As usual, there’s not really much news on Thursdays, and there’s even a bit of a Hong Kong slant on things today.

- Most of the Toronto International Festival lineup has been announced, and the Asian selection looks real yummy. This year we have Ang Lee, Edmond Pang, Alexi Tan’s Blood Brothers (although the words “cautionary tale” has me cautious), Nobuhiro Yamashita, Hur Jin-Ho, Johnnie To/Wai Ka-Fai, Takeshi Kitano, Aoyama Shinji, and Im Kwon-Taek.

- Forgot to mention this for a few days, but Lovehkfilm has a review of Wilson Yip’s loving tribute to Donnie Yen and his bloody face Flash Point.

- Writer/director Koki Mitani, who last wrote and directed the chaotic and often funny The Uchoten Hotel, has upgraded his predictions for his next film The Magic Hour. Now he’s promising 10 laughs in three minutes instead of his earlier prediction of 3 laughs a minute. I’ll be counting, ok?

- After Monkey Magic became the widest release for a live-action Japanese film, that record is about to be quickly broken, and by another SMAP member, no less. Kimura Takuya’s drama adaptation film Hero is set to open on 470 screens (again, the blog post says it’s the widest for a Japanese film, period, but who can confirm this?). With ratings topping at over 30%, can the film’s demand meet the supply come September?

- Under “it’s worse than I thought” news today, a full page ad for that Eric Tsang/Wong Jing collaboration, now named Beauty and the 7 Beasts, was on the pages of Hong Kong newspapers today. The woman on the poster, according to the comment section, is Meng Yao, who played DJ Sammy’s wife/manager in the comedy shitter Super Fans. According to the ad, that is the woman that is supposed to “make your mouth dry, have a fever, suffer from increased heartbeats, make your body grow stiff, and cause your nose to bleed.” Is it just me, or is Hong Kong cinema getting increasingly out of touch with reality?

- Remember Lost in Beijing? The film by Chinese director Li Yu that suffered a bunch of cuts for its Chinese release, but even is uncut version as found to be not that big of a deal. Nevertheless, even though the film has cleared the censors, its release is still being put off to “create a healthy and harmonious environment” ahead of the Chinese communist party’s congress. They ought to know that to really bury a film is to release it in so little screens that no one cares, not allow such news to go out.

- On the other hand, China has finally cleared the Japanese disaster film The Sinking of Japan for theatrical release. It’s a movie where Japan sinks, so why wouldn’t China allow it?

- A trailer for Asian-American star Daniel Henney’s latest film My Father is out. This one looks pretty demanding in terms of acting skills, but after Seducing Mr. Perfect, it’s going to take a hell of a lot more than a trailer to convince me that Henney might be able to act.

- In more “silly Chinese censors” news, the government television agency killed off a talent show called “The First Time I was Touched.” I think the word touched is to mean emotionally, not physically. Still, censors says the show create a negative social effect and is damaging the medium of television. How fucking ironic is that?

- When I signed up for internet/broadband TV last week, the service was promoting the new English Premier League service. That’s why I don’t blame Hong Kong pay TV for going after bars that not only steal cable, but use it to make money.

- Apparently, the latest Lee Myung-Se film M is finished. For those that don’t know, Lee made a huge splash with Nowhere to Hide, but pissed a lot of people off with Duelist, so let’s see how this one goes.

- Let’s start today with the Japanese Oricon charts. The singles chart was pretty packed this week, with 17 of the top 30 singles being new releases. Leading the pack is Johnny’s Entertainment pop duo Takki and Tsubasa with their latest single, selling 57,700 copies to get the number 1 spot. The rest of the chart see fairly weak sales, including Leah Dizon’s 3rd single all the way down in 16th place, selling only 12,500 copies. However, that could be due to the announcement of the release of her debut album for next month, meaning fans can wait a month for their 14-track studio modified fix of Dizon’s singing. Expect next week’s sales on the charts to be pretty low, with Tokio and Kazumasa Oda vying for the top spot.

The album chart is even quieter, with Sukima Switch’s compilation album still ruling the charts with another 145,000 copies sold. The two Orange Range compilations continue to sell strongly, with a combined sales of 73,000 copies to take second and third place. Def Tech member Micro’s debut solo album only sold 33,000 copies for a 4th place debut, and looks like band Greeeen’s hit debut album will finally drop from the top 10 next week. Next week, the profit from the death of the pop artist Zard continues as two compilations will share the first and second spot.

- They keep reporting it, and I keep linking it. Korean distributor Showbox announces that dragon in LA film D-War has now officially become the 10th best-selling Korean film of all time, proving again that cinematic quality doesn’t necessarily have a correlation with financial success. Also, Korea Pop Wars report that the success of the film might be going over the head of director Shim Hyung-Rae a little bit.

- The Thai horror film Alone, which was a minor hit in Korea last month, is coming soon to Hong Kong, but not without its controversies. The TELA (these guys again!) said the trailers and posters are too disturbing for public display, and has forced the distributors to cut and silence the trailer for theatre lobbies, as well as changing the posters.

Then again, the original trailer, which is now cut in all its forms, was pretty disturbing.

Original Chinese report

- I can probably link any site for this report - the lineup for the upcoming Pusan Promotion Plan, where filmmakers take their upcoming projects to meet with possible financiers, has been announced. This year, we have high-profile filmmakers (i.e. those that I’ve heard of) such as Fruit Chan, Hong Sang-Soo, Sono Sion, and Daniel Yu.

- Chinese auteur Jia Zhangke, who has made a string of films that were banned by the government before straightening up, sees his latest film Tattoo Age shelved because of the sensitive subject matter of the Cultural Revolution and they were unable to cast Asian superstar Jay Chou in a role. Jay Chou in a Jia Zhangke movie? He sure has come a long way from Xiao Wu.

- Speaking of ultra art films, Variety has a review of Locarno Film Festival winner The Rebirth (Ai No Yokan)

- In China’s never-ending attempts to please the foreigners about intellectual copyrights before the 2008 Olympics (how can a country that held a huge ceremony to celebrate the one-year countdown to the actual opening date not be excited about it?), the government will look to shutting down websites that allow illegal download of copyright materials, which would give them an excuse to go after those banned books too.

- Johnnie To and Lau Ching-Wan are teaming up for a long-awaited dramatic effort that I predict will probably be loved by film fans, but not make much money. Sorry, Lau Ching-Wan, as much as I love him as an actor, actually isn’t that great of a box office draw….neither is Andy On and Kelly Lin.

- Let’s start today with the Japanese Oricon charts. The singles chart was pretty packed this week, with 17 of the top 30 singles being new releases. Leading the pack is Johnny’s Entertainment pop duo Takki and Tsubasa with their latest single, selling 57,700 copies to get the number 1 spot. The rest of the chart see fairly weak sales, including Leah Dizon’s 3rd single all the way down in 16th place, selling only 12,500 copies. However, that could be due to the announcement of the release of her debut album for next month, meaning fans can wait a month for their 14-track studio modified fix of Dizon’s singing. Expect next week’s sales on the charts to be pretty low, with Tokio and Kazumasa Oda vying for the top spot.

The album chart is even quieter, with Sukima Switch’s compilation album still ruling the charts with another 145,000 copies sold. The two Orange Range compilations continue to sell strongly, with a combined sales of 73,000 copies to take second and third place. Def Tech member Micro’s debut solo album only sold 33,000 copies for a 4th place debut, and looks like band Greeeen’s hit debut album will finally drop from the top 10 next week. Next week, the profit from the death of the pop artist Zard continues as two compilations will share the first and second spot.

- They keep reporting it, and I keep linking it. Korean distributor Showbox announces that dragon in LA film D-War has now officially become the 10th best-selling Korean film of all time, proving again that cinematic quality doesn’t necessarily have a correlation with financial success. Also, Korea Pop Wars report that the success of the film might be going over the head of director Shim Hyung-Rae a little bit.

- The Thai horror film Alone, which was a minor hit in Korea last month, is coming soon to Hong Kong, but not without its controversies. The TELA (these guys again!) said the trailers and posters are too disturbing for public display, and has forced the distributors to cut and silence the trailer for theatre lobbies, as well as changing the posters.

Then again, the original trailer, which is now cut in all its forms, was pretty disturbing.

Original Chinese report

- I can probably link any site for this report - the lineup for the upcoming Pusan Promotion Plan, where filmmakers take their upcoming projects to meet with possible financiers, has been announced. This year, we have high-profile filmmakers (i.e. those that I’ve heard of) such as Fruit Chan, Hong Sang-Soo, Sono Sion, and Daniel Yu.

- Chinese auteur Jia Zhangke, who has made a string of films that were banned by the government before straightening up, sees his latest film Tattoo Age shelved because of the sensitive subject matter of the Cultural Revolution and they were unable to cast Asian superstar Jay Chou in a role. Jay Chou in a Jia Zhangke movie? He sure has come a long way from Xiao Wu.

- Speaking of ultra art films, Variety has a review of Locarno Film Festival winner The Rebirth (Ai No Yokan)

- In China’s never-ending attempts to please the foreigners about intellectual copyrights before the 2008 Olympics (how can a country that held a huge ceremony to celebrate the one-year countdown to the actual opening date not be excited about it?), the government will look to shutting down websites that allow illegal download of copyright materials, which would give them an excuse to go after those banned books too.

- Johnnie To and Lau Ching-Wan are teaming up for a long-awaited dramatic effort that I predict will probably be loved by film fans, but not make much money. Sorry, Lau Ching-Wan, as much as I love him as an actor, actually isn’t that great of a box office draw….neither is Andy On and Kelly Lin.

Today’s the day. Your favorite blogger is heading to Hong Kong tonight, so this would be the final entry for a week or two. As a result, today’s entry is a little longer than usual.

- In Hong Kong on Thursday opening day, Jay Chou’s directorial debut Secret (with a BC Magazine review here and a fluff piece/review from AP here) opens pretty well with HK$720,000 on 35 screens for a total HK$870,000 already, including previews. Rely on the teens to show up to this one, and maybe it’ll go past the HK$10 million mark. Meanwhile, Pixar’s Ratatouille, whose Hong Kong version feature the voices of Ronald Cheng, Edmond Leung, and Cecilia Cheung, opened on 35 screens for a much better HK$1.11 million.

But the winner of opening day remains Michael Bay’s Transformers, which picked up another HK$1.34 million from 63 screens for an 8-day total of HK$21.32 million. However, with the ticket price inflation, the amount of admissions is probably around the same as Ratatouille. On the Hong Kong film front, Invisible Target passed the HK$10 million mark on Tuesday. Despite some multiplexes already playing less shows each day, it still managed to make HK$310,000 on just 18 screens for a 15-day total of HK$11.23 million. Will this make it to the HK$15 million mark and beat Love is Not All Around?

- It’s a miracle! The Korean monster film D-War, which took forever for a wide release in its home Korea despite being the touted as the most expensive Korean film ever made, has grossed US$2.9 million on its opening day. According to Korea Pop Wars, its two-day total is now US$6.1 million and should reach 2-2.5 million admissions by the end of the weekend. However, despite praises for the special effects, everything else is being panned, so word-of-mouth might not be too good on this one. By the way, the official budget of the film was locked at US$35 million, though about $40 million has been spent to start up a new special effects house that did this film. I’m sure distributor Showbox is kind of breathing a sigh of relief, though they still have plenty of money to make back.

- Yawn. Japanese copyright organizations continue in their endless effort to pressure Youtube Japan to weed out copyright violators. How about they work to make legitimate content easier to access before they cut all supplies? This stuff is like drugs - you cut them off, people will do anything for a fix.

- Meanwhile, The Computer & Communication Industry Association, which includes Google and Microsoft, has lodged a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission to protest copyright holders putting misleading warnings against copyright infringement that fail to educate consumers on fair use laws. Those named in the complaint include major movie studios, Major League Baseball, the National Football League, and of course, the MPAA.

- Director Edward Yang, who recently passed away at his home in the United States, is expected to be honored at this year’s Golden Horse Awards. Is it just me, or is the claim that he’s an “American” director going to piss off some people, seeing he’s one of the pioneers of NEW TAIWAN CINEMA?

- reviews time! We have Japan Times’ review of Hideo Nakata’s Kaidan by Mark Schilling, the Variety review of the hit Korean horror film Black House by Derek Elley, and I’m partially translating the very very limited release (one theater in my old neighborhood of Kwun Tong, to be exact) Hong Kong film Bar Paradise:

First, a little background: Bar Paradise is a 2005 film directed by Wing-Lun Mak, who’s directed some low-budget DV productions. It stars Julian Cheung, Gordon Lam, Candy Yu, and Eric Tsang. The original Chinese post in full is here. The following are excerpts translated -

在設計上，電影可算是十分趕客，單要觀眾適應片中對白的語言已經幾乎令人神經錯亂。泰語、粵語和普通話互通。其中余安安對著曾志偉，明明兩人懂粵語也在片中有粵語對白，偏要講出泰語來。張智霖和林家棟時國時粵時泰，看來買多數部「靈格風」也未必有耐性去理解。想看字幕？錯字大量供應，例如「道歉」因倉頡選碼誤選為「道欺」比比皆是。

In design, the film seems to be made to drive audiences away. Understanding the languages in the dialogue is enough drive audiences crazy. It switches between Thai, Cantonese, and Mandarin. For instance, Even though both Candy Yu and Eric Tsang speak Cantonese in the film and understand the language, they still speak Thai; Julian Cheung and Gordon Lam switch between Mandarin, Cantonese, and Thai, even buying an electronic dictionary won’t mean you’d have the patience to understand. Want to read subtitles? There’s a large supply of wrong words, such as “doh heep” (apologize) becomes “doh hei” (the second Chinese character looks alike, but oh so utterly wrong).

至於曾志偉，則在電影中飾演一名泰國軍閥政客，而附上「韓琛」式的例湯演繹。而余安安則佔戲不多，但又奇怪地加入一場穿黑色內衣褲色誘曾志偉的場面。中午時份播放，難怪股市也曾出現一陣「獲利回吐」，慶幸戲院並沒有出現嘔吐物。

As for Eric Tsang, he plays a Thai warlord politician in the performance style of the usual “Sam Han” (his character from Infernal Affairs). Candy Yu doesn’t have much screen time, but there is a strange addition in the form of a scene in which she seduces Eric Tsang in black panties. No wonder even the stock market experienced a “resurgence of profits” during its noon screening. Thankfully, no vomit appeared in the theatre.

劇情和演員拿出零分之餘，電影在拍攝技巧亦仿如恐佈片一樣，突然時跳到下一場不連配樂的情況也常出現。莫怪乎零五年的電影至今才出現。電影結局亦不明所以，令觀眾在大量無奈下離場。

With no effort from the plot and the actors, the film’s technique resembles a horror film, and sudden jumps to the next scene where the music don’t even match happen often. No wonder this 2005 film took this long to show up. Even the ending is incomprehensible, making the audience leave in a state of helplessness.

So in other words….this movie stinks.

- Along with the Kaidan review is Jason Gray’s interview with director Hideo Nakata, who made the original “Ring” film and is directing the Death Note spinoff L. Jason has more about the interview itself in his blog.

- Another film off the “milking the Nanking massacre for all its worth” assembly line, Simon West’s Purple Mountain, has started filming. This film is an adaptation of the controversial book “The Rape of Nanjing” by Iris Chang, and is the most expensive of the productions. West apparently wants to create the same type of impact as Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List.

Let’s see - Tomb Raider and Con Air vs. Indiana Jones and Saving Private Ryan. Don’t think that’ll happen.

- In a continuing lack of creativity in the world of Japanese television dramas (as is the case in television drama circles around the world), there are more comic adaptations coming to your small screens.

- Japan Times has a look at movies that deal with the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in light of the release of Steven Okazaki’s White Light/Black Rain.

- Twitch mistakenly links the website for Miki Satoshi’s latest Tenten, starring Satoshi favorite Joe Odagiri as the website for Odagiri’s directorial debut. Still, Tenten looks pretty interesting, and since the film is about two men walking across Tokyo, the advance ticket actually comes with a map of the locations they visit in the film. Now there’s a souvenir worth buying.

That’s it for now. The Golden Rock will be back in 1-2 weeks, with The Song of the Day feature continuing (wished more of you voted, though). There might be a few surprises and additions coming, so keep checking in starting next weekend. See you all on the other side of the world!

Today’s the day. Your favorite blogger is heading to Hong Kong tonight, so this would be the final entry for a week or two. As a result, today’s entry is a little longer than usual.

- In Hong Kong on Thursday opening day, Jay Chou’s directorial debut Secret (with a BC Magazine review here and a fluff piece/review from AP here) opens pretty well with HK$720,000 on 35 screens for a total HK$870,000 already, including previews. Rely on the teens to show up to this one, and maybe it’ll go past the HK$10 million mark. Meanwhile, Pixar’s Ratatouille, whose Hong Kong version feature the voices of Ronald Cheng, Edmond Leung, and Cecilia Cheung, opened on 35 screens for a much better HK$1.11 million.

But the winner of opening day remains Michael Bay’s Transformers, which picked up another HK$1.34 million from 63 screens for an 8-day total of HK$21.32 million. However, with the ticket price inflation, the amount of admissions is probably around the same as Ratatouille. On the Hong Kong film front, Invisible Target passed the HK$10 million mark on Tuesday. Despite some multiplexes already playing less shows each day, it still managed to make HK$310,000 on just 18 screens for a 15-day total of HK$11.23 million. Will this make it to the HK$15 million mark and beat Love is Not All Around?

- It’s a miracle! The Korean monster film D-War, which took forever for a wide release in its home Korea despite being the touted as the most expensive Korean film ever made, has grossed US$2.9 million on its opening day. According to Korea Pop Wars, its two-day total is now US$6.1 million and should reach 2-2.5 million admissions by the end of the weekend. However, despite praises for the special effects, everything else is being panned, so word-of-mouth might not be too good on this one. By the way, the official budget of the film was locked at US$35 million, though about $40 million has been spent to start up a new special effects house that did this film. I’m sure distributor Showbox is kind of breathing a sigh of relief, though they still have plenty of money to make back.

- Yawn. Japanese copyright organizations continue in their endless effort to pressure Youtube Japan to weed out copyright violators. How about they work to make legitimate content easier to access before they cut all supplies? This stuff is like drugs - you cut them off, people will do anything for a fix.

- Meanwhile, The Computer & Communication Industry Association, which includes Google and Microsoft, has lodged a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission to protest copyright holders putting misleading warnings against copyright infringement that fail to educate consumers on fair use laws. Those named in the complaint include major movie studios, Major League Baseball, the National Football League, and of course, the MPAA.

- Director Edward Yang, who recently passed away at his home in the United States, is expected to be honored at this year’s Golden Horse Awards. Is it just me, or is the claim that he’s an “American” director going to piss off some people, seeing he’s one of the pioneers of NEW TAIWAN CINEMA?

- reviews time! We have Japan Times’ review of Hideo Nakata’s Kaidan by Mark Schilling, the Variety review of the hit Korean horror film Black House by Derek Elley, and I’m partially translating the very very limited release (one theater in my old neighborhood of Kwun Tong, to be exact) Hong Kong film Bar Paradise:

First, a little background: Bar Paradise is a 2005 film directed by Wing-Lun Mak, who’s directed some low-budget DV productions. It stars Julian Cheung, Gordon Lam, Candy Yu, and Eric Tsang. The original Chinese post in full is here. The following are excerpts translated -

在設計上，電影可算是十分趕客，單要觀眾適應片中對白的語言已經幾乎令人神經錯亂。泰語、粵語和普通話互通。其中余安安對著曾志偉，明明兩人懂粵語也在片中有粵語對白，偏要講出泰語來。張智霖和林家棟時國時粵時泰，看來買多數部「靈格風」也未必有耐性去理解。想看字幕？錯字大量供應，例如「道歉」因倉頡選碼誤選為「道欺」比比皆是。

In design, the film seems to be made to drive audiences away. Understanding the languages in the dialogue is enough drive audiences crazy. It switches between Thai, Cantonese, and Mandarin. For instance, Even though both Candy Yu and Eric Tsang speak Cantonese in the film and understand the language, they still speak Thai; Julian Cheung and Gordon Lam switch between Mandarin, Cantonese, and Thai, even buying an electronic dictionary won’t mean you’d have the patience to understand. Want to read subtitles? There’s a large supply of wrong words, such as “doh heep” (apologize) becomes “doh hei” (the second Chinese character looks alike, but oh so utterly wrong).

至於曾志偉，則在電影中飾演一名泰國軍閥政客，而附上「韓琛」式的例湯演繹。而余安安則佔戲不多，但又奇怪地加入一場穿黑色內衣褲色誘曾志偉的場面。中午時份播放，難怪股市也曾出現一陣「獲利回吐」，慶幸戲院並沒有出現嘔吐物。

As for Eric Tsang, he plays a Thai warlord politician in the performance style of the usual “Sam Han” (his character from Infernal Affairs). Candy Yu doesn’t have much screen time, but there is a strange addition in the form of a scene in which she seduces Eric Tsang in black panties. No wonder even the stock market experienced a “resurgence of profits” during its noon screening. Thankfully, no vomit appeared in the theatre.

劇情和演員拿出零分之餘，電影在拍攝技巧亦仿如恐佈片一樣，突然時跳到下一場不連配樂的情況也常出現。莫怪乎零五年的電影至今才出現。電影結局亦不明所以，令觀眾在大量無奈下離場。

With no effort from the plot and the actors, the film’s technique resembles a horror film, and sudden jumps to the next scene where the music don’t even match happen often. No wonder this 2005 film took this long to show up. Even the ending is incomprehensible, making the audience leave in a state of helplessness.

So in other words….this movie stinks.

- Along with the Kaidan review is Jason Gray’s interview with director Hideo Nakata, who made the original “Ring” film and is directing the Death Note spinoff L. Jason has more about the interview itself in his blog.

- Another film off the “milking the Nanking massacre for all its worth” assembly line, Simon West’s Purple Mountain, has started filming. This film is an adaptation of the controversial book “The Rape of Nanjing” by Iris Chang, and is the most expensive of the productions. West apparently wants to create the same type of impact as Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List.

Let’s see - Tomb Raider and Con Air vs. Indiana Jones and Saving Private Ryan. Don’t think that’ll happen.

- In a continuing lack of creativity in the world of Japanese television dramas (as is the case in television drama circles around the world), there are more comic adaptations coming to your small screens.

- Japan Times has a look at movies that deal with the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in light of the release of Steven Okazaki’s White Light/Black Rain.

- Twitch mistakenly links the website for Miki Satoshi’s latest Tenten, starring Satoshi favorite Joe Odagiri as the website for Odagiri’s directorial debut. Still, Tenten looks pretty interesting, and since the film is about two men walking across Tokyo, the advance ticket actually comes with a map of the locations they visit in the film. Now there’s a souvenir worth buying.

That’s it for now. The Golden Rock will be back in 1-2 weeks, with The Song of the Day feature continuing (wished more of you voted, though). There might be a few surprises and additions coming, so keep checking in starting next weekend. See you all on the other side of the world!

- Looks like another case of misreporting box office figures in Japan. The latest Pixar film Ratatouille supposedly earned about 489 million over two days this past weekend. However, what Disney didn’t report is that the actual earning is actually 360 million yen, and the rest were made during the special sneak previews last weekend. That would make the opening a bit of a disappointment, as it’s only 95% of the opening for the last Pixar film Cars. However, the word-of-mouth for the film is actually batter than Cars (at least in the States), so it might come out earning more in the long run.

- It’s official, China has decided to not let the latest Jackie Chan Hollywood star vehicle Rush Hour 3 on Chinese movies screens. There are a couple of possible reasons for this - 1) China doesn’t like the content, especially the presence of the triads. However, how can that be true when the first two films featured triad villains? 2) China simply can’t stand all these Hollywood films dominating the box office and has implemented the usual summer policy of getting rid of Hollywood films to let Chinese films have their day. 3) It just got unlucky and couldn’t be secured as one of the 20 American films allowed to be shown in Chinese theatres each year. 4) The movie sucks, and the Chinese people shouldn’t be exposed to that type of crap. I got five bucks on numbers 2 and 3.

- Meanwhile, the trade reviews are out. Hollywood Reporter’s Michael Rechtshaffen says the routine goes awfully stale, while Variety’s Robert Koehler says that the adrenaline rush just isn’t there anymore.

- Variety has a few more Asian film reviews, one for the 2007 Korean hit Voice of a Murderer, Fumihiko Sori’s Vexville, and the Thai horror film Alone, which is currently a hit at the Korean box office.

- Kabuki’s bad boy Shido Nakamura has followed the steps of Last Samurai actress Koyuki and signed with Avex. With that, he has also officially joined the cast of John Woo’s The Battle of Red Cliff, which would make this his second Chinese blockbuster after Jet Li’s Fearless.

- If you’ll indulge me another game of multiple degrees of separation, Tony Leung Chiu-wai also stars in the Battle of Red Cliff, but he originally withdrew from the film because of the fatigue he suffered after making Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution. The film, almost or already completed, will compete in the upcoming Venice Film Festival. Though the film was originally submitted as a USA-China entry because there’s where the money came from. However, it almost brewed a small controversy when the nationality was changed to Taiwan due to director Ang Lee’s nationality.

- A nation at war turns to TV soap operas, culinary shows, and idol competitions. Surprisingly, it’s not the United States.

- Japan will be the first to see a MTV-created mobile social network, which will also feature pages created by Japanese pop stars. Do we really need to be THAT connected?

- Speaking of embracing the new media, another Japanese media producer has signed a deal with Youtube to upload promo clips and various content on the video site.

- Avril Lavinge’s album has sold a million copies in Japan, making her the first foreign artist to sell more than one million copies of each of her three albums. They’ll find a record for anything in Japan, especially when it comes to music.

- Twitch has an interview with director Steven Okazaki, whose latest film is the documentary White Light/Black Rain, about the fallout of nuclear warfare including the bombings of Hiroshim and Nagasaki.

- Japanese R&B/A Capella group Gospellers is teaming up with forgotten Backstreet Boys member Howie D for their latest single. Not to be a party pooper, but I think Howie needs the Gospellers more than they need Howie.

- With the 2008 Olympics approaching in a year, China has still yet to deliver the full media freedom they promised foreign journalists there. 95% of those who responded to the survey by the Foreign Correspondents Club of China says China’s reporting conditions are not up to what they call an “international standard.”

By the way, remember to vote for our poll. The future of The Song of the Day depends on all of you.

- Looks like another case of misreporting box office figures in Japan. The latest Pixar film Ratatouille supposedly earned about 489 million over two days this past weekend. However, what Disney didn’t report is that the actual earning is actually 360 million yen, and the rest were made during the special sneak previews last weekend. That would make the opening a bit of a disappointment, as it’s only 95% of the opening for the last Pixar film Cars. However, the word-of-mouth for the film is actually batter than Cars (at least in the States), so it might come out earning more in the long run.

- It’s official, China has decided to not let the latest Jackie Chan Hollywood star vehicle Rush Hour 3 on Chinese movies screens. There are a couple of possible reasons for this - 1) China doesn’t like the content, especially the presence of the triads. However, how can that be true when the first two films featured triad villains? 2) China simply can’t stand all these Hollywood films dominating the box office and has implemented the usual summer policy of getting rid of Hollywood films to let Chinese films have their day. 3) It just got unlucky and couldn’t be secured as one of the 20 American films allowed to be shown in Chinese theatres each year. 4) The movie sucks, and the Chinese people shouldn’t be exposed to that type of crap. I got five bucks on numbers 2 and 3.

- Meanwhile, the trade reviews are out. Hollywood Reporter’s Michael Rechtshaffen says the routine goes awfully stale, while Variety’s Robert Koehler says that the adrenaline rush just isn’t there anymore.

- Variety has a few more Asian film reviews, one for the 2007 Korean hit Voice of a Murderer, Fumihiko Sori’s Vexville, and the Thai horror film Alone, which is currently a hit at the Korean box office.

- Kabuki’s bad boy Shido Nakamura has followed the steps of Last Samurai actress Koyuki and signed with Avex. With that, he has also officially joined the cast of John Woo’s The Battle of Red Cliff, which would make this his second Chinese blockbuster after Jet Li’s Fearless.

- If you’ll indulge me another game of multiple degrees of separation, Tony Leung Chiu-wai also stars in the Battle of Red Cliff, but he originally withdrew from the film because of the fatigue he suffered after making Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution. The film, almost or already completed, will compete in the upcoming Venice Film Festival. Though the film was originally submitted as a USA-China entry because there’s where the money came from. However, it almost brewed a small controversy when the nationality was changed to Taiwan due to director Ang Lee’s nationality.

- A nation at war turns to TV soap operas, culinary shows, and idol competitions. Surprisingly, it’s not the United States.

- Japan will be the first to see a MTV-created mobile social network, which will also feature pages created by Japanese pop stars. Do we really need to be THAT connected?

- Speaking of embracing the new media, another Japanese media producer has signed a deal with Youtube to upload promo clips and various content on the video site.

- Avril Lavinge’s album has sold a million copies in Japan, making her the first foreign artist to sell more than one million copies of each of her three albums. They’ll find a record for anything in Japan, especially when it comes to music.

- Twitch has an interview with director Steven Okazaki, whose latest film is the documentary White Light/Black Rain, about the fallout of nuclear warfare including the bombings of Hiroshim and Nagasaki.

- Japanese R&B/A Capella group Gospellers is teaming up with forgotten Backstreet Boys member Howie D for their latest single. Not to be a party pooper, but I think Howie needs the Gospellers more than they need Howie.

- With the 2008 Olympics approaching in a year, China has still yet to deliver the full media freedom they promised foreign journalists there. 95% of those who responded to the survey by the Foreign Correspondents Club of China says China’s reporting conditions are not up to what they call an “international standard.”

By the way, remember to vote for our poll. The future of The Song of the Day depends on all of you.

- Let’s start with those Oricon charts today. On the singles chart, Ai Otsuka’s latest single debuts at number one, selling just over 68,000 copies, making it her first number 1 single debut since 2005. Rip Slyme’s latest single, despite having lots of sexy ladies in its MTV, scored only a third place debut with only 30,000 copies. Last week’s winner, Ayumi Hamasaki’s latest, dropped significantly from 110,000 copies to just 23,000 copies this week. Expect next week’s singles chart to be between two boy bands - Dong Bang Shin Ki and Hey! Say!. Luckily I won’t be around to report that debacle.

On the albums chart, Orange Range ruled it, selling a combined 420,000 copies of their latest set of compilation albums (210,000 copies each). Far behind in second place is the debut of Canadian-Japanese band Monkey Majik’s second album, selling 82,000 copies, and bumping KinKi Kids’ latest down to 3rd place with 72,000 copies sold after debuting 300,000 copies last week. Bonnie Pink’s latest album debuted with a weak 53,000 copies sold for a 5th place debut. Next week, the pop duo Sukima Switch should take the top spot with a quieter chart.

I was just about to report the drama satisfaction rankings on the Oricon site when I noticed that the Tokyograph blog talked about it too. So I think I’ll leave it to them to report it.

- The Hong Kong Films blog in Chinese has an interesting feature about how Hong Kong box office numbers are reported. Apparently, only the Association of Hong Kong Films gather the numbers and figures by telephone polls. They simply call theaters at different times of the day and ask for each theaters’ sales figures for each film. This primitive human reporting also means the figures are prone to error. Has anyone heard of such cases?

- The new Nobuhiro Yamashita film Tennen Kokkeko opened this past weekend on three screens in Tokyo, and it attracted a very strong 3212 admissions/5.07 million yen over 2 days. Considering that means an average of 123 people at each showing, and since the average capacity of each screen is 149, I’d say that’s pretty good.

- Darcy Paquet’s Korean Film Page has a review of a rare film from North Korea that apparently swept the nation since, well, it was probably the only thing playing.

- Meanwhile, South Korean artistic auteur Hong Sang-Soo is working on a new film that was originally planned to be in French, but will now just be filmed in France.

- It’s war. Hong Kong animation firm Imagi, who did the last Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, has just hired yet another animation veteran from Dreamworks animation. One of the major animators of the Shrek trilogy, who got promoted to co-director by the third film, is from Hong Kong, so this kind of evens things out.

- American distributor Funimation has picked up a couple of films for distribution - the not-so-surprising one would be Fumihiko Sori’s Vexille, and the surprising ones are Yoji Yamada’s Love and Honor and Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Hana. Oh, they got that damn Genghis Kahn movie too.

- Note to Hong Kong people - Wilson Yip’s Flashpoint may be opening officially next week, but there are some “secret announcements” of advanced showings this weekend. The picture in the entry was taken at Kwun Tong’s Silver Theatre, which is not exactly Hong Kong’s finest.

- It’s teasers time! Twitch has the teasers to the direct remake of Tsubaki Sanjuro and the Universal Pictures-funded Japanese action film Midnight Eagle.

- Then Variety has profiles to two rising female figures in the Asian cinema world - director Naomi Kawase (whose The Mourning Forest is not doing too well in Japan as expected) and award-winning actress Jeon Do-Yeon.

- The French film censors want to step up their authori-tie by looking to extend its powers to also review films that play in France as part of film festivals. But instead of giving ratings, they have to right to not allow the film play at French festivals. I would rather they just rated them instead.

- Let’s start with those Oricon charts today. On the singles chart, Ai Otsuka’s latest single debuts at number one, selling just over 68,000 copies, making it her first number 1 single debut since 2005. Rip Slyme’s latest single, despite having lots of sexy ladies in its MTV, scored only a third place debut with only 30,000 copies. Last week’s winner, Ayumi Hamasaki’s latest, dropped significantly from 110,000 copies to just 23,000 copies this week. Expect next week’s singles chart to be between two boy bands - Dong Bang Shin Ki and Hey! Say!. Luckily I won’t be around to report that debacle.

On the albums chart, Orange Range ruled it, selling a combined 420,000 copies of their latest set of compilation albums (210,000 copies each). Far behind in second place is the debut of Canadian-Japanese band Monkey Majik’s second album, selling 82,000 copies, and bumping KinKi Kids’ latest down to 3rd place with 72,000 copies sold after debuting 300,000 copies last week. Bonnie Pink’s latest album debuted with a weak 53,000 copies sold for a 5th place debut. Next week, the pop duo Sukima Switch should take the top spot with a quieter chart.

I was just about to report the drama satisfaction rankings on the Oricon site when I noticed that the Tokyograph blog talked about it too. So I think I’ll leave it to them to report it.

- The Hong Kong Films blog in Chinese has an interesting feature about how Hong Kong box office numbers are reported. Apparently, only the Association of Hong Kong Films gather the numbers and figures by telephone polls. They simply call theaters at different times of the day and ask for each theaters’ sales figures for each film. This primitive human reporting also means the figures are prone to error. Has anyone heard of such cases?

- The new Nobuhiro Yamashita film Tennen Kokkeko opened this past weekend on three screens in Tokyo, and it attracted a very strong 3212 admissions/5.07 million yen over 2 days. Considering that means an average of 123 people at each showing, and since the average capacity of each screen is 149, I’d say that’s pretty good.

- Darcy Paquet’s Korean Film Page has a review of a rare film from North Korea that apparently swept the nation since, well, it was probably the only thing playing.

- Meanwhile, South Korean artistic auteur Hong Sang-Soo is working on a new film that was originally planned to be in French, but will now just be filmed in France.

- It’s war. Hong Kong animation firm Imagi, who did the last Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, has just hired yet another animation veteran from Dreamworks animation. One of the major animators of the Shrek trilogy, who got promoted to co-director by the third film, is from Hong Kong, so this kind of evens things out.

- American distributor Funimation has picked up a couple of films for distribution - the not-so-surprising one would be Fumihiko Sori’s Vexille, and the surprising ones are Yoji Yamada’s Love and Honor and Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Hana. Oh, they got that damn Genghis Kahn movie too.

- Note to Hong Kong people - Wilson Yip’s Flashpoint may be opening officially next week, but there are some “secret announcements” of advanced showings this weekend. The picture in the entry was taken at Kwun Tong’s Silver Theatre, which is not exactly Hong Kong’s finest.

- It’s teasers time! Twitch has the teasers to the direct remake of Tsubaki Sanjuro and the Universal Pictures-funded Japanese action film Midnight Eagle.

- Then Variety has profiles to two rising female figures in the Asian cinema world - director Naomi Kawase (whose The Mourning Forest is not doing too well in Japan as expected) and award-winning actress Jeon Do-Yeon.

- The French film censors want to step up their authori-tie by looking to extend its powers to also review films that play in France as part of film festivals. But instead of giving ratings, they have to right to not allow the film play at French festivals. I would rather they just rated them instead.

Hong Kong box office and Korean box office charts aren’t up yet, so today’s entry is slightly shorter than usual.

- We’ll start with the Japanese audience rankings. As expected, Harry Potter stays on for another week, but suffers a pretty huge drop (a preview of things to come when the full chart comes out for tomorrow). Ratatouille, the latest film from Pixar Studios, opens at number 2, and everything down to number 7 gets bumped down. Meanwhile, the animated film Summer Days with Coo (Kappa no Coo to Natsuyasumi) opens at 8th place.

Sadly, that 8th place, 26.7 million yen opening in a crowded kids film market (Pokemon, Harry Potter, Monkey Magic, The Piano Forest) means that the film opened only at 13% of the director’s previous film.

- The full Korean box office top 10 isn’t up yet, but I can tell you that the “historical” drama May 18th, which is getting bad reviews on its accuracy but apparently getting good word-of-mouth everywhere else, is now the hit of the year. On its first weekend, it beat out Voice of a Murderer for the best opening of the year by attracting 1.45 million admissions, even beating out Ratatouille and Die Hard 4.0 for the top spot.

I asked in the Podcast that never got uploaded whether Korean films can survive the rest of the year with its upcoming slate of genre films, but looks like May 18th just saved the industry as we know it. For now.

- The Japanese elections on Sunday meant that there were no dramas on, but there were still a bunch of season lows posted this past week. The Monday 9 pm Fuji TV drama First Kiss rebounded from its disastrous second week by scoring a 15.2 rating for its third episode (roughly 9.87 million people), while Hanazakarino Kimitachihe hangs on with a 16.6 rating (10.8 million or so). Yama Onna Kabe Onna rebounded slightly to a 12.7 rating (8.24 million). The hostess drama Jotei continues to drop with a 10.9 rating for its third episode (roughly 7.1 million). Sushi Ouji, whose movie version has already been greenlit, saw a somewhat disappointing start with only an 8.8 rating (roughly 5.7 million), the lowest premiere rating for that time slot since the fall 2006 season.

- Lovehkfilm sees reviews for the Japanese tearjerker Tears For You, the relatively unknown new Francis Ng film The Closet (note: Not a film with homosexual issues), and for the Japanese romantic comedy Christmas on July 24th Avenue by yours truly.

- Twitch also has a bunch of reviews - one for the Japanese horror film The Slit-Mouthed Woman, one for Studio Ghibli’s Tales From Earthsea, and one for Wilson Yip’s actioner Flashpoint.

- There’s a rumor going around that Rush Hour 3 might be banned from China because of its “anti-Chinese elements.” The first two films belittle and make fun of the Chinese plenty, but they weren’t banned, so why now? Then again, there are plenty of reasons why China would not want to “ban” a Hollywood film now anyway.

- The lineup for the Asian Film Festival of Dallas is out. It’s no New York Asian Film Festival, but the lineup is fairly solid anyway.

- Taiwanese cinematic auteur Hou Hsiao-Hsien is set to receive the Leopard of Honor at the upcoming Locarno Film Festival, where his first French film (psss…..Cafe Lumiere wasn’t in Chinese either, Variety) Flight of the Red Balloon is set to screen.