- 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.

- That’s more like it - Michael Bay’s Transformers managed a huge surge in box office in Hong Kong on Sunday, making HK$4.3 million from 76 screens for a 4-day total of HK$14.05 million. Harry Potter is still very strong, with HK1.32 million on 53 screens for a 19-day total of HK$44.51 million. This one might overtake Spiderman 3 as the highest grossing of the year so far. Note that both these films had their ticket prices inflated by HK$10 (about 10-20%) due to length, which means their gross doesn’t equate to the usual attendance number.

Thanks to word-of-mouth (and no thanks to multiplexes putting in on small screens), Invisible Target hangs on for its second week, making a moderate HK$690,000 on 33 screens for a 11-day total of HK$9.5 million. Hopefully it’ll stick around for another week so I can watch it next week. Jay Chou’s Secrets had a strong preview weekend, making HK$80,000 on 6 screens with three shows each, and a weekend total of HK$150,000. This signals that Secrets has a pretty strong opening weekend coming up. Secrets also opened in China this weekend, but only scored an 8th place opening on an unknown number of screens and showings. Lastly, the weekend’s only limited release Hula Girl makes a sad HK$20,000 on 3 screens for a HK$60,000 4-day total. This is going to be gone by the weekend.

- In Japanese box office numbers, Harry Potter is reported to have dropped 66%, which is not true since Warner Bros. accounted the early weekend preview numbers into its opening week gross. If you count only the 3-day total from last weekend, the film actually lost only about 43% in business, which is pretty good for a film on 919 screens. Meanwhile, Ratatouille didn’t do too bad either, scoring the highest per-screen average on the top 10, while all the films on the top 10 suffered only moderate drops. Meanwhile, Summer Day With Coo is a victim of the case where it beat Maiko Haaaan in the number of admissions, but lost out to it when it comes to dollars and cents because kids tickets cost less.

- It seems like while the success of Hollywood films continue, other foreign films aren’t doing too well in Japan this year. However, I can think of at least 3 Hong Kong films that opened in Japan, not two - Election, Dragon Tiger Gate, and Confession of Pain. On the other hand, that decline of Korean flicks is definitely pretty painful.

- As reported yesterday, May 18 took the weekend at the box office in Korea, but only at 1.3 million admissions, not the 1.4 figure that was previously reported. The Thai horror film Alone dropped to 8th place already, but not before taking over 450,000 admissions down with it, and it seems like Ratatouille performed a little weaker than I thought it would.

- With news stacking up this year about the lack of originality in Chinese pop music (and MTV as well), an angry blogger in China has decided to devote an entire blog exposing pop songs that allegedly are copying others. The blog is here (just click on the song titles to hear the song samples), but it got the Kelly Chan song “No Reservations” wrong. It didn’t copy Britney Spears’ “Boys”, but rather Destiny Child’s “Lose My Breath”. Hell, maybe it copied both songs. Plus, Britney Spears copied herself with Slave 4 U anyway.

- The top box office winner in Thailand right now, and we only report that kind of thing when it’s a standout, is a little crossdressing comedy named Kung Fu Tootsie. You read right. Twitch has more information here.

- Kenichi Matsuyama, the rising young star of Death Note, has signed on to star in the latest film to be directed by Korean-Japanese director Yoichi Sai (who also made Blood and Bones) and written by Ping Pong and Maiko Haaaan scribe Kankuro Kudo. This could be a good follow-up to the upcoming Death Note spinoff L.

- Be careful - if you are caught pirating films in Japan, be prepared to be treated like a Yakuza member.

- The Hong Kong film blog (in Chinese) has updated its release date sidebar - new release dates include Flashpoint for August 9th, Soi Cheang’s Shamo for September 6th, and Triangle for November 1st.

- Under “that director can do that?!” news today, Taiwanese actress Shu Qi has signed up for her third Hou Hsiao-Hsien film, this time set to be a kung-fu film. How the hell is he going to pull off his legendary 10-minute-plus long takes?

- On that note, under “how the hell are they going to pull that off?!” news today, Universal has acquired the rights to remake the Japanese period actioner Shinobi, except writer/director Max Makowski (who last directed Francis Ng in One Last Dance) is planning to move the story to Hong Kong and turning the two ninja clans into rival “multinational security forces” (whatever the hell that is). Why didn’t Universal just say it’s based on Romeo and Juliet and saved themselves a couple of bucks?

- Japanese musical group Pistol Valve managed to put their U.S. debut album onto the billboard charts. Specifically, it made number 15th on the internet album chart. Good for them.

- Get ready for yet another Panasian co-production. But this is a rare one, because it’s from Singapore. Other than that, even the title suggests that it’ll be the same old stuff.

- Following the steps of Wilson Chen and Choi Ji-Woo, Korean actor/singer Ryu Si-Won will join the cast of the upcoming Japanese drama Joshi Deka alongside Yukie Nakama. Apparently, he’ll even be speaking completely in Japan, which is not a surprise since he sings in Japanese anyway.

- Ken Watanabe’s daughter Anna Watanabe is making her acting debut in the previously-mentioned TV remake of Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low. Are there any pictures of her NOT in excessive makeup?

- The Tokyo International Film Festival has a couple of changes, including the addition of a world cinema section and a section dedicated to the portrayal of Tokyo that shows it as more than just another overcrowded city.

- That’s more like it - Michael Bay’s Transformers managed a huge surge in box office in Hong Kong on Sunday, making HK$4.3 million from 76 screens for a 4-day total of HK$14.05 million. Harry Potter is still very strong, with HK1.32 million on 53 screens for a 19-day total of HK$44.51 million. This one might overtake Spiderman 3 as the highest grossing of the year so far. Note that both these films had their ticket prices inflated by HK$10 (about 10-20%) due to length, which means their gross doesn’t equate to the usual attendance number.

Thanks to word-of-mouth (and no thanks to multiplexes putting in on small screens), Invisible Target hangs on for its second week, making a moderate HK$690,000 on 33 screens for a 11-day total of HK$9.5 million. Hopefully it’ll stick around for another week so I can watch it next week. Jay Chou’s Secrets had a strong preview weekend, making HK$80,000 on 6 screens with three shows each, and a weekend total of HK$150,000. This signals that Secrets has a pretty strong opening weekend coming up. Secrets also opened in China this weekend, but only scored an 8th place opening on an unknown number of screens and showings. Lastly, the weekend’s only limited release Hula Girl makes a sad HK$20,000 on 3 screens for a HK$60,000 4-day total. This is going to be gone by the weekend.

- In Japanese box office numbers, Harry Potter is reported to have dropped 66%, which is not true since Warner Bros. accounted the early weekend preview numbers into its opening week gross. If you count only the 3-day total from last weekend, the film actually lost only about 43% in business, which is pretty good for a film on 919 screens. Meanwhile, Ratatouille didn’t do too bad either, scoring the highest per-screen average on the top 10, while all the films on the top 10 suffered only moderate drops. Meanwhile, Summer Day With Coo is a victim of the case where it beat Maiko Haaaan in the number of admissions, but lost out to it when it comes to dollars and cents because kids tickets cost less.

- It seems like while the success of Hollywood films continue, other foreign films aren’t doing too well in Japan this year. However, I can think of at least 3 Hong Kong films that opened in Japan, not two - Election, Dragon Tiger Gate, and Confession of Pain. On the other hand, that decline of Korean flicks is definitely pretty painful.

- As reported yesterday, May 18 took the weekend at the box office in Korea, but only at 1.3 million admissions, not the 1.4 figure that was previously reported. The Thai horror film Alone dropped to 8th place already, but not before taking over 450,000 admissions down with it, and it seems like Ratatouille performed a little weaker than I thought it would.

- With news stacking up this year about the lack of originality in Chinese pop music (and MTV as well), an angry blogger in China has decided to devote an entire blog exposing pop songs that allegedly are copying others. The blog is here (just click on the song titles to hear the song samples), but it got the Kelly Chan song “No Reservations” wrong. It didn’t copy Britney Spears’ “Boys”, but rather Destiny Child’s “Lose My Breath”. Hell, maybe it copied both songs. Plus, Britney Spears copied herself with Slave 4 U anyway.

- The top box office winner in Thailand right now, and we only report that kind of thing when it’s a standout, is a little crossdressing comedy named Kung Fu Tootsie. You read right. Twitch has more information here.

- Kenichi Matsuyama, the rising young star of Death Note, has signed on to star in the latest film to be directed by Korean-Japanese director Yoichi Sai (who also made Blood and Bones) and written by Ping Pong and Maiko Haaaan scribe Kankuro Kudo. This could be a good follow-up to the upcoming Death Note spinoff L.

- Be careful - if you are caught pirating films in Japan, be prepared to be treated like a Yakuza member.

- The Hong Kong film blog (in Chinese) has updated its release date sidebar - new release dates include Flashpoint for August 9th, Soi Cheang’s Shamo for September 6th, and Triangle for November 1st.

- Under “that director can do that?!” news today, Taiwanese actress Shu Qi has signed up for her third Hou Hsiao-Hsien film, this time set to be a kung-fu film. How the hell is he going to pull off his legendary 10-minute-plus long takes?

- On that note, under “how the hell are they going to pull that off?!” news today, Universal has acquired the rights to remake the Japanese period actioner Shinobi, except writer/director Max Makowski (who last directed Francis Ng in One Last Dance) is planning to move the story to Hong Kong and turning the two ninja clans into rival “multinational security forces” (whatever the hell that is). Why didn’t Universal just say it’s based on Romeo and Juliet and saved themselves a couple of bucks?

- Japanese musical group Pistol Valve managed to put their U.S. debut album onto the billboard charts. Specifically, it made number 15th on the internet album chart. Good for them.

- Get ready for yet another Panasian co-production. But this is a rare one, because it’s from Singapore. Other than that, even the title suggests that it’ll be the same old stuff.

- Following the steps of Wilson Chen and Choi Ji-Woo, Korean actor/singer Ryu Si-Won will join the cast of the upcoming Japanese drama Joshi Deka alongside Yukie Nakama. Apparently, he’ll even be speaking completely in Japan, which is not a surprise since he sings in Japanese anyway.

- Ken Watanabe’s daughter Anna Watanabe is making her acting debut in the previously-mentioned TV remake of Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low. Are there any pictures of her NOT in excessive makeup?

- The Tokyo International Film Festival has a couple of changes, including the addition of a world cinema section and a section dedicated to the portrayal of Tokyo that shows it as more than just another overcrowded city.

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.

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.

I apologize for the lack of post yesterday. At least it would make longer weekend entries.

- Sequels tend to open higher anywhere you look, unless when it looks very underwhelming. The rule applies to Hong Kong as well, which is why Michael Bay’s Transformers, despite all the hype and the worldwide invasion, had a spectacular opening with HK$2.8 million from 74 screens in Hong Kong on Thursday and still manage to look disappointing. The major sequels - Spiderman 3, Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean - have all opened huge with HK$3-6 million opening days on some 100 screens. I keep telling myself that this, in all logic, is a huge opening and it can only get bigger. There must be some sickening obsession in me to see this one fail somewhere in the world.

In other movies, Harry Potter is beginning to slow down, making HK$690,000 on 50 screens for a damn good 16-day total of HK$41.17 million. Benny Chan’s Invisible Target looks to hold strong this weekend thanks to word-of-mouth, making HK$560,000 on 36 screens for an 8-day total of HK7.78 million. Look for this to pass the HK$10 million mark by Monday. There were two more openings this week - the latest Doraemon movie made just HK$160,000 on 21 screens (though business will pick up for the weekend, and these things do better on home video anyway), and Hula Girl made a sad HK$10,000 on 3 screens. If you’re in Hong Kong and haven’t watched Hula Girl, go. There’s a reason this ALMOST won the audience award at the New York Asian Film Festival, it’s a good syrupy crowdpleaser.

- There’s some rumors out there explaining why Kenneth Bi’s The Drummer was suddenly pulled from the Hong Kong International Film Festival Summer Pops lineup. Apparently, in order to get into certain festivals, films are required to not having screened in its country of origin(Can anyone confirm this?), which means Bi and Co. chose to get its film into a foreign film festival (in this case, the Locarno festival) for sales possibilities rather than pushing local buzz. I don’t blame them, but that’s a pretty major diss for the local audiences, and proof that perhaps Asian films are no longer made for their local audiences any longer.

Even Vexville, another competitor at the Locarno Film Festival AND part of the Summer Pops lineup, has yet to open in Japan.

- Hollywood has gotten out everything they’ve got for Comic-Con, where it’s not just about comics. It’s like the new ShoWest (a yearly convention for exhibitors) for the ticket-buying fanboys (or now, even film buffs).

- zzzzzzz, the MPA continues their crusade in Asia by bringing a 23-minute documentary to Indian students about intellectual property. I want to stop reporting this too, but I’m relaying it just to show how annoying they are about showing off their efforts.

- It’s redundant but less boring because of its ridiculousness, the Chinese government continues to dictate how to fuck up youths in their own special way by continuing to crack down on anything related to the Japanese comic Death Note. Now they have gone as far as shutting down websites that have anything to do with it. And the MPA is confused why people still violate intellectual property in China?

- Youtube is set to put in place their copyright recognition software, stopping any files that are copyrighted from being put on the site in September. This is going to mean that the Song of the Day feature would be in jeopardy, and also means your votes will fail to count anyway.

But hey, be sure to keep voting anyway, because democracy is fun and exciting.

- Korea Pop Wars writes about the new DVD set of Shin Sang-Ok movies. For those who don’t know, Shin is one of the most important Korean directors in Asian film history and has worked on everything from classic 60s films to the Three Ninja movies in Hollywood.

- The Daily Yomiuri has a review of the Nobuhiro Yamashita youth film Tennen Kokkeko. The Japan Times review from last week is here.

Tomorrow, more news and the final Golden Rock Podcast for a while.

I apologize for the lack of post yesterday. At least it would make longer weekend entries.

- Sequels tend to open higher anywhere you look, unless when it looks very underwhelming. The rule applies to Hong Kong as well, which is why Michael Bay’s Transformers, despite all the hype and the worldwide invasion, had a spectacular opening with HK$2.8 million from 74 screens in Hong Kong on Thursday and still manage to look disappointing. The major sequels - Spiderman 3, Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean - have all opened huge with HK$3-6 million opening days on some 100 screens. I keep telling myself that this, in all logic, is a huge opening and it can only get bigger. There must be some sickening obsession in me to see this one fail somewhere in the world.

In other movies, Harry Potter is beginning to slow down, making HK$690,000 on 50 screens for a damn good 16-day total of HK$41.17 million. Benny Chan’s Invisible Target looks to hold strong this weekend thanks to word-of-mouth, making HK$560,000 on 36 screens for an 8-day total of HK7.78 million. Look for this to pass the HK$10 million mark by Monday. There were two more openings this week - the latest Doraemon movie made just HK$160,000 on 21 screens (though business will pick up for the weekend, and these things do better on home video anyway), and Hula Girl made a sad HK$10,000 on 3 screens. If you’re in Hong Kong and haven’t watched Hula Girl, go. There’s a reason this ALMOST won the audience award at the New York Asian Film Festival, it’s a good syrupy crowdpleaser.

- There’s some rumors out there explaining why Kenneth Bi’s The Drummer was suddenly pulled from the Hong Kong International Film Festival Summer Pops lineup. Apparently, in order to get into certain festivals, films are required to not having screened in its country of origin(Can anyone confirm this?), which means Bi and Co. chose to get its film into a foreign film festival (in this case, the Locarno festival) for sales possibilities rather than pushing local buzz. I don’t blame them, but that’s a pretty major diss for the local audiences, and proof that perhaps Asian films are no longer made for their local audiences any longer.

Even Vexville, another competitor at the Locarno Film Festival AND part of the Summer Pops lineup, has yet to open in Japan.

- Hollywood has gotten out everything they’ve got for Comic-Con, where it’s not just about comics. It’s like the new ShoWest (a yearly convention for exhibitors) for the ticket-buying fanboys (or now, even film buffs).

- zzzzzzz, the MPA continues their crusade in Asia by bringing a 23-minute documentary to Indian students about intellectual property. I want to stop reporting this too, but I’m relaying it just to show how annoying they are about showing off their efforts.

- It’s redundant but less boring because of its ridiculousness, the Chinese government continues to dictate how to fuck up youths in their own special way by continuing to crack down on anything related to the Japanese comic Death Note. Now they have gone as far as shutting down websites that have anything to do with it. And the MPA is confused why people still violate intellectual property in China?

- Youtube is set to put in place their copyright recognition software, stopping any files that are copyrighted from being put on the site in September. This is going to mean that the Song of the Day feature would be in jeopardy, and also means your votes will fail to count anyway.

But hey, be sure to keep voting anyway, because democracy is fun and exciting.

- Korea Pop Wars writes about the new DVD set of Shin Sang-Ok movies. For those who don’t know, Shin is one of the most important Korean directors in Asian film history and has worked on everything from classic 60s films to the Three Ninja movies in Hollywood.

- The Daily Yomiuri has a review of the Nobuhiro Yamashita youth film Tennen Kokkeko. The Japan Times review from last week is here.

Tomorrow, more news and the final Golden Rock Podcast for a while.

- Apparently there are quite a few fans of David Lynch in Japan. His latest Inland Empire, which I honestly think it looks too weird to be my kind of film, opened on two screens in Japan this past weekend. With three shows a day over two days, the film attracted 2031 admissions and grossed 3.24 million yen. Considering one theater seats only 111 and the other seats 232, that’s a pretty good opening. According to Eiga Consultant, people started lining up at the Tokyo cinema 2 hours before the first show and the last show was sold out three hours beforehand. Also, the pamphlet/program had a 40% sales rate. Either that means good-of-mouth or it means people just plain don’t get it. Return business, anyone?

- Inland Empire was released by Kadakawa films in Japan, who also released the remake The Murder of the Inugami Clan, a ton of smaller films, and a bunch of TV shows after ruling the Japanese film world way back then. Now they are planning to do their own “fight fire with fire” strategy by posting their copyrighted material onto Youtube. However, they are also developing a program that would find internet video content that are violating copyright, though I’m not exactly sure whatever that means.

- Hollywood Reporter has more on the hit opening weekend for the Thai horror film Alone at the Korean box office, including the distributor’s strategy to market Thai horror as the next big wave and that J-horror is over. They’re a couple years behind, but hey, whatever works for them.

- Recently, Japan entertainment trend reporting website Oricon polled people on what they thing is the scariest J-horror film. The results aren’t really all that surprising.

- Time for Venice festival news - First, Jason Gray has information on the Japanese selections, both in and out of competition (They even gave an in competition spot to Takeshii Miike. Is this a first for Miike in a major European film festival?). Then you can just go and check out the entire list at Variety, which includes quite a few major Asian films.

- On the other hand, things are definitely not going very well at the Bangkok International Film Festival, where there are more sellers than buyers at the market, films are not well-attended, and one Thai executive even said the money spent should’ve gone straight to the film industry instead. Ouch.

- It’s reviews time! Twitch has a review of Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Retribution, a rather long review of the new Korean film May 18th, and a shorter one for Japanese blockbuster Dororo. Then, Variety’s Derek Elley turns in a review for the opener for the Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival Eternal Hearts.

- The Weinstein Company has snapped up another Asian film that they could potentially ruin, this time one of Vietnam’s biggest films ever.

- Yesterday I reported the misreporting of casting news regarding Derek Yee’s The Shinjuku Incident. Today Hollywood Reporter, whom I consider to be a pretty accurate news reporting organization, reports that China Film Group is onboard as a co-producer, which means you know the good guys and/or the Chinese will again win in the end.

- Apparently Taiwanese pop star Jay Chou’s latest single, the theme song for his directorial debut Secrets, is suggested to be a breakthrough in style by incorporating British rock influences. Why is this news, especially when he’s done it before already?