And I didn’t even understand 40% of it. So don’t treat this as a serious review - just a blogger’s rant.

Of course, I have my biases about the flower boys in the first place: My first encounter with them was when they were used as an excuse to start a boy band in Taiwan for “Meteor Garden”, and since then, the so-called Flower 4 has never sat right with me. But with the Japanese counterpart hitting the big screen, making a ton of money, and a shoot that went all over the world, I expected some high-energy silly fun, even if it is about boys compared to flowers (Of course, the whole title is Japanese wordplay. “Boys” in Japanese share the same sound as the Japanese sweets “dango”.). So I went, like most of the other men in the screening, accompanied by a member of the opposite sex. Now I know what a Sex and the City screening must’ve been like.

The trailer, which show central couple Makino and Domyoji running around the world in an adventure, promises such energetic silly fun (exploding cars in Hong Kong? The two doing Castaway on an abandoned island?). The film itself starts off just fine, with the two about to get married when a very very expensive family heirloom is stolen. As a result, the two run off around the world to get the heirloom back, with a little (and I mean very little) help from the other flower boys. That’s it. Really.

However, the filmmakers somehow managed to make everything drag. Apart from the first 20 minutes, there’s no sense of fun at anywhere they go. Dialogue scenes are shot from a distance, as if they’re trying to show TBS and Toho shareholders where they spent their money on by showing as much of where they are as possible. The movie was shot on digital video, with no cinematic flair whatsoever so one can hardly find any difference between the actual movie and the flashbacks from the TV drama. With TV dramas shot like movies these days, you would figure that Hana Yori Dango Final would looks better on the big screen. You’d be wrong - I’ve seen Japanese dramas shot better than this so-called movie.

Of course, I don’t even deserve to review the film if I didn’t understand 40% of the dialogue. Actually, when I can tell a film is bad just by understanding 60% of it, doesn’t it make it worse? I didn’t understand 50% of Gururi no Koto (most of those scenes involve lots of dialogue), either. For all I know, it may be a total embarrassment once I find out what the rest of the movie is about, but the acting, the directorial technique, the editing all told me at that point that there’s something better beyond the written word for all 140 minutes. Hana Yori Dango didn’t have that.

The so-called script simply boils down to two people arguing all the time, especially Jun Matsumoto (whose perfect boy  band hair stays perfectly waxed even on an abandoned island) and his arrogant and loud bad boy voice screaming in every other scene. His surface tough-guy exterior becomes increasingly irritating along the way. On the other hand, Mao Inoue was fairly likable as the girl next door, but even her acting is relegated to simply reacting to events along the way, as oppose to actively doing anything. When she’s not being told something, then she’s just arguing with Domyoji, which  makes me wonder why these two are together in the first place if they talk like that to each other every day. Worst of all, of these adventures boil down to an anti-climatic “that’s it?” resolution that would make you hate rich people like the flower boys for the resource they use for their excessive luxury. Then again, you probably won’t, because they’re still rich and handsome.

Perhaps that’s why it’s such a favorite with the female audience. This is essentially porn for virgin schoolgirls and women who dream of being like protagonist Makino - your poor girl next door swept away by four rich handsome guys who lavish her with attention and luxury like champagne on private planes and pools in presidential suites. Men has the same type of latent fantasy, they’re called action movies.

Don’t mistaken me as a TV drama adaptation hater, either. As much as I don’t like the trend, I actually think drama adaptations can be quite well-done. At least Hero and Bayside Shakedown earn their 2-hour+ runtime with complicated cases that take multiple steps to untie the knots. Hana Yori Dango runs 131 minutes, which is way too long to pull off what the story turned out to be.

I suppose not having seen the drama, I must not be in the position to judge this film. Actually, the filmmakers do their best to let the uninitiated understand what’s going on, and a film should be able to stand on their own as a film instead of a 2-hour episode of a TV show. That’s why people criticized the second and third installments of Lord of the Rings as not real films, because they aren’t “complete” films with a beginning and an end. But at least those films are miles away better shot, better written, and better acted than Hana Yori Dango, which looks like it was shot for TV, and that’s where it belongs.

Still, girls will probably still flock to it for the same reason they would flock to a Daniel Henney movie - Jun Matsumoto appears topless in one scene. Wet. While saying “I love you” to a girl.

By the way, here’s the exact reason why the film did not deserve a 131-minute running time.

MAJOR ENDING SPOILERS:

The so-called family hairloom was a fake, and was a scheme concocted by Domyoji’s mother and father to test the couple’s love. Everyone was in on it, hence meaning that everything that appeared in the film is false and artificial. Just like the manufactured emotions and endless verbal expositions.

Consider yourself warned.

- Our first and foremost jobs here at Lovehkfilm is to review movies, and we got some of those for you today. Boss Kozo has a review of Lawrence Lau/Scud’s City Without Baseball, a review of Korean hand ball flick Forever the Moment, a review of the Taiwanese film Soul of a Demon, and a review of Japanese dark comedy Funuke, Show Some Love, You Losers!. JMaruyama offers a review of Kwak Jae-Young’s Cyborg She, which he insists is a remake of Park Chan Wook’s I’m a Cyborg, but That’s OK, and that’s OK too. I myself offer a review of Don’t Laugh at My Romance and a review of cute puppy film A Tale of Mari and Three Puppies.

- It’s Japanese Oricon charts time! As expected, Arashi’s theme for the Hana Yori Dango movie debuted at the top, with an impressive 300,000+ copies sold. Shuchishin (aka the “stupid boy band”.  Really, that’s their nickname) not only survived to their second single, but also manage to sell 200,000+ copies of it. The album chart was also fairly crowded, with GReeeN!!! taking the top position for the first week of their second album, Ayaka’s 2nd following close behind, and Ketsumeishi debuting at a somewhat disappointing 3rd place. My newest idol Jero debuts at 5th with his first album.

More at Tokyograph.

- China loves Kung Fu Panda, as it has already become the most successful animated film ever in China with a box office take nearing 100 million yuan after 10 days. I don’t get that two days’ delay in Sichuan, though, which sounds more like distributor’s indecision more than anything else.

The earthquake didn’t exactly affect people’s moviegoing mood anyway, as May’s box office is up 26% from the previous year, prompting China Film Group to post a cryptic message that seem to spell either showing off or amazement.

- The Japanese news shows were all over a Wall Street Journal story this morning, which compared the rather unpopular Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda with current TV Prime Minister Kimura Takuya. Click on the first link, since going directly to the site won’t let you read the whole story.

-  Kaiju Shakedown’s Grady Hendrix looks at what’s going with The Warlords‘ western distribution ambitions, which has now dwindled down to a butchered DVD release.

- A bit late: Jason Gray offers a look by Midnight Eye’s Jasper Sharp on how Tartan UK came to meet their current fate of closing down.

- Lionsgate will be working with CJ Entertainment for Korean Wedding, aka “How Another White Man Falls in Love with Asian Girl and Finds Asian Culture Funny”.

- Taiwan may take a very significant step in continuing to improve relations with China by lifting their ban on Mainland Chinese performers, even though Taiwanese performers have been performing in the Mainland for years.

- An ad sales slump for Japanese television is causing board member of these TV stations to go from earning tons of money to earning just lots of money.

- After the success of the Ayaka-Kobukuro duet Winding Road, their record company is back for round two with another duet to be released.

Not a lot of news today:

- The Indian comglomerate Reliance’s investment for Hollywood studio Dreamworks has not been finalized yet, and may even just be used for the studio head as a bargaining chip in their negotiations with other studios. In other words, India is in Hollywood just yet.

- Another Japanese comic is being adapted for live-action film, although the idea sounds pretty interesting this time: a boy who washes the windows of apartments in an orbital ring around Saturn after Earth becomes uninhabitable.

- It’s reviews time! Variety’s Leslie Felperin has the first review for Christopher Doyle’s second directorial effort Warsaw Dark. Also, Variety’s Andrew Barker has a review of the documentary Hannari Geisha Modern.

- The hit Korean film The Host will have a sequel. However, instead of having Bong Joon-Ho direct again, the sequel will be a Chinese-Korean co-production with Crazy Stone director Ning Hao as director.  Also, being a Chinese co-production, the film will naturally be eliminated of the original film’s political content.

- Japanese boy band KAT-TUN member Tatsuya Ueda will have to prove that he actually has talent by not only directing his own 90-minute solo show, but he will also have to write and compose all the songs to be performed in the concert.

- Twitch has an interview with Tokyo Gore Police director Yoshihiro Nishimura.

- Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry said in a forum in Hong Kong that Japanese cinema should work more with its neighbors in Asia such as Hong Kong and China. It would be a good start if they make more original works instead of TV drama adaptation first, then actually put English subtitles on their DVDs.

- Han Cinema has the final trailer for Kim Jee-Woon’s The Good, The Bad, and the Weird. Holy. Shit.

- New Lovehkfilm reviews are up. First from Boss Kozo is the Tsui Hark flop Missing, the Japanese comedy In the Pool, and the Vietnamese action film The Rebel. Then from yours truly are reviews of the Japanese comedy Fine, Totally Fine, the Japanese arthouse horror flick The Wall Man, and the Korean comedy Radio Dayz.

- It’s Japanese Oricon charts time! As expected, Glay’s latest single debuts at the top of the chart, just beating Koda Kumi’s first post-scandal single. Worth noting is the 7th place debut of DOZHI-T’s single, which is slowly creeping into Japanese media and is likely to have long-term legs like “Soba Ni Iru Yo” earlier this year. Meanwhile Kyosuke Himuro’s 20th anniversary compilation tops a quiet album chart, with Asian Kung-Fu Generation managing a 2nd place debut, and Coldplay all the way down at 5th place.

More at Tokyograph

- Mainly for record keeping, when Paramount wants to use the figure to boost their opening weekend box office: the latest Indiana Jones film had a weekend-long preview screenings in Japan on an astounding 772 screens, which include both subbed and dubbed versions. Over two days, it made a very impressive 597 million yen, which should tell you what kind of competition other films are coming up againist. Despite not opening day-and-date with the rest of the world, it’s looking at becoming the first 10 billion yen-grossing film of the year.

- An Indian entertainment conglomerate is looking to invest USD$500 million into Hollywood studio Dreamworks, which would allow the company to leave its current deal with Paramount Pictures and back to working at being an independent studio once more. This is especially important in terms of Asian entertainment news because while there have been quite a few Asia-Hollywood co-productions, this is the first time an Asian entertainment company is investing such a heavy amount of money into a major Hollywood studio.

- Kung Fu Panda had its Chinese premiere at the Shanghai International Film Festival, who decided to not allow the public in at the last minute. Attendees reportedly said liked the film and said it represented Chinese values.

Of course, there are always party poopers who want to ruin things for everyone else, although I can see why they’d be pissed about a Hollywood studio making money off two of Chinese culture’s biggest stereotypes.

- Grady Hendix over at Kaiju Shakedown also show how the Chinese media are trying to keep a nation of restricted media receivers entertained. As I mentioned on the random thoughts bar, Kelly Chan’s wedding announcement ended up in the middle of the Hong Kong news page, because I’m sure everyone in Hong Kong cares about the star of The Empress and the Warriors getting married.

-As expected, entertainment spending in the Asia-Pacfic region is currently growing the fastest, which means major markets such as Hollywood will likely continue try and break into the market in the coming years.

- Hollywood Reporter’s Maggie Lee turns in a review of Kim Jee-Woon’s The Good, the Bad, and the Weird, which is now easily my most anticipated film of the year. Yes, more so than Red Cliff.

- From Nippon Cinema is a write-up of the upcoming Gegege no Kitaro sequel, along with the latest trailer. I wouldn’t be so trusting of that trailer, though: The first film was advertised as a serious supernatural adventure as well, but it turned out to be a kids film.

- Indonesia, in a move to boost the local advetising industry, is banning all foreign-made advertisements and commercials. One foreign professional must be accompanied by three local staffs.

- Well-known Japanese novel Shayo, which was released post-World War II and examined the need for a social change in Japan at the time, is being adapted into a feature film. The question is how timely and how much of the novel’s social change environment will be retained.

- Kaiju Shakedown also looks at Asian movies going to North America, including Eye Infinity, which is actually a title closer to the Pang Bros.’ preference, since they called the third installment of the film The Eye 10 for similar purpose. Of course, then Lionsgate went all oriental but putting the Chinese characters for eye on the DVD cover, although the film’s Chinese name doesn’t have the word  “eye” in it.

- Lastly, Japanese pop star Hikaru Utada has her own way to remind everyone in Japan to tune in for the finale of the hit drama Last Friends tonight on Japanese TV. Utada sings the theme song, which you can hear pretty much everywhere these days.

(note: it’s a parody of the drama’s poster)

- I missed out on the Hong Kong box office’s weekend gross, so let’s look at the box office tally up to Tuesday. As expected, The Incredible Hulk is still on top with a 6-day total of HK$6.45 million from 39 screens. Meanwhile, Narnia overtook The Happening over the weekend and is still at second place with HK$18.45 million after 13 days. The Happening got bumped all the way to 4th place with HK$2.97 million after 6 days. It’ll likely do better than Lady in the Water. The horror film was bumped by Sex and the City, which has earned HK$11.07 million after 13 days. Very impressive for a 2.5 hour-category III film.

Not-so-impressive is another water film, Tsui Hark’s Missing, which has only made HK$790,000 from 30 screens after 6 days. Its opening day gross didn’t even reach the HK$100,000 mark. It was just a matter of late advertising and unattractive promotional material. Plus, I hear it’s just not a very good film.

-  Also as expected, Koki Mitani’s The Magic Hour tops the Japanese box office for the second weekend in a row, losing only 25% of its phenomenal opening, despite going up against the weekend-long Indiana Jones preview screenings at pretty much every single Japanese multiplex. Everything else on the top 10 dropped over 35%, though Narnia, Aibou, and Cyborg She maintained their standings. The Taste of Fish managed to jump up in both the attendance and gross rankings, despite losing nearly 39% in business.  Dive performs rather tepidly with its 8th place opening, and Juno flops with its semi-wide release, opening at 11th place with only 22 million yen from 110 screens. On the other hand, Eastern Promises did fairly well with its 8-screen limited release.

- No Korean box office stats yet, but Variety reports that Kung Fu Panda is the fastest-earning animated film in Korean history, passing the 2 million viewer mark on its 10th day over the weekend. Meanwhile, Korean films continue their slump, with the two latest local release earning only a 7th and 9th place debut, respectively.

- Some more Shanghai Film Festival coverage: China is trying to encourage more international co-production, especially when the Chinese market is still relatively untapped, as one Chinese person goes to the movies only once every five years on average.

- Kaiju Shakedown has a link to American distributor IFC’s trailer for Johnnie To’s Mad Detective. It looks like the same exact trailer from the HK version, but there were actually some recuts in the IFC version.

- Some major news about the upcoming Astro Boy animated film by Hong Kong 3d animation house Imagi: While Warner Bros and the Weinstein Company were initially annouced as the distributor, American distributor Summit has announced that they will take over distribution is most of the world. Also, Imagi has announced the film’s voice cast, which includes Nicholas Cage and Freddy Highmore.

- There’s a new trailer for the Dante Lam, Chinese-financed animated version of the Storm Riders. By the way, the Universe-financed, Pang Brothers-director Storm Riders sequel was renamed The Storm Warriors because buyers were confused about buying a movie named Storm Riders II without seeing the first one, hence the new title.

- Japanese comedian Yuichi Kimura is making his directorial debut, a film about a money counterfeiting scheme after World War II.

- Indians prove that they can do violent protests better than the Chinese, as 70 people were arrested after they attacked MTV India’s office over a poster for their latest reality show.

- Variety’s Bonnie Schieb looks at the Japanese lesbian film Love My Life.

I’m going away for the weekend, so this is either a compressed weekend entry, or I may be able to cram in one more on Sunday night.

- The Japanese government, with their aggressive policy towards the coming switch to total digital broadcasting, will provide poor households with digital TV tuners so they can continue watching TV after July, 2011. Hey, I’m too poor to buy a digital TV, too, but I’m in no rush if it just means 3 more TVB channels.

- I can’t say that I’m well-versed in American 80s culture, but I know enough to ask who the hell asked for this?

- The Thai film ratings system, which is completely pointless in the fact that the government can still cut films, is being delayed for a few months as details are still being worked out.

- I expected Japan Times’ Mark Schilling to give a review for Gururi no Koto after two interviews for the filmmaker and the lead actor was on the Japan Times yesterday. But instead, he turns in a review for Takashi Miike’s flop God’s Puzzle. Even Japanese multiplexes are quickly reducing the number of showings after only a week.

- A Chinese internet music distributor is taking their lawsuit against search engine Baidu all the way to an American court, as their first lawsuit is still pending in China. A search engine that allows users to find illegally uploaded music, Baidu has been the target of attacks from the music industry. However, a 2006 case brought by Western companies lost, while this distributor’s lawsuit has been in limbo for almost a year.

- A Malaysia film production company is making their first big venture into Hollywood with Deadline, a low-budget thriller about a screenwriter in an abandoned house.

- Meanwhile, a Japanese talent agency is expanding into film production by taking over everything from production to distribution for a new film. Talent agencies have a huge role in Asian entertainment, and can be a well-known label (even to the general public) that helps a aspiring idol to stardom. Think Johnny’s in Japan (though their artists are scattered in different record labels), EEG or Gold Label in Hong Kong, and SM in Korea.

-  The Moscow International Film Festival will be giving Takeshi Kitano a Lifetime Achievement Award in its latest edition. Cool.

- Let’s go for a little number crunching first, as usual. As reported all this week, Koki Mitani’s The Magic Hour scored a very successful 500 million yen-plus opening on 379 screens. However, Mr. Texas points out that the opening is actually only 89% of the director’s very successful The Wow-Choten Hotel. Of course, the comparison is a little unfair, as Wow-Choten is the all-time Japanese comedy champ at the box office. However, Mitani and his cast have been aggressively promoting the film, with variety show appearances, a TV airing of Wow-Choten Hotel, and even the revival of Mitani’s popular TV series Furuhata Ninzabuo, which makes the opening a bit soft for all the buzz.

Also, Mr. Texas points out that even though The Magic Hour’s opening points of a 5 billion yen-plus final gross, several recent 500 million-yen openers have been fizzling out at the 3 billion yen mark, so it all depends on the word-of-mouth for this film. I caught the film this morning, and understood enough that I’ll be offering my views on the blog later on.

Mr. Texas also looked at another one of this past weekend’s major Japanese opening, the fish market-themed The Taste of Fish. Already planned to be a yearly movie series before its release, the human drama opened with 49.28 million yen from 259 screens, and is only 73% of the opening for the last Tsurubaka Nisshi film in 2007, which is the only other ongoing yearly film series about fishing. With no television station associated with the film, looks like Shochiku doesn’t even have the tv drama option if things don’t work out.

- I can’t believe I forgot to mention this: The Academy Award-nominated epic Mongol opened in limited release all over North America this past weekend, and managed an impressive USD$26,000 per-screen average. This is surely bittersweet for distributor Picturehouse, which closed up shop three weeks ago.

- It’s reviews time! All the reviews today are by Maggie Lee of The Hollywood Reporter. First, she takes a look at the Chinese film Knitting, which played at the Cannes Critics Week. There’s also a review of Kenji Uchida’s After School, which sounds too twisty for me to understand without subtitles. Lastly, she takes a look at the Milkyway-produced PTU-spinoff TV film Tactical Unit - The Code, which marks Law Wing-Cheong’s third directorial work, not second.

- Speaking of Milkyway, Johnnie To is donating his 36 award trophies for display at the Hong Kong Film Archive. He probably ran out of room to put them at home anyway.

- Mark Schilling has two interviews on the Japan Times, both for the film Gururi No Koto (All Around Us), which went into limited release this past weekend. First, Schilling has an interview with director Ryosuke Hashiguchi, whose latest marks his first film in 6 years. Then, Schilling talks to the film’s star and Tokyo Tower author Lily Franky. I predict there will be a rave for the film on Japan Times tomorrow.

- China has overtaken Japan to be the nation with the most digital TV connection, and will account for half the digital TV households in Asia based on the large population, with India in second place. However, Japan will remain the most valuable market for pay TV in Asia, because people in China will probably keep downloading everything.

- The Indian government finally announced the National Film Awards for 2006, after numerous delays caused by censor certification and possible rigging.

- Kaiju Shakedown offers links to a bunch of Asian film trailers that I haven’t linked to before.

- The Singaporean Film Commission is starting a feature film fund for new directors. Like the film funding program in Hong Kong, the system requires the director to have a co-investor in place already, but unlike its Hong Kong counterpart, it will offer a much larger bulk of the budget, and doesn’t require the director or the producer to have experience with feature films.

- Japan has lost another film veteran, as director Kan Mukai passed away at the age of 70 on June 9th.

Lots of number crunching today, so here we go:

- As expected, Narnia got a huge boost over the weekend at the Hong Kong box office as the younger audience turned up in droves over the holiday weekend. On Monday (the public holiday), the adventure epic made HK$3 million from 72 screens for a 5-day total of HK$11.27 million. Meanwhile, Sex and the City didn’t its Narnia-sized bump because of its restricted rating, although it didn’t do too damn bad either. From 43 screens, the TV adaptation made HK$6.38 million over the 5-day weekend. Of course, remember that both films had a ticket price increase due to their lengths, so it may not necessarily reflect attendance.

Meanwhile, all the openers from last weekend dwindled down to 5-digit numbers this past weekend. Penelope leads the pack with HK$93,000 from 15 screens for a 12-day total of HK$2.86 million. The Moss is struggling to get to The Pye-Dog’s gross with only HK$57,000 from 13 screens and a 12-day total of HK$1.22 million. It deserves better. Shaolin Girl took a big dive in its second weekend, with just HK$25,000 from 14 screens on Monday, and a 12-day total of HK$1.25 million. And despite being the Academy Award winner for best foreign film, The Counterfeiters doesn’t seem to be destined for limited release success, with only HK$250,000 after 12 days on 3 screens.

Lastly, Indiana Jones finally passes the HK$25 million mark after 19 days, while Iron Man is still on the top 10 after 41 days with a HK$21.69 million total.

- The Japanese entertainment news media had a busy weekend, as the “big three” (Toei, Toho, and Shochiku) each had a wide release this weekend. As expected, Koki Mitani’s The Magic Hour took the top spot in the attendance chart. According to Variety, it made a spectacular 506 million yen from 379 screens over the opening Saturday and Sunday. Since The Wow-Choten Hotel never made it to Hong Kong, I’m even going to venture into this while I’m here and see what the fuss is all about (although I’m sure I won’t understand half the movie).

Meanwhile, the Tsukiji movie (now named The Taste of Fish as a first in a planned yearly series) is relying on word-of-mouth it make it profitable with only a 6th place opening. Takashi Miike’s God’s Puzzle didn’t even make it in the top 10 in attendance and is not likely to gross enough to surpass 27 Dresses in gross. At least Toei still has Aibou the movie, which is still in 3rd place this weekend. More when the numbers are out.

-  Things are depressing in South Korea, as local films made up only 7.8% of total market share at the box office in May, making it Korean cinema’s worst month ever since the relevant authorities started counting.

Meanwhile,  June isn’t starting out very well, with only one Korean film making the top 10 this past weekend all the way down at 5th place. Last year, the similar happened with the endless summer assault of Hollywood blockbusters, but things may even be worse this year.

- It’s Japanese drama ratings time! As the season moves closer to the end, several dramas hit their season low. These dramas include Zettai Kareshi, Osen, Puzzle, Around 40, Kimi Wa Hanin Janai yo ne?, and Ryoteki na Kanojo (My Sassy Girl) at 12.1%, 8.4%, 8.0%, 13.3%, 7.7%, and 6.3%, respectively. Baseball drama Rookies started its second part with an average 15.4% rating, while Gokusen fell again slightly to a 21.3% rating, and remains the highest-rated drama of the season so far. Kimura Takuya’s CHANGE is high up at 2nd place, but fell below 20% for the first time. As it reaches the middle just when other dramas are hitting their finales, I think Fuji is trying to boost ratings as the only drama still on the air for the season when everything else is over.

- Zhang Ziyi is heading to Hollywood once again, acting opposite Hugh Grant this time as a Chinese director working with a top British star and a translator in their way.

- It’s trailers time! Nippon Cinema has a trailer for Monster X Strikes Back, about a monster named Gurara attacking the G8 Summit and Beat Takeshi showing up to save mankind. It’s all in the trailer. Twitch has the link to a trailer and comparison shots for the newly redrawn and re-sounded Ghost in the Shell 2.0. Lastly, Kaiju Shakedown links us to the full-length trailer of Detroit Metal City, which looks like a fun dose of absurd Japanese humor.

- In related news, a single featuring Detroit Metal City star Kenichi Matsuyama as two characters will be released along with the film.

- Variety’s Justin Chang offers up a review of the new Japanese sports film Dive!, which opens this weekend in Japan.

- Under “celebrities looking for a PR opportunity from natural disaster” news today, director Chen Kaige will be taking a break from post-production of his latest film to direct a short film for the victims of the Sichuan earthquake about successful Chinese sports player to show Chinese people overcoming difficulties. I’m sure after The Promise, he needs all the goodwill he can get for his latest. Why, yes, I have been told that I’m cynical.

-  A Bee Gee member jumps on the bandwagon to criticize China for something. Granted, said Bee Gee member is the head of the CISAC, and he’s talking about something legitimate like rightful royalty payment to artists that are not being paid, but really, take a number and get in line.

- Bittorrent Japan has made 27 films and animation videos available for free for 3 days ahead of the Interop conference in Tokyo. Here’s the page.

- It’s Japanese Billboard charts time! Just as in the Oricon chart, GReeeN’s latest single takes the number one spots thanks to sales and radio airplay. In fact, radio airplay helped boost many artists on the Hot 100, including Usher, Misia, and Orange Range, which got boosted to 2nd place over V6’s latest. Madonna’s Miles Away, though not a released single, even got a 12th place on the Hot 100 because it’s getting airplay as the theme song to the Kimura Takuya drama CHANGE.

- The indie film Yamazakura, starring Rena Tanaka, opened on 9 screens in the Kanto area and made an impressive 8.14 million yen. This is especially impressive because at one theater in Tokyo, every seat for the 8 showings over the weekend filled up, and 70% of the audience were taking advantage of the discounts for seniors and married couples over 50. As Mr. Texas writes, with the film expanding to 20 more screens, will the film reach the top 10 of the box office charts?

- Remember the Black Eyed Peas charity concert I reported about earlier in the week? Featuring Karen Mok, the concert raised a total of USD$1 million for the earthquake relief efforts in China. Good for them.

- Do you remember the “Wong Kar-Wai vs. Raymond Wong” battle over the Yip Man movie Kaiju Shakedown earlier in the week also? According to the Wilson Yip film’s latest poster, Mandarin Films seemed to have backed off and is simply calling the film Yip Man in Chinese.

And now, Andy On is looking for the compensation that he’s still supposed to get after he was dropped from the film due to the producers’ need to fill the cast with Mainland Chinese actors (for co-production status). From the look of the producers’ luck, the film will probably get held up for 6 months by Mainland Chinese censors, and the film will flop in theaters.

- Under “Japanese celebrities break world records” news today, uber-host Monta Mino breaks the Guinness World Record for appearing on TV live for the most hours in a week that he set himself in 2006. The man hosts two lives shows a day, 6 days a week. When Regis can do this much TV, then we can call him the “Monta Mino of America”.

Meanwhile, Japanese celebrity Yusuke Kamji got on the Guinness World Record for having the most unique user on a personal blog in a day. Why hasn’t they contacted me over the record for “blog with least amount of original information”?

- The Korean Herald has an English review for the latest and the third Public Enemy film, again starring Sol Kyung-Gu. I probably should at least watch the first one.

- One of my favorite directors Kim Jee-Woon has signed up to make his English-language debut with John Woo and Terence Chang as producers. It’ll be a remake of a 1970s French classic noir about a heist going wrong.

Meanwhile, Kim’s latest The Good, The Bad, and the Weird has been selling very well after its positive reception at Cannes. However, Kim says he’s preparing two versions - an international one with more Sergio Leone references and a Korean one with “more directed at entertainment.” Sergio Leone is pretty damn entertaining to me, though.

- Toru Nakamura, in Hong Kong and Japanese theaters right now as the super-evil university dean in Shaolin Girl, just won the Yellow Ribbon Award in the film actors category. The award is presented every year as tributes to top fathers in different fields.

-  U2’s manager teared the internet a new one at a music forum here in Hong Kong, blaming internet service providers for the dwindling music business and how everyone is not sharing the money for people in the industry. Another foreigner is criticizing China! Someone boycott him!

- Meanwhile, Seoul police continue to rip their way through the city in their 100 days-long anti-piracy project, arresting people and seizing tons of pirated entertainment products.

- Major Japanese rental chain Tsutaya will begin streaming movies online for their members, creating another way for people to watch movies legally on their computer without having to go to their stores.

-  Jason Gray caught the award-winning Tokyo Sonata and provides a brief write-up.

- Korean actor Ha Jeong Woo will be starring in a Korea-Japan co-production with popular young actor Satoshi Tsumabuki. The film will be written by a Japanese writer and will have a Korean director, not unlike the romantic-drama Virgin Snow from last year.

- It’s Japanese Oricon charts time! GReeeN adds a new number one single onto their already-long list of accomplishments. They even managed to beat out V6 and Orange Range’s latest singles. Meanwhile, Mihimaru GT’s latest album takes number 1 on the album chart, but the biggest news is Shiori and her having the first indie album debut on the top 10.

Details at Tokyograph

- While Korean director Kwak Jae Young’s Japanese debut Cyborg She opened at a respectable third place, but Mr. Texas over at Eiga Consultant reveals that its opening was actually 75% of Windstruck. Since Windstruck made 2 billion yen in Japan, at least Cyborg She will pass the 1 billion yen mark.

Also, Sarah Polley’s Away From Her opened at one theater in Tokyo, with three out of four shows sold out on the second day (the film recorded an attendance of 1074 admissions out of a possible 1200). Mr. Texas wonders aloud whether the distributor would’ve opened it at a bigger theater had it won the best actress Oscar.

- At the Japanese promotional event for Indiana Jones, George Lucas says that he won’t rule out the possibility of setting the next movie in Japan. After seeing what Hollywood has done with Asia in the past, please don’t.

- Twitch has the Japanese trailer for the violent action flick Machine Girl. Of course, it being an official trailer means that it has to be considerably tamer than the ones that we’ve seen before.

- The Chinese music industry is coming together to condemn the search engine Baidu as “the largest and most incorrigible purveyor of pirated music in China”. What about the people that use it?

- With the Kimura Takuya Monday 9pm drama CHANGE failing to capture huge ratings (it finally fell below 20% this week), it’s already time for Fuji to get another reliable star for their next Monday 9pm drama. This time, it’ll be Bayside Shakedown star Yuji Oda as a “baka” schoolteacher.

- Variety’s Derek Elley has a short review of the Korean film Crossing, the latest from the director of Volcano High and Romance of Their Own,.