- In less than 24 hours, the Cannes Film Festival will open with Wong Kar-Wai’s English feature debut My Blueberry Nights. I’m not going to be in France, and as an example of positive thinking, I don’t think I’ll ever be at the Cannes Film Festival. Nevertheless, I will try and keep track of the Asian films playing and selling there over the next 12 days.

The Hollywood Reporter has a roundup of the Asian presence at Cannes this year(not including the marketplace).

- The promotion for opening film My Blueberry Nights is getting out there. I found a promotional kit floating online that offers some beautiful stills(link is .pdf), and Twitch has the poster, which for some inexplicable reason places star Norah Jones in the little corner.

- Tsui Hark, Ringo Lam, and Johnnie To’s Triangle is no slouch either, as Twitch has also found the film’s own promotional kit online. It’s definitely worth a look.

- Enough with festival stuff for now, let’s get to some box office.

Variety Asia reports that the Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara-penned war drama “For Those We Love” opened pretty big this weekend, when that’s actually not really the case. Eiga Consultant reports that the film actually opened a lot weaker than similar war films. Compared to “Otoko Tachi No Yamato,” which opened on less screens, “For Those We Love” made only 53% of its opening in December 2005. When compared to “Letters From Iwo Jima,” which Ishihara panned to make his own film sound better, the opening is only 37% of Iwo Jima’s. Both films opened around the same year-end period and had similar final gross. At least it might make back its budget.

- In other Japanese box office news, seems like Gegege no Kitaro is now poised to be the highest-grossing film in the “Yokai” genre(I guess mythical creatures would be the best way to translate that).

- In Japanese drama ratings, it stabilized slightly after the Golden Week holiday in Japan.

See here for all drama information.

Proposal Daisakuen (also known as Operation Love) regains its footing for its 4th episode with a 16.4 rating. As you can see, the rating for this week’s episode even went up (more on that next week). It’s now currently the highest-rated drama this season.

Looks like Sexy Voice and Robo found a fan base, as the ratings are now floating around the 7.0 range for 3 weeks now. We’ll see if that happens for the 4th week later tonight when the Tuesday ratings are up.

The biggest disappointment of the season Joudan Janai! (which sounds like it would fit right in as an American sitcom) also seem to have found a fan base, as the ratings are now staying around the 14.0 range. Considering that Yuji Oda’s last TV Drama Last Christmas had a 21.5 average, this does not bode well for Yuji Oda’s future career in TV.

The Oricon website has compiled a ranking of the satisfaction rate for the current dramas. So far, it’s the returning drama Kaette Kita Jikou Keisatsu, followed by the comic adaptation Liar Game, and Operation Love in 3rd place. Sexy Voice and Robo and Joudan Janai are at 8th and 9th place, respectively.

- Korea Pop Wars has a pretty thorough analysis of Korea’s box office this past weekend. Spiderman 3 continues to reign, but it’s not reigning very well - the opening boom was there, but staying power simply isn’t. This actually gave a chance for Asian films to perform pretty well at the box office.

- In today’s “bad idea” file, director Kirk Wong is possibly casting his remake of the classic Hong Kong martial arts film “Five Deadly Venoms” with Jay Chou, Edison Chen, and Maggie Q. I haven’t seen the original, and I’m already dreading this.

- This weekend, 7 films will try and bring down Spiderman 3, including two of the Herman Yau films I mentioned yesterday. Another one of them is the Mainland Chinese thriller “The Matrimony,” starring Leon Lai and Rene Liu. Variety already has a review.

- In case anyone cares, Universal Studios Japan in Osaka is finally making money.

- The MPA is launching a new anti-piracy campaign in Asia with new trailers in theatres. Which makes me wonder whether those trailers in America with the explosion expert talking about how hard he worked for the movies worked in the first place, when every opinion I’ve read of it has been overwhelmingly negative? And what makes them think that the guilt mentality is going to work?

- In other stupid media tactics, the New York Post talks about how American broadcasters are trying to keep viewers tuned in during commercials. I have to say I had no idea what was going on in that Fox cab driver thing, but it sure was annoying.

This type of irregular schedule of posting will probably continue until next Monday, but I’ll try to deliver as much as I can each time i post.

- I read a column on Ming Pao yesterday (that I’m not going to translate) and contributes to Spiderman 3’s current success in Asia to a weak market. Well, how can you have any type of market when Spiderman 3 is taking up 102 screens in Hong Kong? The usual Hollywood blockbusters opens on 50 screens at most. That’s probably why Spiderman managed a huge HK$2.35 million on Thursday’s opening day (technically it’s opening day for all films, but the only major release this week opened on Tuesday), which is a lot less than the record-breaking HK$7 million it made on Tuesday’s public holiday (the previous holder for opening day was Kung Fu Hustle with over HK$4.5 million), but still very huge. After 3 days, Spiderman 3 has already made HK$12.68 million, and expect it to pass the HK$25 million mark by the end of the weekend.

The films from 3rd place all the way down to the 10th all made under HK$50,000 on Thursday. That’s so sad I’m not even going to analyze it.

- Reporting this a little late here, but ratings for Japanese dramas was dealt with another blow last week as ratings continue to plummet overall. Sunday prime time drama Joudan janai drops further to a 13.2 rating, while second place Proposal Daisakusen drops only by 2.2 % in its second week for a 17.1 rating, which makes it now the number 1 drama this season. Kenichi Matsuyama’s Sexy Voice and Robo drops to a desparate 6.9 rating its third week. In fact, Proposal Daisakusen is the only drama that cracked the 15.0 rating, and no drama this season has cracked the 20 rating line, a line that 3 dramas crossed last season. Sad state of affairs, indeed.

- After the complaints received because of Hong Kong broadcaster TVB’s uncensored broadcast of the classic film An Autumn’s Tale, TVB is looking to get in trouble again, this time because of a protester’s foul mouth during a live broadcast.

- Korea Pop Wars has a story on how the Korean distributor of John Cameron Mitchell’s sexually explicit film Shortbus found a way to get around the Korean film board to get a general release.

- Anyone in Los Angeles heads up: The Visual Communications Film Festival is happening now, and it includes a screening of John Woo’s Hard Boiled, the Japanese film What the Snow Brings, and Korean blockbuster King and the Clown, among many more.

- Jason Gray has a few more tidbits, including the first photos of Yoji Yamada’s latest film, and Asian film- destroy…er, I mean remaker Roy Lee’s decision to scrap a remake of Battle Royale.

- Why, oh, why do they bother? First it’s Sin City, then it’s 300, and now, the latest Frank Miller graphic novel (a glorified way to say comics) ready for adaptation is “Ronin,” about mutants, thugs, and a ronin duking it out in modern New York for a sword, or something like that. And the directors’ pedigree continues to slip too - first it’s Robert Rodridguez, then Zack Synder (in all fairness, I surprisingly liked Dawn of the Dead), and now it’s the director of “Stomp the Yard.”

- Speaking of “why do they bother,” the trailer for Rush Hour 3 is up, and it just looks like a sillier version of Kiss of the Dragon with an annoying-as-usual Chris Tucker. Even Jackie Chan once said he was baffled at the success of Rush Hour.

- Hong Kong gets film development council to figure out what to do with the US$38 million film fund - good. Council then establishes four other committees to figure out more stuff in more detail - bad. This fund is in serious danger of being held up by bureaucracy.

- At least the man has the good sense to finally announce that he’s retiring in next 5 years. I wonder if that’s just action films, or all filmmaking, period.

- Continuing on “why do they bother” news, Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh will be in auteur of crap Rob Cohen’s latest film “The Mummy 3.” Apparently they signed on a young actor named Luke Ford in order to have him carry the franchise. Just read the plot description for yourself.

- In more screen development news, the big discovery in 2007 for Japanese music is the song “Sen No Kaze ni natte” sung by tenor Misafumi Akikawa, based on the poem, “Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep.” The supposed history of how this song came about is that a Japanese author read the anonymous poem at Ground Zero in New York, translated it into Japanese, and wrote a song out of it. The song was sung at the annual Kohaku Singing Contest on New Year’s Eve this past year, and the single has now sold 920,000 copies to date. Anyway, I’m mentioning this song because Japan’s fascination with the song–>screen process is kicking in again, with a mini-series based on the song to be shown on TV in August.

- Want to know who are the most powerful people in Korean cinema? Look no further than this report.

- Twitch also has a trailer for Lee Chang-Dong’s first film since Oasis - Secret Sunshine.

- Be proud, Asia. Even though we’re not well-represented at Cannes this year, we still have three spots at Director’s Fortnight.

That’s it for now. When will I be back? I have no idea. Just keep reading, m’kay? Thanks.

- Hong Kong’s mov3.com finally posted the Sunday numbers, and as predicted, those TMNT made a comeback after its dismal opening on Thursday to make HK$630,000 on 32 screens for a 4-day total of HK$1.84 million. Those 300 Spartans hold on to second place with HK$420,000 on 32 screens, but tied with the Smith family and their Pursuit of Happyness, which also made HK$420,000, but on only 16 screens. 300 has made an impressive HK$13.4 million after 18 days, and Pursuit has made HK$3.65 after 11 days.

As the only Hong Kong film left in the top 10, Danny Pang’s Forest of Death barely hangs on to a 4th place with HK$230,000 on 24 screens for a HK$2.85 million 11-day total. In limited release, Pan’s Labyrinth continues to play strongly with HK$60,000 on 4 screens on Sunday for HK$1.16 million after 18 days, while those screaming Rain fans realize I’m a Cyborg But That’s OK might just not be their cup of tea as it only earned HK$80,000 on 9 screens for HK$890,000 after 11 days.

- Speaking of box office, Eiga Consultant has declared Sakuran a relative success with 600 million yen after 28 days of release on 126 screens. Meanwhile, Hoga News has some results for other Spring break films as well.

- NHK dramas are not huge phenomenons in Japan, but really something that people watch out of habit. That’s why the daily 15-minute morning drama has scored fairly strong ratings over the years since people simply tune in everyday. But now even that staple is running into hard times as its latest drama (not clear if this is the daily morning one) scores record low ratings for its debut. Nothing is sacred these days, I tell you.

- I went to Tokyo Disneysea during my trip to Japan this past Christmas, and I was frozen. But I guess it’s comparatively warmer, otherwise it wouldn’t have attracted all these people.

- I wrote about Ping Pong director Fumihiko Sori’s new film, the animated Vexville, a while ago. Now Twitch has found some brand-new footage. Too bad I don’t care for animation much.

- Turning our attention over to South Korea, it seems like after the screen quota for Korean films was removed, the evil giant U.S. conglomerate has decided to also rape its TV industry as well by taking away the cap Korea has on foreign ownership in a broadcaster, among other things. Free trade, my ass.

- Meanwhile, Twitch has a review of the Korean blockbuster from 2006 - Tezza: The High Roller, which I’ve heard great things about, but keep managing to miss.

- One piece of news and one piece of editorial from Ming Pao:

News: Quentin Tarantino, the graverobber of Asian films, so to speak, is apparently planning to remake the martial arts classic The One-Armed Swordsman. The Chinese text as follows:

著名導演昆頓塔倫天奴上月底宣布，下一部電影將會是中國功夫片，會起用很多中國演員，雖 然會用英語對白，但肯定會配上中文字幕。他表示很久以前看過很多邵氏經典電影，對這些影片推崇備至，尤其是《獨臂刀》等作品，喜歡那種獨特的節奏感和故事 的張力。不過若他翻拍的話，會加入一些自己和現代結合緊密的元素。

Renowned director Quentin Tarantino announced last month that his next film will be a Chinese martial arts film with many Chinese actors. Even though the dialogue will be in English, he’ll definitely put on Chinese subtitles. He said that he’s seen many classic Shaw Bros. films and admire them, especially the “One-Armed Swordsman” series and its unique pacing and plot tensions. But if he is remaking it, he will infuse his own modern elements.

The original Chinese text is here.

Can’t this guy come up with his own martial arts movie without doing “homages?”

Ming Pao also has an editorial about the status of screenwriters - one of the most overlooked jobs in Hong Kong cinema. Excerpt are as follows:

這幾年有過不少港片市場調查，觀眾多指票房不好因劇本不濟。本地編劇待遇欠佳，不被尊重是劇本不濟的主因之一。要提高劇本水準，不是不停訓練人才就行。

There have been many market research regarding Hong Kong films in recent years, and audiences points that box office gross are low because the scripts are no good. Local scriptwriters not being treated well is one of the reasons are scripts are bad. To improve the quality of scripts, cultivating new talents is not the only solution.

編劇在電影行業中是弱勢社群，雖說是主創崗位，但酬勞往往比攝影、美術、製片還低，不兼任其他工作，可能沒法生活。

Screenwriters are weaklings in the film industry, despite their important creative role. But their wages are often lower than the cinematographer, production designers, and even production crew. If they don’t take on other careers concurrently, they wouldn’t be able to survive.

單提高劇本費是沒用的，政府應做的，是完善劇本的版權保障機制，令編劇將來可得到合理的報酬。

Just raising screenwriters’ fees isn’t enough. The government should improve the protection of script copyrights, allowing screenwriters to get fair reward.

對編劇來說，最重要不是劇本費有幾多，是劇本創作出來如何受到基本保障，無人偷他們的橋段，兼且可保留電影以外的版權，又有健康的分紅制度，就算零劇本費，也會吸引很多人參與。

To a screenwriter, the screenwriters’ fees isn’t the most important thing, but rather how the script can get basic protection after its creation. Ensuring that ideas aren’t stolen can protect copyrights and allow for a healthy bonus system. Even if the fee is zero, it would attract many more people to participate (in screenwriting).

在不公平的制度下，怎可能叫人用心創作？

How can people create under an unfair system?

好劇本不必然是用錢買的，優良創作環境，才最重要。

A good script isn’t bought simply with money. A good creative environment is really the most important thing.

Original Chinese text is here.

Still slightly under the weather, so report will be briefer and shorter. Still, there are some good stuff out there.

- Hong Kong Sunday numbers show 300 top at first place again, with HK$870,000 on 32 screens and a HK$11.61 million total already. The Pursuit of Happiness leads the pack for openers with a strong HK$490,000 on 16 screens, with Danny Pang’s “Forest of Death” scoring a moderate HK$380,000 on 31 screens (A Pang Bros. overload in HK? I think so). The two films have 4-day totals of HK$1.71 million and HK$1.46 million, respectively. Park Chan Wook’s I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK made HK$140,000 on 8 screens on Sunday for a HK$450,000. Who wants to bet how many of those are Rain fans?

- I always just let Mark Russell’s Korea Pop Wars take care of the Korean weekend box office. Why? Because he knows more than me, of course. Well, I know that 300’s global domination has reached Korea as well. SPARTA!!!!

- In Japan, the box office this weekend is once again strong, with Night At the Museum taking a significant tumble, but Doraemon and Unfair hanging on. The Holiday opens fairly strong, at least according to Eiga Consultant. It opens at 146% of Something’s Gotta Give (the previous Nancy Meyers film) and 241% of In Her Shoes (the previous Cameron Diaz film in Japan). It should repeat the strong word-of-mouth business it has done around Asia.

Hoga News also has a report on another opening this weekend - Katsuhiro Otomo’s Bugmaster. I know, I’m just passing on the work to everyone else!

- Japan Times has a review of Bugmaster too.

- The Host expanded by about 30 screens on its third weekend, and it also saw a gross increase of about 9% for a 24th place weekend (up from 28th last week). With its opening gross responsible for only 29% of total gross, it means word-of-mouth is keeping this movie in theaters, and also well on the way to become one of Magnolia Pictures’ top grossers. Still, a mere $1.5 million gross for a film that made about 80 in its home country isn’t that great.

- Magnolia Pictures also hold the release rights for Johnnie To’s masterpiece Exiled, which didn’t do very well for distributor Media Asia at the box office. Now they attempt to cash in some more with a Hollywood remake coming. I don’t see why a film in the style of Sergio Leone Westerns needs to pay for any type of remake rights from Hong Kong, but good for Media Asia, I guess.

- Last time I posted a link to Professor Davis Bordwell’s report from the set of Johnnie To’s portion of Triangle and a deconstruction of To’s cinematography. Now Twitch’s Todd Brown has some set photos of his own.

- Filmart, how do they love thee? Let them count the ways.

- Speaking of which, Twitch’s Todd Brown has a report on what he saw at Filmart.

- In the realm of bad film ideas, the much-talked-about Jackie Chan and Jet Li project will be a family-friendly film based on The Journey to the West, the famous Chinese fairy tale with the Monkey King as its protagonist. There are other ways people are planning to bastardize the story too, but I’m honestly over it.

- Midnight Eye has a review of Sakuran, a film I’m still looking forward to watch.

- In a last bit of self-promotion, my article on Hong Kong director Derek Yee is up and running. Thanks to the editors at Yesasia for updating the post-Protege stuff.

Just in from Hong Kong’s Oriental Daily regarding the “Infernal Affairs is Japanese” saga. When reporters asked Media Asia (the film’s distributor, also a producer on The Departed) officials for response, they responded by admitting that Infernal Affairs was based on a Japanese comic. The Chinese report is here (I don’t have a link because they change online content daily, but you can go to the site and read the exact report yourself in the next 22 hours):

奧 斯 卡 頒 獎 禮 大 會 誤 把 《 無 間 道 》 指 為 日 本 電 影 ， 惹 來 內 地 不 少 網 友 不 滿 ， 亦 有 指 開 拍 《 無 間 道 》 之 寰 亞 電 影 亦 特 別 發 信 向 奧 斯 卡 大 會 問 罪 ， 對 此 ， 寰 亞 高 層 朱 任 之 表 示 ： 「 其 實 只 係 講 人 無 知 講 錯 說 話 ， 但 憑 良 心 講 番 句 ， 因 為 《 無 》 片 係 參 照 日 本 漫 畫 改 編 ， 所 以 佢 會 有 呢 個 錯 覺 ， 我 亦 已 發 電 郵 畀 奧 斯 卡 ， 叫 佢 要 好 好 正 視 呢 個 問 題 。 （ 有 無 特 別 要 求 ？ ） 佢 都 仲 未 回 覆 ， 但 佢 今 年 確 實 錯 漏 百 出 ， 好 似 唔 係 墨 西 哥 人 ， 又 話 人 係 墨 西 哥 人 ， 但 呢 都 唔 係 好 大 件 事 ， 最 多 個 主 持 出 年 無 得 做 。 」

“The Mainland Chinese online community is angry with the Academy Awards calling ‘Infernal Affairs’ a Japanese films, and has caused Media Asia to directly ask the Academy about their mistakes. High-ranking Media Asia official states: ‘It’s just the misguided people there saying the wrong things. But to look at it fairly, ‘Infernal’ is based on a Japanese comic, so they would make that kind of mistake. We have already sent a e-mail to the Academy to correct the problem.’ (Was there any special request?) ‘They haven’t replied, but the truth is that here are a lot of mistakes made this year. It seems like someone who isn’t Mexican got referred to as Mexican. But it’s no big deal, at the most it just means the host won’t return next year.’”

There ya go, folks. Who stole whose ideas now?

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!

Not gonna have much of a new years spirit here, since we do things very serious here (ha ha!). Let’s do a bit of everything today:

- Curtis Hanson is a filmmaker I’ve come to admire after L.A. Confidential, Wonder Boys, and 8 Mile (I liked The River Wild too, but it’s no masterpiece). I’ve been looking forward to his latest, Lucky You, since it was scheduled for release last fall…except it never came out. It has a very solid cast - Eric Bana and Robert Duvall (the less said about Drew Barrymore, the better), and it’s co-written by the brilliant Eric Roth, who wrote The Insider and Munich (in this case, the less said about The Postman, the better). Cashing in on the fading popularity of Texas Hold ‘em poker, the film is finally going to open on May 4th (perhaps long enough that people can forget In Her Shoes, which I haven’t seen). The good news is that it’ll be opening the 2007 summer season. The bad news is that it’s going against Spiderman 3, which means Lucky You seems to be aiming for the “chick flick” market rather than the male poker-playing crowd.

Anyway, the third trailer is out, thanks to Dave’s Trailer Page (where you can find HD versions)
, and it still looks like a solid little flick.

- Twitch also brings us two trailers (one trailer, one teaser, actually): One for Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s “Red Balloon” (Ballon Rouge), and a teaser for Takeshi Miike’s film version of the Japanese game “Ryu ga Gotoku” (better known in the states as Yakuza).

- Saw two films that seem to be worthy of comparison: Japan’s “The Sinking of Japan” and Korea’s mega-blockbuster “The Host.” Both films take formulas that Hollywood has mastered over the years and puts an Asian twists to them. However, the difference is astronomical.

“The Sinking of Japan” is about exactly what its title suggests: Japan sinks. Explained by a flurry of pseudo-science and a bunch of experiments (explained by on-screen text - giving a whole new meaning to visual storytelling), it basically blends docudrama and spectacle into possibly the most somber disaster pic since The Day After Tomorrow (which probably inspired this remake). With an unconvincing romance as the central plot, the film really takes off when things get destroyed - the special effects are awe-inspiring, with no one safe and everyone buying the farm, even though it’s done with such seriousness that unintentional humor breaks through far too often (the afro-wearing scientist, upon finding out that Japan has less time than expected, punches his computer monitor…which would not be good if that was the only evidence he has). Even though it does follow a certain Hollywood formula (the fate of Japan really does fall onto only one man’s hands), it doesn’t pretend to have any meaning beyond the island - scenes where politicians realize the rest of the world has abandoned Japan once it finds out the land and the economy are sinking fast is a sobering reminder of Japan’s role in the world. It makes for a fairly depressing time at the movies, especially when watching it in Japan, where frequent earthquakes are a part of daily life.

“The Host,” on the other hand, takes the same risk at genre conventions. But thanks to genuine characterizations and the sure-handed direction by Bong Joon-Ho, The Host is a thrilling good time. The humor, often black, is intentional and it even works. Unlike most Asian Hollywood clones, it even integrates some very Korean humor (I actually had to go to imdb to see explanations of a few jokes) so that it adds an extra layer for local audiences. I don’t have much else to say except to end with a wholehearted recommendation for it.

The American trailer for The Host is here (it opens in most of the country on March 9th).
The trailer for the spectacular, but depressing Sinking of Japan is here, courtesy of Twitch.

- Last night I saw the awesome Sonny Chiba in Karate Bear Fighter on IFC. Besides the obvious title (yes, Sonny Chiba does fight a bear barehanded, although it’s more like a guy in a bear suit most of the time), he also pulls a “Drunken Master” Jackie Chan by popping open a barrel of sake and drinks straight from the gaping hole as it pours out, and seeks guidance from a master whose trick is pushing a stick against Sonny Chiba’s eye….and by that, I mean the camera. It’s 85 minutes of karate awesomeness, and you should definitely seek out for it.

- Poor Mika Nakashima. After the success of her third album Music (not to mention Nana), she decided to try new things musically by doing the gospel thing with singles Cry No More and All Hands Together - and both were met with poor sales. So now with a hit drama to do a theme for, she’s back to her old ballad roots with the new single “Mienai Hoshi” (Invisible Stars). And what a coincidence that is just happens to sound like her first hit single Will.

Unless there’s any big news, I should be taking a break tomorrow. Will be back Monday with all kinds of useless Asian cinema and entertainment news.

Raining here hard in San Francisco means it’s time to watch some movies. And so last night, I popped in the HK DVD for Memories of Matsuko, the latest from Shimotsuma Monogatari (better known as Kamikaze Girls) director Tetsuya Nakashima. A Japanese online commenter wrote in allcinema.net wrote that it’s essentially a pop version of Dancer in the Dark, and it’s mostly true - Memories of Matsuko is a story of a woman who experiences an almost-constant downward spiral, but finds comfort in singing a little ditty here and there. The difference is that it’s not as pretentious, and there are actual pop stars involved.

Some may criticize it for things such as its gender politics (Matsuko makes some really bad decisions along the way because she just wants to be loved by a man) or its shallow MTV-style storytelling, but I find the MTV stuff done much better here than its Hong Kong counterparts. Hong Kong filmmakers often indulge in MTV-style editing for the sake of style, and they hinge on taking the film merely from one sequence to another to show off new visual tricks with no knowledge of pacing or fluidity between scenes. Here, Nakashima crams in decades of Matsuko’s life using this style, but he somehow manage to juggles style and storytelling at the same time, streamlining events along the way at an efficient pace, but also allowing the emotions to be felt at the same time. As for gender politics, Matsuko’s search for love isn’t simply out of her need for a man; that need comes from her family upbringing, out of her inability to be loved.

And the music - as a musical, Memories of Matsuko has some of the best integration of pop music last year. Unlike the recent musical, which cashes in on hit pop song cashing in on collective nostalgia, songs created for this film (by J-pop artists such as AI and Bonnie Pink, who both make appearances in the film) actually have things to do with what’s going on onscreen. It may be pop, but it’s pop with a meaning.

Behind the pretty pop stuff, though, there is a very tragic story in Memories of Matsuko, but the impact is lessen thanks to the blend of bubble gum pop and 50s technicolor Hollywood spectacle. Nevertheless, emotions are felt, and the senses are stimulated just the same. You buy it or you don’t. I did, and I think it’s one of the best Asian films of 2006.

A report of an interview with director Tetsuya Nakashima from back in May is here.

The Twitch review (written better, but tougher to read through) is here.

Buy the HK DVD here.

- The Hong Kong numbers are in, and as expected, Night at the Museum tops the box office with its advanced screenings with HK$1.43 million on Sunday from 55 screens (that includes most theatres who put it on at least two screens) for a $2.99 million total so far. I didn’t realized that the umpteenth computer-animated animal film Open Season (The Chinese version boasts the voice talents of Eason Chan and Jan Lam) also had its advance screenings this weekend, and it’s at number two with a very weak HK$220,000 Sunday on 27 screens. Repeating its fate from pretty much around the globe, Charlotte’s Web got only HK$160,000 on 29 screens for a total of HK$330,000 so far. These three films open next weekend before Lunar New Year.

Everything else is pretty meh around Hong Kong, with Borat having another strong Sunday showing with HK$70,000 on only two screens for a HK$650,000 total so far. Pretty good, considering it’s only been showing on two screens.

source: Mov3.com

- The controversial uncensored version of Lost in Beijing was screened in Berlin, and people are wondering what the hell the big deal is. The details here from Variety Asia.

Good news is that it’s also generally well-received. At least by Variety.

- Update on the Yellow Handkerchief remake I mentioned a couple of days ago thanks to Hoga Central. Apparently, imdb lists Udayan Prasad, who made the little-known, but timely My Son the Fanatic, as the director. Apparently, Yoji Yamada is understandably not directing this (but did hand over a script, apparently) because this is going to be a Hollywood film too.

- Midnight Eye has posted its results for the best of 2006 poll by readers. As great as it is that lesser known films (really, Miike isn’t all that huge in Japan) are recognized, I think some of the better mainstream films are getting left out simply because they’re….well, mainstream. Japan’s mainstream films are quite solid, even if they’re often made for commercial intentions. At least they don’t make movies like Norbit in Japan.

Midnight Eye reviewers’ own best-of lists are here.

I was hoping the Japanese drama ratings would be out by last night, but it wasn’t. That’s life.

Many people through Martin Scorsese’s The Departed would’ve featured Brad Pitt because the rights were bought by Brad Pitt’s production company Plan B. According to today’s Oriental Daily in Hong Kong, Plan B may be interested to repeat its success by buying the remake rights to Andrew Lau and Alan Mak’s Confession of Pain.

The question is why? Confession of Pain is part of the murder mystery genre that Hollywood has done over the years. Then again, I haven’t seen it yet, so maybe that’s why I haven’t seen one reason why anyone should buy remake rights for a story Hollywood has probably done before.

Edit: Just realizing that the page will be gone to make way for tomorrow’s newspaper, I’ll post the original Chinese text that mentions the news here:

畢 彼 特 前 年 買 下 《 無 間 道 》 版 權 拍 成 電 影 《 無 間 道 風 雲 》 ， 此 片 最 近 更 威 盡 美 國 的 「 星 獎 」 ， 據 知 ， 畢 彼 特 食 髓 知 味 ， 對 劉 偉 強 新 作 《 傷 城 》 亦 感 興 趣 ， 記 者 就 傳 聞 向 電 影 公 司 求 證 ， 發 言 人 承 認 確 有 荷 里 活 片 商 斟 洽 《 傷 城 》 版 權 ， 但 就 未 肯 透 露 詳 情 ！

And a rough, non-professional translaton by me here:
http://p202.ezboard.com/flovehkfilmfrm19.showMessage?topicID=105.topic