because he’s like, so awesome, in a way that you wish the youth would talk about politics. But when a kid with a god complex is killing people, politics just have to be swept aside for important issues, like ethics, morals, and keeping that hair well-waxed all the time.

Director Shusuke Kaneko directs the entire thing by the books, with a few cgi-assisted visual flairs here and there. Considering that he directed two Godzilla and three Gamera films, I didn’t really expect much, especially at creating any sense of tension. There ought to have been a feeling of dread permeating throughout the film, but the episodic structure of the film (probably because they’re trying to cramp all the volumes in roughly 4 and a half hours of screen time) really killed the tension. There are strokes of smart screenwriting here and there, but I wonder if they are the work of screenwriter Tetsuya Oishi or the works of the original creators. The acting is also hit-or-miss with Tetsuya Fujiwara attempting to be all cool and evil as Light, but just achieving blank-faced and kind of evil. For a big-budget high-profile comic adaptation by Warner Bros. (whose Batman Begins should be the model of starting any adaptation franchise), they could’ve found more talented people on this thing.

I’ll still watch part 2 just to see how the whole thing wraps up, since they teased a little too much about the match-up between Light and L, and the idea of the Death Note itself is quite cool, but as far as Death Note the film goes, it’s passable commercial filmmaking. Barely passable commercial filmmaking.

Another look at the film by Kozo at Lovehkfilm (he actually has read the comic and knows a thing or two) is here.

While I’m at it, why not give some news.

- Hollywood Reporter has a report on Peter Chan Ho-Sun’s Warlords, starring Jet Li, Takeshi Kaneshiro, and Andy Lau (who apparently sports an Osama Bin Laden beard). My favorite part is Chan’s honest attitude about working with censors and why Chinese cinema seem to always be so positive all the damn time.

- TVB has a new drama named War and Destiny. I’m not a fan of TVB dramas, but this one is interesting because it takes place in 1937 Nanking (or as the advertisement say, “during the ‘Resisting Japanese War.’”). I guess it won’t be sold to Japan then. But from that making-of I posted, it seems more like melodramatic love stories more than historical epic, eh?

Oh, and here’s a clip involving the invasion of a group of Japanese soldiers, one of whom looks like a guy I saw in Mongkok wearing leather pants and a chain speaking bad Japanese. Yeah, I don’t think I’ll watch this.

Some surprises out there, but still a slow news day. Of course, it’ll still take me forever to write.

- Hong Kong Sunday numbers are surprisingly even. Over the years I’ve been tracking the box office, it’s not very often that I see the top 10 all in at least those 6 figures, but it seems like there was enough diversity in the box office to warrant a healthy take for everyone.

As expected, Ghost Rider takes in an average $990,000 on Sunday for a HK$3.47 million total after 4 days for the number 1 spot. The filmgoing bourgeois showed up for the second weekend of The Queen, commanding HK$350,000 on 14 screens in a far second. It now has a HK$3.27 million total after 11 days. The Lady Iron Chef gain quite a bit from its spectacular failure on Thursday (although it might’ve been just previews) with a HK$280,000 on 26 screens, which is around the amount the last Wong Jing produced film, the spectacularly dumb stinker Kung Fu Mahjong 3, did. With HK$770,000 as its 4-day total, don’t expect it to go far past HK$3 million.

Super-duper blockbuster 300 had its preview showings over the weekend (2 shows a night), and it earned HK$190,000 on 31 screens for a HK$640,000 total after 6 shows. Its official opening comes this weekend, and by the hype from its success in America and perhaps good word-of-mouth, 300 could go far. Japanese blockbuster tearjerker Tears For You earns a better-than-Midnight-Sun gross of HK$110,000 on 9 screens for a HK$420,000 total and probably won’t make it to the $1 million mark. Dreamgirls and Letters From Iwo Jima holds on to their limited release success with HK$140,000 on 10 screens and HK$120,000 on 5 screens, respectively.

- The South Korean box office is also out, and after the boost February gave to local films, March seems to signal a bit of a slowdown. Anyway, Korea Pop Wars have their usual analysis.

- Japanese movie rankings are out as well, and personal favorite (I seem to report on those a lot, don’t I?) and my childhood idol that is not named Aaron Kwok Doraemon’s new movie is in first place. Heartwarming baseball film Battery debuts in second with a strong 185 million yen opening (analysis by Hoga News), as the Genghis Khan movie falls to third (but with a gross that’s probably fairly close to its disappointing debut.). Other than that, until I see those percentage changes, it wasn’t a very exciting weekend in Japan.

- More exciting is those Japanese drama ratings, as the ultra-expensive Karei Naru Ichizoku surges for its second-to-last episode with a 24.9 rating, its highest since the premiere (which makes me wonder why do so many extra people tune in to the end of serial drama, when they hadn’t been keeping up). Those popular flowery boys aren’t weak either, but their ratings dropped just a bit for a 21.9 rating. Nakama Yukie’s drama ended with a whimper this week after 9 episodes with a 11.7 rating (although I’m not sure whether it was cut short, or it was just meant to be this short) and an overall 12.7 rating. I think she’s due for another installment of Gokusen for a popularity boost. Lastly, Haken No Hinkaku goes into home stretch with a consistent 19.9 rating this week (same as last week). As mentioned yesterday, the three major dramas are wrapping up this week. Turns out Haken No Hinkaku may be wrapping up next week instead. Either way, it’ll be huge, huge, I tell you!

- Variety Asia has a profile on Toho’s life achievement award-receiving chairman Matsuoka by Mark Schilling (Critic for the Japan Times). Despite being the chairman of Japan’s biggest studio, he still maintains that Hollywood should be dominating the market with a 60% share in Japan. “That way, everybody wins.” Right.

- I’m a fan of Haruki Murakami. Honestly, he’s the only author I consistently read (that is, if I ever decide to read). I haven’t bought his latest short story anthology “Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman” yet because I’m waiting for the paperback, but now the translation for his latest After Dark is finally arriving. I still have quite a few books to catch up, so maybe I’ll be reading this in 5 years or so.

- Connecting from Lovehkfilm’s Sanjuro’s blog, the big honcho at Lovehkfilm also put up his review of The Pang Brothers’ The Messengers.

- Miss R over at Sardonic Smile has a cool profile of Hong Kong’s hippest MTV director Susie Au, whose latest film MingMing will debut at the Hong Kong International Film Festival this year.

- Variety Asia also has a report on how last year’s Thailand military coup has affected the TV market. Despite reports about how the coup didn’t affect Thailand much (since apparently they get quite a few of these over the years), it sounds more serious than it looks.

- Asian Cinema - While On the Road has a review of the book “Asia Shock,” which I agree I would not read just based on the title alone (I, too, hate the stereotype that Asian films represent some type of carnal or violent extreme). But it seems like the book does pick some good mainstream titles. No, Ichi the Killer is NOT a mainstream film anywhere in the world.

- Variety also has reviews for Shu Qi’s big Korean debut “My Wife is a Gangster 3″ (I wisely stopped watching at 2) and a disappointingly short review for the Japanese horror flick “The Slit-Mouth Woman.” They also have a review for Confession of Pain, but it’s full of spoilers, so forget that.

Some more news that is a little late, but better than nothing.

- Good news came last week for Hong Kong filmmakers when the government announced a rahter large subsidy for Hong Kong films. It seems like now despite that promise, there is one good news and one bad news. The good news is that the fund will be targeted for small-to-medium-budgeted films, which means smaller films now have a chance in getting made. Bad news is that the fund plans to only cover up to 30% of production cost for each film.

- Korea Pop Wars has coverage on the upcoming Spring schedule, which would include films by Im Kwon Taek (Korea’s own answer to Yoji Yamada) and Kim Ki Duk.

- Twitch also rounds up the February Korean box office, which was dominated by quite a few successes and total is up from January. However, it’s slightly down from the total for February 2006. Then again, when you have local films taking up 67.4% of box office gross, you really have nothing to complain about. Hong Kong filmmakers would literally kill for that kind of number.

- Speaking of Korean films, The Host opens this weekend in the States, and it’s getting very very good reviews. Rotten Tomatoes has it at 94%, and even though I have the HK DVD, I’ll probably catch it in theaters just to show my support. Of course, I’ll have to watch Zodiac first though.

- Hoga News brings us two pieces of news: One being a report on Eiga Consultant’s analysis of the opening weekend for Takeshi Miike’s “Ryu ga Gotoku,” which despite being placed just 10th at the box office, is still “pretty good.” Honestly, except for the cgi helicopter being so powerful that it removes the main actor’s shirt, I don’t see what’s so “love and hate” about it. The other is the link to Jetro’s quarterly newsletter on the Japanese showbiz.

- Mark Schilling of Japan Times actually has a review of “Ryu Ga Gotoku,” along with “Genghis Kahn: To the Ends of the Earth and Sea.”

- Oh, in case anyone was interested, Hot Fuzz is now officially a blockbuster. Yeah, baby.

- Lastly, director Mira Nair has a fluff interview with Variety Asia in light of her latest film, “The Namesake.”

Tomorrow, I should be filling out missing links and post the best of the week.

We have quite a bit to go through today, so let’s start with what I promised yesterday first.

- Turns out Japan Times have some good reviews this weekend, starting with Linda Linda director Nobuhiro Yamashita’s new film Matsugane Potshot Affair and Mark Schilling giving a kind-of negative review. Then Kaori Shoji goes and gives a pretty positive review for Paris Je T’aime, a film that I saw in Hong Kong on my trip, loved, and even bought the DVD. It opens in the States on May 4th, so do me a favor and check it out, will ya?

The best part of the Japan Times Film Section update, however, is the interview they have with Letters From Iwo Jima screenwriter Iris Yamashita. It’s not especially insightful, but considering I haven’t seen much press with Yamashita (the press seem to go to Paul Haggis more, for the obvious reasons), it’s something worth checking out.

- Hong Kong Thursday (opening day) numbers are out, and it looks be a pretty weak weekend. The weekend’s widest opening, the Pangs’ The Messengers, opened on 29 screens and got HK$270,000 for third place behind Night at the Museum and Protege. Among limited releases, The Queen opened to a very healthy HK$230,000 on 14 screens towards a very healthy weekend, Dreamgirls opened on 10 screens and got HK$90,000, and Letters From Iwo Jima opened on 5 screens with an HK$80,000 gross (with a 10% ticket price inflation due to length). Advance ticket sales are looking pretty weak, so The Messengers may come up from behind to pass Protege as second place, but overall the weekend doesn’t look to be very strong in ticket sales anyway.

- Sakuran seems to be doing so well even during the week (According to Cinema Cafe, after 5 days on 51 screens, the total admission so far is 63402 people) that it should reach 110 million yen (according to today’s exchange rate of $1=117 yen, that’s about $940,000) by Friday. For those of you in Tokyo, this Shibuya theater is promoting a special where a group of 3 or more can get in for 1000 yen each if the entire group (men AND women) shows up wearing kimono (that include yukata, guys). So get that cheap Uniqlo yukata (seriously, I really did it see one when I was there) out and head down to Shibuya.

Thanks to Hoga Central for the news.

- I reported about the box office for the film Bubble He Go! (which is a minor box office success now in Japan) for a few weeks now without actually talking about the film itself. Now Japundit has an introduction, in case you wanted to know more. I’m not that attracted by the idea, since I missed out on the pop culture explosion in the early 90s (I was too young to get it), but it seems interesting nevertheless.

- The lucky people in Japan will be the first in the world to be able to watch Spider Man 3 (a film that, despite my sometimes holier-than-thou taste, I have to admit to be looking forward to very much). Not only the film will get the world premiere at the Roppongi Hill cinema (what the allure to that theater is, I don’t seem to know) on April 16th, AND it will now open on May 1st, 4 days before the US debut and the first in the world to receive a wide release.

- Media Asia (who as I reported a few days ago admitted that Infernal Affairs is actually based on a Japanese comic) will be pouring HK$500 million for 2007, including several new films by Milkyway (they distributed Breaking News, Exiled, and 2 Become 1, to name a few) and the new Peter Chan film, now titled “The Warlords” (can there be a more generic title than that?). They also struck multi-film deals with Dog Bite Dog director Soi Cheang and Johnnie To.

- A poster at the Mobius forum found three articles by local free paper The Guardian about Bong Joon Ho and The Host. I also seem to have mistaken that the showcase coming on Monday will include The Host. It will only feature Barking Dogs Never Bite and Memories of Murder, both are worth watching anyway.

- Just in case anyone has a couple of million dollars to spend, the Hong Kong Entertainment Expo (which include Filmart for international buyers, the Hong Kong International Film Festival, and the debut of the Asian Film Awards this year) will be expanding by a quite a bit this year.

- Twitch today has an impressive set of reviews for all the mainstream American DVD releases in February….except for Flags of Our Fathers. You can read it all, or just read the ones that you care about, like I did. It’s your choice, and it’s an impressive report regardless.

- Lastly, Hong Kong televised its first chief executive debate, and why am I talking about it, you ask? Because it sounds pretty damn entertaining. Of course, it would mean more if Hong Kong citizens actually get to vote for their chief executive, because there’s not really a point for this debate when the “election” is decided by 800 middle-aged to old Chinese men. For now, it just feels like a “Who wants to be a Communist ass-kisser” popularity contest.

Updates may be sparse in the next week. Well, just maybe, you can’t get rid of me that quickly.

Just in from Hong Kong’s Oriental Daily regarding the “Infernal Affairs is Japanese” saga. When reporters asked Media Asia (the film’s distributor, also a producer on The Departed) officials for response, they responded by admitting that Infernal Affairs was based on a Japanese comic. The Chinese report is here (I don’t have a link because they change online content daily, but you can go to the site and read the exact report yourself in the next 22 hours):

奧 斯 卡 頒 獎 禮 大 會 誤 把 《 無 間 道 》 指 為 日 本 電 影 ， 惹 來 內 地 不 少 網 友 不 滿 ， 亦 有 指 開 拍 《 無 間 道 》 之 寰 亞 電 影 亦 特 別 發 信 向 奧 斯 卡 大 會 問 罪 ， 對 此 ， 寰 亞 高 層 朱 任 之 表 示 ： 「 其 實 只 係 講 人 無 知 講 錯 說 話 ， 但 憑 良 心 講 番 句 ， 因 為 《 無 》 片 係 參 照 日 本 漫 畫 改 編 ， 所 以 佢 會 有 呢 個 錯 覺 ， 我 亦 已 發 電 郵 畀 奧 斯 卡 ， 叫 佢 要 好 好 正 視 呢 個 問 題 。 （ 有 無 特 別 要 求 ？ ） 佢 都 仲 未 回 覆 ， 但 佢 今 年 確 實 錯 漏 百 出 ， 好 似 唔 係 墨 西 哥 人 ， 又 話 人 係 墨 西 哥 人 ， 但 呢 都 唔 係 好 大 件 事 ， 最 多 個 主 持 出 年 無 得 做 。 」

“The Mainland Chinese online community is angry with the Academy Awards calling ‘Infernal Affairs’ a Japanese films, and has caused Media Asia to directly ask the Academy about their mistakes. High-ranking Media Asia official states: ‘It’s just the misguided people there saying the wrong things. But to look at it fairly, ‘Infernal’ is based on a Japanese comic, so they would make that kind of mistake. We have already sent a e-mail to the Academy to correct the problem.’ (Was there any special request?) ‘They haven’t replied, but the truth is that here are a lot of mistakes made this year. It seems like someone who isn’t Mexican got referred to as Mexican. But it’s no big deal, at the most it just means the host won’t return next year.’”

There ya go, folks. Who stole whose ideas now?

The following is a rough translation of an editorial that appeared in Hong Kong’s Ming Pao on February 28th. It’s written by Anthony Fung, an Assistant professor in the Communication and Broadcasting department at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and I think it’s mostly bullshit (more on the why later). Remember, I didn’t write this article.

Here it is:

“The Departed” became the big winner at the Oscars. Some are happy and some are sad. Those that are happy believe that a remake of a Hong Kong film can succeed internationally is credit to Hong Kong film’s creativity. Those that are sad believe that no matter how fresh the script and the concept of “Infernal Affairs” is, it can only succeed in Hong Kong, and never succeed in the huge American market. On the other hand, it succeeds when the same script reaches Hollywood, angering the Hong Kong filmmakers who have worked so hard. The latter complains that the Hong Kong market is far too small. Even a flawless Hong Kong script and Hong Kong crew cannot achieve much.

I understand their sentiments. I feel that their opinions are the result of not having adapted the consequences of change. A question worth asking is: In this globalized market, should we continue making these “Hong Kong products?” Do these local productions of “Hong Kong films” made for Hong Kong people still exist?

Those who are still in love with the era of “Hong Kong films” should first ask themselves whether any pure local films still exists. The truth is these days, whether Hollywood films are made up of American films are not even a sure thing. First, talented actors in Hollywood now originate from everywhere. Many of them are from outside America, such as England’s Hugh Grant, even Jean Reno isn’t American. Chow Yun-Fat, Zhang Ziyi, Gong Li have all made it to Hollywood. Hong Kong’s John Woo directed “Mission: Impossible” II and III. Is this type of internationalized or melting pot of Hollywood films America?

From the region of production, we also get an answer. Now Hollywood films are rarely made in Hollywood, because production cost in England are far cheaper than production costs in America. Now many Hollywood films are no longer made at home. The most well-known example is the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, which was made in New Zealand. Even if it’s an American film, many production crew are from overseas. Since Hollywood films are not even pure American films, why should a small city such as Hong Kong pursue these pure “Hong Kong films?”

The truth is, in a globalized world, film financing is no longer from their countries of origin. Film money are now from everywhere, and it no longer matters where they come from. Many recent Hong Kong successes are foreign-financed, but no one seem to suspect that these “Hong Kong films” have any foreign influence. “Kung Fu Hustle” is a good example, who says that Stephen Chiau’s films are not the pride of Hong Kong?

I think now it’s time to change our way of thinking. Hong Kong is only a special region of China, that is a truth solid as steel. If we give up our stubbornly-kept mentality of “Hong Kong products” and look far ahead, don’t local films already have a huge market in China? If we hear Beijing people saying they must make “Beijing films” or Shanghai people making “Shanghai films,” won’t we think it’s laughable? Some estimate there are only 100,000 frequent filmgoers in Hong Kong. Even during holidays when families go to the movies, Hong Kong films only make tens of millions (in Hong Kong dollars). If we put down our baggage and go into the Chinese market, won’t we be able to share the 300 million renmibi that “Curse of the Golden Flower” made?

To develop Hong Kong films, why not look towards the north? It’s better than reminiscing about old times. Perhaps some recent successes have started to mature. Recent successful Chinese films such as “Hero” and “A Battle of Wits” are made with Hong Kong financing and actors. Even the Andy Lau-financed “Crazy Stone” is made to penetrate the Chinese market.

Regarding The Departed, some people may hold a grudge due to the fact that Hollywood used Hong Kong “creativity” to reach international success. But doesn’t Hong Kong often borrow from others’ creativity as well? Alan Tam and Leslie Cheung often sang covers of Japanese pop songs in the 80s, and aren’t those songs now Hong Kong pop classics? Even today, aren’t many television programs such as “Who Want to be a Millionaire” made from Western creativity? Now that Hollywood has decided to buy remakes rights from Hong Kong scripts to make its own legends, it’s merely a strategy Hong Kong has always used, so what’s so special about that?

Lastly, I think that now Hong Kong still has creativity, they should seize the day and focus on internationalizing certain aspects of filmmaking. If Hong Kong continues to hold this “Hong Kong product” mentality, then Korean, Japanese, and Chinese filmmakers will quickly dominate the global film industry, adding to the impact on the Hong Kong film industry.

These last few years, the Hong Kong Film Festival seem to spotlight these “only in Hong Kong” triad films. Surely, these “Hong Kong products” have a local market. Certainly, if box office gross is a standard for success, then these local “Hong Kong films” can only satisfy a small local market. If they continue to create these “Hong Kong films,” I believe that in 30 or 50 years, these “only in Hong Kong” films can only be seen in the Hong Kong Film Festival.

And now, my response:

I agree with the last part, that those who are bitter about Hollywood “stealing” Infernal Affairs are hypocrites. Hong Kong, and the rest of Asia, for that matter, have been stealing Western creativity for decades (and the other way around). In fact, creativity in entertainment has been thrown out of the window for years.

However, I don’t think Professor Fung truly understands the film market. Homegrown American stars still by far have the biggest appeal within American markets and abroad as well. Of course, to nit-pick, John Woo only made “Mission: Impossible II,” and both his films after that became box office failures, so while John Woo did make it to Hollywood, he got kicked out just as quickly.

Plus, is Professor Fung suggesting that artistic integrity should play no part in the making of Hong Kong films? Hong Kong films have their own type of flavor because many directors such as Johnnie To have no desire to kowtow to Chinese censorship. Commercial filmmaking is important in Hong Kong, yes, but it doesn’t mean artists should have to castrate their artistic voices in order to appease unreasonable censorship (look at the recent Lost in Beijing example to see what I mean, or look at the ridiculous alternate ending for Infernal Affairs, or even the history of Zhang Yimou’s films before he became a commercial success).

These types of editorials are often dangerous because Professor Fung is obviously a very smart man. But without the proper research, the effects of his misguided words can be damaging. Hong Kong films is what I grew up with, and its audacity to cross the lines and its type of local flavor are what made them successes. If they start appeasing the mainland market now, it would just take away what made them successful in the first place - uniqueness.

- How about we get to those news that not many people care? It’s box office numbers!

- A continuation from yesterday’s Japanese weekend box office. The numbers are out (thanks to Box Office Mojo’s diligent updating of these data). However, there seems to be some kind of discrepancy again between BOM’s numbers and the rankings - BOM shows Sakuran debuting at 6th with roughly US$370,000, although the exchange rate as of yesterday is currently 119 yen=$1, and Marie Antoinette at 7th. Meanwhile, Ryuganji, who gets their rankings from Eiga Daisuki!, has Marie Antoinette at 6th and Sakuran and 7th (with no number). So which is it?

Perhaps one reason for this is that the rankings counts admissions while BOM counts money, so does that mean Marie Antoinette is attracting an older audience, who pays lower ticket prices? Both films seem to be aiming towards the 20-40 female audience though, so there has to be some reason.

All the other numbers, however, remain consistent, with Dreamgirls losing only 6% of its audience, and Dororo losing 21%, which would explain why Dreamgirls managed to take the top spot. One thing to note, is the relative weak per-screen average in the top 10. Wide releases just aren’t opening fast enough, although this may change this weekend with beginning of Spring break in Japan within the next two weeks, plus the Genghis Khan movie and Ghost Rider opening (I would not trust imdb’s listing, since Babel is listed as opening this weekend, although it’s actually opening in April)

- Speaking of the Genghis Khan movie (official title: Genghis Khan: To the Ends of the Earth and Sea, Then Back to the Middle for Some Tea and Bowing, and All the Way Back to the Beginning of the Earth and Sea), Twitch has an English-subtitled trailer, and even the original trailers, just in case you guys forgot.

- Also, the producer of this mega-blockbuster has broken studio taboos by putting the trailer for his next blockbuster, the remake of Tsubaki Sanjuro by Toho, before the Genghis Khan movie, produced by rival studio Shochiku when it plays at the Shochiku chain theaters (I would assume this does not affect multiplexes not owned by either studio). Yeah, Japanese studio system is complicated. Maybe Variety Asia can fill in the blanks here.

- Hong Kong Tuesday box office numbers came out last night, and the rankings are exactly the same - Night At the Museum on top, Protege, then Music and Lyrics. However, Twins Mission managed to overtake It’s a Wonderful Life for the 4th spot. Both films are doing pretty bad at the box office though, with HK$140,000 for the Twins and HK$120,000 for Gold Label on the same screen counts (26 and 33, respectively).

Numbers from mov3.com are here.

- Toho-Towa is one of Japan’s biggest distributors, and now they will replace UIP, a huge distributor of foreign films in Japan, as the distributor for Universal Pictures. I wonder if this is the result of Universal seeing Warner Bros.’ success in Japan with the Death Note movies and now wants to make a move into Japan, Hollywood’s second biggest market in the world.

- Thanks to Dark Horizon, we have a new trailer for Danny Boyle’s sci-fi thriller Sunshine. But like the trailer before it, this one also seem to have a lot of indirect spoilers, such as:

SPOILER ALERT:

Who wants to guess that all the Asian cast members will die, leaving the white people around at least to the end?

SPOILER OVER

Anyway, go see the trailer at your own risk here.

- According to some news sites in China, the State administration of Radio, Film, and Television has limited the run of “competition shows” (such as those American idol clones such as Super Girl) to two and a half months. However, these news have only appeared on news sites, but not as any official release from the SARFT. There’s no explanation why, and apparently the pro side (and I’m just assuming those people are playing the devil’s advocate) says this about the advantage of limiting these shows:

“This is good. Competition shows harm the healthy psychological development of youth. Now young people don’t think of working hard to achieve success, but want to become rich and famous overnight. This phenomenon is really scary.”

Shortening these shows don’t change anything, it just encourage producers to make more of them to fill those empty slots. Here’s a wild idea, though: to better develop the youth’s psychology, why not, say, stop brainwashing them at school with revised history. Or how about pay higher wages at criminally low-paying jobs to give reward for people to work. Or how about improving human rights? They sound like crazy ideas, but they’re so crazy it might just work!

- Meanwhile, the Hong Kong government has announced a new set of financial aid for the ailing Hong Kong film industry. It will pour $38 million (not sure if this is Hong Kong or American dollars though) to help finance productions and find new talents. This is a good time to be applying to film school in Hong Kong. Why, that’s exactly what I’m doing right now!

In the next post, I will translate an article from Hong Kong’s Ming Pao in the light of The Departed’s Oscar win.

Just some leftover comments from the Oscars last night (and apparently my entry afterwards brought in double the page visit counts):

- Those over at Mobius (whom I believe to have some of the best insights on Asian films out there simply because, well, they know more than me) have a thread on the “Infernal Affairs is from Japan” flub by the announcer last night (although the responsibility probably goes to whoever wrote and didn’t fact-check that script). There’s even an interesting opinion on how the media reports that the Oscars have decided to award “homegrown films,” despite The Departed being a remake (and maybe the first Asian remake to win best picture).

- Speaking of the announcer flub, Daily Dumpling seemed to have made the mistake saying that it was Oscar winner Helen Mirren who made the mistake. No, it was announcer Gina Tuttle who did it. (The only reason that I made the comment here is because I didn’t want to sign up for Wordpress just to follow the usual HK-er comment about Infernal Affairs being better. In my humble opinion, it wasn’t. And don’t be bitter - Hong Kong did submit it to the Academy Awards for best foreign film, it just didn’t get considered, boo-ya!)

- A little off-topic, but a blog I read, Hongkie Town, has a pretty good round-up of the commercials by HK broadcaster TVB during its Oscar broadcast. I downloaded their broadcast of the Oscars when I was studying in Japan, and for some reason, it didn’t include any of the announcements for the presenters for some odd reason.

- Alright, I promised Hong Kong box office numbers. On Sunday, the rankings pretty much stayed the same, with Night At the Museum taking in HK$1.84 million on 45 screens for a HK$31.2 million total so far. It might hit that big 40 mil mark by the end of its run, since the Pang Brothers’ The Messengers being only its biggest competition this weekend. Derek Yee’s Protege, meanwhile, is showing signs of weakness with only a HK$1.06 million take from 40 screens on Sunday for a HK$21.85 million total so far. As I predicted before, it should hit the HK$25 million mark, becoming the highest-grossing Lunar New Year movie since 2004’s Fantasia.

As for the other Hong Kong films, Ronald Cheng’s It’s a Wonderful Life is near its death rattle with a HK$320,000 gross from 33 screens for a HK$7.04 total. It might just make it to the 8-million mark. Lastly, the Twins’ Twins Mission (website finally working!) manage to make HK$300,000 on 26 screens for a HK$5.27 million total, and it might just have a chance of hitting the 6-million mark. It may also mean that this is the end of the Twins franchise, considering at the heights of its popularity, Twins Effect managed to make HK$30 million.

As far as Oscar winners go, best foreign film The Lives of Others managed a healthy HK$30,000 on 2 screens and should be packed again next weekend in light of its Oscar win.

Source: mov3.com

- Japanese box office rankings are also out (numbers will hopefully come tomorrow), and Oscar loser Dreamgirls actually took the top spot after debuting at 2nd last week. Dororo drops down one to second, and the kind of-big debut this week Sakuran (which is getting good reviews. More later) opens at 7th. It may not seem very strong, but it’s also not a very wide opening (while Bubble He Go! gets 28 theaters in the Tokyo area, and Dororo gets 27, Sakuran is only on 13). More on the results tomorrow when I have solid numbers in my hands.

Source: Movie Walker (for those screen counts), and Eiga Daisuki!

- Hoga Central has a roundup of some of the positive reviews for the Japanese films that opened this past weekend - Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Retribution, Sakuran, and the new film by the director of Linda Linda Linda. Yes, she actually has the title of the film whose kanji I couldn’t read. Here it is.

- A set of solid numbers I do have are those Japanese drama ratings, and TBS’s anniversary drama Karei Naru Ichizoku tumbles to its lowest ratings of the season with a 21.1 rating, while the Flower Boys surpassed it with a 22.7 rating. That’s right, Japan is so into its metrosexual boys that a drama featuring 5 of them would beat an epic-scale drama about a rich family in 70s Japan. TBS isn’t aching, though, they can now brag that two of the highest-rating dramas are on their network.

Meanwhile, the two Monday dramas recover from getting their lowest ratings last week, and Haken no Hinkaku continues to get above-average ratings with a 20.2 rating, down very slightly from last week.

- Variety also has the numbers for Letters From Iwo Jima’s international performance (i.e. outside Japan and the US). It’s a really long article, so I’ll just quote the important stuff:

“‘Letters From Iwo Jima’ launched best in France with $744,500 at 153, while the pic’s soph sesh in Spain declined only 15% to $316,000 at 69, the U.K. debut took in $129,000 at 38, and the Australian opening grossed $104,000 at 24. “Letters” has grossed $47 million overseas, including $42 million in Japan.”

In case you want to know how Ghost Rider did overseas (I honestly don’t care), here’s the article.

- South Korea also had a pretty strong weekend. I don’t know much about the films opening and playing there (of course I know the foreign films, I mean the Korean films, although I review a lot of it for my freelance work). So I’ll let Korea Pop Wars do the job for me.

- After Chen Kaige’s The Promise was given the ultimate sarcastic middle finger by the Chinese internet community, the government is now imposing new rules for film crew in order to protect the environment. Maybe next they can try and get rid of pollution so smog will stop traveling to Hong Kong.

Source: Variety Asia.

- Hong Kong’s Sundream Pictures (whose logo looks like a mainland Chinese film studio from the 70, or worse, Raymond Wong’s Mandarin Pictures) is planning on expanding its work to international distribution and video production. Details from Variety Asia is here.

Lastly, I apologize for not getting back to comments as quickly as I had hoped to. I didn’t enable the comment notification option, and by the time I found the comments, it’s already been a week or two. I’ve activated that feature now, and comments are open to everyone (subject to not very strict moderation by yours truly), so go for it.