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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Numbers from mov3.com are here.

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

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

SPOILER ALERT:

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

SPOILER OVER

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not much of a news day, but still lots of different types of news going around.

- The Chinese media watchdog (better known as the government) has set up 20 rules to the press ahead of a major meeting of communist leaders. Some of them include a ban on talking about censorship in the media (I’m sure I’m not the only one who see the irony in this), a ban on discussing the cultural revolution, and just to be redundant, any discussion about the mistakes made during the cultural revolution should not deny the accomplishments by the party or Mao Zedong.

What the fuck?

Anyway, these are nothing new to those who have seen years of this type of censorship, and details from Variety Asia are here.

- The U.S. government isn’t quite helping when they just decided to cut broadcast aid to Tibet and reduce broadcasting hours by 50%. Many of the Tibetan exiles listen to these broadcast, and now many people inside Tibet can only listen to the official Chinese radio instead.

Variety Asia report here.

- Just to show that I don’t just criticize the Chinese government (because the wrath of the Chinese internet community is, honestly, kinda scary), the same agency that impose those new media rules also decided to bring cinemas to rural areas so poor farmers in those areas can watch the latest government-approved communists lovefest. Oh, there I go again. I ought to be happier that more people get to discover the magic of movies.

Again, Variety Asia has the report.

- And don’t think I’m just talking about China, the censors in Malaysia and Indonesia has also went and banned two documentaries, although for slightly better reasons than China, I suppose.

- After the Oscar win for The Departed (it’s from Hong Kong! Not Japan, Ms. Tuttle!), Warner Bros. have apparently been suckered into buying the rights for another Andrew Lau/Alan Mak movie - Confession of Pain (I mentioned the possibility of this 2 months ago here). Just as Hollywood Reporter reports, it’s about a former police detective investigating the death of his old superior’s father-in-law, and I’m puzzled why Hollywood even needs to spend 2.75 million dollars (a figure I heard Andrew Lau’s production company is charging) for a script any post-film school screenwriting grad can write. Maybe William Monahan is so pissed about people saying how much Infernal Affairs was better, so he decided to buy a crappy script to make himself look better (even though he has an Oscar to prove himself already…)

- Meanwhile, over in Japan, I don’t have those box office numbers yet, but Eiga Consultant does round up the results of Sakuran. On just 51 screens in the Kanto area (kind of like the opening weekend for The Departed in Japan, except 68 screens), it scored 44.83 million yen (that’s roughly US$374,000 on a $1=120 yen scale), meaning about 880,000 yen per-screen, which is about $7300. Not spectacular, but still a fairly good start, considering it’s been on fairly small screens in multiplex or single-screen theaters. It’s also 125% ahead of Honey and Clover, which had a similar rollout. It’ll open on 129 screens this weekend, so expect it to climb slightly up the top 10.

- NTV, who found a lot of yen last year with the Death Note movies, has bought stakes in a comic publisher. They’ve been kind of behind on those comic adaptations (TBS has Nana, and even Asmik Ace has Honey and Clover), so maybe now they can get more rolling, but to whose joy, I have no idea.

- For those in San Francisco, Bong Joon Ho, the director of The Host and Memories of Murder (both are now two of my Korean films) will be coming here for a showing of his three films at the Clay Theater on March 5th. I won’t be able to make it personally, but I encourage everyone to catch all three films, they’re all great in their own way. Of course, I will be catching The Host when it opens here on March 9th.

Anyway, details by Twitch here.

- I’ve got some new (and not as well-written as I’d like them to be) reviews on Yesasia, and they are as follows:

Love Me Not

Ad Lib Night

Hot For Teacher (aka Sexy Teacher, aka Who Slept with Her?)

Bye June

Jacky Cheung - By Your Side

- A new rapper has popped up in the hip-hop world, and guess what? He’s black, and he raps in Japanese! That’s right, it’s Kokujin Tenzai down from the dirrrrty South. Japan Probe has an entire post on this guy, and it reports that he’ll be holding a concert in Shibuya where a ticket cost 3000 yen. Would you pay 3000 yen to see this? I wouldn’t.

Although I do have to give him credit for learning the language AND getting his buddies to rap along with him. But I don’t think he quite has the finger on how conversational Japanese works, and in the words of Crocodile Dundee himself: That isn’t Japanese rap, THIS is Japanese rap.

Plus I don’t think Japanese people appreciate hearing a foreigner bragging going to Japan and “fucking yo’ bitches” and having “Gats in the Cadillac.”

On one last note: I’ve been checking who reads this blog, and what the heck are people at Circuit City, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo doing reading this blog? Get to work, guys!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source: mov3.com

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source: Variety Asia.

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

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

I could be watching E!’s 2-hour long coverage on the red carpet, but I honestly couldn’t care less about who’s showing up with who and who’s wearing what. Turner Movie Classics is showing Casablanca ’til 4:45 or so, and then maybe I’ll watch the rest of the pre-show. If I get tired of that, I just picked up 2 DVDs today, one of which can keep me entertained for a bit. Just no more red carpet, please.

And because it’s Hollywood’s biggest night (and also the fact that it was Sunday in Asia), there’s not really much news.

- The thing about Hong Kong entertainment news is that they only report celebrity matters. I knew Miki Mizuno is in Hong Kong shooting a movie with a Sam Lee and a bunch of B-list stars, but the news never mentions what type of movie or who’s directing (although the costumes looked real chessy). Now Ryuganji provides the details that it’s a new version of the “Female Convict Scorpion” series, and it’s a Japanese-Hong Kong co-production by Artport (who also did Dog Bite Dog, whose shooting process is described in a book by producer Sam Leung Tak-Sam that I bought in Hong Kong). Joe Ma is directing, which cannot be a good sign for the film.

Miki-san has a blog, and she writes about her shooting process in Hong Kong (which includes a Cantonese lesson on beer-drinking) here.

- Time Asia has an interview with Oscar nominee Rinko Kikuchi. Not much new information, but it’s a nice interview anyway.

- Jason Gray has some news on a few upcoming high-profile projects by directors Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Kore-eda today. He also announces that the release for the well-received Strawberry Shortcake will have Japanese subtitles (he knows that because he did the subtitles himself).

- I’m not a big fan of the cri English site because they stole one of the articles I wrote for Yesasia. But Lovehkfilm forum’s Dimsum99 provided a link about the beginning of shooting for the new Peter Chan film “The Assassination of Ma” starring Takeshi Kanshiro, Andy Lau, and Jet Li. So here, and I hope they didn’t steal that story from anyone else.

- Variety has a review for the first Finnish martial arts film Jade Warrior. Apparently it even did pretty well in China.

- As for the Oscars, instead of predicting who’ll win, I’ll just say who I want to win. a * means that I haven’t watched all the films in the category, so it’s a matter of personal preference. But it also means I’ll only comment on the categories where I’ve seen at least 3 of the films

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY*

Children of Men

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY*

Children of Men

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Pan’s Labyrinth

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS*

Adriana Barraza - Babel

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR*

Mark Whalberg - The Departed

BEST DIRECTOR

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu - Babel (although I want Scorsese to win, but not because of his work on The Departed)

BEST PICTURE

Babel

I’ll be posting thoughts and results later tonight, but until then, I’m hoping Ellen is better than Chris Rock (not a hard task at all).

Update’s a little late today, but that’s ok.

- Updating late enough means I caught Hong Kong’s Thursday box office numbers. Sometimes I think I need to live in Hong Kong to understand release patterns. Case in point - the Hugh Grant/Drew Barrymore romcom Music and Lyrics have been on the top 10 since Valentine’s Day. Not very good results (actually the bottom spot among the new Lunar New Year films), but still respectable. But now it’s overtaken everything except Protege and Night at the Museum to take 3rd spot on its official opening day. It earned HK$450,000 on 31 screens for a HK$3.20 million total already.

As mentioned before, Night at the Museum and Protege continue to own the box office, taking in HK$2.18 million and $1.25 million respectively. Protege seems to be showing a bit of a slowdown, but business should pick up this weekend again, and at a total of 18.02 million so far, it’ll at least reach the 25 million mark, which would make it the Hong Kong film to beat for the rest of the year. Meanwhile, It’s a Wonderful Life closes in on the HK$6 million point with HK$410,000 on 33 screens on Thursday, and Twins Mission does HK$370,000 on 26 screens to get past the HK$4 million mark.

According to today’s Oriental Daily (no link because content changes daily)Gold Label’s head honcho Paco Wong is satisfied with It’s a Wonderful Life’s mediocre performance since it’s only Ronald Cheng’s directorial debut. Right, Paco, it has nothing to do with quality at all, I’m sure.

Source: mov3.com

- Speaking of Protege, Kozo at Lovehkfilm posted his long-awaited review, and simply said: it’s good. Not great, but pretty good.

- What I want to discuss more though, is his own Lovehkfilm 2006 awards. I didn’t come up with a top 10 for 2006 because 1) it was too late by the time I came back from vacation, and 2) As a film studies major trying to finish his degree in film studies, it’s tough to catch up on new films (although this is the first year in a long time that I’ve actually caught all 5 of the Academy Awards best picture nominee. More on that on Sunday).

Anyway, agreed on most of the top 10 (only mostly because I have yet to see My Wife is a Belly Dancer, and I’m only half way through After This Our Exile). Can’t agree on bottom 10 because I’ve only seen two of those (but no Love@First Note? Too charitable, I say). Most agreed on the special award to Gold Label (”For the dubious achievement of somehow making EEG look good”), and agreed on the best overacting award. Make your own judgments from there.

- Twitch has discovered a new database for those who just can’t seem to remember the faces of those HK actors that appear in every other movie. I say they need one for Korean films….

- I love the Hong Kong International Film Festival. They get all kinds of movies that I would not be able to catch here in the States (or in the case of my experience at the HKIFF, movies I couldn’t catch during my year in Japan). Too bad I live in San Francisco, not Hong Kong.

Anyway, this year’s lineup has been announced, and it seems like there are so many films that they can’t even fit in a closing film. I have a few personal picks myself - the opening films (Eye in the Sky and I’m a Cyborg, but That’s OK), Bubble Fiction: Boom or Bust, Sakuran, Woman on the Beach, Love and Honor, and almost everything in the Hong Kong Panorama section. They even have Berlin winner Tuya’s Marriage, and a Herman Yau tribute featuring the infamous Untold Story and Ebola Syndrome. I’m not saying I want to see those two, I’m just saying they should be very interesting screenings.

- It’s been floating around for a couple of days, but I didn’t want to report it because it’s such bad news. But now it’s been confirmed by auteur Rob Cohen (excuse while I vomit) that Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh will be in The Mummy 3. Jet Li will play a head mummy of the Terracotta Army. Excuse me while I go vomit some more.

- Personal favorite Shiina Ringo has a new album out that I posted an external review for a few days ago. Better news is that it debuted at number 1 on its first day of release. I’m gonna be ordering a copy of this myself when I dig up the 30 bucks needed to buy it, but rest assured, I’m gonna love it too.

- Oops, they did it again. Another Japanese TV station has admitted to presenting false data. Same old, same old.

- Top Japanese studio Toho’s chairman Isao Matsuoka will receive the lifetime achievement award at this year’s Showest convention. How about honoring him by putting more Japanese films on American screen?

Source: Variety Asia.

- If you haven’t checked out Japander, you really should. It features Hollywood star in all kinds of Japanese commercial ranging from awesome to strange to just plain mediocre. I mention this because Japan Zone has announced that Madonna will be advertising for some new apartment complexes set to open in 2009. Other stars mentioned in the report include Jean Reno, Leonardo Dicaprio, and Ken Watanabe. I myself saw one featuring Richard Gere in a subway station in Tokyo.

- Hoga Central just announced that the blockbuster Genghis Khan: To the Ends of the Earth and Sea (just not as catchy as Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World or Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, or Norbit: From Unfunny to Plain Disgusting) has had its distribution rights sold to 60 countries, including Iraq (a film about a conqueror that wants to rule the world. hmm……). Of course, none of this is any indication that it’ll be any good.

- The Saturn Awards (Or Academy Awards for fantasy films) has recognized quite a few Asian films. For instance:

BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM

Apocalypto (Buena Vista)
The Curse of the Golden Flower (Sony Pictures Classics)
Fearless (Rogue / Focus)
The Host (Magnolia Pictures)
Letters From Iwo Jima (Warner Bros.)
Pan’s Labyrinth (Picturehouse)

BEST PERFORMANCE BY A YOUNGER ACTOR

Ko A-Sung (The Host) (Magnolia Pictures)
Ivana Baquero (Pan’s Labyrinth (Picturehouse)
Jodelle Ferland (Tideland) (ThinkFilm)
Tristan Lake Leabu (Superman Returns) (Warner Bros.)
Mitchel Tate Musso (Monster House) (Sony)
Edward Speleers (Eragon) (20^th Century Fox)

BEST COSTUME

Joan Bergin (The Prestige) (Buena Vista)
Yee Chung-Man (Curse of the Golden Flower) (Sony Classics)
Penny Rose (Pirates of the Caribbean:
Dead Man’s Chest) (Buena Vista)
Judianna Makovsky (X-Men: The Last Stand) (20^th Century Fox)
Nic Ede (Flyboys) (MGM)
Sammy Sheldon (V For Vendetta) (Warner Bros.)

A complete list is here

- Twitch also reports today on the societal impact of recent Korean blockbuster 200-Pound Beauty.

- Lastly, Variety has posted its review for David Fincher’s Zodiac. It’s sounding more and more like Memories of Murder, and that’s alright with me.

Whew, that was a lot of news. That should make up for the delay.

With the new year holidays coming to an end in Hong Kong, it’s time to get back to the down and dirty. That’s right, it’s box office round up time:

- Tuesday numbers (or the third day of new year and the last day of the public holidays) indicate that Night at the Museum overwhelmingly wins the battle with a HK$2.94 million take on Tuesday from 45 screens for a HK$19.94 million total (even though it got a $2.5 million head start with previews). On the Hong Kong side, Protege trumps its competitors by a mile with a HK$2.07 million Tuesday take from 40 screens for a HK$14.94 million total. Note that in multiplexes, it’s playing on smaller screens (because Night at the Museum took the one large screen in these theaters), and with a really good word-of mouth, it’s gonna do pretty well in the long run.

As for the other Hong Kong films, Ronald Cheng’s “directorial debut” It’s a Wonderful Life (review by LovehkFilm here) scored HK$810,000 on Tuesday from 33 screens for a total of HK$4.71 million total after 7 days. It’s the obligatory “fun lunar new year movie,” so expect business to be brisk past this week, but it will finish under $10 million, which is nowhere near the success of Dragon Loaded 2003, but still better than last years’ Lunar New Year offering The Shopaholics.

Not doing so hot are those cute Twins, whose Twins Mission (website still not working!) found HK$640,000 on 26 screens for only a HK$3.24 million total after 6 days. However, looking at per-screen average, it’s actually doing better than the Gold Label gang, so who knows?

Family films Open Season and Charlotte’s Web did acceptable business on Tuesday (HK$530, 000 on 27 screens and HK$560,000 on 28 screens, respectively) and are tied at HK$2.38 million for totals. And in limited release, Borat continues to be huge with HK$60,000 on 2 screens, and a HK$1.06 million total.

(US$1=HK$7.8)
Source: mov3.com

- South Korea also had its new year holidays, and according to Variety Asia (specifically, the always-reliable Darcy Paquet), box office is actually down overall, while Mark Russell over at Korea Pop Wars report the drop is attributed to new years being on a Sunday. Anyway, Mark’s analysis is here.

- In Japan, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications has concluded that Japanese Variety shows need more fact-checking in a report about the investigation into the research process of such shows. Details from Variety Asia are here.

- On that note, the new years installment of TVB variety show Beautiful Cooking is up on Youtube (I’m not condoning piracy here, I’m just taking advantage of the free flow of information). Essentially, it’s a show where three females celebrities go on the show and test their cooking skills (or often, the lack thereof) for the male judges. Of course, it features the same old canned laughter and lame musical segments that only TVB can think of. Most amusing is Alex Fong Lik-Sun lip-syncing to the theme song to It’s a Wonderful Life, except he even lip-synced to Tony Leung Ka-Fai’s line.

Through further research on Youtube, I have found a long-running Japanese variety show called “Ai no Apron” (or the Apron of Love), and it’s basically where the cooking skills of female idols are tested for a male judge…wait a minute, that sounds like exactly what Beautiful Cooking is! This Wikipedia entry in Japanese shows that it at least goes back as far as 2005 (Beautiful cooking debuted in fall 2006)And here are those poor posters of Asian Fanatics Forum believing that TVB has come up with something original. Unless TVB’s got the rights to it, they better start preparing for a lawsuit.

This is why there should be free flow of information on the internet.

Note: looking up “Ai no Apron” or “愛のエプロン“( Japanese name) will not get you any result on youtube because of the copyright claims by Japan’s copyright people. Sorry.

- Back to more positive things, Twitch has a great interview with director Kiyoshi Kurosawa (whose new film Sakebi is coming out soon in Japan). But the interview isn’t about his new film, but rather about Japan’s response to Clint Eastwood’s critically acclaimed Letters From Iwo Jima (which has finally made its way to the imdb top 250!). It’s very informative, and I recommend it wholeheartedly.

- According to Hollywood Elsewhere, Shakespeare in Love has been voted by British voters as the most undeserving Oscar best picture winner. I partially agree, since it should’ve gone to Saving Private Ryan, easily. But what about Chicago? Crash? even Gladiator (which I really love, but even I gotta face the truth some time)? Hell, what about Forrest Gump? or Driving Miss Daisy?

The point is the Academy Awards often make wrong calls more often than right ones. It’s not the first, it won’t be the last. It took me a while, but I got over Crash winning….eventually.

- A congratulations to Yee Chung Man for his winning the Costume Designers Guild award for Curse of the Golden Flower. The multi-talented Yee is a director, production designer, art director, and of course, a costume designer who made the enjoyable And I Hate You So and Anna Magdalena, but has also worked on dozens of Hong Kong films.

Source: Variety Asia

- Thank heavens for RSS feeds. I just got the news that the Japanese blockbuster Dororo is now headed down the trilogy road. According to Ryuganji, 2 back-to-back sequels for Dororo has just been green-lit and is set for a 2009 release with a 6 billion yen budget (that’s US$50 million, very huge for a Japanese film). The original hasn’t even made that much yet!

- Oh, and the Resident Evil 3 trailer is up. Looks like Mad Max crosses The Mummy. blah.

Lastly, visits have been going way up, and I would like to thank Hoga Central, r@sardonicsmile.com, and my friend Jason for linking the site and bringing more visitors over. You guys rule.

Happy new year to all my Asian brethren out there. I did promise a break, but it seems like there are quite a few news that I missed out on yesterday, so I’ll keep it short:

- Edison Chan, aside from being a rich pretty boy who, despite his aristocratic roots in Canada (note: not the birthplace of hip-hop), has promoted street culture by wearing and selling clothes that are probably too expensive to be worn on the streets, is now also a CEO!

That’s right, after constantly spelling out the word C-L-O-T in his musical appearance (at first I thought it was just to show his spelling abilities, but it’s actually his overpriced clothing store in Hong Kong), he has now started Clot Media Division., as in if you shelled out money to buy clothes at my store, you may have a blood clot in your brain.

Anyway, the report from the Daily Dumpling is here.

Better yet, why don’t we have our homeboy EDC himself tell you? I dare you find 5 grammatically correct English sentences in that entry. Yeah, son, ya best peep and represent.

- The Berlin Film Festival has come to an end. And a (seemingly Chinese censors-sanctioned) Chinese film takes the Golden Bear. That’s right, it’s not “Lost in Beijing,” it’s “Tuya’s Marriage,” a drama about a Mongolian women’s search for a new mate after her husband becomes disabled that scored the Golden Bear. The controversial, but critically acclaimed “Lost in Beijing,” on the other hand, did not score anything.

Meanwhile, Park Chan-wook finds his first overseas success for “I’m a Cyborg, but That’s OK” by winning the Alfred Bauer Prize for innovative prize. According to a more detailed report by Twitch, Park asks her wife for forgiveness for being a director. “When I get home, I hope she will tell our friends, ‘My husband is a director but that’s OK,’” Park says in his acceptance speech.

That’s certainly more romantic that this touching statement.

Source: Variety

- A Shiina Ringo fan blog, who seems to know everything and anything about Shiina’s music, has released a review of Shiina’s latest album (also serves as a pseudo-soundtrack for Sakuran) Heisei Fuuzoku. It’s a positive review if you don’t listen to Shiina’s concerts, because the reviewer obsessively goes into how the arrangements for some songs are carried over from her previous concerts. Anyway, I look forward to the album when it comes out the 21st.

That’s it for today. Gong Hei Fat Choy to everyone out there in the blogosphere!

The sun is out, the earth is warming up, let’s have some fun.

- First, trailer 2 for the highly-anticipated (at least among the male population of the country) self-masturbatory violent trash-fest Grindhouse. Hi-res version is here, but you can find the HD-versions at Dave’s Trailer Page.

I’ve been wanting to see Linda Linda Linda (essentially a rock version of Swing Girls, I presume) for a long time, but before it’s even going to be released on DVD here, the trailer for director Nobuhiro Yamashita’s new film is already out. I can’t read the title, but the trailer looks like a dark comedy set in the early 1990s about murder and some gold. Maybe a Japanese version of Fargo then? Trailer link, courtesy of the Japanese Trailer blog, is here (click on the first link).

- The Japanese Academy Awards results are out, and I was kind of right - Memories of Matsuko’s Tetsuya Nakashima did not get the best director’s award. Instead, it went to Hula Girl’s Lee Sang-Il. Apparently, since Hula Girls was not produced by the big three (Toho, Shochiku, and Toei), this is pointing to further diversity in the industry….even though Hula Girls’ fate was written in the wind when it was picked for Academy Award consideration last year.

Hoga Central analyzes the awards and has the winners list here.

- Follow-ups to two cases of the Japanese variety show scandals. TBS has apologized for a new case where they suggest Welfare Minister Hakuo Yanagisawa apologizing for the wrong comment! They made it seem like he was apologizing for suggesting that “healthy” families should have two children when he was apologizing for calling women “birth-giving machines.” Maybe TBS agrees with such sentiments…

Lest we not forget that TBS is already in trouble for the “misunderstanding” where they just brought some chimes to a rural school and did a report on how the school has used the chimes to help children study.

Then, Japan’s National Association of Commercial Broadcasters has suspended natto lovers Kansai Television’s membership for at least six months. What does it all mean?

“The suspension, which was unanimously approved by the board, means KTV will not be able to participate in org meetings and events, and its shows will not be eligible for NAB awards.”

but that means….what, exactly?

Both news courtesy of Variety Asia.

- Thursday numbers (and probably the last update for about a week or so thanks for Lunar New Year) are out for Hong Kong. Night at the Museum, as expected, ruled the theaters on 40 screens with HK$1.44 million for HK$6.10 million total already. Derek Yee’s Protege with a very solid 970,000 on 40 screens for a HK$4.19 million total. It should pass the 10 million mark by the end of the weekend, making it Yee’s highest grosser since One Night in Mongkok (which only did a very moderate just under 10 million in Hong Kong). Opening day for the other Hong Kong fares are not doing so well - the Twins’ homage (and I know I’m kind of pushing it there) to crappy 80s action films Twins Mission (whose website is impossible to find and it’s down) stole only HK$270,000 on 26 screens, while talented singer-songwriter turned class clown Ronald Cheng’s directorial debut It’s a Wonderful Life made only HK$220,000 on 33 screens on its second day, pointing to a not-too-bad 650,000 opening day. But the tremendous drop just got me thinking how many of these people don’t work for Gold Label? All the Western family movies are flopping with little signs of life until the weekend comes when the family may show up. We may just find out on Wednesday, after the public holidays are over.

Source: mov3.com

- Going over the China, it seems that the filmmakers behind the controversial Lost in Beijing has decided to screen the uncensored version for the public audience in Berlin, regardless of what the Chinese censors say. Ballsy move, indeed.

Source: Variety Asia

- I grew up watching movies by Hong Kong fallen giant Golden Harvest - I can still hum the jingle when the logo pops up. Even though they haven’t made any films for a while (I can claim that Vincent Kok brought it down, but that’d be mean), now they are coming back big time. Too bad, they seem like they’re going to be concentrating on the mainland market instead of making anymore real Hong Kong movies. Shame.

Source: Variety Asia

Speaking of Chinese new year, this blog may be taking a break on Sunday as well to observe Chinese new year, but unlike Hong Kong, I don’t push holidays back to weekdays, so rest assured (to you 22 people out there. yes, I check the visit stats), a day without me is all you can get.

It’s kind of a slow news day, so let’s talk about a bit of everything, including, yes, Hollywood.

- Aaron Eckhart, or sometimes the guy who plays the villain you love to hate, is joining the “Batman Begins” sequel “The Dark Knight,” playing Harvey Dent, or Two-Face (played by Tommy Lee Jones in Batman Forever, if I’m not mistaken). This is following Heath Ledger’s casting as The Joker, and of course, Christian Bale will return as Batman himself. The kick-ass Christopher Nolan also returns as director/co-screenwriter.

Source: Variety

- Eiga Consultant is predicting the winners of the major awards at the Japan Academy Awards this Saturday. An analysis of it and an English translation by Hoga Central is here. Personally, I think this is pretty spot-on, even though I would’ve predicted Yoji Yamada’s “Love and Honor” as winner of best picture. But then again, since Hula Girls did get chosen as Japan’s representative for the Academy Awards, the committee isn’t about to piss off that other committee by choosing any other movie.

And looking at the past history of the awards, I think the committee is too conservative to hand a best director award to “Memories of Matsuko” director Tetsuya Nakashima. I think the bigger chance goes to, of course, Yoji Yamada, whose “Twilight Samurai” swept the awards while “The Hidden Blade” didn’t. The frequency of one single film being able to sweep the awards should say something about how conservative the committee can be.

The nominees list (in Japanese) is here.

- Reviews time:

Variety posted their first review of the highly-anticipated 300. Funnier, though, is how New York Post critic Lou Lumenick links to it here.

Lumenick also links a review of the critic-proof blockbuster Ghost Rider here.

- Remember when Korean films like “A Moment to Remember” and “April Snow” scored big in Japan? “April Snow” even made more money in Japan than in its native South Korea (arigato, Yon-sama). Well, that magic’s gone away, and it went away quickly. Now CJ Entertainment is just lucky to be able to sell Park Chan-Wook’s “I’m a Cyborg, but That’s OK” to Japan. In fact, sales of Korean films to Japan has dropped by an astonishing 70%. That’s so sad that there’s no punchline to follow that up with.

Source: Variety Asia

- Finally, two humorous notes that has nothing to do with entertainment. Well, one of them kind of does.

People who’s read my review of Eason Chan’s album “What’s Going On…?” knows that I’m a huge fan of track 6 “Better Not to Meet.” Well, here’s a bittersweet version of it on youtube that laments the strengthening of the Chinese Renminbi against the Hong Kong dollar (it’s quite a serious issue in Hong Kong now. Back then, 100 Hong Kong dollars meant 140 renminbi. But now, it’s 100 Hong Kong dollar for roughly 99 renminbi.). It’s amusing and sad at the same time, really. (warning, in Chinese only)

Lastly, An anchorwoman in Hong Kong wrote a column about what true love to her means. Here is the translation. Here, however, is the original post in Chinese from a blog, where people criticize the columnist as a “typical Hong Kong woman” who expects men to give them everything. I think the best part of the post is the suggestion by the blogger, who says that if he encountered a girlfriend like that, he would follow up such “touching” words with “if my businesses fail and I would go bankrupt and crippled, would you give me back all those income that I’ve given you?”

True love? or selfishness?

While I’ll be staying at home with my DVD player tonight, many people out there are feeling the joy of Valentine’s Day:

- Hou Hsiao-Hsien is feeling the love because Film Distribution bought the rights to his new film The Red Balloon. Universe is feeling the love because someone bought the rights to Benny Chan’s still-filming “Invisible Target.” And the Pang Brothers continue the love they’re getting after the modest box office take of The Messengers by selling the rights to their new films “The Photo” and “Darling Lover”

Source: Variety Asia

- Production companies are loving Japan because distributors from there are not quite buying as many films this year, and they should be lucky to be able to tap into their market.

Source: Variety Asia

- Hong Kong is feeling the love because Korean superstar Rain is heading to Hong Kong again, this time for the screening of “I’m a Cyborg, but That’s OK” because it will open the great Hong Kong International Film Festival in March.

Source: Variety Asia

- Chinese viewers are feeling the love because Access Hollywood is heading to Chinese screens, and it will probably be just as crappy and filled with trash gossips as the American version.

Source: Variety Asia

- Hong Kong audiences and Derek Yee are feeling the love because Protege opened to spectacular numbers on Tuesday night, scoring HK$950,000 on 45 screens. Remember that Protege only opened on Tuesday night, which means each theatre only played from 3 to maybe 5 shows at most that night. Look for its real test to come when everything else opens by tomorrow in Hong Kong.

Source: mov3.com

- The brother of a soldier who fought at Iwo Jima is feeling the love because a WWII veteran who picked up a box of letters 62 years ago has decided to return it after said sibling gave a long interview on Japanese television. Pardon me for being a cynic, but why wait 62 years? Maybe Clint Eastwood has something to do with it…

Source: recordonline.com

- and finally, DVD collectors like me are feeling the love because Hong Kong is seeing so many new releases these couple of days (ahead of Lunar New Year, I’m sure). Some of the major releases include:

Confession of Pain
Curse of the Golden Flower
After This, Our Exile (sadly, only the theatrical version)
Death Note (a cheap alternative to the uber-expensive Japanese set coming up)
Casino Royale
Jan Lam’s latest talk show (which I wish they use better production values for. Just because it’s someone talking doesn’t mean we don’t deserve serviceable video and audio quality, especially when you’re charging 27 bucks a pop)
There’s also a 2-disc special edition for James Yuen’s Heavenly Mission (which you won’t be able to find in Yesasia if you’re in the states because Tai Seng has the rights, sorry)

In the states, we also get Scorsese’s superior remake The Departed, and next week we see the masterpiece Babel. Feeling the love, indeed.