- Earlier in the week I wrote that the Japanese film Always 2 opened at 150% of its sequel’s opening. Thanks to Eiga Consultant, I now realize I was wrong. At 550 million yen, its opening is actually 256% of the original’s opening, which means if the word-of-mouth holds up, Always 2 may be heading for the 5 billion yen mark to become the second-biggest film of the year behind Hero.

- Speaking of Always 2, the Daily Yomiuri devotes some time to the blockbuster sequel, first with what seems like a pseudo-review for the film, then with a short feature on star Hidetaka Yoshioka.

- Under “big TV network exploits small town troubles” news today, Japanese network TBS will produce a drama about the troubles of Yubari, Hokkaido when the town literally went bankrupt. Who knows? Maybe it might turn out good. It probably won’t.

- The Academy has announced their final list of qualified films for the best animated film awards - Japan’s Tekkonkinkreet and the Hong Kong-produced TMNT are on that final list. Note that this does not mean they are now Oscar-nominated films; it just means they may be.

- In more Imagi news, the Hong Kong animation firm has acquired screenplay rights for Fluorescent Black, an original story that will first be adapted as a “graphic novel” before becoming an animated film. This is the first Imagi project that isn’t based on an established story.

- Lust, Caution is not only a commercial hit in Mainland China, the censored version, which still has several nudity-less sex scenes, has touched off a massive internet debate about sexuality on screen and even Mainland censorship.

- Speaking of Chinese censorship, the Canadian Broadcasting Company has reportedly pulled a documentary on the persecution of Falun Gong members in China after pressure from Chinese diplomats. It’s hard to believe that Canada has to be afraid of China when Hong Kong police don’t even stop Falun Gong demonstrators from putting up a huge sign saying “Destroy the Chinese Communist Party” in the middle of the busiest district in Hong Kong.

- In Hong Kong, director Christopher Nolan says that he did not take out a scene in which Batman jumps into Victoria Harbor due to pollution, but because of a script change. In fact, he said he would have no problems dumping actors into pollution anyway. Christian Bale must be thanking someone that it didn’t happen.

- Independent Korean directors are celebrating the opening of Indie Space, the first theater in South Korea dedicated to showing Korean independent feature films and short films.

- The Yomiuri’s Teleview column writes about the role of the middle-aged people working in Japanese television.

The Golden Rock will be going away for a few days. This blogger will be shooting his final project this weekend while some administrative stuff gets taken care of. We’ll be back on Monday, when we might have a little surprise.

- It’s Oricon charts time! Mr. Children scores their 27th consecutive number 1 single this week, while Glay’s latest EP could only get a 2nd place debut. As for the album chart, The Backstreet Boys’ comeback album manages to hold on to the top spot for the second week in a row, as Seamo’s latest manages a second place debut with 56,000 in sales. Go read more at Tokyograph.

- Despite delays and 7 minutes of cuts (though some of the sex scenes remain), Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution is a hit in China and is expected to surpass the distributor’s forecast for its final gross. It’s even made people discuss film sexuality, though it couldn’t avoid the juvenile “shameless actors will do anything for money!” comments.

- As for South Korea, October 2007 box office is down 33% from October 2006. Before someone screams “piracy,” a possible explanation for the drop is because the Chuseok holiday occurred in September this year.

- It’s reviews time! Variety’s Derek Elley actually manages to survive the Mainland Chinese comedy Contract Lover and lives to tell about it. Elley also reviews Taiwan’s Academy Awards best foreign film entry Island Etude (also known as “the movie that replaced Lust, Caution”). Then Russell Edwards caught the hit “cell phone novel” adaptation Koizora (Sky of Love) at Tokyo International Film Festival.

Elsewhere, Lovehkfilm’s Kozo offers up reviews of the Hong Kong “relay” film Triangle, the small Hong Kong film Magic Boy, and the hit Japanese drama adaptation film Hero. Meanwhile, Sanjuro offers up reviews of another Japanese drama adaptation Unfair: The Movie and the Korean summer horror hit Black House.

- Both Ryuganji and Jason Gray write about the latest controversy regarding Toho actually asking people to give a standing ovation for the cast at an opening day event for the Japanese film Always 2. This comes after Toho had a PR nightmare on their hands when Erika Sawajiri ridiculed her latest film Closed Note at a similar event.

Jason Gray coverage
Ryuganji coverage

- The fifth Bangkok World Film Festival is over, and the Austrian film Import/Export won best film, while Taiwanese art film Help Me Eros managed to earn the special jury prize.

- Did I enjoy the comic adaptation film Honey and Clover? Not greatly. Was it a really big hit? Not really. That’s not stopping Fuji TV from bringing it to the drama world next season on Tuesdays at 9pm. Maybe it’d be better off there.

- With the possible exception of 28 Weeks Later, Fox Atomic hasn’t released one movie that can be considered “good.” However, that’s not stopping them from becoming the first Hollywood studio to produce a movie in South Korea. This one doesn’t sound any good, either.

- Under “Hong Kong people just like to complain, complain, complain” news today, after Batman realized Victoria Harbor’s water is too toxic to jump into, environmental groups and some tenants are complaining the producers’ request to keep the lights on at night for buildings along the waterfront.

To answer the group Green Sense: No, you cannot just “turn on” lights at night through post-production because there’s no light on the buildings themselves. For a group named “Green Sense,” you certainly don’t have much “common sense.”

- Under “most dubiously interesting idea” news today, Japan’s NTV is planning a “blog drama,” in which the path of a TV drama will be decided by fans who contribute to the drama’s blog.

- It’s Japanese drama ratings time! Galileo saw another small decline in its 3rd week, though it’s still very strong at 21.3 rating (yes, I realize that the 4th week has already been shown, and we’ll look at that next week). Fuji’s 3rd Saturday 11pm drama SP premiered to a fairly strong 14.5 rating, which makes it the strongest premiere ratings for that time slot (Liar Game premiered at 12.3 and Life premiered at a 11 rating.). The challenge now is whether word-of-mouth will carry like the previous two dramas have.

Meanwhile, Iryu 2 rebounded slightly to a 15.8 for the 4th week, Hatachi No Koibito dipped all the way to a 7.4 rating, Joshi Deka continues its fall to an 8.4 rating for its 3rd week, but Takashi Sorimachi’s Dream Again does manage to rebound slightly to a 10.0 rating in its 4th week.

All Japanese drama information on Tokyograph

- In American Film Market news, both buyers and sellers are complaining about the slow start. This is, of course, due to the constant stream of film markets happening not only in Asia, but also in Rome.

Meanwhile, since I’m a Hong Kong blogger, why would I not include a link about a panel on Hong Kong? Of course, it’s going to be about lots and lots of co-productions.

- Then in your daily Andrew Lau news, the Weinstein Company decides to give Lau another Hollywood movie to work on, even though his first Hollywood movie hasn’t even been released in Hong Kong.

Sorry this is a truncated version of the usual posts, despite having lots of news out there. We’ll try to do things more normally tomorrow.

- The Hong Kong websites couldn’t deliver the Hong Kong box office stats in time, so I’ll just do it myself thanks to Box Office Mojo. As predicted from the opening day gross, the relay film Triangle was a weak number 1 opener with almost HK$2.4 million from 36 screens over Thursday to Sunday. Considering the film opened with only HK$420,000 on Thursday, this means the adult audience (read: older film buffs) showed up over the weekend.

Lust, Caution passed the HK$40 million mark. Yawn.

Not sure if this is accurate, but Brothers apparently lost another 71% of its business, but at least it has gone past the HK$10 million that would qualify this as a moderate hit.

Anyone cares about how the limited releases did? Good, me neither.

- The Japanese box office was pretty huge this past weekend, as Eiga Consultant predicted correctly that Resident Evil 3 would indeed win the weekend. In fact, the third movie actually opened at 117% of the opening for the second film with 598 million yen. However, the opening for Always 2, while only at second place, was actually stronger in terms of comparing it with the series. At 474 million yen, the opening for the second film is nearly 150% of the opening of the first film, which became both a critical and a commercial hit.

The surprise is “cell phone novel” adaptation Koizora, which opened at 3rd place with 476 million yen. This is not only thanks to a dominant female audience (88% of total audience), but it was also thanks to the 10 to 20-year-old demographic, which made up 78.2% of the total audience.

Despite three big movies dominating, Takashi Miike’s Crows: Episode Zero only lost 26.5% of its audience in its second week. Blockbuster Hero is starting to lose its audience fast, losing 40% in box office gross. With 7.8 billion yen in the bank, it’s not likely the drama adaptation will hit the 10 billion yen mark Fuji had hope for, and the 15 billion forecast producer Chihiro Kameyama wants is something he made up while stoned.

- In South Korean box office, Hero opened with the highest amount of screens for a Japanese film in Korea, but with a limited target audience (read: People who know the established characters), it was nowhere near the opening for Sinking of Japan at only 128,000 admissions. Meanwhile, Le Grand Chef, which I guess you can make the vague Tezza connection because it shares the same original comic author, opens at number 1.

Once again, the top 3 films are Korean films, which suggests Korean films are taking back the year, but of course, there will always be people ready to blame the industry downturn on piracy. Still, give them credit for finally using “lack of creativity” as one of the reasons.

- Let’s start with some AFM news:

CJ entertainment has already presold director Park Chan-Wook’s untitled vampire film to France and Russia before the director has even started shooting. Starring Song Kang-Ho, the film is about a priest who transforms into a vampire. I’m hoping it’ll be better than it sounds.

Fuji TV’s biggest movie of the market is the Stephen Chow-co-produced spin-off of Shaolin Soccer Shaolin Girl. The reason I used so many titles is because producer Chihiro Kameyama wants to make sure that no one sees it as Shaolin Soccer 2.

Thanks to the market, stills from Chung Siu-Tong’s The Empress and the Warriors, starring Kelly Chan, Leon Lai, and Donnie Yen, are popping up online. Hong Kong Film Blog points out that the armor designs seem to recall Jackie Chan’s The Myth. I don’t know if it’s just me, but I can’t get excited about big martial arts blockbusters anymore.

While Asian film companies go to the American Film Market hoping to get their films sold, they aren’t really biting at anything Hollywood has to offer this year.

- I’m not sure if this deal was done during the AFM, but several Japanese films are heading to North America thanks to those small distributors we love so much here at The Golden Rock.

- With the low budgets of Asian films, they really will let any company make a movie these days. That includes a certain Japanese multiplex that had a “Cinema Plot Competition”. The first winning film will star a newcomer and will be directed by Rainbow Song director Naoto Kumazawa.

- Like I wrote earlier, how can China’s official film award not name their pick for the best foreign film at the Academy Awards the best film? That’s why The Knot won 2.5 awards, including best film, half of best director, and best sound.

- The biggest CD now in Chinese-speaking record stores has to be Jay Chou’s latest album (with that horrible first single), and AP News says that it’s supposed to reflect his current life. Cue paparazzi listening to every song to make up stories.

- Speaking of Jay Chou, the teaser poster for his latest “film” Kung Fu Dunk is now in Hong Kong theatres, along with a teaser on Youtube. Just the title of Kung Fu Dunk and expecting audiences to be dumb enough to still buy a movie with a title like that is flat out insulting.

Of course, it’ll probably be a huge hit.

- Speaking of movies that will suck, Kaiju Shakedown has a bunch of movies Grady expect will suck.

On the other hand, he also names a few movies that might rock, although I’ve heard that Shamo is not one of them.

- As you all know if you read the blog yesterday, the Japanese sequel Always 2 opened this weekend, and it’s being commemorated with a diorama built by the film’s crew recreating the film’s set.

- Dave Spector, an American working actively in Japanese telelvision, says that Japanese drama suck quite a bit. There are still good dramas out there, just not most of them.

- The latest Batman film - The Dark Knight - is coming into Hong Kong to film this week, but apparently a scene of Batman jumping into the harbor has been canceled because it’s so damned dirty.

- Time for some news on Johnnie To/Wai Ka-Fai’s latest collaboration Mad Detective. First of all, Hong Kong’s Oriental Daily reported that the category-III crime drama has secured a November 29th release date opposite Danny Pang’s In Love with the Dead.

There’s also a trailer that’s finally up. Those mirror shots are pretty impressive.

- During the box office report, I reported that the Japanese sequel Always 2 is opening this weekend, and Japan Times’ Mark Schilling has a review of it. Looks like the conclusion is “strictly for fans.”

- Meanwhile, Mr. Schilling also has a feature about the Japanese Eyes section of last week’s Tokyo International Film Festival, while Philip Brasor shares his thoughts on the films he saw.

- Fuji’s 3rd Saturday 11pm drama SP premieres tonight in Japan, and Ryuganji reports that a movie version will probably be greenlit. Then again, the drama IS directed by the director of Bayside Shakedown and written by an award-winning author, so it might be good enough to warrant one. But will the ratings be any good to warrant one?

- Just a day after I wrote about my pessimism towards Andrew Lau’s latest big-budget project, Hollywood Reporter has an interview with the unofficial spokesperson for directors with ADD Andrew Lau himself.

- When I went to the showing of Tsui Hark/Ringo Lam/Johnnie To crime film Triangle, the theater wasn’t even half-full. Looking at other theaters’ bookings on the internet, I really thought it would be a flop. However, looking at its Thursday opening day box office, it actually did alright. From 36 screens (seriously, did it deserve 36 screens?), the relay film made HK$435,000. With any luck, it may go past HK$2 million by the end of the weekend, but I doubt it’ll do any better than your usual Milkyway film.

Meanwhile, the only other wide release is the Hollywood action flick Shoot ‘Em Up, which made only HK$60,000 from 20 screens. As for the limited releases, the European arthouse flick Silk made HK$30,000 from 4 screens, and the Taiwanese youth pic Summer’s Tail only made HK$20,000 from 7 screens.

Lust, Caution, meanwhile, has probably passed the HK$40 million mark by now, and will probably remain the highest-grossing Chinese film of the year unless The Warlords comes in and beat it. However, that’s not all that likely at this point.

- In Japan, Eiga Consultant predicts that Resident Evil 3 will actually beat Always 2, the sequel to the hit Japanese nostalgia film, this weekend. This is because Resident Evil 2 had a far better opening than Always 1. For realz? What about the power of Always as an established franchise?

- Variety Asia, after their “10 actors to watch out for” feature, now has a “10 cinematographers to watch for” feature. While three of them are Asian, none of them work in Asian films.

Rain Li
Tetsuo Nagata
Larry Fong

- It’s reviews time! Jason Gray has a review of Takashi Miike’s box office hit Crows: Episode Zero, which he seemed to have enjoyed. Meanwhile, Variety has a few reviews for films from the Tokyo International Film Festival: Russell Edward’s reviews for Bloody Snake Under the Sun and Negative Happy Chainsaw Edge. Working busier than ever, there’s also Edwards’ review for festival winner United Red Army.

- After making a failed attempt into Hollywood (considering it’s been done forever, was finished by its star, and still hasn’t seen a release date in North America, The Flock is a failure already), Andrew Lau manages to continue conning Media Asia into giving his a ton of money for a movie. This time he will direct the first of a trilogy of films based on the famed Chinese novel The Water Margin, with him producing the second film, to be directed by Johnnie To (Andrew Lau producing for Johnnie To?). Maybe I’m being really cynical about this, but it’s really hard for me to get excited about a big-budget Andrew Lau film.

- In more Lust, Caution news, the Mainland Chinese version, cut by Ang Lee himself and took 6 revisions before it passed, finally opened in China. EastSouthWestNorth has a translation of a Mainland Chinese article that discusses the difference between the two, despite a rumored mandate from the Central Publicity Department to not discuss the differences.

- Lastly (to save news for the rest of the weekend), there’s a third and probably final trailer for Peter Chan Ho-Sun’s The Warlords, which currently seems to be the only Chinese film in the Hong Kong market for Christmas. As expensive and star-packed as it seems, I can’t get myself excited for this one either for some reason.

- Let’s first go over the Japanese box office numbers. Takashi Miike’s Crows Zero was quite a hit, making 397 million yen over the first two days from 259 screens, which was way more than enough to knock Hero off the top spot after holding it for 7 weeks. The drama adaptation is no slouch, though - it only lost under 18% of its business and is still on 475 screens. This is probably Fuji’s way of trying to push it to the 1- billion yen mark.

The other newcomers all found spots in the top 10, with Jigyaku No Uta (also known as Happily N’ever After) starring Miki Nakatani and Hiroshi Abe opening somewhat disappointingly at 8th place on 147 screens. Even more disappointing is Neil Jordan’s The Brave One starring Jodie Foster, which found only a 5th place opening after opening it on 294 screens and a big Hollywood-size premiere in Japan.

- The blog is now leaving the Oricon charts reporting to Tokyograph’s weekly reports because it seems like people don’t quite care about analysis of Japanese music charts. I care about numbers, but I deliver what people want, and I skip what people don’t. So, Bump of Chicken has two singles on the top 10, and a Morning Musume compilation album can only muster a 6th place debut.

- It’s reviews time! All from Variety this time are Russell Edwards’ review of the Tokyo International Film Festival opener Midnight Eagle, which is supposed to open day-and-date in Japan and North America, though it sounds kind of crappy. There’s also Robert Koehler’s review of Ryo Nakajima’s This World Of Ours, which is revealing plot details I’ve never heard of. Lastly, Derek Elley has a review of the Korean blockbuster May 18.

- Twitch has more about Danny Pang’s latest film In Love With the Dead. After reading the convoluted plot description, I honestly wonder if it’ll be able to top brother Oxide Pang’s The Detective.

By the way, I couldn’t get the trailer to work, but good luck to you.

- Just like The Forbidden Kingdom, Jet Li would like to tell you that The Mummy 3 may not be a very good movie.

- I know i should not judge a book based on its title, but why would anyone give $40 million for a film with a title like Laundry Warriors? I think it was the “We will deliver a stylized, partly anime feel, with the techniques of ‘300,’ but a look that is brighter” line that inspired their confidence. Their confidence, not mine.

Anyway, they’ll be shooting this thing in New Zealand.

- NHK will be airing a special of actress Takako Matsu’s singing career. For Hong Kong Japanese entertainment fans, Takako is known as half of the golden duo (with Kimura Takuya) that started the Japanese drama fever in the late 90s with the drama Love Generation. Perhaps that’s why I can’t really buy the idea of her being a singer.

- Kaiju Shakedown writes about Japanese director Masato Harada’s two latest movies. One of them happens to be that suicide song movie from earlier in the year that had advertisements in Japanese toilets.

- After the live-action franchise has proven to be a hit (though not very good in quality), Capcom and Sony will be working on a CG 3D feature animated film based on the Biohazard franchise set to be released in the second half of next year. For those not in the know, Biohazard is better known as Resident Evil outside Japan.

- Last but not least, director Senkichi Taniguchi, who directed several screenplays written by Akira Kurosawa, has passed away at 95.

- Another Monday, another look at Japanese drama ratings this past week. Galileo holds on to its strong premiere ratings with a 22.1 rating for its second episode. Abanrenbo Mama with Aya Ueto also managed to hold on well, dropping only to a 14.2 rating after its 15.3 premiere episode.

Several episodes saw its ratings increased - Hataraki Man went up to a 13 rating from the previous week’s 12.3, Friday night TBS drama Utahime went up to a season-high 9.8 after a dip to 7.5, and Mop Girl’s ratings have risen for the second week in a row.

The season’s biggest disappointment (and there are quite a few already) may be the sequel Iryu 2. After premiering with a strong 21 rating, its rating has fallen dramatically to a 15.5 rating by its third week, despite the first installment being voted the favorite drama that season.

All Fall 2007 Japanese drama information here.

- The Australian film Home Song Stories, which scored several nominations at the Golden Horse Awards, just won both best feature and an award for achievement in acting for Joan Chen at the Hawaii Film Festival.

- After this year’s TV remake of High and Low, another Kurosawa film is going down the remake route: this time it’s Hidden Fortress, starring Arashi member Jun Matsumoto and Masami Nagasawa. Directed by Shinji Higuchi, who last directed the disaster spectacle The Sinking of Japan, the remake will start filming next month and set for a Golden Week 2008 release.

- The Tokyo Film Festival just wrapped, and the jury awarded the Israeli film The Band’s Visit with the Tokyo Sakura Grand Prix. Meanwhile, Jason Gray has a bit more on Japanese Eyes section winner United Red Army.

- Speaking of festival, the Cannes anniversary commemoration omnibus film To Each His Own Cinema will actually be released theatrically in France. Twitch has a link to the trailer, though it only features one still from each film. In case you don’t know, the omnibus features quite a few Asian directors, including Takeshi Kitano, Hou Hsiao-Hsien, and Zhang Yimou, among others.

- Why didn’t someone think of using the name manga.com earlier? Isn’t it such an obvious website name for legit Japanese comics?