- There’s not much to report in terms of box office numbers, but everyone was surprised as I was that Evangelion 1.0 opened so huge. It was apparently so huge (280 million yen on just 84 screens!) that one cinema couldn’t even accommodate the crowd after moving the film to a theater 5 times larger.

- Slightly outdated, but reviews for Shinji Aoyama’s latest Sad Vacation are coming in. Variety gave it a bit of a pan, while Twitch seemed to like it. Honestly, I’ve never seen a Shinji Aoyama thing, fearing that it’s not really my thing.

- Variety also has a review of Jiang Wen’s The Sun Also Rises, with Derek Elley calling the film’s enjoyment dependent on individual tolerance for cranked-up visuals and acting. Does that mean there’s not much beneath the visuals and acting?

- This has absolutely nothing to do with Asian films, but rather pure interest. Wes Anderson’s latest The Darjeeling Limited had its premiere in Venice, but sadly under the shadow of star/co-writer Owen Wilson’s suicide attempt. The reviews from the two big trade papers are out, with Variety saying that it’s closer to The Royal Tennenbaums than The Life Aquatic (that would be a good thing, although I liked both very much). However, Hollywood Reporter’s Ray Bennett calls it a third rate Hope and Crosby movie with no big laughs and nothing to say.

- Sorry to those who had tickets to the last two Jacky Cheung concert: the second-to-the-last show was canceled at the very last minutes because the legendary singer got ill and he claims that he couldn’t even sing one-third of the songs, failing his basic requirement as a singer. When his cold didn’t get any better, he canceled the final show last night as well. Still, I’ll bet he sings better than those Twin girls even when he’s sick…

Anyway, if you hold those tickets, go and redeem the tickets for the make-up shows at the end of January 2008.

- Imagethief goes over point-by-point on how the report of China Film Group chairman Han Sanping said about China needing more patriotic films is not something that should happen to the Chinese film industry. This quote sums it all up: “…government involvement in any aspect of popular culture, unless it is simply cutting a check, is generally bad form. This is because politicians and bureaucrats are, by and large, crappy arbiters of taste.”

- MCL, whose Kornhill cinema is honestly not that great, is working with a property firm named Shaw (not THAT Shaw, right) to open the largest multiplex in Hong Kong. I hope they have sound separation better there then MCL Kornhill.

- A trailer for the Hollywood remake for the Japanese horror flick One Missed Call is up. I never saw the original, but anyone still complaining about PG-13 horror movies should know that it didn’t even get any restrictive rating in Japan (maybe a PG-12?)

- The live-action Grave of the Fireflies has started filming, but there’s still no information on who’s behind the film.

- Not sure who’s interested, but the Canadian period film Silk, starring Michael Pitt and Keira Knightley (her in another period film??) will be closing the Tokyo International Film Festival this year.

I apologize for the lack of news all around, but at least it makes the daily entries easier to read.

- Way to make a multimedia project - Japanese pop rapper Kreva’s latest single “Because” not only comes with a 9-minute short film (seen here, comprised of just two people talking a lot without subtitles), but also a mobile novel written by the same person who wrote the short film. That mobile novel is so popular that it received 10,000 hits in the first two days. Can anyone that understand Japanese watch the MTV and tell me if it’s THAT good?

- Twitch originally had more information about Koji Yakusho’s latest, but the site went down just as I’m writing this entry, so you can read it for yourself when the site gets back up.

- The same goes for their review of Alexi Tan’s disappointing Blood Brothers. But the review is written by contributor Stefan anyway. I would actually really like to see Twitch head honcho Todd’s reaction, especially after he looked so forward to it.

- Speaking of reviews, Mark Schilling of the Japan Times has a review of the drama adaptation film Hero, starring Kimura Takuya. Apparently this one is expected to do as well as the Bayside Shakedown series, but it has to be good first, don’t it?

- For your information, I wrote a short review of Alfred Cheung Kin-Ting’s Contract Lover, starring Richie Ren and Fan Bing-Bing, on the spin-off blog.

- The censorship of free information on the internet continues to rear its ugly head as the Thai government finally decided to lift its ban of Youtube only after the site has the technology to immediately remove any video that offend the king.

- In addition to the lead actor being Kenichi Matsuyama, there is finally more details about the Death Note spin-off film L, including additional casting and even bits of the plot. Please, please, please not let there be a cute kid involved.

- Apparently the opening weekend for the sexually explicit flick Shortbus was quite successful, making 2.69 million yen over two days, attracting audiences of all kinds. However, no admissions figures are available

I apologize for the lack of news all around, but at least it makes the daily entries easier to read.

- Way to make a multimedia project - Japanese pop rapper Kreva’s latest single “Because” not only comes with a 9-minute short film (seen here, comprised of just two people talking a lot without subtitles), but also a mobile novel written by the same person who wrote the short film. That mobile novel is so popular that it received 10,000 hits in the first two days. Can anyone that understand Japanese watch the MTV and tell me if it’s THAT good?

- Twitch originally had more information about Koji Yakusho’s latest, but the site went down just as I’m writing this entry, so you can read it for yourself when the site gets back up.

- The same goes for their review of Alexi Tan’s disappointing Blood Brothers. But the review is written by contributor Stefan anyway. I would actually really like to see Twitch head honcho Todd’s reaction, especially after he looked so forward to it.

- Speaking of reviews, Mark Schilling of the Japan Times has a review of the drama adaptation film Hero, starring Kimura Takuya. Apparently this one is expected to do as well as the Bayside Shakedown series, but it has to be good first, don’t it?

- For your information, I wrote a short review of Alfred Cheung Kin-Ting’s Contract Lover, starring Richie Ren and Fan Bing-Bing, on the spin-off blog.

- The censorship of free information on the internet continues to rear its ugly head as the Thai government finally decided to lift its ban of Youtube only after the site has the technology to immediately remove any video that offend the king.

- In addition to the lead actor being Kenichi Matsuyama, there is finally more details about the Death Note spin-off film L, including additional casting and even bits of the plot. Please, please, please not let there be a cute kid involved.

- Apparently the opening weekend for the sexually explicit flick Shortbus was quite successful, making 2.69 million yen over two days, attracting audiences of all kinds. However, no admissions figures are available

- The reviews for Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution is out, and the two big Hollywood trade papers are not too kind to it. Variety’s Derek Elley say that it’s a two and a half-hour period drama that’s a long haul for relatively little returns, and Hollywood Reporter’s Ray Bennett says the film has long period of boredom relieved by moments of extremely heightened excitement. Honestly, I never expected Ang Lee to pull off an espionage thriller, and it seems like he didn’t here. Are there any actually any good reviews to earn the film the reported “standing ovation” it got?

- We know that Hollywood is no good at adapting games, but what about the Japanese? The popular Nintendo DS game “Professor Layton and the Curious Village” will be turned into a movie, and the game is just the first in a trilogy too.

-Twitch has more on the shooting progress of Hong Sang-Soo’s Night and Day in France. If you remember, Hong is actually looking for volunteers to appear as extra, but you should probably be in France and speak Korean and/or French.

- Johnnie To is getting to be an even harder-working man than Andy Lau. Not only did he just bring The Mad Detective (probably not named The Detective anymore because Aaron Kwok’s The Detective is coming), he also wrapped up the Mainland Chinese romance Linger, finishing up The Sparrow (another one of the Johnnie To films made on a Wong Kar-Wai schedule), the remake of the French film The Red Circle, AND now he’s going to produce a trilogy of films about tomb-raiding. I am almost sure they will suck less that those Tomb Raider movies.

- Speaking of Mad Detective, Kaiju Shakedown has a few more stills from the film. Looks like vintage To to me.

- Japan finally passes a law making camcording movies in movie theaters illegal. How come those annoying MPA people didn’t go and push for it more. And why didn’t the US go and make a complaint about that with the World Trade Organization?

- The reviews for Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution is out, and the two big Hollywood trade papers are not too kind to it. Variety’s Derek Elley say that it’s a two and a half-hour period drama that’s a long haul for relatively little returns, and Hollywood Reporter’s Ray Bennett says the film has long period of boredom relieved by moments of extremely heightened excitement. Honestly, I never expected Ang Lee to pull off an espionage thriller, and it seems like he didn’t here. Are there any actually any good reviews to earn the film the reported “standing ovation” it got?

- We know that Hollywood is no good at adapting games, but what about the Japanese? The popular Nintendo DS game “Professor Layton and the Curious Village” will be turned into a movie, and the game is just the first in a trilogy too.

-Twitch has more on the shooting progress of Hong Sang-Soo’s Night and Day in France. If you remember, Hong is actually looking for volunteers to appear as extra, but you should probably be in France and speak Korean and/or French.

- Johnnie To is getting to be an even harder-working man than Andy Lau. Not only did he just bring The Mad Detective (probably not named The Detective anymore because Aaron Kwok’s The Detective is coming), he also wrapped up the Mainland Chinese romance Linger, finishing up The Sparrow (another one of the Johnnie To films made on a Wong Kar-Wai schedule), the remake of the French film The Red Circle, AND now he’s going to produce a trilogy of films about tomb-raiding. I am almost sure they will suck less that those Tomb Raider movies.

- Speaking of Mad Detective, Kaiju Shakedown has a few more stills from the film. Looks like vintage To to me.

- Japan finally passes a law making camcording movies in movie theaters illegal. How come those annoying MPA people didn’t go and push for it more. And why didn’t the US go and make a complaint about that with the World Trade Organization?

- It’s reviews time! Hollywood Reporter has a surprisingly informed (i.e. references to director’s earlier films) review of Wilson Yip/Donnie Yen’s Flash Point. Todd Brown also reviews Flash Point with mixed enthusiasm. Lovehkfilm’s Kozo chimes in with a review of Blood Brothers. Actually, AP’s Min Lee also chimes in with a review of Blood Brothers. Lovehkfilm’s Sanjuro writes a review for Nana 2, or how to ruin a franchise that couldn’t retain its actors. Lastly, there’s a review of Takashi Miike’s Ryu Go Gotoku by new guest reviewer at Lovehkfilm Jmaruyama.

- The return of Grady Hendrix’s Kaiju Shakedown is slowly rendering this blog useless. For one, he’s packed a whole weekend’s worth of Hong Kong film news into one entry, though some have already appeared here already.

- I was pretty young when I watched that animated series City Hunter on TV. Of course, with the time slot of after-midnight on Hong Kong’s TVB, it was like eating the fruit that is close to the location of the forbidden fruit (which would probably be say…porn), and it should tell you how far it has slip into the back of my mind, considering how young I was when I lived in Hong Kong. Now someone (the news didn’t specify) is bringing it back as a live-action drama with a Korean actor in the leading role.

- Taiwan is pissed because someone who writes for the Venice Film festival identified Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution and Alexi Tan’s Blood Brothers as being from “Taiwan, China” while the Taiwanese art film Help Me Eros used just “Taiwan.” However, the two films are actually Taiwan/China co-productions, so could someone have just gotten lazy with their slashes?

- Apparently this is how the Japanese distributor of Craig Brewer’s Black Snake Moan decided to promote the film. Fitting or tasteless?

- Know how to tell that Jackie Chan is getting old? He’s hurt himself again on the set of his latest movie, but this time is because he triggered an earlier injury from another movie. Those back pains are no joke at his age.

- Another addition to the Tokyo International Film festival is Jigyaku No Uta (or “Happily Ever After) starring Miki Nakatani and Hiroshi Abe. Naturally, Kaiju Shakedown already has more.

- Aubrey Lam, whose Twelve Nights is a personal favorite, has a new film coming out called “Anna and Anna” starring Karena Lam. However, its plot description of two women in difference places that look the same sound somewhat similar to The Double Life of Veronique.

- It’s reviews time! Hollywood Reporter has a surprisingly informed (i.e. references to director’s earlier films) review of Wilson Yip/Donnie Yen’s Flash Point. Todd Brown also reviews Flash Point with mixed enthusiasm. Lovehkfilm’s Kozo chimes in with a review of Blood Brothers. Actually, AP’s Min Lee also chimes in with a review of Blood Brothers. Lovehkfilm’s Sanjuro writes a review for Nana 2, or how to ruin a franchise that couldn’t retain its actors. Lastly, there’s a review of Takashi Miike’s Ryu Go Gotoku by new guest reviewer at Lovehkfilm Jmaruyama.

- The return of Grady Hendrix’s Kaiju Shakedown is slowly rendering this blog useless. For one, he’s packed a whole weekend’s worth of Hong Kong film news into one entry, though some have already appeared here already.

- I was pretty young when I watched that animated series City Hunter on TV. Of course, with the time slot of after-midnight on Hong Kong’s TVB, it was like eating the fruit that is close to the location of the forbidden fruit (which would probably be say…porn), and it should tell you how far it has slip into the back of my mind, considering how young I was when I lived in Hong Kong. Now someone (the news didn’t specify) is bringing it back as a live-action drama with a Korean actor in the leading role.

- Taiwan is pissed because someone who writes for the Venice Film festival identified Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution and Alexi Tan’s Blood Brothers as being from “Taiwan, China” while the Taiwanese art film Help Me Eros used just “Taiwan.” However, the two films are actually Taiwan/China co-productions, so could someone have just gotten lazy with their slashes?

- Apparently this is how the Japanese distributor of Craig Brewer’s Black Snake Moan decided to promote the film. Fitting or tasteless?

- Know how to tell that Jackie Chan is getting old? He’s hurt himself again on the set of his latest movie, but this time is because he triggered an earlier injury from another movie. Those back pains are no joke at his age.

- Another addition to the Tokyo International Film festival is Jigyaku No Uta (or “Happily Ever After) starring Miki Nakatani and Hiroshi Abe. Naturally, Kaiju Shakedown already has more.

- Aubrey Lam, whose Twelve Nights is a personal favorite, has a new film coming out called “Anna and Anna” starring Karena Lam. However, its plot description of two women in difference places that look the same sound somewhat similar to The Double Life of Veronique.

- The independent 20-something drama Koisuru Madori, starring Yui Aragaki (who also stars in the recently-wrapped Papa To Musume No Nanakakan) and Oscar-nominated actress Rinko Kikuchi, opened on 13 screens last weekend, attracting just 4931 admissions and 7.77 million yen on its opening Saturday and Sunday. However, one theater in Tokyo’s Shibuya district actually accounted for 37% of the admissions with 1806 admissions and 2.85 million yen. That makes attendance at the rest of the 12 screens even worse.

Personally, I like these sunny urban 20-something romance pieces, and these usually attract a good number of audiences, so what’s up?

- With the deadline for submitting films for the best foreign film at the Academy Awards coming up, Asian countries are moving quick to find their best to represent them. While Peter Chan Ho-Sun is trying finish Warlords to get it into the Oscars (where I expect period epic fatigue to stop it from getting anywhere), three films from South Korea has been admitted, and Thailand has decided to submit the second film out of a trilogy about a legendary king.

- Twitch has a review of Asian-American director Justin Lin’s latest film Finishing the Game from the Dallas Asian Film Festival. The “review” is more of a review of the screening than a review of the movie, though.

- Speaking of reviews, Japan Times’ Mark Schilling reviews “J.J.” Sonny Chiba’s directorial debut Oyaji. My favorite part is his continuing description of how much Chiba still kicks ass in this movie, despite being 67 years old.

- A film that didn’t come out with reviews is Jet Li’s latest Hollywood B-movie War (named Rouge Assassin here in Asia). On the day of its opening, the two big trade papers already have reviews of it already. Variety’s Joy Leydon calls it a flabby and formulaic programmer. Meanwhile, Hollywood Reporter’s Frank Scheck calls it a thoroughly forgettable exploitationer that will not enhance its stars’ resumes. The saddest part is that I will probably go see it anyway.

- Two pirate DVD retailers in China have been ordered to over $27,00o to 6 Hollywood studios for selling pirated copies of their movies. Great, now these studios can cover their coffee cost for the month.

- Under “do we really need this?” news today, American pop duo Aly & AJ (umm…they’d actually have to be known to be “pop”) will be singing the theme for for Kenta Fukasaku’s horror flick XX (or X-Cross). Note to producers: Not every Japanese film needs a theme song.

- The independent 20-something drama Koisuru Madori, starring Yui Aragaki (who also stars in the recently-wrapped Papa To Musume No Nanakakan) and Oscar-nominated actress Rinko Kikuchi, opened on 13 screens last weekend, attracting just 4931 admissions and 7.77 million yen on its opening Saturday and Sunday. However, one theater in Tokyo’s Shibuya district actually accounted for 37% of the admissions with 1806 admissions and 2.85 million yen. That makes attendance at the rest of the 12 screens even worse.

Personally, I like these sunny urban 20-something romance pieces, and these usually attract a good number of audiences, so what’s up?

- With the deadline for submitting films for the best foreign film at the Academy Awards coming up, Asian countries are moving quick to find their best to represent them. While Peter Chan Ho-Sun is trying finish Warlords to get it into the Oscars (where I expect period epic fatigue to stop it from getting anywhere), three films from South Korea has been admitted, and Thailand has decided to submit the second film out of a trilogy about a legendary king.

- Twitch has a review of Asian-American director Justin Lin’s latest film Finishing the Game from the Dallas Asian Film Festival. The “review” is more of a review of the screening than a review of the movie, though.

- Speaking of reviews, Japan Times’ Mark Schilling reviews “J.J.” Sonny Chiba’s directorial debut Oyaji. My favorite part is his continuing description of how much Chiba still kicks ass in this movie, despite being 67 years old.

- A film that didn’t come out with reviews is Jet Li’s latest Hollywood B-movie War (named Rouge Assassin here in Asia). On the day of its opening, the two big trade papers already have reviews of it already. Variety’s Joy Leydon calls it a flabby and formulaic programmer. Meanwhile, Hollywood Reporter’s Frank Scheck calls it a thoroughly forgettable exploitationer that will not enhance its stars’ resumes. The saddest part is that I will probably go see it anyway.

- Two pirate DVD retailers in China have been ordered to over $27,00o to 6 Hollywood studios for selling pirated copies of their movies. Great, now these studios can cover their coffee cost for the month.

- Under “do we really need this?” news today, American pop duo Aly & AJ (umm…they’d actually have to be known to be “pop”) will be singing the theme for for Kenta Fukasaku’s horror flick XX (or X-Cross). Note to producers: Not every Japanese film needs a theme song.

- Jia Zhangke’s award-winning Still Life finally hit the arthouse screen of Japan. In the 204-seat theater, the film attracted 1811 people and 2.34 million yen in its opening Saturday and Sunday. With 5 shows a day, that’s 181.1 people per show, and apparently all shows on Sunday (except the last one) were sold out. I never knew Jia Zhangke had that many fans in Japan.

- Some reports are reporting that two stations under the Japanese satellite TV provider SkyPerfect TV has been ordered to pay copyright owners of some Chinese dramas because they were shown without any permission or compensation. However, those two stations are actually revealed to be China-based TV stations, not Japanese.

- Eiren, or the Motion Pictures Producers Association of Japan, have started a Japanese movie database containing information on all Japanese films made after the year 2000. Don’t worry, they’re working to make an even more complete database in the future. The only problem is that the database is in Japanese, so no luck to my fellow foreign Japanese film fans.

- the first teaser for Lee Myung-Se’s M is up, and while it looks really beautiful (shot in digital?), I’m always afraid of films that look beautiful because they turn out crappy (Natural City, anyone?).

- On the heels of the resurgence of local films in South Korea, thanks to D-War and May 18, the upcoming Sookmyeong is now the most expensive distribution deal for a Korean film to Japan this year. Don’t pop the champagne open yet, though, its US$2 million price tag is only half of what Korean films got at the height of the Korean wave in Japan.

- To complete a trifecta of Korean film news, Kaiju Shakedown introduces an overdue Korean film about cooking.

- After Wild Mama, there’s another dubiously named character-based drama coming this fall. This time it’s Mop Girl, which is about exactly what the title suggests.

- Despite being reported this week, the badly named Zhang Ziyi/Jang Dong-gun starrer Laundry Warrior has not been shooting since May because Jang is injured, and Zhang is already off shooting the new Chen Kaige movie. However, the star of Chen Kaige’s film Leon Lai is off shooting the latest Chang Siu-Tung film with Kelly Chan and Donnie Yen, so who’s where?

- Under “films we don’t really care about” today, some Asian actors has joined the cast of The Pink Panther 2, where they will most likely just play some type of Asian stereotype.

- The complete lineup for the Toronto International Film Festival is out, but it’s way too long for me to pick out what’s worth mentioning, so I’ll leave that to you all.

- Taiwanese New Wave director Edward Yang, who recently passed away, will receive the Filmmaker of the Year award at the Pusan International Film Festival. There will also be a retrospective of Yang’s films as well.

I don’t like to pimp out the new Spin-off blog, The Golden Gate Meets The Lion Rock, but I just wrote a brief review of Alexi Tan’s Blood Brothers there, so check it out.