- It’s Japanese drama ratings time! Saito-san sees its season-low ratings, as well as One Point Gospel. The Negotiator wraps up with an OK-13.2 rating (not too far below its premiere’s 16.7 rating). Meanwhile, Honey and Clover’s freefall continues to 8.0 this past week, while Bara No Nai Hanaya managed to recover slightly with a 16.5 rating. Lost Time Life stays steady, Edison No Haha saw a pretty good boost, and Sasaki Fusai No Jingi Naki Tatakai’s ratings increase didn’t last longer than a week.

- This news was first found at Eiga Consultant. The 2005 German documentary Our Daily Bread broke attendance record during its 4-month run at one Tokyo theater. Both reports contribute the film’s success to concerns about food safety for Chinese-made food, but there’s also Japan’s tendencies to put wrong expiry dates and screws in food that added to the concern.

- Meanwhile, the controversial Bollywood epic Jodhaa Akbar has now surpassed the 1 billion rupee mark at the box office. Meanwhile, courts overturned the Madhya Pradesh government’s ban, while violent protests interrupt screenings and screenings are still blocked in some regions.

In case you want to know what the hoopla is all about, Hollywood Reporter has a review.

- Under “Edison Chen’s career freefall” news today, his latest Hong Kong film Sniper has now been pushed back to May from a planned March 29th release date. However, distributor Media Asia states that it’s because the Mainland Chinese authorities has yet to approved the film, which is necessary for all co-productions (this also means the cops win by default at the end of the film).

On a side note, distributors in Taiwan for Pang Ho-Cheung’s Trivial Matters has decided to add in the advertising that this film is Edison Chen’s final film before he announced his retirement from showbiz. This is inaccurate, since he still has Sniper and possibly Stephen Fung’s Jump.

-Poor China: The EU and the United States are always bullying the poor authoritarian country. First it was over intellectual property, and now the two political giants are going to the WTO over China’s block of foreign media agencies. China granted the Xinhua News Agency with sole discretion on giving out media license to foreign organizations, which apparently blocks out other news agencies such as Reuters and Bloomberg.

- Chinese TV and film writers, inspired by their American counterparts, met up to talk about how to protect the copyrights of their intellectual property. The thing is, unlike Hollywood writers, they’re not even looking for more money: They just want their rights protected and their work respected.

- I missed out on this a few days ago when it was on Nippon Cinema: There’s a teaser out for the sequel to the kiddie-oriented live-action adaptation of Gegege No Kitaro. It seems like they’re aiming for a more serious film this time around, but trailers have been deceptive before, so I’m being extremely cautious about this one.

-  Not only will the upcoming Japanese epic sci-fi trilogy 20th Century Boys be Japan’s highest-budgeted film ever at 6 billion yen, it’s now been announced that the film will feature a cast of 300 people. In other words, expect to see a lot of “policeman #_” when the credits come up.

- I never knew that Takashi Kitano has his own awards show, AND he gives awards to his own movies there!

- With actions being taken to help the industry and a reversal of the ban on Indian films, will Pakistani cinema slowly flourish?

-  Twitch has a link to an interview with former Ghibli studio head Suzuki Toshio, who talks a bit about Hayao Miyazaki’s upcoming Ponyo on a Cliff.

-  Believe it or not, Maggie Cheung has not appeared in a film since 2004, and she says she’s actually quite OK with that.

- It was a moderately busy weekend in Hong Kong box office this weekend. Dennis Law’s Fatal Move, which promised audiences old-school category-III style triad violence, managed to top the box office on Sunday, making HK$612,000 from 29 screens HK$2.15 million over the 4-day weekend. I’m just happy that it beat Meet The Spartans, which is in second place  with HK$407,000 from 31 screens for a HK$1.68 million 4-day total. Depressingly, the only other opening film to make it on the top 10 is the Hollywood romantic comedy I Could Never Be Your Woman, which made HK$690,000 from 10 screens over the weekend (not sure if this includes the previews from the previous week). That means Jingle Ma’s Playboy Cops, the Korean film Le Grand Chef, and the Japanese horror film Kaidan all didn’t make it to the top 10.

As for holdovers, Enchanted was still at 3rd place on Sunday with 331,000 from 34 screens for a 25-day total of HK$27.44 million. 30 million may be slightly out of reach, but it’s still excellent for a film that features no recognizable star in Hong Kong (er…I guess Susan Sarandon counts?). Juno made HK$288,000 from 11 screens for a 2-weekend total of HK$2.68 million. No Country for Old Men is not far behind with HK$283,000 from 8 screens for a 2-weekend total of HK$2.01 million.

- In Japanese attendance figures, The Golden Compass knocked L off the top spot as expected.  Two animated films also hit the field, making for a very family-friendly weekend (probably due to the start of Spring vacation in Japan for kids). Meanwhile, war trial film Best Wishes For Tomorrow opened at 6th place, and Wrestling with a Memory, which I’ll be catching at the Hong Kong Film Festival, debuts at 7th place. More when the numbers come out.

- It’s Taiwan music charts time! This week on the G-Music charts, Aska Yang got its first place back after Gary Cao regained his top spot last week. Cao dropped down to 3rd place, which is still damn good after 9 weeks on the chart. Another strong performer to Joanna Wang, whose debut album is still at 2nd place after spending 7 weeks on the chart. The best-performing newcomer is the Grammy compilation album all the way down at 15th place. Other than that, sales are kind of depressing right now.

- It’s reviews time! This week from Japan Times’ Mark Schilling is Doko Ni Iku No, the first film in 22 years from cult director Yoshihiko Matsui. Also included is an interview with the director himself. Also, there’s a review of Yoji Yamada’s Kabei from Twitch reviewer The Visitor.

- The latest film from Japanese director Daisuke Tengen may be attracting lots of attention not because Tengen is the son of late legendary director Shohei Imamura, but because of its…ahem…climatic scene.

-Walking by a Hong Kong video store that sells DVDs of Mainland content will tell you the same thing Variety is about to tell you: Chinese producers are making too many TV series without the airtime to broadcast them.

- Hollywood, now seeing the spending potential of the Chinese population, have devoted more money and time to exploit entertain the Chinese audience with films about and/or filmed in China. However, as the producers of Shanghai has learned, you have to play by the government’s rules.

- One of the films opening in Japan this weekend is the drama Ashita he no Yuigon, about the trial of a Japanese B-class war criminal. The Daily Yomiuri has two articles on it - one on the writers, who had to do thorough research in order to stay objective, and one on the actors, who had to recite actual testimonies from ther real-life counterparts. What they didn’t have is an actual review of the movie.

- Japanese record companies have plenty of ways to make money of fans (one compilation, two differently colored albums, anyone?), but this one takes the cake: the record company of the pop collective AKb48 (48 members and counting) is holding a special concert, and fans only get a chance to go if they get all 44 posters that come with their latest single. Let’s do the math: 1200 yen per single, multiply by 44 copies (only if the buyer happens to get a different poster each time). That means a stupid lucky fan has to spend over 50,000 yen to see the group live. After receiving numerous complaints and possible violation of fair business practices, the record company has now canceled their plans.

The sad part is I can easily imagine a Hong Kong record company doing this, except for the canceling part.

- After finding a few new hits, Korean cinema is now doing what Hollywood does best: Hit films getting potentially unnecessary upcoming sequels include 200 Pounds Beauty, Le Grand Chef, Tezza: The High Rollers, and The Host.

-In 1985, legendary director Akira Kurosawa began filming a documentary while filming for his epic film Ran stopped because of financing problems. However, he never finished the documentary when filming for Ran resumed. Now, his son plans to complete his father’s unfinished film and release it by 2010, the 100th anniversary of the director’s birth.

- Shawn Yue has already been in 4 movies in the past 8 months (Invisible Target, Trivial Matters, Playboy Cops, Shamo), and now we can add another one to the list: Rule #1, the new horror film from Singaporean director Kelvin Tong.

- What do you get for releasing your high-profile, award-winning film with a studio head as your producer uncensored, despite getting a rating that would kill any commercial prospects? An award for freedom of expression from the theater owners who didn’t want you to do so in the first place.

- Two Chinese groups that represent Chinese musicians and songwriters are suing the Chinese search engine Baidu for allowing users to find and download songs for free through its website, thus using illegal downloads to boost its advertising revenues.

- Courtesy of the informative EastSouthWestNorth is an entry from Danwei about the current state of Chinese cinema. Yes, it’s making money, but where is it headed?

- Jason Gray has a advance review of Gururi No Koto, Ryosuke Hashiguchi’s first film in six years. The teaser on the website (click on the link next to “information”) doesn’t say much, but that, along with the review, has gotten me fairly excited about the film now.

By the way, the film stars Lili Franky. Yes, the Lili Franky who wrote Tokyo Tower - Me, Mom and Sometimes Dad.

- Actress Takako Matsu, usually seen in TV dramas and films, just picked up the Best Actress Award at the Yomiuri Theater Awards for her performances in two stage productions.

- Even though I’m a bigger fan of another author named Murakami, it’s worth reporting that Ryu Murakami’s novel Coin Locker Babies’ film adaptation, which has been on-and-off for years, may still be happening……eventually?

- Watch out, Oricon, the Billboard charts is heading to Japan. It will be compiling data from radio airplay from 33 radio stations and sales figures from 3,000 retailers to make a top 100 chart that will likely differ from the weekly Oricon singles sales chart.

- It may seem strange to those who don’t really know the Japanese film industry, since you may expect a film studio to so something like this instead: major television network NTV has announced its slate of film for the 2008 fiscal year, which will range from the latest film from Hayao Miyazaki to a crime film starring Takeshi Kaneshiro as a killer in 1949 Japan. Most mainstream films in Japan are actually at least partially financed by major television networks. NTV, for one, have made a ton of money from the Death Note films (including the currently-in-release spinoff L: Change the World).

- Japanese actress Youki Kudoh, who was last seen in L: Change the World, will be in her second Jim Jarmusch film, about a “mysterious loner working outside the law.” Whatever that means.

- Lastly, Variety’s Derek Elley gives a brief review to the hit Korean handball movie Forever the Moment.

- The Japanese box office numbers are out, and L: Change The World is hanging on surprisingly well, losing only 17% of its business from the previous week. I guess people will watch detective L in anything. Meanwhile, the standings with money figures in is slightly different from the previously reported attendance figures, as Kabei and Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium draw the “cheap ticket” audience, ie the old and the young, which would have an impact on final figures. If you see, Magorium’s take is actually fairly close to Earth’s take.

Meanwhile, box office was also somewhat impact by the previews for The Golden Compass. No word on how many screens it was shown on, but it managed to take a fairly strong 270 million yen over a 2-day period. That’s 155% of last year’s Springtime blockbuster Night at the Museum. It’s set to open on a whopping 700 screens this Saturday, and will probably open big to knock L right off the top spot.

- It’s Oricon charts time! On the singles chart, Arashi has their 10th consecutive number 1 single, selling 324,000 copies. But consider their thunder stolen by Jero, the first African-American enka singer whose first single debuted at 4th place with 35,000 copies sold, making it the best debut by a solo enka singer.

On the albums side, another compilation tops the chart, while Yuna Ito and pop/rock group TOKIO saw fairly weak debuts.

More details at Tokyograph.

- The Bollywood epic film Jodhaa Akbar has now grossed US$18.5 million worldwide, and it still have a holiday weekend coming up. The blockbuster has garnered plenty of controversy for inciting riots, leading to its ban by the regional government in the state of Madhya Pradesh.

- Japan’s Takashi Miike will be the director for a major TV drama project that will run a rare 51 episodes. However, other directors will also come in a direct some episodes as well. The drama is about a high schooler who works with a cell phone robot against internet-based criminal organizations. Wicked.

- China Film Group’s Han “China needs more movie like Pursuit of Happyness” Sanping announces that the Christmas and Lunar New Year period was phenomenal for Chinese films at the box office. Of course, he didn’t say that they didn’t play fair by completely blacking out non-Chinese films for 3 months.

- As reported a while ago, there are two movies about Bruce Lee’s master Ip Man in the works. One of them is the one directed by Wong Kar-Wai and starring Tony Leung Chiu-Wai. I had thought the other one will be by Fruit Chan (whose film will be about Bruce Lee as a child in Hong Kong?), but turns out it’ll be directed by Wilson Yip and star none other than Donnie Yen (DONNNNNIIIEEEEE!!) and Sammo Hung.

Again, not much news in the world of Asian entertainment, so we’ll just keep combining box office reports with the other entries.

- Yesterday, I linked to a review of the Korean surprise hit thriller The Chaser. Looks like it actually did even better in its second weekend, making 4.4 billion won, a 23% increase from its opening weekend. It’s already gone past the million admission mark, and may even surpass current surprise hit, the handball film Forever The Moment.

Full box office report from Mark Russell’s Korea Pop Wars 

- A preview of tomorrow’s Oricon report: The first African-American enka singer Jero managed to score a 4th place debut for his first single Umiyuki. While I doubt that it sold 3.5 million copies (I bet you it’s 35,000, as 10,000 is a number value in Japanese) , it apparently sets the record for the best debut for an enka singer. His MTV really sucks, but he’s a pretty damn good singer.

- Japanese actress Yu Aoi has been on this blogger’s radar since Shunji Iwai’s Hana and Alice. However, I never realized that she’s more often seen in film than TV. That shall be no more, as now she’s set to star in her first TV drama this coming Spring.

- It’s trailers time! People say Japanese films are weird, and after watching the trailer for the double feature film Ghost Vs. Alien, I honestly cannot really defend that claim. But, hey, I wish I had thought making making a love story between a ghost and an alien too. Good thing I then watched the 60-second teaser for Mamoru Oshii’s The Sky Crawlers and everything seemed normal again.

- In more animation news, the surprise animated hit Evangelion 1.0: You Are (Not) Alone won the Animation of the Year award at the Tokyo International Anime Fair. The kicker is that the actual fair isn’t until the end of March. Thanks for ruining the surprise…you organizers.

- Lastly, Jason Gray writes about the strange recent twists in a 1981 murder in Los Angeles of a Japanese woman and how the hell it all connects to Japanese cinema. It’s a strange and fascinating read.

Not much news happening today (I don’t think the Oscars have anything to do with it…right?), so let’s combine everything together.

- In Hong Kong box office, Enchanted seemed to have taken the weekend again, making HK$810,000 from 35 screens for an 18-day total of HK$25.98 million. I still think 30 million is still in its reach. Last week’s opener Jumper is in second place with HK$627,000 from 38 screens on Sunday for a 11-day total of 9.93 million, just shy of HK$10 million. The Hollywood horror film The Mist did fairly well, with HK$500,000 from 25 screens for a 4-day weekend total of HK$1.69 million. The other major opener Vantage Point, made only HK$315,000 from 30 screens for a 4-day total of HK$1.16 million.
The Oscar nominees did extremely well the day before the big ceremony: Juno made HK$325,000 from just 12 screens, while best picture winner No Country For Old Men made HK$230,000 from 7 screens. The two films have made HK$1.09 million and HK$650,000, respectively. No idea on There Will Be Blood, as it was only on 3 screens showing it only 3 times a day, which means it wouldn’t have made the top 10.

CJ7 has crossed the HK$50 million mark, but grosses are still going the natural way, despite the ticket price cuts mentioned over the weekend.  On Sunday, the Stephen Chow film made HK$388,000 from 35 screens. After 25 days, it has made HK$50.61 million and will probably not even hit HK$55 million.

-  With no major releases, 8 of the top 10 films from last week’s Japan attendance figures remained at the same places. Only Flowers in the Shadow and Elizabeth: The Golden Age switched places at 3rd and 5th places.

- Someone catch the falling Japanese drama ratings. This week, the Monday 9pm Fuji drama Bara No Nai Hanaya falls to its season-low of 16.2% rating, while Honey And Clover has yet to see its ratings actually rise, hitting another low at 8.3%. Even reliable hit Aibou hit its season low of 14.7% after hitting its season high last week. However, somewhat good news for Sasaki Fusai No Jingi Naki Tatakai, whose ratings have finally gone up to 9.9% from 8.9 % last week.

- China’s education authorities is launching a test program that will include Peking Opera as a compulsory part of music education. This is to encourage a more traditional form of culture. What, you mean Jay Chou and Leehom Wang putting erhu in their songs don’t count?

- Shamo hasn’t even opened yet (though it’s been done for almost10 months), and director Soi Cheang already has a new movie on his hands. This time, it’s Assassins, a movie with Louis Koo and Richie Jen as members of a group of assassins that need to team together to save their friend. Give the man a teeny bopper comedy to do or something, he needs to lighten up.

- Korea Pop War’s Mark Russell offers a brief review of the current hit film in Korea, the serial killer thriller The Chaser.

- Under “aggressive director news that didn’t make it to the Associated Press” today, Japanese director Koichiro Yamashita was arrested over the weekend for getting drunk and attacking a poor convenience store clerk who was busy verbally attacking another customer. If you remember fondly, Hong Kong director Ringo Lam was arrested last week for fighting with a neighbor over something about a bucket and a parking space.

- It’s reviews time! From Berlin (I guess it was a market screening) is Variety’s Derek Elley’s review of Chung Siu-Tung’s Empress and the Warriors, starring Kelly Chen, Leon Lai, and Donnie Yen (DONNNNIIIIEEEEE!!!). Wait, did that just say Donnie Yen emphasizes character over martial artistry? THIS I have to see.

- This week on the Daily Yomiuri’s Televiews column, Wm Penn writes about the upcoming Spring season the networks already have in store for us since Winter isn’t working out so well for them.

- According to director/actor Stephen Fung, the future of his Stephen Chow-produced dance film Jump is actually still up in the air (no pun intended, really!). Colombia Pictures wants scenes of star Edison Chen removed, but Fung is now insisting that his part stays in since Chen has apologized for his actions and that he gave an excellent performance in the film. So is it going to be Fung vs. Hollywood? Will Stephen Chow join in the fray, or will he just step back until the dust settles?

- Under “potential new crappy horror franchise” news today, there will be a sequel to the Japanese horror film Kuchisake-Onna, also known as The Slit-Mouthed Woman. Actually, it’ll be a prequel of sorts, which doesn’t matter since it’s all the same to people these days.

- Under “they already made a crappy version of this” news today, there will be another Street Fighter film made, and the only reason to care is because legendary martial arts star Cheng Pei Pei will be in it. Still, this one can’t even get someone with the same caliber as Jean-Claude Van Damme, AND it’ll be directed by the director of masterpieces such as Romeo Must Die and Exit Wound. How good can this possibly get?

-  Japan has finally found its best-selling single, and it isn’t even on CD! The 1975 children’s song “Oyoge! Taiyaki-kun” sold 4.5 million copies when it was first released, and Guinness managed to find out that it’s actually the best-selling song ever in Japan. With renewed popularity, it will finally be released on CD next month.

-  Shochiku, one of the major distributors of Japan, has announced its slate of 16 films for 2008-2009, and they are aiming for a total of 20 billion yen in box office gross. On the other hand, major rival Toho will be aiming for 60 billion yen. Burn!

- Twitch has a trailer for the Korean gangster film A Destiny, which looks like plenty of homoerotic macho gangster action goodness. Look at those abs!

- Japan-born cinematographer Tetsuo Nagata has won his second Cesar Award for his work in the film La Vie En Rose, the biopic about singer Edith Piaf. That award is French, by the way.

- Japanese movie critic Yoshio Tsuchiya shares his thoughts about late director Kon Ichikawa with the Daily Yomiuri. It’s an excellent piece about an excellent director.

- It’s Taiwan music charts time! This week, sales are pretty evened out, as Gary Chaw’s album managed to take the top spot again, thanks to a new version of his album. It knocked off Aska Yang’s album from its 4-week streak at the top too. Meanwhile, only one album debuted on the top ten, and that was Koda “I’m like…really sorry” Kumi’s latest album with 2.47% of total sales.

- The Hong Kong Film Festival tickets went on sale today. This year, the festival includes several premieres from established Hong Kong directors, including Ann Hui’s The Way We Are, Lawrence Lau’s City Without Baseball, and film critic Shu Kei’s co-directed effort Coffee Or Tea. I have tickets to none of those, and yet I got tickets to 10 other films. It’s a crowded festival, indeed.

- Continuing with yesterday’s story about Shukan Bunshun’s worst films of 2007, Ryuganji has a thorough report on not only on the worst 10 list, but also the so-called best 10 list that they put together as well.

- After a serious of violent demonstrations over its historical inaccuracies, authorities in an Indian Hindu region has suspended screenings of the big-budget film Jodhaa Akbar, the latest film from the director of the Oscar-nominated Lagaan. The distributor/producer has vowed to fight the suspension.

- It’s review time! This week, Japan Times’ Mark Schilling reviews the running-themed drama Naoko, starring Juri Ueno and was mentioned earlier this week in the box office report.

- I’ve learned two things from the user-voted results of the Yahoo! Music Awards in Japan: Singing three albums’ worth of cover songs can get you Best Male Artist, and someone who had a PR disaster from being extremely rude at her own film’s premiere can still have a successful music career.

- In an effort to try and push its box office to match Kung Fu Hustle, CJ7’s distributor have lowered ticket prices to HK$45 for all general admissions at all cinemas (a general admission ticket costs anywhere from $55 to $75 in Hong Kong). That strategy isn’t going to work when the film had only so-so word-of-mouth, but good luck anyway!

- Hong Kong saw five films enter the box office charts on opening day yesterday. Nevertheless, expect Hollywood films Jumper and Enchanted fight for the top spot for the weekend. Among the opening films, the horror film The Mist did the best with HK$253,000 from 24 screens. The other wide release, the Rashomon-style thriller Vantage Point, opened on 29 screens for an opening of HK$173,000. In limited releases, Oscar nominees Juno and No Country For Old Men opened to respectable grosses, making HK$137,000 from 11 screens and HK$97,000 from 7 screens, respectively. The 5th non-Oscar nominated limited release, The Bucket List with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, made HK$47,000 from 3 screens on opening day. More on Monday.

-  According to Hong Kong newspapers, Japanese weekly magazine Shukan Bunshun has named Genghis Kahn: To The Ends of the Earth and Sea the worst film of 2007. I kind of called it OK in my review, but really, it was pretty laughably bad.

Here is the top (bottom?) ten films (original Japanese list):

1) Genghis Khan: To the Ends of the Earth and Sea
2) Koizora (Sky of Love)
3) Last Love (the one with Misaki Ito and Masakazu Tamura)
4) Love Never to End (Ai No Rukeichi)
5) Kantoku Banzai
6) Dororo
7) Saiyuki
For Those We Love
9) Hero (come on, it wasn’t THAT bad)
10) (tie) Inland Empire and The Mourning Forest

Source from Apple Daily

- Looks like the ban of Hollywood films in China is coming to an end, as three Hollywood films have been greenlit for release in March: 10,000 B.C., The Golden Compass, and National Treasure: Book of Secrets.

- Not again: Deceased Japanese pop star Zard will see another one of her unreleased songs released to make a few bucks, and it will even be used as the theme song for the new Detective Conan movie. How thorough did her record company search her place to find these recordings?

- Twitch has a more violent trailer of Dennis “Love @ First Note” Law’s latest Fatal Move. It could be good, but it’s Dennis Law, so I can’t say I have a lot of faith in it. Certainly looks category III, though.