The blog is taking a break tomorrow, so we’ll finish off all the news for the weekend here:

- Hot off the press is the Hong Kong Film Awards nominations. I’m waiting for the website to post the entire list, so here are the highlights:

BEST PICTURE

The Warlords
Protege
The Postmodern Life of My Aunt
Eye in the Sky
Mad Detective

BEST DIRECTOR

Peter Chan - The Warlords
Derek Yee - Protege
Ann Hui - The Postmodern Life of My Aunt
Johnnie To, Wai Ka-Fai - Mad Detective
Yau Nai-Hoi - Eye in the Sky

BEST SCREENPLAY

The screenwriting commitee of The Warlords (I can’t translate all 8 names here)
Derek Yee and 3 other screenwriters  - Protege
Li Qiang - The Postmodern Life of My Aunt
Wai Ka-Fai, Au Kin-Yee - Mad Detective
Yau Nai-Hoi, Au Kin-Yee - Eye in the Sky

BEST ACTOR

Aaron Kwok - The Detective
Jet Li - The Warlords
Andy Lau - The Warlords
Lau Ching-Wan - Mad Detective
Simon Yam - Eye in the Sky

BEST ACTRESS

Teresa Mo - Mr. Cinema
Zhang Jingchu - Protege
Siqin Gaowa - Postmodern Life of My Aunt
Rene Liu - Kidnap
Charlene Choi - Simply Actors

All in all, 13 for Warlords, 15 for Protege, 9 for The Postmodern Life of My Aunt, 8 for Mad Detective, and 7 for Eye in the Sky. That’s 24 for Peter Chan, and 15 for Milkyway. The awards will be announced on April 14th.

- Believe it or not, we’re not reporting on Edison Chen’s blog because he wrote anything about the recent photo scandal, but because there’s actually movie news on it. On the latest entry of his blog, Edison posted two pictures from Dante Lam’s latest film Sniper, due to be released on March 29th.

Meanwhile, there are word from both Oriental Daily and Apple Daily that Colombia Pictures have told Stephen Chow that they want the Chow-produced and Stephen Fung-directed dance flick starring Edison to either have its release pushed back, take out all of Edison’s scenes, or release it straight to video - all because of the scandal. Currently, the film is slated to be released on May 1st. However, remember that this is the Hong Kong press, so you never know how much of this is true.

Just the fact that they completely misread his blog is already an issue: They’ve taken the introduction that he’s had on the blog all this time and reported it as if he just wrote it yesterday. Now the headlines are: “Edison Chen fights back on his blog, saying ‘don’t hate the player, hate the game.” This is why I read 3 Hong Kong newspapers a day online to crosscheck facts.

- Japan Probe would like to introduce you to the newest foreign-Japanese star of enka. Kiyoshi Hikawa, eat your heart out!

- It’s reviews time! This week, Japan Times’ Mark Schilling reviews the made-for-cable film Tokyo Shonen (last year’s Koisuru Nichiyobi was made under the same network), and that paper’s Giovanni Fazio gives an unscathing review to Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution. Meanwhile, The Daily Yomiuri’s Ikuko Kitagawa gives a much more positive review to the erotic espionage thriller.

- The total box office of 2007 in Japan dropped slightly, as Hollywood films take the majority of the market again after last year’s win by Japanese films. By the way, 29 films went past the billion mark in gross, but only 7 of them are Japanese.

- TBS has announced that the first series to take their new Saturday night 8pm drama slot (previously filled by variety shows) will be an adaptation of the baseball comic Rookies. And TBS is planning to not follow the traditional season schedule, as the show’s planner says that they plan to adapt all 24 volumes of the comic. This may also mean that TBS can choose to cancel it anytime.

- Meanwhile, this week’s Televiews column talks about what’s on Japanese TV Friday nights, including Korean dramas, variety shows, more crappy variety shows, then a pretty good drama.

- The Japan Times has a wonderful interview with veteran director Yoji Yamada. When asked what message he would like people to take away from the film, he said this:

“…Japan made a wonderful postwar Constitution, but no amends have been made for past wrongs. In Germany, the Nazi collaborators were made to pay for what they did; in Japan, a war criminal could became prime minister, such as Nobusuke Kishi, the grandfather of our recent prime minister, Shinzo Abe. There’s something strange about that.”

- Lastly, Kaiju Shakedown has a link to the first teaser for John Woo’s The Battle of Red Cliff.

As much as we would like to provide daily coverage of the so-called Edison-Bobo-Gillian-Cecilia incident on the Golden Rock, you’re better off checking out the coverage of the media coverage over at the always-informative EastSouthWestNorth.

- It’s Oricon charts time! On the singles chart, artists whose singles usually debut on top failed to do so this week, as Ketsumeishi and Koda Kumi could only secure 2nd and 4th place debuts. Meanwhile, the group Radwimps got their first number 1 single instead.

On the albums chart, ZARD can still hit the number one with a new compilation put together by fan votes (ZARD may be the new Tupac in Japan). Meanwhile TVXQ couldn’t repeat their success on the single charts with a 4th place debut.

Chart report from Tokyograph.

- As expected, Eiga Consultant did analyze the opening of Yoji Yamada’s Kaabei. However, Mr. Texas compared its opening with star Sayuri Yoshinaga’s previous film Kita No Zero Nen instead of Yoji Yamada’s previous films. Anyway, Kaabei’s opening was at 65% of Kita No Zero Nen’s opening, which led to a total gross of 2.7 billion yen. However, Kaabei is not a spectacle-filled historic epic, and may end up having longer legs than it. Still, the lack of Kimura Takuya means it probably won’t make as much money as Love and Honor did.

- Didn’t get to cover the Japanese drama ratings, but I will report that the final episode of the Saturday night Fuji drama SP managed a damn good 18.9% rating, which is phenomenal for a series on Saturday night at 11 pm. Bring on the meaningless prime time special!

- An Inconvenient Truth, the global warming documentary featuring Al Gore, breaks Japanese box office records as it attracted roughly 60,000 admissions and a gross of 90 million yen during its run at one Tokyo theater.

- Korean actor Choi Min-Shik, who reportedly declared that he would not be doing any more film work until the screen quota was restored, has signed up to be in a film. He will be playing a company director who takes his Nepalese worker’s remains back to the Himalayas in a yet-to-be-titled film. I don’t think he was doing it for money, either: the film is only budgeted at $500,000.

- Meanwhile, things don’t look too well for Korean films, as a new report claims that an average Korean film lost 1.9 million in 2007, with nearly 80% of its revenue made from theatrical release, signaling a fairly weak home video market.

- Jason Gray looks at the Japanese films that will be heading to Berlin next week.

- And Grady Hendrix looks at some of his favorite films that will be looking for funding at the upcoming Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum.

- This is kind of an old news worth reporting, seeing this is a Hong Kong film website and all: Mei Ah, one of the big investors of relatively new Hong Kong film distributor Big Media, has sold most of its stakes to a Mainland Chinese investor. However, Mei Ah will still handle distribution and acquire their films for their TV channels.

- It’s reviews time! This week, Japan Times’ Mark Schilling gives a glowing review to Yosuke Fujita’s Fine, Totally Fine. Meanwhile, Daily Yomiuri’s Ikuko Kitagawa also gives a very positive review to Yoji Yamada’s latest Kaabei.

Not entirely sure if it counts under reviews, but this week’s Televiews column provides brief reviews quite a few Winter 2008 dramas, including Dai suki!, Bara No Nai Hanaya, and Bomb-Bee Man, among others.

- Speaking of Fine, Totally Fine, there’s also an interview with director Yosuke Fujita in the Japan Times.

- Under “drama specials that don’t need to happen” news today, the hit Fuji Saturday night drama SP will be getting a prime time special only a little over 2 months after the finale airs tonight. However, the special is only the 11 episodes edited together with timeline rearranged. Why would anyone tune in, you ask? It will apparently reveal a big secret that I suspect the writers were only able to concoct after Fuji told them they’d be milking this thing for all it’s got. Then again, I’m just guessing.

- Unlike China, the Hong Kong government will be giving the foreign press total freedom by not imposing a mandatory registration system for the Olympic Equestrian event, which will take place in Hong Kong. However, organizations are still complaining about the cost it takes to apply for a special visa every time these journalists need to enter China.

- Speaking of China, its broadcasting authority literally asked a TV station to not only remove its sexually explicit material, but to also provide “more spiritual food” to its audiences. Would you like that spoon-fed?

Time to wrap the weekend up:

- Newly elected South Korean president Lee Myung-Bak is planning to not only deregulate the Korean broadcasting industry, but also disband the Ministry of Information and Communication. All of this in an effort to bring Korean telecommunication and broadcasting technology back up to standards.

- Meanwhile, Japan public broadcasting network NHK is seeing its revenue from “mandatory” license fees go up after the network saw one million households refusing to pay their fees after several scandals at the network. However, the management committee still refuses to reduce the license fee, despite several discount schemes being enacted later in the year.

- Three more Asian films are going to the Berlin International Film Festival, though only to the Panorama section. They include Kim Ki-Duk’s latest and the homosexual coming-of-age film Hatsu-Koi (which was a pain in the ass to find any information on it).

- This week’s Televiews column on the Daily Yomiuri covers the manga adaptation genre so prevalent in Japanese dramas, and manages to find a good one in the new drama Saito-san.

- Currently 16% of the Chinese population has internet access (the current average is 19%). However, 16% of over a billion people is 210 million, which is only 5 million behind the United States. However, such massive growth also means massive problems such as the censorship of cyberspace and widespread copyright violation.

- Of course, China has other problems, including interviewees who can’t seem to answer questions on their own.

- The classic Japanese animated series Gegege No Kitaro turns 40 this weekend, and one Japanese network is celebrating with a new installment of the series on Thursday nights at 12:45 am, which changes the characters a bit from the Kitaro you know and love. I still didn’t like the movie, though.

- Congratulations to singer Mieko Kawakami for winning Akutagawa Prize, one of the most important literary awards in Japan.

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- Oh, look, there’s a new post on the spin-off.

-  On my Japan trip report, I lamented missing the Nodame Cantabile special on TV, which was shown on the 4th and the 5th over two nights. The first night’s rating of 18.9% kept to the series’ average of 18.8%, and part 2 managed to hit 21%, which is lower than the finale, but would still qualify as the series’ second-highest episode.

- In related ratings news, the yearly Japanese New Year’s eve musical extravaganza Kohaku has seen its ratings slip year after year, and it continued to stay relatively low this year with an average rating of 36.15%, which is the second-lowest rated Kohaku on record. Just as the report writes, since NHK is a public broadcaster, ratings are simply a matter of pride, and as long as it continues to beat the competition (it seems to be the  highest-rated non-sports TV program of the year), it’ll stick around for a while.

Or they should just have Smap perform half the damn show.

- Last thing about Japanese TV ratings, I promise: Fuji Television reigns supreme again as the highest-rated network for the 4th year in a row, scoring the highest-rated program of the year with the figure skating championships. They also got the highest-rated drama of the year with the first episode of Galileo.

- Anyone who thinks China is slowly becoming progressive with their films because The Matrimony, The Warlords, or Assembly got made is bullshitting. No progressive country would ban local filmmakers for two years at a time.  And no progressive country would certainly play the morality police by starting a 3-month campaign to crack down on “vulgar” products.

- Then again, I would appreciate the Japanese government cracking down on crappy adaptations of classic Japanese cartoons.

-  Korea Pop Wars’ Mark Russell takes a look at the Korean horror film Hansel and Gratel, which promises a lot, but delivers seemingly very little.

With The Hong Kong Film blog wondering whether Hong Kong box office source mov3.com has closed down for good, this blogger has found a new box office source in now.com.hk. Starting tomorrow, the Hong Kong box office report should get back to normal.

- The American Film Market starts this coming week, and both Korean and Japanese film companies have quite a few films in store for buyers there (probably ignoring the Tokyo Film Market in the process).

Korea’s Cineclick has Volcano High director Kim Tae-Kyun’s latest, about a North Korean ex-soccer player who crosses over to China and tries to get his family to join him. It will also be bringing a promo reel for Kim Jee-woon’s highly anticipated The Good, The Bad, and the Weird.

Meanwhile, Japan’s Fuji TV is taking Shaolin Girl (the Stephen Chow-approved “sequel” to Shaolin Soccer) and Koki Mitani’s The Magic Hour, the follow-up to the ensemble hit The Uchoten Hotel.

- It’s not going to the American Film Market, but CJ Entertainment is trying to penetrate Hollywood by co-investing in the Warner Bros. film August Rush. Considering that it’s to be released next month, there’s surprisingly little out there about it in terms of buzz. There’s a website up, though.

- It’s reviews time! Lovehkfilm’s Kozo closes out October with a review of the much-hyped “TVB Tigers” reunion film Brothers and a review of Kon Ichikawa’s shot-by-shot remake of his own film The Inugamis. Meanwhile, yours truly have a review of the Japanese documentary The Naked Emperor’s Army Marches On and a review of the Japanese hosts comedy Waters.

- There’s a pretty big possibility that I’ll be watching the Kohaku in Japan again this year, which is why I care about this news: After two years of actress Yukie Nakama hosting as head of the red team, this year may see young actress Masami Nagasawa taking on hosting duties. The problem is that Nakama was chosen because she starred in NHK dramas, while Nagasawa hasn’t been doing anything for NHK. This signals a possible desperate move by NHK to bring in more viewers for the struggling new years show.

- Speaking of Japanese TV, the Daily Yomiuri’s Teleview reports on Beat Takeshi as an educator on this week’s Japanese TV, and a pretty positive on this season’s hit drama Galileo.

- If you are Japanese, and you’re asking what the hell is a Galileo, who the hell is Masami Nagasawa, and the only thing you get from this entry is Kohaku, then this new TV station is for you.

- Posters for Johnnie To/Wai Ka-Fai’s latest Mad Detective, starring Lau Ching-Wan and premiered in Venice, has started appearing in Hong Kong theaters. There’s no official release date yet, but the poster shows that it’s already been rated category-III (no one under 18 may be admitted). It seems like after the success of Election, SPL, and Lust, Caution, Hong Kong filmmakers are finding the guts to make some hardcore films again.

- Japanese pop singer Bonnie Pink, who has traveled to Sweden to record so much that she calls it her second home, announced that her latest album will be released in Sweden in February next year.

- The Hong Kong government will start a public consultation soon about the fate of public broadcaster RTHK after an independent committee suggested earlier that a new independent broadcaster be established. In addition, the broadcaster has also undergone a year of both private and public scandals.

Let’s start off with some more news from the TIFF (That’s what the Tokyo International Film Festival calling themselves these days, despite Toronto having the same abbreviations):

- Jason Gray won’t be in the country for the rest of the TIFF, but he does have a link to the two-hour video of red carpet coverage and opening ceremony. I don’t think anyone is expected to watch all 2 hours of it, but you can see some interesting things, including finding out that Akiko Wada and Tokoro Joji are voicing Marge and Homer in the Japanese dub of the Simpsons movie, which will screen during the festival. D’oh!

For those not in the know, some fans protested to 20th Century Fox for not using the original Japanese voice actors for the film, but I guess Fox cared about getting non-fans in more than loyal fans.

- Meanwhile, the Winds of Asia section has a new programmer this year: Asian film scholar Kenji Ishizaka. Like many film scholars, he decided to bring lesser-known Asian films to the festival this year, particularly films from Islamic countries. The problem is even if you bring the movies, will people go see them?

Now, back to your regular news.

- Of course, we always start off with box office news around here. In the first seven months of 2007, local Japanese films have fallen to making up just 43% of the market, down 10 % from the same period in the previous year. Judging from this year’s output, the answer lies in the fact that there hasn’t been any huge blockbuster that reached the size of those last year. local megahit Hero opened in September, so we won’t know until the end of the year whether Japanese films will regain its strength. But there are still a few possible crowdpleasers on the way.

- The Daily Yomiuri’s Teleview column looks at two dramas where the Kanto and Kansai separation seems to be an issue: the new NHK morning drama Chiritotechin, which is getting much better ratings in the Kansai region than Kanto, and the Masami Nagasawa drama Hatachi no Koibito.

- Today’s Oriental Daily reports that some netizens are saying that the MTV for Jay Chou’s latest single “A Cowboy is Very Busy” (directed by Chou himself) is similar to the video for Christina Aguilera’s Candyman.

Jay Chou’s “A Cowboy is Very Busy” (try not to get too shocked)

Christina Aguilera’s Candyman

Personally, just because the diner images are similar don’t mean that one is copying the other, but what do you think?

- In more possible plagiarizing news in Chinese music, the Chinese blog 3cmusic reveals that netizens are saying that Hong Kong pop singer Paisley Wu’s “Don’t Think Just Do” has a similar arrangement (credited to veteran C.Y. Kong) to British singer Sophie Ellis Bextor’s “The Sun’s On Us.”

Don’t Think Just Do

The Sun’s On Us

Since “Don’t Think Just Do” seems to be a cover song, can anyone name the original track, and can that same person tell us whether that song has a similar arrangement as well?

- In more posting of Youtube clips, Chinese star pianist Li Yundi says in the an interview that he wonders out loud if treating classical musicians as pop idols (i.e. him) is the right thing to do. Probably not, but showing up on TVB promoting a Japanese drama that you have nothing to do with just seemed like such a right thing to do.

- In more TV news, Hotaru No Hikari, which averaged only a 13.6 rating on Wednesday nights during the Summer 2007 season, won four of the five awards at the Nikkan Sports Drama Grand Prix. The fifth award went to Arashi member Kazunari Ninomiya for his role in Yamada Taro Monogatari.

- Under “cut off one head, another one will pop up” news today, Taiwanese police arrested two people who run the website XYZ and confiscated 40,000 pirated discs of Hollywood movies. Yes, just two people and one of the many many websites that sell pirated discs.

- Under “what things will Jackie Chan say” news today, the action star, who is producing the Chinese reality show The Disciple in a search for the next martial artist, tells aspiring action stars to not bow the “old-fashioned way”. I hope he doesn’t mean greet your master with high-fives.

- The new drama season started in Japan last week (Fall 2007 drama information from Tokyograph), and Iryu 2, the sequel to the hit drama from Spring 2006, got off to an excellent start with a 21 rating on the ratings chart. Meanwhile, Dream Again, starring Takashi “Genghis Khan” Sorimachi could only score a 12.9 rating for its premiere. Another star who might not be such a star is Masami Nagasawa, as her latest drama Hatachi No Koibito got only a 13.5 rating for its first episode. More premieres to come this coming week, so look for a slightly more comprehensive wrap-up next week. It all depends how tired I’ll be, really.

Now, the wrap-up from Pusan International Film Festival:

- The competition section of Pusan, called New Currents, actually has the least well-known films. This is probably because the jury tends to pick heavy art films with social messages, and Variety reports that history has repeated again this year.

- Meanwhile, it seems like the Asian Film Market was pretty quiet in terms of sales, with distributors sending people to just look as opposed to buy.

- Despite the festival running into obstacles and just being generally bland this year, the attendance was still record-breaking.

And now, back to your regular news:

- Wong Kar-Wai was supposed to make a biopic about Bruce Lee’s master and it was supposed to star Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, who reportedly spend the last few years getting physically prepared for the role. However, his 5-year rights is expiring and Raymond Wong’s Mandarin Films (who last made the Donnie Yen lovefest Flash Point) is stepping in and make their own film about Bruce Lee’s master.

This is in addition to the planned film by Fruit Chan about two childhood friends in 1950s Hong Kong who split up on their own roads, one of them being Bruce Lee.

- The teaser trailer is out for the Hollywood remake of the Pang Brothers’ The Eye, and I guess it looks blah.

- Also, the second trailer for Feng Xiaogang’s The Assembly is online. I use Firefox, so I haven’t watched it, and I’ll probably watch the movie when it comes out anyway.

- In not-so-pleasant news for the blogging community, the Chinese government is continuing its crackdown of the internet ahead of the party congress.

- And yet, they decided to allow a shorter version of Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution, which was edited by Lee himself and is a few minutes longer than the Malaysian version, to play nationwide starting November 1st. Can someone tell me whether Lam Ka Tung makes an appearance at the end of the Mainland version? Someone who’s seen both Infernal Affairs and Lust, Caution should get this.

- Then again, despite the film having done very well in Asian territories, audiences in China may very well not even get what “the bad guy” in the movie does.

- China may seem pretty bad, but then the head of the Thai ministry of culture came out and pretty much says: 1) Thai audiences are not educated, and 2) just because said audience doesn’t understand a movie, it should be be classified and/or banned.

Today is like the TV edition of the The Golden Rock:

- Variety Asia has a feature on the state of Asian TV - Japan wants you to know that they are actually exporting more than they seem to, Korea is hoping that people will keep watching their dramas even if they don’t watch their movies, Hong Kong’s legally-obligated-to-be-there TV network is hoping to find enough stuff to fill four new networks at the end of the year, and Chinese TV should be lucky that they can find something the government approves of.

- Speaking of TV, Japan national broadcaster NHK, which charges pretty much every Japanese household a mandatory fee, saw its latest business plans rejected by the government because they’re making too much money. Making too much money means they are charging too much.

- Courtesy of EastSouthWestNorth, Danwei raises a few points over the dubious banning of the Chinese crime reenactment show Red Question Mark, which feature reenactments of crimes committed by women. After running for 3 years, the show was banned because it was “vulgar.” That would be the reason to ban most of American TV.

- In India, possibly racially derogatory comments made by a radio host about the winner of the talent show Indian Idol led to an angry demonstration which injured 60 people and forced police to impose a curfew in the area. Man, Clay Aiken fans just aren’t as crazy as ought to be these days.

- On a personal note of interest, one of my favorite directors Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest film There Will Be Blood was the surprise closing film of the Fantastic Fest, and the enthusiastic word-of-mouth are pouring in, first from the Hollywood Reporter, then from Twitch’s Peter Martin. I’m extremely excited to see this, but I know I probably won’t get to for a long long long time. Instead, I’ll probably go watch another Pang Brothers movie or something.

By the way, look for a new post or two at the spin-off this weekend.

- First comes the news that any blogger who cares about Japanese films is blogging about - the reveal of the FilmEx lineup. First a general report from Variety Asia, then Ryuganji reveals the Japanese selections, and Jason Gray has a comprehensive report. As much as I liked Eye in the Sky (good execution for two-thirds, then a contrived ending), it probably doesn’t stand much of a chance. The festival will run from November 17th to the 25th.

- Apparently Seven Swords wasn’t enough for him. After Missing, which is supposed to have something to do with a ring underwater, Tsui Hark will be working on what is being called his “comeback film.” The 13 Regiments will apparently group 13 stars together - including Simon Yam, Donnie Yen, and Nicholas Tse - and have them going around the world to recover Chinese relics scattered during “the war.” When the hell was Tsui Hark ever gone? He still has Triangle coming out, and he’s already working on one film before going on to this one.

- In a continuing crackdown of the media following that ridiculous mandate regarding talent shows, the Chinese government has shut down 1,466 ads that may contain offensive materials such as scantily-dressed women or sexually suggestive language. They even censored ads for underwears. Everyone wears underwears, people. Even communists.

- One director trying to fight against that is Chinese-American director Wayne Wang. According to him, a Chinese investor pulled out because Wang refused to cut a line in his latest film A Thousand Year of Prayers that says “Communism is good. It just fell into the wrong hands.” Any film that criticizes the Chinese government is of course a no-no, so the investor was forced to back out, taking away half the film’s budget.

- Forbidden Kingdom, the film that both its superstars Jet Li and Jackie Chan are calling “not very good,” is done shooting and taking its post-production to South Korea.

- For those who has seen the Hong Kong action flick Invisible Target, do you remember the blonde guy who’s involved in two of the chase scenes in the first hour? I know, I don’t remember much about him either, but apparently he’s going to Hollywood. Are they really paying him “seven digits”? It’s probably in yen, right?

- After the moderate success of TMNT, Hong Kong-based Imagi Animation Studio will team up with the Weinstein Company and Warner Bros. again for two more projects, the Japanese comic adaptations Gatchaman and Astro Boy. This should put Hong Kong computer animation on the map. This means Centro better get on its ass and make something better than The Magic Gourd. Still…American studios producing an adaptation of Astro Boy just doesn’t sound very promising to me anyway.