There’s a bit less news than yesterday, which is good, because it’s taking longer and longer to write this thing everyday lately.

First, round-up from Hong Kong Filmart:

- A new production company has been unveiled, and it’s Big Media, backed mostly by sometimes-film producer but mostly video distributor Mei Ah. The company has announced that it will produce 100 movies in 5 years, which means I better get those screenplays written STAT! It’s too bad the films they’ve announced so far are creatively-drained pseudo-sequels like “Young Man Suddenly in Black” and “Another Better Tomorrow”

- A seminar on talent management of Asian stars crossing over into Hollywood finds a “let’s please everyone” answer of “we need to network…..and network some more.”

- The Digital Forum was also held today in light of the upcoming release of TMNT, which was produced by Hong Kong firm Imagi. The goal of increasing Asian computer animation is apparently telling Asian stories with Western storytelling. What if they can just capture audiences again with simple 2-D animation that the West has chosen to abandon?

- Professor Bordwell has also wrote a new entry, including his experience of watching Twins Mission (why oh why that one movie), getting free stuff from the Korean Film Council (man, I need to get that type of connection….even if it means some 30 years of film scholarship), meeting the incomparable Grady Hendrix and HKMDB’s Ryan Law, and also previews his visit to Johnnie To’s set of his portion of “Triangle” (can’t.breath.due.to.jealousy!!!!!!!!!!).

In other news:

- Ryuganji now has even more details about Kantoku Banzai, the latest from Takeshi Kitano (or Beat Takeshi, I guess). Apparently it’ll be a film more from his comedian side than his art side. My favorite quote? When asked whether the film will be submitted to the Cannes Film Festival, Kitano says, “Well, bits of it are are little embarrassing…”

- “Triangle,” which I thought has finished shooting, actually hasn’t because I saw the report of an opening shooting ceremony and Johnnie To joking that Ringo Lam took too long to shoot his portion on Ming Pao yesterday. Variety Asia has more details on the highly-anticipated project, including who’s gonna be distributing it in China (an HK film being approved for China, to me, is like the HK film version of watering down a movie to PG-13 in America).

- Asian Film - While on the Road has a review of two Kadokawa idol films - Sailor Suit and Machine Gun and The Young Girl who Conquered Time, starring two different idols that actually look quite alike and still do solid work in Japanese films today. It’s too bad I have seen neither, I almost bought Sailor Suit and Machine Gun on my last day in Hong Kong, but thought I already had too many DVDs to bring back. Shame.

- There’s still hope that Jet Li won’t be in Mummy 3! Official reports state that he’s still “in negotiations” to play the main villain in the Rob Cohen-directed cash-milking sequel. Even the original stars haven’t agreed to appear yet!

Of course “in negotiations” in Hollywood means he already said yes, he’s just holding out for more money.

- The problem that the Chinese government has with those idol music shows such as “Supergirl” is the entire idea behind the winners chosen is based on votes. You basically tell your viewers that you may not be able to vote on say, who leads your country or the direction your country is going, but at least you can choose who’ll become rich and famous!

Apparently, that’s not the only problem they have. They can’t seem to get over the fact that the word “super” is used for someone that’s democratically voted, as in someone that is actually liked by the people instead of telling the people who they should like, because “super” has powerful connotations.

So this season, the word “super” is out……so is the word “girl.” Now it’ll be named “Happy Boy” instead. D’oh.

My main news source Variety Asia is flooded with Hong Kong Filmart news, and here’s a small round-up from the first day:

- On the heels of HK Filmart’s successful expansion into the Hong Kong Entertainment Expo, Japan will have its first Asia Contents Market in Osaka and Kyoto at the end of September. The market will be focused on CG, animation, and digital cinema, catering mostly to the domestic market. It will be part of the Japan International Contents Festival, which include the Tokyo Game Show and the Tokyo International Film Festival (which starting last year, have begun to focus on exhibiting more obscure films).

- HK film production company Universe, having just joined the international sellers market at Berlin, is a huge presence at the Filmart. With at least Benny Chan’s latest, Johnnie To’s “Sparrow,” and new films by the Pang Brothers, it has added two mores films to its slate at Filmart - both medium-budgeted films by lesser-known talents, which has got to be a good thing.

- In addition to Universe, Emperor Motion Pictures has also announced a myriad of projects, many of which are Chinese co-productions (gags). It has also announced the hiring of Peggy Chiao, who is widely recognized as the mother of New Taiwan Cinema, as Production Controller. Does quality control come with that title?

- Variety Asia also rounds up the first seminar at Filmart, which was about the profitability of low-to-mid budget films, in light of the Hong Kong government’s recently-announced subsidy for these low-to-mid-budget films in order to encourage new talent. For those who are interested in the future of Hong Kong films, this is a good read.

In other news:

- I mentioned Susie Au and Ming Ming here before, though not in detail. It’s shown at the Hong Kong Filmart, and Twitch has what is probably its first English review. From this quote, I thought I was going to hate it: “Rather than surpress her stylistic urges she has further developed them, using every trick in her extensive book to try and create a new language of cinema.” But as I read along, it got gradually more promising, and now I’m honestly kinda looking forward to how it turns out.

- People who have followed this blog knows how critical I can be of Chinese censorship (Then again, I’m critical of a lot of other things too), so I hope that I never have to write this blog from China, because it seems like the government is going arrest-crazy again with cyber dissidents. Educators who blog criticizing the education system gets fired, editors of online news sites get 6 years of jail time, and so on and so on. Just how many more lives will the government have to ruin and how much authority has to be abused before China turns into total fascism?

- Lovehkfilm’s Sanjuro has a look at what’s in store in the Lovehkfilm pipeline. I have a few reviews coming up myself as well, most of them being Korean films that is already on Yesasia and, except for Ad Lib Night, aren’t really anything to get excited about.

- Meanwhile, Sanney Leung, former webmaster of Hong Kong Entertainment News in Review, chimed in with his review of Edmond Pang’s Isabella - in diary form! I don’t agree totally (I felt the emotions, but maybe it just pushed a button in me or something, or because I was just really wanted to like it for Edmond Pang’s sake).

- I mentioned Justin Lin’s latest Finishing the Game a few entries ago, and now Twitch has a report on its premiere at the opening night of the San Francisco Asian Film Festival. It features an interview with Survivor winner Yul Kwon and the cast and crew. Quite a good read, particularly about Asian American issues.

- And just how many films about the Nanjing massacre has to be made? Apparently now the count is up to 4 - you got the International co-production based on the Iris Chang book, the Japanese documentary set to present the “truth” about the massacre, the documentary that premiered at Sundance, and now China has approved one more Nanjing film to be made by director Yim Ho, whose Pavilion of Women I watched for about 10 minutes before I couldn’t stood it any longer and called it quits. I bet all of these movies will balance each other out and just make no money whatsoever.

- Moving to Hollywood, we have Variety’s review of the horribly titled Disturbia, which is essentially an uncredited Rear Window update in suburbia with less talented actors and none of that Mulvey male gaze stuff that Rear Window was made famous for. I’m honestly surprised it got a good review. I still won’t go watch it though.

- I’m a fan of Kevin Smith, and if that gives me less credibility as a film scholar, then so be it. Anyway, it’s no secret that he wrote a script for a Green Hornet movie that he turned down the directing job for. Now that it’s no longer at the Weinstein company, Sony has picked it up, and it will NOT be using the Kevin Smith script. I’ve never read Smith’s comics, but knowing that Smith is the big comic fan that he is, I would think that he probably crafted a pretty solid script (although being a loyal subject of the Weinstein regime it probably helped it get greenlit too). It’s too bad it’ll never see the light of day.

- Lastly, as an off-topic kind of thing. If you want to know how young Japanese women from age 20-34 think, you should at least go to their favorite websites. You’ll thank me later.

Since I’m writing a little late and by now a lot of news from Asia (particularly film deals from HK Filmart), but I’ll leave them for tomorrow.

- Box Office Mojo’s Japanese box office numbers show their unreliability again as its results are different from the total audience ranking. Their numbers (down from their 117 yen=$1 rate to 116 yen this week) show Night at the Museum at number 1 on 525 screens, Unfair the Movie with a far larger per-screen average at number 2, and the Doraemon movie at number 3. This is because since the Doraemon movie attracts more kids, and kids pay less money for a movie ticket. So while more people showed up to see Doraemon, Unfair attracted a predominantly adult audience, thus it made more money than Doraemon. This, of course, begs the question which ranking is more accurate? Would you want more people to watch your movie, or more money to be made from your movie?

- Another Japanese drama wrapped up last night, and it’s the soon-to-be-adapted-way-too-many-times Tokyo Tower series. Considering that it hasn’t done very well in the ratings, its last episode got an 18.1% rating, up from a 14.2 last week for an overall 14.9 rating. As evident from the success of the Unfair movie, Tokyo Tower the movie should do pretty well at the box office come April.

- My girlfriend also alerted me that one of the main actors in the recently-wrapped Haken No Hinkaku is actually former Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi’s son Kotaro Koizumi.

- Just how serious is Mark Russell at Korea Pop Wars about the Korean box office? He reported it all the way from Hong Kong, where he’s attending Filmart! Good work, Mark! Seriously, I wouldn’t be updating this thing if I get to go cover Filmart.

- Those Oricon rankings are out too, and Utada Hikaru holds on to the number 1 spot for the third week in a row with the single Flavor of Life. As a fan, I’m happy that she’s found this kind of success again, but too bad it’s for a single that’s become less Utada and more J-pop (at least compared to her older works). Meanwhile, Koda Kumi is at a relatively closed second with her latest single, and Remioromen, who became huge J-pop figures after the one-two punch of March 9th and Konayuki, could only muster a third place with their latest. Hikki may have to fight for that top spot next week as NEWS joins in the Spring break fight with their new single.

On the album side, even Koda Kumi’s erokawaii couldn’t beat Mr. Children, whose latest album Home scored first place with a huge sales figure of 690,000 copies. Koda Kumi and Mika Nakashima fought out the battle of second and third place, and Koda Kumi wins the battle barely with 161,000 while Mika managed to sell 153,000 copies herself.

- The Death Note Complete Set is also number 1 on the overall DVD sales chart on its first week with 161,000 copies sold. While this is not as spectacular as Bayside Shakedown 2 (which moved 327,000 copies its first week) and Crying Out For Love in the Center of the World (which moved 174,000 copies), this is the third best-selling first-week sales for a Japanese DVD ever, and also the best sales for a Japanese DVD since Sinking of Japan came out in January.

- I really liked the Japanese film Ping Pong. So much that I bought a second-hand DVD in Tokyo that still cost me an arm and a leg. And now its director has returned for his second film after producing 2004’s Appleseed. Variety Asia reported that Shochiku has picked up his latest film, the animated “Vexille,” about an undercover American military force who enter Japan to stop them from building a dangerous weapon in the year.

Likes: Director
Doesn’t like: animated film.

What to do, what to do….

- Korea Herald has provided the first English review of the first Korean film by Choi Yang Il (or known elsewhere in the world as Yoichi Sai, the director of the violent, but excellent downer Blood and Bones) Soo. Sounds like it’ll be even more intense than Blood and Bones.

Link courtesy of Ryuganji.

- Ever imagined a futuristic war film in the streets of Hong Kong? Your dream is coming true as Singapore have teamed up with an American investor to make the sci-fi futuristic fantasy “The Battle of Hong Kong - Exodus,” about the natives of Kowloon rising up to fight Hong Kong Islanders that have enslaved them. If I were them, Hong Kong islanders would make better rebellion story. The pic will be the most expensive ever made in Singapore….but why is Singapore, not Hong Kong, making this?

- Starting tomorrow, this blog’s is gonna be flooded with news from Filmart, but why not get a personal perspective from someone who’s actually there (honestly, from the news I got today, I might actually be there myself next year. Fingers crossed). That’s why, it’s Asian Film Award winner David Bordwell, who is reporting his trip on his blog (with some very very cool starstruck moments) . He’ll be there until April doing research, so I’m sure he’ll continue to turn in great entries from my favorite city in the world.

And a lot more news than I expected, so let’s rip through this sucker

- Before they take this thing down, check out Hollywood Elsewhere’s links to the screaming matches between Lily Tomlin and director David O. Russell on the set of I Heart Huckabees. I think Russell’s made some great works, but the guy looks like a downright asshole.

- Hong Kong Sunday numbers are up, and as expected, 300 takes the top slot. However, the grosses weren’t as high as I expected, considering that it grossed a phenomenal HK$1 million on Thursday. Instead, it made HK$1.69 million on 42 screens (a great number by any count) for a 4-day total of HK$6.47 million, including previews. Meanwhile, Ghost Rider is in second with HK$340,000 on 34 screens for a 11-day total of HK$5.76 million, The Haunted School is at HK$120,000 on 14 screens for a 4-day total of HK$480,000, and Dororo just can’t seem to get the audiences in seats by earning just HK$120,000 on 18 screens for a sad sad HK$380,000 4-day cume.

Good news for the limited releases though, as Pan’s Labyrinth draws in HK$120,000 on only 4 screens, while Ann Hui’s The Postmodern Life of My Aunt actually saw increased business with HK$100,000 on 5 screens. I knew Hong Kong audiences can’t just turn away a movie with Chow Yun Fat like that.

- The major Japanese dramas wrapped up this week, including the big three - Haken No Hinkaku (about temp office workers in Japan), Hana Yori Dango 2 (or who I mockingly called the Flower Boys), and Karei Naru Ichizoku (the big-budget rich family epic). Being a disliker of those Flower Boys and its positive word-of-mouth, I was afraid that the final episode would be higher than Karei Naru Ichizoku. But Kimura Takuya and his huge messed-up family rallied for a huge win with a 30.4% rating and a final average of a slightly disappointing 23.9 rating, while the Flower Boys did get a huge boost with a 27.9% rating for a final average of 21.7. The biggest boost, however, went to Haken No Hinkaku, who followed up its 19.9 rating for its 9th episode with a 26.0% rating for its last episode to get a 20.1% average.

The overall ratings this season are higher, since only one drama only got higher than a 20 rating average at the same season last year(while this season saw 3). But while Karei Naru Ichizoku did achieve a higher average than Kimura Takuya’s last drama Engine (I mention Kimura Takuya because he is the main draw for Karei Naru Ichizoku, considering all the posters around Tokyo has just his big face on it), but this is a man whose dramas once earned a 34.2 average (Hero in 2001), so a 23.9 rating for a big anniversary drama maybe not be so impressive.

Even a national newspaper reported on the huge ratings Karei Naru Ichizoku got, so let’s just all admit that it was pretty huge and all cheer like supportive people should.

Source: Drama News.

- The Japanese box office attendance rankings are also out, and Night at the Museum opened big at number 1, while the Doraemon movie held on a number 2. Drama adaptation Unfair the Movie opened at number 3, Happy Feet at number 4, and Deja Vu at number 5. As reliable as I can get numbers will come tomorrow, hopefully.

- Actress Ryoko Shinahara must be having a really happy week - her headlining drama Haken no Hinkaku got huge ratigns for its finale (which means let’s get her back for a sequel and stat!), and now her drama adaptation Unfair the Movie opens huge at 370 million yen, despite the drama only getting a 15.4 rating (which means Haken’s boost must’ve rolled over to Unfair too). Eiga Consultant predicts that this has gotta be pretty good omen for upcoming drama adaptations Saiyuki (a bastardization of the most beloved Chinese fairy tale ever Journey to the West) and Hero, which had a 22.8 and 34.2 average, respectively.

- After the critical failure of the last Studio Ghibli film Tales From Earthsea (which has been rumored to be Studio Ghibli officials’ way of hooking Hayao Miyazaki to come back and save the studio’s reputation by making one more film), Mr. Miyazaki’s latest project has finally been announced. According to Hoga News, it’ll be Gake No Ue no Ponyo (Ponyo on the Cliff), a story of a goldfish princess who wants to be human and a 5-year old boy. A producer said that it’s based on a time when Goro Miyazaki (Hayao’s son, and the one who directed Tales from Earthsea while detailing how horrible a father Hayao was on his blog) was 5 years old. Maybe this is Hayao’s attempt for a father-son reconciliation.

- Speaking of release dates, Stephen Chow’s latest A Hope has secured one too. Ming Pao writes this:

現在消息指電影的後期工作已基本完成，日內將送交國家電影局審查。由於電影故事溫馨講父子情，沒有敏感情節，通過審查應該沒問題，據悉已暫定暑假6月25日起在全國上映。

Current reports indicate that post-production is basically done, and it will be sent to the Bureau for Film, Radio, and Television for inspection. Since the film is touching story about love between father and son, there’s no sensitive material, it should have no problem getting through the inspection. It’s now tentatively set for a June 25th nationwide opening.

The story is something about a poor kid picking up a communicator that allows him to communicate with an alien, and the alien feel so sorry for the kid and his father (played by Stephen Chow) that it helps them out by punishing those that bully them. Sounds like good ol’ family fun indeed.

Original Chinese report is here.

- Youtube has a 5-minute trailer to the lesbian love story “Spider Lilies,” starring Taiwanese pop star Rainie Yang and Hong Kong pop star Isabella Leong. Rainie does even a nice little strip tease in the beginning. It premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, and will be shown at the Hong Kong International Film Festival as well.

- The Hong Kong Entertainment Expo is underway, and Variety Asia’s got you covered with a guide to fine dining and a guide to Hong Kong fashion shopping.

- At Hong Kong’s Asian Film Awards tonight, expect Andy Lau to get the “box office star” award. Excerpt from Ming Pao as follows:

據2005年12月舉行的「香港UA娛藝院線周年慶典頒獎禮」，劉德華的電影在香港的累積票房達17億港元，06年至今《墨攻》與《門徒》的累積票房數字為4100多萬港元。這些只是香港的票房數字，要統計劉德華的電影在亞洲區的票房數字肯定更驚人。

According to the “Hong Kong United Artist Cinemas Anniversary Awards” in December of 2005, Andy Lau’s film has grossed a total of HK$170 million. In the last one-year period, “A Battle of Wits” and “Protege” has grossed a total of over HK$41 million, and that’s just Hong Kong box office gross. Calculating the box office gross for Andy Lau’s films in Asia would come up with even more amazing numbers.

And why do people still just take Andy Lau as the next Hong Kong Chief Executive as a joke? He might just be the democratically-voted leader both China and Hong Kong can agree with.

Chinese report is here.

- Twitch’s logboy post a huge list of reviews for films he watched recently. None of them are complete, but they are another man’s opinions on some interesting Asian films that’s worth checking out.

- It’s all been reported out, but Mark Schilling wrote a comprehensive round-up of the recent Japanese health show scandal, which made the media turn against its own by leading a charge to uncover as much false data as possible.

- Twitch also has a review of the Ultimate Edition DVD of Versus. It was crazy and sometimes inspired fun, but was it really that great? Adrenaline-pumping does not a great movie made. Perhaps after the reported major tweaking, it’s now a better film. I’ll have to check this out.

- Those who were sad about Hong Kong girl group At 17’s split (I’m one of them) should rejoice, since Ming Pao has confirmed that the split is only for a half year. Ming Pao reports the following:

完成音樂會後，下半年這對好姊妹要暫時分開工作。Ellen與林一峰演出音樂劇《一期一會》，二汶則推出漫畫集，待年底再合作推出專輯。

After the concert, the sisters will have to work apart the second half of the year. Ellen will star in a musical with Chet lam, and Eman (Chet Lam’s sister) will release a comic collection. They’ll reunite to release an album at the end of the year.

Yay!

The original Chinese report is here.

I know I promised the box office estimates for North America yesterday, but The Host isn’t on the estimates (which cannot be spelling good things for the critically-acclaimed film), so I have no reason to care.

- Don’t assume that the made-for-TV genre only exists in America, NTV has its own series of made-for-TV films (they call it dramas, but I call it made-for-TV movie, let’s call the whole thing off) every Tuesday night. Being the sometimes-creatively-drained industry that is TV, Japan loves doing one story in as many formats as possible. Look at Tokyo Tower - which was first a hit novel, then a made-for-TV film, then a currently-running drama, and coming in April, a feature film starring Joe Odagiri. That’s three incarnations of the same damn story within a half-year period.

This past week, the NTV movie-of-the-week is “The Eraser in My Head,” which is the Japanese title of the hit Korean film A Moment to Remember (it was a surprise hit in Japan, and was credited as an integral part of the Korean wave in Japan). Before I assumed it was just a rip-off of the Korean film (the credits on the website does not credit the Korean film), I found out that the film itself was based on a 2001 Japanese drama named Pure Soul, which is what NTV credited as the source material. Even though it was based said drama, you can’t deny that this incarnation was inspired by the success of the Korean film….can you?

This coming week’s movie-of-the-week is miniseries “Ai No Ryukeichi,” based on a hit novel and was made into the movie “Love Never to End,” which was a moderate success in January. I’ll assume that this TV version won’t be as explicit as the film, which earned an R-15 rating due to its sexual content.

- Speaking of Joe Odagiri, Hoga News has a story on the latest surge of his exposure rate in Japanese media.

- Japan Time’s notable reviews for the week are the Japanese fantasy fable “Argentine Baba” (Argentine Hag) and documentary Crossing the Bridge by Fatih Akin, whose devastatingly Head On was one of my favorite films last year.

- Twitch has the link to a second trailer for a possible Japanese comedy hit this summer “Maiko Hannnnn!” written by Kankuro Kudo, who wrote Go and Ping Pong. It looks just strange enough that it might be one of those sleeper hits.

- I reported a while ago about the opening of the Wald 9 Cinemas in Shinjuku. The Daily Yomiuri has reported on its effect on Shinjuku, which has one of the highest concentration of cinemas in Japan. I saw The Incredibles at this incredible 800-seat theater (I believe it was the Piccadilly, but I can’t recall the name. It was a multiplex of sorts, since it did have 3 screens) there. And now the opening of the Wald 9 has driven it to be closed down (maybe it’s the theatre the report cites as being rebuilt), which is a shame, because huge screens like that has ceased to exist in San Francisco (I saw Star Wars episode 1 at the Coronet, where the original Star Wars film premiered 20-odd years before that), and now it’s slowly dwindling away in Tokyo as well. Too bad, it was worth every one of those 1500 yen I paid for, and now those money are going towards small auditoriums with small screens.

- Anyone tired of those Samurai period dramas from Japan lately? Then start rejoicing, because a non-samurai period film is coming soon. Originally a novel, the film “Akane Zora” is about a tofu maker’s business and his family.

- The Daily Yomiuri also shows off how awesomely unbelievably great Japanese mangas are by pointing out all the adaptations of them in other Asian countries. MANGA BANZAI!!!!!

The Daily Yomiuri links are courtesy of Ryuganji.

- Danwei, an English blog on the Chinese media that is far better organized and written than this site, has a translation of an article about how one phone call stopped the Chinese film rating system. The idea of the film rating system is good, but when you have conservative middle-aged men behind the system with an agenda, it’s bound to be corrupted. Kinda like the MPAA.

Link courtesy of EastSouthWestNorth

Related news, a Chinese blog has detailed the cuts done to Babel for Chinese viewing, and it pains me to list all these out (WARNING: POTENTIAL SPOILERS):

- The Moroccan kid masterbating
- The chicken killing shot in Mexico
- Rinko Kikuchi’s character taking off her panties
- Rinko Kicuchi’s character opening up her skirt
- Rinko Kikuchi’s character grabbing the dentist’s hand and bringing it to her crotch (fully dressed)
- Rinko Kikuchi’s charater’s nude scene, where she attempts to seduce the policeman.
- Rinko Kikuchi’s character nude at the balcony (which probably killed the entire final shot).

(SPOILER OVER)

- Ming Pao has an editorial about how Hong Kong is attempting to save itself from total destruction. Excerpts are as follows:

劉德華不只在香港投資小成本製作栽培新導演，還在其他亞洲地區投資。

Andy Lau not only invests in new directors in Hong Kong through low-budget productions, he also invested in other regions in Asia.

曾志偉在他出品和監製的電影中，大膽起用新人，導演王精甫和編劇杜緻朗都由他一手提拔。

Eric Tsang bravely used fresh talents in his productions. Director Wong Ching-Po and screenwriter To Jing Lang were his discoveries.

這幾年狀態甚勇的杜琪㗖，他的執行導演羅永昌、編劇游乃海先後成為正式導演。

Johnnie To, who’s been quite strong these few years, has seen his Associate director Law Wing-Cheong and screenwriter Yau Nai-Hoi become directors.

揚威國際的劉偉強，以高清電影培育新人，讓他們有更多機會作大膽的嘗試。

Andrew Lau Wai-Keung, who is triumphing overseas, is using HD films to teach newcomers, allowing them to take bigger risks.

外間一般認為電影人只識得向政府叫救命，什麼也不做，並非事實。

Outsiders believe that Filmmakers only know how to ask the government for help while doing nothing, and that’s just not true.

傳媒的娛樂新聞，甚少真正提及電影工業的現，只一味報道藝人私生活，外界根本不知電影工業在發生什麼轉變。

There are very few news about the film industry in entertainment news, which only knows how to report on celebrities’ private lives. Outsiders know nothing at all about the changes going on in the film industry.

中小成本製作是嘗試新戲種和訓練新人的最佳工具。不識者以為電影是天才的產品，其實這一行有成就的人才絕大部分是從失敗中成長的。

Small-to-medium budget productions are the best tool to try new themes and train newcomers. Those who don’t know films think that movies are products of genius, when the truth is that those who have succeeded grew up from past failures.

要贏得投資者的信心，就要靠一班上了位的電影精英，以他們的經驗和成績作新人的保證。這幾年觀眾對港片的確存在偏見，很多一段時間沒入戲院看戲的認為港片全是爛片，要改變他們的態度，不是靠政府的三億就可辦得到。

To win the faith of financiers, the products of those success stories should use their reputations to vouch for newcomers. In these few years, there is a notion from those who haven’t been to the movies in years that all Hong Kong films are bad films. To change their attitudes, we can’t just rely on 300 million dollars from the government to do the job.

How about changing the notion among Hong Kong youths that movie should be downloaded?

The original Chinese article is here.

Coming up: Best of the week, and song of the day.

I love the Independent Film Channel. I don’t know why I receive it, but I happen to have it, and it’s a great source for uncut independent films. They’ve been running a series called the Grindhouse every Friday night, showing pretty much trash movies by art standards. This is where I saw Sonny Chiba in Karate Bearfighter and Karate Bullfighter (in that order, even though the story’s in reverse order) last month, and it’s also where I saw Killing Machine (real title: Shorinji Kenpo, or the Shaolin Fist) last night. I’m now convinced that Sonny Chiba was probably Japan’s best hero, even better than Ultraman and Kamen Rider combined.

The movie opens during the Sino-Japanese war, where a bunch of Chinese solders with a commander that doesn’t really speak Chinese (he’s just pretending) were about to attack a bunch of troops. But a man wearing one of those Chinese sombrero pops out, and it’s Sonny Chiba as an undercover Japanese secret agent. He’s like James Bond, except he first uses Shaolin kung-fu to wipe out half the troops, THEN he uses the machine gun. Man, I would want an opening like that in any movie (not the killing Chinese people part, but the Shaolin kung-fu part).

He then retreats to his base, where he’s told by his superiors that Japan has surrendered and that it’s no use fighting. So he takes said machine gun and wipes out his superiors. “Japan may have lost, but I haven’t!” he says. What a bad ass. Being the bad ass Sonny Chiba is, he would fight for justice everywhere - on the train, where he stops a fight by twisting a dude’s arm and says, “There are 80,000,000 Japanese and 800,000 Koreans. You can’t swim back to Korea, so if you want to live here, be friends.” At the black market, where he fights black marketeers because he told the kids it’s OK to steal from them, and he gets into a fight with the cops and American soldiers (over what, I don’t know, I lost my attention for about 3 minutes, and Chiba the man just didn’t wait to get some ass-kicking done).

Of course, you also get to learn about behaviors when around Sonny Chiba. First, you don’t wanna be interrupting his udon eating, or he’ll look at you as he slurps up that last string. Second, you don’t want to rape the neighborhood udon shop’s owner’s daughter, because he’ll come beat you down with Shaolin kungfu, then castrate you (I am seriously not kidding about this). And you don’t wanna go over to his dojo and start something, because even though he says not to start fight with other schools, he will kick your ass anyway.

All in all, Killing Machine isn’t actually all that entertaining when compared with the Karate series (I mean, the word “good” wouldn’t be used to describe any of these movies), but it does have some entertaining fun here and there. It’s even surprising even-handed for a testosterone-pumped movie about Japan (Chiba may kill Chinese soldiers, but he respects Chinese martial arts and I would presume its people).

- March has been known to be an off-peak month in South Korea (unlike Hong Kong, where people actually get Easter holiday), and that means it’s time for a foreign invasion!

- This weekend, Japan finally sees the opening of two Hollywood blockbusters Night at the Museum and Academy Award winner Happy Feet. Last weekend, they had a preview duel with advanced showings, and on an unknown number of screens, Night at the Museum wins it with 169 million yen, while Happy Feet brought in 72 million yen. This should be a pretty clear indicator who’s gonna win.

Source: Eiga Consultant.

- The Filmbrain blog has its own review of a film I reviewed last month, the subtle Ad Lib Night.

- There’s a rather amusing trailer for a new film starring John Malkovich named Color Me Kubrick, a kind of true story about a man who looks and acts absolutely like Stanley Kubrick, but somehow pretended to be him anyway.

- After watching The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, I wished Justin Lin was given better scripts to do, because I think he means well, but he just keeps getting stuck with crappy scripts. So after two ventures into Hollywood, he’s doing his own thing (in just 8 months after Tokyo Drift, no less) with his latest Finishing the Game, a spoof on the search for a replacement of Bruce Lee after he died while making Game of Death, and it just premiered at the San Francisco Asian American Film Festival. Did anyone catch it?

- Two pieces of news to translate from my new Chinese news source Ming Pao:

1) Hong Kong International Film Festival run into a snag regarding missing tickets for its opening night film I’m a Cyborg, but That’s OK, among other shows. excerpt of Chinese report as follows:

網上訂票安排方面，協會收到約30名市民投訴，表示收不到協會發出的訂票確認電郵，經調查後發現，協會如常發出電郵

Regarding online ticketing, the association received about 30 complaints saying that they did not receive their confirmation e-mail for their reservations. After an investigation, the association will sent out these e-mails accordingly.

Apparently, there’s also a case of someone continuously complaining that he/she never got the confirmation email for said opening night, but turns out the confirmation numbers were faked, and this person might get charged for fraud.

Also, the official website has put up an official apology about the failures of the new online ticketing system. This is what happens when you rely on the internet. Then again, this blog is on the internet, so maybe I shouldn’t bite the hand that feeds me.

2) Using the Wong Jing crapfest The Lady Iron Chef, Ming Pao also claims that a bad box office gross doesn’t always spell the end of a movie.
Excerpt as follows:

目前有不少電影是不需過分依靠票房賺錢的。所以電影雖然仍陷低潮，但仍有不少像《美女食神》的製作出現。

這類電影，有一條賺錢方法，主要是把錄像、電視、賣埠的版權收入加起來，以這成本來製作，拍好後只要在戲院上上畫就可以。

為什麼一定要在戲院上畫？因為不上畫的戲，會被視為次一等的電影，錄像、電視等版權價錢，也會少一截。

電影上畫時做過宣傳，會多些人知道有這部戲，價錢與未上過畫的當然有分別。

單看票房，可能奇怪某些電視投資者為何還會開拍某類電影，但有噱頭或熟口熟面的題材，只要有好幾個有人認識的明星來做，還是可以賣得一定的價錢。票房不高的電影，未必無錢賺。

Currently there are quite a few films that doesn’t desperately need box office gross to make money. That’s why even though the industry is in a recession, there’s still many productions similar to The Lady Iron Chef coming out.

The way these types of movies make money is through adding up video, television, and overseas distribution deals. These type of productions only need to be on the screens for a little while.

Why do they need to be on the big screen? Because a film that does not go to theatres is regarded as an inferior film, and all those potential money from selling broadcast or distribution rights will suffer a loss.

A film that played on the big screen and was promoted would attract attention would surely fetch a higher price than films that didn’t.

Looking at the box office, maybe it would be strange for these television networks to still be financing movies. But as long as there’s buzz or a familiar topic, just find a couple of known actors, the film can still sell abroad. A film with a low box office gross can still make money.

It’s not a lot of news today, I’m saving the rest for tomorrow. Some Japan Times reviews, the best of the week, of course a song of the day, and maybe some American box office estimates.

I’ll post one more time today. I read about this yesterday, but since it’s hit the English press, I might as well report it here.

Chinese netizens (known for their lack of reasoning and impulsive widespread actions)are attacking Zhang Ziyi for appearing in a Japanese ad for a shampoo where she displays her naked shoulders and appear to be semi-nude. She damned near showed her breasts to the French in 2046, and they attack her for showing a hell of a lot less in an ad promoting shampoo with the tagline “Asian beauty” (ASIAN, numbnuts, not Japanese beauty).

There’s a thin line between fanaticism and patriotism, and these guys just passed through it.

(Edit: Baiting of immature Chinese nationalists deleted.)

“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.