As the title suggests, there’s a lot of news coming out to Japan again. Of course, there’s news from everywhere else, but we’ll start with Japan

- Oricon rankings again fairly weak this week. On the singles chart, Seki Jani Eight (I don’t really get them, but whatever floats Japan’s boat) rules the chart with their new single, selling 190,000 copies. In second and third place are also new singles, but sales are way lower than the top single. As for remaining singles, Glay drops all the way down to 7th place, and Namie Amuro’s “Funky Town” (Not a cover of the disco hit) is already out of the top 10. Next week should be interesting, as the daily chart indicates 14 singles vying for the top 10.

Albums sales are even weaker this week, as YUI hangs for to number 1 again with just 100,000 copies sold. The best-selling new album of the week is the second album by Endlicheri Endlicheri (also known as Tsuyoshi Domoto of Kinki Kids), which sold only 77,000 copies. Most of the albums still on the top 10 are holdovers such as Ai Otsuka and Kobukuro’s compilation albums and Mr. Children’s latest. Next week, expect boy pop collective Kat-tun to rule the charts with their latest (probably cashing in on the respective members’ debuting dramas).

- And looks like the music sales slump isn’t just a seasonal thing either - Hollywood Reporter reports that Japanese music sales have been declining since last year, and the majority of that loss actually is in declining sales of foreign music. Not that Japanese music weren’t selling less either; their decline just wasn’t as bad. One thing I don’t understand is why Japanese music as priced so much more expensive than its foreign counterpart - According to the figures, even foreign CD (album and singles included) cost an average of $9.30, while a Japanese music cost an average of $10.54. It doesn’t seem like a big difference, but Japanese albums can cost over 1000 yen more than American albums. Is it production costs? Is it simply a way to cash in on a market that can move almost 53 million units?

- Academy Award winner The Queen opened in one theater over the weekend, and in light of high advance ticket sales, the theater decides wisely to put it on two of its three screens. Eiga Consultant reports that decision was right, because with 428 seats available for 10 shows a day, The Queen attracted 4072 people, bringing in 5.59 million yen over the weekend. With expansion over the next two weekends, can The Queen become a sleeper hit in Japan?

- A while ago, I complained that Japanese television broadcasters were not stepping up quick enough to get its dramas overseas. Once a giant market for exporting dramas, Japan has since been overshadowed by South Korea. Finally, the broadcasters are waking up, and are collaborating with the Communication Ministry to build an online database for potential buyers of TV shows. Japan does make decent television shows that should be just as popular as the ones in South Korea, but its lack of access for foreign audience has caused those potential audiences to find other ways to access these contents such as Bittorrent and triad-sanctioned pirated discs.

- Speaking of TV, looks like TBS screwed up again, this time on reporting the Fujita food scandal.

- I like Lee Byung-Hun. I never watched his dramas, but he’s done some great movies such as J.S.A., Bungee Jumping of Their Own, and A Bittersweet Life. He’s also quite a heartthrob in Japan, although his movies haven’t done very well there. Of course, it would make sense that if a Japanese blockbuster were to need a Korean heartthrob, it’d be him or Bae Yong Joon (or Yonsama, as Japanese people call him). That’s why I’m not very surprised to hear that Lee has been casted in SMAP member/Asian superstar Kimura Takuya’s latest film Hero, a film version of the hit drama. It’s official - this movie is gonna be huge.

- Two weeks ago, I introduced the Japanese film Campaign. Turns out Jason Gray has seen it (as did people in film festivals around the world), and he offers far more information than I had on it. This makes me want to watch it even more.

- Now that I’m done with Japan, let’s pick on China. I swear I didn’t make this up:

CBS has chosen China as the next spot for its popular reality show Survivor. While this is a great development for western media trying to break into China, it should also speak volumes about how living in Mainland China can actually be equal to living on a jungle island in the middle of nowhere with no civilized necessity. Maybe finding a way to talk about Tiananmen Square in public without getting sent to a labor camp can be one of the challenges.

- Meanwhile, Hong Kong has its own battle to fight. On film, that is. More details have emerged about the so-called “Battle of Hong Kong” trilogy that actually sounds like it might be good. Called “The Exodus,” the sci-fi epic is about how enslaved citizens in Kowloon rise up against their wealthy captors on Hong Kong Island. Of course, if you look at the map of Hong Kong, you would realize that logistically, you don’t want to be the power holder and be stuck on an island, but I’m just nitpicking.

The summary still sounds very promising, until I read this ugly tagline by the director that seems better used for a Hollywood boardroom - ““This is Ten Commandments meets Blade Runner shot like 300.” Honestly, I don’t know how that’s gonna work out.

- The Singapore International Film Festival lineup has been announced, and this time the theme is “fuck the censors.” They will be showing “Syndromes and a Century” and “Village People Radio Show,” both Thai films that are in big trouble with the Thai censors. Also, they are fighting the Singaporean censors to get the local homosexual film “Solos” played at the festival uncut. The censors have already forced the Danish film “Princess” to withdraw from the festival, so they ain’t taking this fight lying down.

Edit: Ummm…I need to read the stories closer. As YTSL pointed out, the film festival is already underway, and Village People Radio Show was banned by the Malaysian censors. Disregard all that you just read and read the story yourself.

- The Herman Yau-directed/Dennis Law-produced Gong Tau (Curse) has a trailer up, thanks to the good people at Twitch. I personally loved the purple floating head, what’s your favorite?

- In an exercise in redundancy, the Australian government has backed the establishment of a Pan-Asian film awards. The Asia Pacific Screen Awards will take place in November in Queensland for at least three years before being moved to another country. In an even wiser movie, the show will be recorded for CNN and would concentrate on recognizing films from countries we don’t necessarily associate with film rather than blinging it up on the red carpet.

The bad news? It’ll only offer 3 nominations per category and its winner will be determined by a 3-member jury? It may beat Hong Kong in presentation, but this award might just lose on credibility.

- The developing story in Hong Kong is obviously the future of John Woo’s Battle of Red Cliff. Producer Terence Chang has shot back, citing Chow Yun-Fat’s attitude as the reason for his withdrawal. From Ming Pao, excerpt are as follows:

張家振承認投資者和發行商的確嫌發哥演周瑜太老，發哥的年齡的確是比周瑜大了20歲，但他和吳宇森一直都很維護發哥。真正的原因是發哥經律師擬定的合約，美國保險公司有73條不接納，他已盡量作出讓步，但可惜還是不能成事。

Terence Chang admits that investors and distributors complained that Chow was 20 years too old for the role, but John Woo and he have always protected Chow. The real reason is that the contract Chow’s lawyer wrote up - the American insurance company would not except 73 of the conditions. He [Chang?] already tried to compromise, but they couldn’t finalize it.

張家振說﹕「發哥要求在開拍前一次付清片酬，他說對每部獨立電影也一視同仁，後來我苦苦哀求，他才答應先付50%，收到錢3天後才向劇組報到，另外50%要我們在銀行一個帳戶，拍到一半時給他，雖然他不是一次拿到錢，但我也要一次把錢拿出來。（發哥的片酬是否很昂貴？）是500萬美元，另加全球分紅，沒有虧待他，他最近拍了4部電影的片酬加起來也不及此數目。」

Chang says: “Chow requested that his salary be paid in one installment before shooting began, he said that he treats every independent film the same. I end up pleading to him, so he agreed to taking 50% first and reporting to the set 3 days after receiving the money. The other 50% would be given to him halfway through shooting from a bank account. Even though Chow’s not getting the money in one installment, I have to raise the money in one installment. (Was Chow’s salary high?) It’s US$5 million, plus a cut of the worldwide gross. We don’t mistreat him, this salary is higher than the salaries he got from the last four movies he did combined.”

對於發哥指一星期前才收到劇本，張家振直斥這是廢話，他說﹕「早在去年，我就偷偷地交稿給他看。他在美國拍戲時，也跟我們提出了一些周瑜和小喬的感情戲，我們都覺得不錯。去年初，第一稿出來，我們同時給了他和梁朝偉，發哥有一些意見，向吳宇森和編導陳汗提出，編劇就發哥的說法潤飾了劇本， 此稿的確是一周前給他。」

Regarding Chow’s claim that he only got the script a week before shooting, Chang says that’s a lie. He says, “We’ve been showing him drafts since last year. When he was shooting another film in the States, he even gave us some suggestions regarding the romance that we thought was good. At the beginning of last year, the first draft came out, and we showed it to him and Tony Leung Chiu-Wai. Chow had some suggestions for John Woo and the screenwriter, so he changed the screenplay according to those suggestions. That draft did get to him a week beforehand.”

Original text in Chinese is here.

So there you have it. Who’s in the right? Who’s in the wrong? Chow admits that he did write up his contract in accordance to the Hollywood treatment he had, while Chang did admit that he only sent Chow the complete final draft a week before shooting. Meanwhile, even some of the Chinese press is blaming Chow’s wife for making these demands on the contract.

With Oriental Daily reporting that Tony Leung Chiu-Wai has actually joined the film again, but this time taking over Chow’s role, the plot thickens. More tomorrow when the latest Ming Pao comes online.

In less gossipy news about Red Cliff, Mei Ah has signed on as the distributor for the film, even without Chow, and predicted a HK$100-200 million gross in Hong Kong alone. Yeah, right.

- So remember over the weekend, Shochiku announced that the opening day box office was so high for the film version of Tokyo Tower that they expect it to surpass Kimura Takuya X Yoji Yamada’s 4 billion yen hit “Love and Honor?” Well, the Japan box office numbers are out, and Eiga Consultant can’t see how that’s possible. On its opening day, Tokyo Tower made only 196 million yen, which is 90% of the 1.41 billion yen-grossing Shinobi. In fact, its opening day gross was only 65% of what Love and Honor made on its opening day. You can compare the results yourself for Love and Honor and Tokyo Tower with those links. My own calculation (following the exchange rate BOM used for the respective weeks) actually showed that Tokyo Tower only made 53% of Love and Honor’s opening weekend, but that only furthers the point that Shochiku is lying out of their asses. This isn’t the first time Japanese distributors overestimated final grosses anyway; remember the Genghis Kahn movie? Exactly.

Elsewhere on the top 10, Blood Diamond seems to be hanging on thanks to word-of-mouth, and Sunshine opened weaker than I thought with only roughly $500,000. Otherwise, it’s been a pretty quiet weekend in Japan again.

- Meanwhile, South Korea had a fairly quiet weekend at the box office as well, with The Show Must Go On falling a sad 58% in its second week.

- The South Korean box office isn’t really looking all that bright for the summer either, with Hollywood offering Spiderman, pirates, and transformers, while Korea is offering horror flicks and….D-War?!

- The big news out of Hong Kong is not only Lau Ching-Wan’s best actor win at the Hong Kong Film Awards, but also fellow nominee Chow Yun-Fat withdrawing from John Woo’s epic The Battle of Red Cliff. It’s another “he-said-he-said” (there’s no she in this story) type of situation - producer Terence Chang said that the financiers can’t acquiesce to Chow’s request to pay his salary of US$5 million at once (which is reportedly 3 times the salary he got for Curse of the Golden Flower), while Chow’s side says that he got the script too late, which meant he couldn’t prepare early enough for a role that requires him to speak in Mandarin (Chow’s native tongue is Cantonese). He also said he already took a pay cut for not demanding a raise after the decision was make to split the films in two (um….they’re shooting it at the same time anyway). This is the second major blow to Woo’s ambitious US$70-million project after star Tony Leung Chiu-Wai dropped out due to the 6-month shooting schedule. Of course, the bigger question is whether Chow’s withdrawal will affect Woo and Chow’s legendary friendship.

- I read about this about a week ago in Oriental Daily, but I don’t remember reporting it. Anyone waiting for a Shaolin Soccer sequel can release half their breath. The good news is that there is a Stephen Chow-involved sequel being made, the bad news is that it probably won’t have anything to do with the first film. Fuji TV has teamed up with Chow to make a pseudo-sequel called “Shorin Shoujo” (Or Shaolin Girl) starring Ko Shibasaki as the title character and Bayside Shakedown helmer Katsuyuki Motohiro directing. It’ll be about a young girl returning from Japan after training at the Shaolin Temple and ends up helping out a college Lacrosse team. Shaolin Soccer co-stars Lam Chi-Chung and Tin Kai-Man will appear, Chow will apparently not. While in anyone else’s hands, this might be a bad idea, but I like Robot Productions and Motohiro enough that it might turn out to be a good popcorn flick.

- The big news coming out of Tokyo is the world premiere of Spiderman 3. Honestly, the only interesting part about the report is how making sequels actually keep down marketing costs and allow the studio to leave that for the production instead. Other than that, there’s no advance review out yet.

- Reading Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” (for a Comparative Literature class) and Kobo Abe’s “Woman in the Dunes” in the same quarter put me in a huge existential crisis. In other words, it was one of the greatest academic periods of my life. Anyway, I mention this because Criterion is releasing Teshigahara’s surprisingly faithful adaptation of Woman in the Dunes in July on DVD as part of a Teshigahara boxset. Anyone looking to get into an existential funk should check out this surreal classic.

- Like Warner Bros. in Japan, 20th Century Fox has struck a deal with Showbox (who distributed The Host) to finance and distribute South Korean films. This comes as no surprise to me since my Kick the Moon DVD was actually released by Fox already. Is this good news or not? Look at what Warner Bros. did in Japan and you might have an idea.

- Professor Bordwell is back from Hong Kong, and his first entry since returning tackles a subject that I, as a wannabe filmmaker, is actually immensely interested in. Many film viewers may not notice, but for me, the toughest part of editing a film is dialog scenes. Editing rely on a capturing a certain beat, and shooting dialog scenes are particularly tough because when you only have one camera, you have to shoot the scene many times at different angles, which can be tough for actors AND directors. Then when you have all that footage, you have to decide when to cut to which angle without ruining the pace of the scene. The cutting-in-between technique in dialog scenes is called “reverse shots,” meaning you start on one angle, then you cut to where the opposite angle where the camera shows where the initial shot was from.

Anyway, Professor Bordwell goes into how certain directors don’t use reverse shots. For me, it’s fascinating. Maybe for me only though.

- I’m sure many have heard about the Virginia Tech shooting allegedly committed by a disturbed neutralized South Korean student (please let it be known that he is a naturalized American citizen, not just some foreigner that went crazy on Americans) that killed 32 people, including himself. At one point, the Chinese press got a hold of reports that a Chinese student actually did the deed and ran with it (the local Chinese papers I saw today all have it on their headlines). During that time, the Chinese press ran into chaos, trying to decide whether to run the story or not, while the netizens reacted very quickly on the message boards. This is their story.

In Cantonese, we call the best actor and best actress winners at film awards “King” and “Queen,” respectively. This year’s Hong Kong Film Awards was held a few hours ago, and while I’ll be watching the show tonight SF time, I can’t help but looking up the winners list. Turns out I got 4 right, and the one I wanted to win best actor - Lau Ching-Wan for My Name is Fame - actually won.

Why is Lau Ching-Wan winning the “King” such a big deal? He’s a great actor, and everyone knows that. That’s what made it such a big deal - despite being a great actor and having been nominated many times, he has actually never won a best actor award at the HK Film Awards. After some 20 years of acting, one of Hong Kong’s greatest finally wins. I hope that this will encourage LCW to do even more movies.

More on the show itself and the winners list tomorrow.

- North American box office actual numbers are out tomorrow, but estimates show Grindhouse dropping by 63% and barely hanging on to the top 10. In addition to the “let’s split the movies up in director’s cut” plan (which would not be financially viable since it means striking up new prints), I wonder what else do the Weinsteins have up their sleeves.

- Speaking of another failure, Sony has decided to stop selling the cheaper 20gb model of the Playstation 3 in the United States. The more expensive 60gb model remains in the market, which shows which market they’re really aiming at these days.

- This weekend Japan sees the third adaptation of the novel Tokyo Tower in a year opening in its cinemas. This time, it stars Joe Odagiri and Kirin Kiki. Despite the excess dose of the popular novel about a young man venturing to Tokyo from his rural town and the mother who supported him every step of the way, Hoga News reports that its opening day box office is huge enough that it’s expected to pass the 4 billion mark that Yoji Yamada’s Love and Honor did this past winter. Joe Odagiri>Kimura Takuya???

- Japanese video market is still flat. More people are buying DVDs, but they’re individually buying and spending less on them. zzzzzzz…….

- I was going to talk about how pirates put Chinese subtitles on those foreign shows that allows people to download the show and understand the whole thing within only a few days’ time. That was yesterday’s lost entry. Today, I offer Korea Pop Wars’ Mark Russell’s look at the ongoing struggles of vendors that sell pirated discs, only to find out that it’s all about location, location, location.

- Meanwhile, Twitch introduces Driving With My Wife’s Lover, a Korean film that sounds really interesting with a title that’s as tell-all as it gets.

- Lastly, thought the events in the Peter Chan-produced/Fruit Chan-directed film Dumplings can’t happen? Think again (warning, content may potentially gross you out.).

The news today come from random corners of the world, so I’m just going to dive right in without much organization.

- Yesterday I mentioned Nikkatsu’s line-up, which includes the Death Note spin-off film about the L character. We find out today that horror director Hideo Nakata, who made the Japanese versions of the “Ring” and “Dark Water,” will take on directing duties. Well, at least he’s better than the director of Gamera films (that would be the guy who did the Death Note movies).

- On the less commercial side of things, Twitch introduces a film from a country we rarely associate with any film not about war - Vietnam.

- Remember the highly-anticipated Jackie Chan-Jet Li project that turned out to be a kids’ movie? Variety Asia offers us more details, including the director (guy who did Lion and Stuart Little), and the plot, about an American teenager transported into ancient China, where he would join a crew of warriors (with it reportedly based on Journey to the West, it would probably be the monk and his disciples, which include the Monkey King) to free an imprison king. Holy ethnographic gaze, Batman!

- Speaking of Jackie Chan, Rob-B-Hood opened this past weekend in Japan to satisfactory results. According to Eiga Consultant, Rob-B-Hood (called “Project BB” in Japan, which is a direct translation of its Chinese title) grossed 25.6 million yen on 60 screens for an OK 426600 yen per-screen average. The opening is 162% of “The Myth,” but only 58% of “New Police Story,” which grossed 200 mill yen.

- Korea Pop Wars offer some random notes about Korean films and beyond (include Korean films playing at beyond).

- While I said that Grindhouse flopped because it lacked the audience, not shows per day, New York Post critic comes out and says that wasn’t the case in New York, where the per-screen average was actually over $30,000! We’ve just found one more thing to blame rural America….

- Last week I posted a link to the poster of director Benny Chan’s upcoming flick “Invisible Targets,” and now Twitch has delivered again with a report from Chinese TV that contains a bit of footage. That roof jump looks mighty impressive, I hope the rest of the movie can live up to that.

- In Shaolin Soccer, there was a goalie character that was a dead ringer for Bruce Lee. Of course we know that it was intentional that the actor was probably casted in that role because of his looks (Stephen Chow held a huge audition before filming, so I wouldn’t be surprised that’s where he found the actor). That man was Chen Guokun. Who would expect that he was actually casted to play Bruce Lee himself in a biographical TV series based on Lee’s life? Well, believe it, because its shoot starts next week.

- The Tokyo governor’s election has been over and done with for a while (with everyone’s favorite xenophobic nationalist politician Shintaro Ishihara getting his third term in office, just in time for his movie to open!), and the video has been out there for a while. Anyway, as part of the campaign, each candidate has the right to do a 5-minute video explaining their position on issues and why people should vote for them. Out of nowhere comes Koichi Toyama, an ultra left-wing musician and his kooky campaign video. The reason I waited this long because I finally found an English subtitled version. Someone even made a South Park version of the campaign video, because it’s so crazy, baby.

Of course, he’s not the only guy that’s done a kooky campaign video. Rocker Yuuya Uchida also ran for governor in Tokyo in 1991, and he did a similarly entertaining video as well (you don’t even need English subtitles for this, it’s in English already).

Obviously, Uchida lost the election, but what happened to Koichi Toyama? He was in 7th place with 15,000 votes!

What does this have to do with The Golden Rock, you ask? It’s Asian entertainment, isn’t it?

Being Wednesday, hump is being used here as a noun, not a verb.

- Let’s start with some rankings. Today it’s the Japanese Oricon (To answer a question that has never been asked, I only go over the Oricon because it’s the most widely-known easy-access general ranking in Asian music. Of course, I’m only saying that because I know Japanese and I don’t know Korean. Plus, I don’t know much about Taiwanese music anyway to go over rankings there). It was a slow week on both fronts - on the singles side, Glay leads the chart with their latest single, selling only 67,000 copies. By that number, you can tell how badly the rest of the singles are selling.

The album chart was fairly weak this week as well, with rock-pop songstress YUI taking the top spot with her second album, selling 290,000 copies. It’s also her first number 1 album, thanks to weak albums sales overall this week. Unlike the crowded album market last month, only 4 new releases found its way on the top 10, and 3 of them are ranked 5th and below.

- In case anyone still cares, Hong Kong Tuesday numbers are out. Mr. Bean still ruled the Hong Kong Easter box office, and Super Fan still flopped.

Several follow-ups from previous reported news:

- In response to Eason Chan’s comments about Ayumi Hamasaki lip-syncing part of her way through her Hong Kong concert, fans in Hong Kong have suggested they boycott Eason’s albums. Excerpt from Chinese report below:

陳奕迅（Eason）因公然指濱崎步在演唱會「咪嘴」而惹步姐迷不滿，昨日就有網友發起罷買Eason的唱片。

Eason Chan’s claim that Ayumi Hamasaki was lip-syncing at her concert has angered her fans. Yesterday, netizens were initiating boycotts of Eason’s albums.

Eason心情未受影響。但談到步姐和網友發起罷買其唱片，他就顯得很避忌，不欲多談，只強調當日接受訪問，大讚步姐是個聲色藝俱全歌手，其他事情不作回應了，免得事件愈鬧愈大。

Eason’s mood did not seemed to be affected, but when the boycott issue was brought up, he appeared wanting to avoid the issue and refused to comment. He only emphasized that during the interview, he complimented Ayumi as an all-around talented singer. He didn’t want to respond to other issues as to not blow things out of proportion.

Original Chinese report is here.

This isn’t the first time he said the wrong thing anyway. A few years ago, he said among the four Heavenly Kings of Cantopop (Leon Lai, Andy Lau, Jacky Cheung, and Aaron Kwok), he only bought Jacky’s albums, which set off another media/fan storm that eventually blew over. As one of Hong Kong’s top pop acts, I don’t think Eason has to worry about any type of boycott.

- Yesterday, I reported that the United States formally filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization about China’s rampant piracy. In response, China pretty much gives the U.S. a very gentle middle finger.

- Park Chan-Wook’s latest I’m a Cyborg But That’s OK is finally coming to DVD on April 30th. I’ll assume that a Hong Kong edition (that will be wiped out by the legions of screaming Rain fans, including those that didn’t show up for the theatrical release) is coming soon after that as well.

- I hated Kim Tae-Kyun’s A Romance of Their Own. It represented everything that was bad about Korean teen cinema - the posing, the melodrama, the tragic twist. I barely made it to the ending. Asian Cinema - While on the Road has a review of his latest, and it seems like it’s more formulaic melodrama that I would hate. Shame, I thought Volcano High was a solid film.

- On that note, Korean films seemed to have hit a slump for March, taking only 21.6% of the market. But the fact that the big picture shows that Korean films is still enjoying a 55.3% share for the year, the reports may be blowing it out of proportion a little bit. Hong Kong would kill for that kind of number, people.

- Japanese production company Nikkatsu has announced its line-up for 2007-2008. The most notable films include the cgi-animated film of popular 70s toon “Gatchaman,” to be made by Hong Kong firm Imagi and directed by Kevin Munroe, who teamed up for the recently-released TMNT. They also announced the Death Note spinoff film based on the detective character L, which will be shot later this year and distributed by Warner Bros. Japan.

- Japan Probe offers a look at what shooting on Kill Bill Volume 1 might have been like. It even offers a Quentin Tarantino impersonator that’s close enough, as far as Japanese impersonation goes.

- The Hong Kong International Film Festival is coming to an end, with the Hong Kong Film Awards on Sunday (I’ll be watching it on Sunday night on the tape-delay broadcast by the local TVB channel in San Francisco), which means Professor Bordwell is leaving. But before he leaves, he shares a ton of pictures, and even mentions this blog! Thanks, Professor, I enjoyed your coverage of the HKIFF!

- While I can’t really gauge how the Easter weekend went in Hong Kong until the midweek numbers come out later tonight (since Monday was also a public holiday), Mov3.com uploaded the Sunday numbers, which was a surprisingly clear indicator of who won the weekend. With a HK$2.16 million gross on Sunday from just 32 screens and a 4-day HK$9.43 million total, Mr. Bean’s Holiday ruled the holiday box office. This result is extremely surprisingly, at least for me, considering that the TV show is long over, Rowan Atkinson’s films aren’t huge draws at the box office (Johnny English excluded), and that it’s been 10 years since the last Mr. Bean movie. Its gross is as huge as Night at the Museum, and that made over HK$40 million, so how far will Mr. Bean go, especially with that amazing per-screen average?

As for the other movies, my predictions were pretty far off. I said Sunshine would do moderate business, but it actually did worse than Disney’s Meet the Robinsons (Easter IS a family holiday, after all) and the biblical horror film The Reaping, which has 4-day totals of HK$3.33 million and HK$2.51 million, respective. As for Sunshine, it made HK$430,000 on 30 screens, which is OK, but not spectacular. After 4 days, it’s made HK$2.07 million. Hong Kong’s sole representative, the Eric Kot-directed Super Fans, was a pretty big loser with only HK$270,000 from 29 screens on Sunday, and after 5 days, it’s only made HK$1.65 million. Good thing it was only a moderately-sized production, which might’ve been what killed it.

- Box Office Mojo also posted the top 6 at the Japanese box office, this week at the exchange rate of 119 yen=$1. Even without the small change, one can see that the top 10 films all fell by fairly large percentages, which only helped show how weak Blood Diamond’s opening was. In case it’s not apparent to you enough, Eiga Consultant puts it all in perspective - it was only 52% of the Japanese opening for The Departed (which ended with a 1.6 billion yen total) and only 92% of The Aviator (which had a 1.07 billion yen total).

- Korea Pop Wars also has the Korean box office, and The Show Must Go On starring Song Gang-Ho obviously made the number 1 spot. More analysis over there courtesy of Mark Russell.

- Plagiarism is a plague in the Asian music industry - everyone is copying off each other, and they’re only spread around like urban legend on the net while it continues. That’s why I’m happy to see one of these cases go to court, as a South Korean court ruled that a MTV for a song by Korean pop singer Ivy was illegally copied off a scene from the movie Final Fantasy: Advent Children. According to the comments there, representatives for Ivy’s side are just blaming it on some Chinese guy. Riiiigggght.

Look for the rip-off of the song by Mark Lui for the HK pop market in the coming months.

- Even the Chinese are in legal trouble, as the U.S. has officially filed a complaint with the W.T.O. over the rampant piracy of Hollywood films in China. That’s probably because Chinese censors keep banning the damn things that people have to find other ways to watch them.

- Funny that on the same day, Variety Asia also has a report about China’s effort to cut down on piracy, which is true since I saw a report of a raid by Chinese officials on the Hong Kong news a few days ago.

- If anyone still cares, the creator of Ghost Rider is suing Sony over copyright infringement for its film adaptation. Wait, wasn’t this produced by Marvel?

- Anyone in for a blockbuster comedy that promotes plastic surgery can turn to 200 Pound Beauty, which is being released on DVD on April 20th. I’m not a big fan of plastic surgeries, but hey, it might be worth a look.

- More on the Jackie Chan successor show - apparently, over 100,000 people have already signed up for a chance at martial arts stardom. Not clear is whether son Jaycee is one of those 100,000.

- Hoga News has some info on new films coming out, one of which is the sequel to the successful drama about ethnic Koreans in Japan “Pacchigi!”

- Just because you pay to watch TV in China doesn’t mean you can watch anything you want, alright? At least that’s what those damn watchdogs say.

- Of course, the big news post-weekend is the fallout from the disappointing opening of Grindhouse. And it’s pretty bad. People blame that there are not enough shows a day, so not enough money, but even with the 3-hour running time, people were projecting 20-25 million. Why? Simple math.

This weekend, Grindhouse grossed $11.5 million, at a $4,419 per-screen average. Divide that number by 3 for the weekend, that’s $1,473 dollars a day. Divide that by 3 again for the 3 shows a day, that’s $491 per show. Divide that again by the the national average ticket price, which is $6.55, that means only there were only an average of 75 people for each showing. That would look pretty empty for the multiplex that put it on their bigger 250-people auditorium, wouldn’t it?

Of course, Harvey comes out and says that the length pushed audiences away, which is true, and bloggers are saying that Weinstein should’ve pushed for Tarantino and Rodridguez to not be so self-indulgent and grind down the running time for each film, which is probably also true. But honestly, who expected it to do this bad when advertising and buzz was literally everywhere on the web? Now the Weinsteins are hoping for word-of-mouth, even though the daily gross actually dropped over the weekend (most films experience a rise for Saturday, then a drop on Sunday). I’ll be watching it this week myself, and LoveHKfilm’s Sanjuro has reviews of the separate films (even one for the trailers). Will the people show up eventually? Probably, but I doubt this will make back its reported $52-million budget (although reports say it’s closer to 70 or even 100 million).

- In other Grindhouse news, Korea Pop Wars confirms that Sponge, who grabbed the film at Hong Kong’s Filmart, will release the films separately in their extended versions.

- No Hong Kong Easter weekend numbers (maybe by tonight, who knows), but we have Japanese audience rankings for the weekend. Night at the Museum and Doraemon hang on again for the first and second spot, respectively. Meanwhile, Blood Diamond opens at third (maybe not at a very good gross, seeing how Night and Doraemon have been around for about a month now), the Japan Times-reviewed Taitei no Ken opens at 8th, and more when the numbers come out.

- Those censors strike again. No, not China (more of those guys later), this time it’s Thailand, who has banned internet video service Youtube after anti-monarchist films appeared on the site. Youtube offers to help the Thai authorities delete the films in question without really going to the point of censorship.

- OK, China, your turn. Remember the Chinese idol show Super Girl that got renamed to Happy Boy? Well, not only does the Chinese government hate girls that are happy, they are forcing the show to follow a strict set of guidelines that include no “weirdness” or “low taste,” allowing only “healthy and ethnically inspiring songs,” and no screaming fans or crying contestants, because god help them if the winner might be popular enough to be the next Premier of the Communist party.

This is the winner of Super Girl. Yes, that’s a girl. Is this the SARFT’s idea of “weirdness” and “low taste?”

- With Super Girl gone, its male counterpart “My Hero!” has taken over the Chinese airwaves. Here, the men not only sing, but also dance and do push-ups to impress the judges. The more amusing part of this write-up by Variety Asia is actually seeing the writer trying to explain what “add oil” in Chinese means in English (It really means “work hard!”).

- Japanese pop queen/suspect outer space alien Ayumi Hamasaki had her sold-out concert in Hong Kong, and with Eason Chan’s tendency to speak his mind, he decided to say that she was probably lip-syncing. Ming Pao has the report, and excerpt is as follows:

Eason形容濱崎步的演唱會是高成本製作，燈光、爆破效果，以至整個演唱會的製作都很好，水準之高是本地演唱會難以做到；不過，他說：「看見濱崎步的勁歌熱舞，懷疑她有三分之一時間是『咪嘴』，而且『咪嘴』功夫很到家。我看麥當娜的演唱會就覺得沒有『咪嘴』，雖然歌聲可能沒有唱片中的水準，但也很好看。」

Eason describes Ayumi Hamasaki’s concert as a high-budget production thanks to the lights and pyrotechnics. That type of quality is one that Hong Kong concerts have difficulty achieving. But he said “Seeing Ayumi Hamasaki’s singing and dancing, I suspect that she’s lip-syncing for 1/3 of the time, and her lip-syncing skills are quite good. I saw Madonna’s concert and didn’t feel she was lip-syncing. Though she didn’t sing as well as she does on her albums, it was still very good.”
對此，主辦單位強調濱崎步並無「咪嘴」，「濱崎步唱得太好，加上所有音響設備都來自日本，才會惹起誤會」。

In response, the organizers insist that Ayumi Hamasaki was not lip-syncing, “Ayumi Hamasaki sings too well, and plus all the audio equipments came from Japan, so that’s why there’s such a misunderstanding.”

Original Chinese text is here.

I’ve seen Ayumi Hamasaki’s live performance videos, and she can’t even hit those high notes when she’s NOT dancing. Plus, from Eason Chan, who still lip-sync some of his TV performances, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is true.

- Then again, it’s hard to tell whether one can trust Ming Pao’s reporting. Yesterday, they reported Professor David Bordwell’s visit to Johnnie To’s set for “Triangle” (which they got from his blog), but they seemed to have gotten some facts wrong, particular in its last section. Chinese excerpts (followed by translation) are as follows:

發覺杜琪㗖喜用手提拍攝，與荷李活所用的路軌拍攝不同，不過用手提拍攝確較靈活。David Bordwell亦認為香港製作有時不夠精細，如電影《放逐》中有一幕講述澳門酒店的場景，原來是在杜琪㗖公司的天台搭景，就嫌太過草率了。

[David] discovers that Johnnie To likes using handheld camera, unlike Hollywood, which favor tracking, but using handheld camera is more flexible. David Bordwell also thinks that Hong Kong productions are not meticulous enough, such as the hotel scene in “Exiled.” Turns out that the “hotel” was a set on the roof of Johnnie To’s production company, and he thinks that it’s too sloppy.

Original Chinese text is here.

The entry that report is referring to is here, and here are the mistakes the reporter at Ming Pao made:

The report writes that Johnnie To prefers handheld, but this is what Professor Bordwell wrote:

“To’s art is furthered by his craftsmanship in shot composition. Composing in anamorphic (2.35:1), nearly always putting the camera on a tripod or dolly, he gets precise results with few lighting units. When I complained that all the new films I saw at Filmart were shot shakycam, Shan Ding reported a neat saying that HK DPs have. The handheld camera covers 3 mistakes: Bad acting, bad set design, and bad directing.”

The report also wrote that Professor Bordwell complained that the hotel set in Exiled shows the sloppiness of Hong Kong filmmaking, but there is no such complaining in his entry. This is what Professor Bordwell wrote in regard to the rooftop set:

“In another echo of old production methods, To’s films sometimes use rooftop sets. Last year the set for the hotel in Exiled was erected on the top of the Milkyway building. Its Demy-like pastels looked very artificial in daylight.”

Any complaining in there? I don’t see it. That’s why Hong Kong Chinese reporting should always be taken with a grain of salt.

There might be less news in the next few days because the Ching Yeung Festival got mixed in with the Easter holiday in Hong Kong, so they’re pretty much on public holidays all the way until the 10th. What does that mean? No Thursday and Sunday numbers from mov3.com, and maybe less news from Variety Asia, so look for fairly short entries from tomorrow til next week.

- Let’s face it, my knowledge of Japanese animation and comics are quite minimal. I’ve heard of the name Tetsujin 28 here and there, including the live-action adaptation that opened when I was studying in Japan. But apparently a new Tetsujin 28 film opened this past weekend, but since it’s a relatively small production, the distributor decided to play it at one theater in Tokyo (followed by a tour around Japan, perhaps of the same print) for only a week with 5 showings a day, then decreasing to one morning and one late show a day after that. What they didn’t expect was that the film managed to attract 1291 people the first 2 days for the 133-people auditorium. At 5 shows a day, that means each show attracted 129.1 people, that’s full capacity right there. Apparently, a lot of the audience, primarily late 20-30s male who were fans of the anime, bought advanced tickets, which convinced the theatre to add matinee shows for one week. So now that it’s a hit, what now?

- As reported last week, the president of KTV, the broadcaster behind the drawn-out natto scandal, has resigned, but that only means that he’s now a director without voting rights on the board. What does that mean? It means he still gets paid, under lower salary, and with less power.

- I also mentioned a few days ago the Andy Lau fan madness saga. Anyone that wants a fairly comprehensive wrap-up and a look at the next step for the mentally unstable Yang family shouldn’t hesitate to look at the always informative EastSouthWestNorth blog. Yikes.

- After watching Love@First Note, the Gold Label-produced stinker with the equally overrated Justin Lo (that’s right, I went there), I placed Dennis Law so high up my director’s blacklist that I still can’t get myself to watch Fatal Contact yet. Then again, he did produce the Election movies, which may just mean good things for his latest producing gig - Herman Yau’s Gong Tau. But somehow I can’t help but think Twitch’s expectations for it may be a tad too high.

- New on the list of “not very good producers” is RTHK, who refused to allow Yan Yan Mak’s film “August Story” to screen at the Hong Kong International Film Festival because Mak put together the 62-minute “long version” from a 22-minute short film that RTHK commissioned her to do. At first, RTHK refused the existence of the film because Mak never received official permission to make it, then they said she can show only the 22-minute version along with 2 other films in the series of short films, and now the film festival people just flat out decided to pull it because RTHK won’t budge. With RTHK in hot waters lately, I’m not so sure if they should be making any more enemies these days.

- Am I the only that thinks the Pang Brothers should take a step back and chill? I’m already behind on 4 Pang films - Recycle, The Messengers, Diary, and Forest of Death, all of them are thrillers with maybe some horror mixed in. Do something else, guys - comedy (I know you did one of those), romance, dramas, something else other than horror, and do them slowly. Looks like I’ll be behind on a 5th one, if the film in this sales flyer is coming out anytime soon.

- I mentioned two or three days ago about Rules of Dating director Han Jae-Rim’s latest The Show Must Go On. Well, now Variety has an English review of it all the way from Hong Kong International Film Fest.

- Jackie Chan is looking for a successor that isn’t named Jaycee, and he’s looking hard. You can try too.

That’s it for today. Remember, no Hong Kong numbers for the weekend, but I can predict how the Easter box office will go tomorrow.

- Let’s start with those Oricon rankings today. On the singles side, Kobukuro scored their first number 1 single with Tsubomi, the theme song for Tokyo Tower the drama (it’s a good song worth checking out, just don’t tell anyone I sent you), which jumped up from last week’s second place debut. Meanwhile, new singles from Shibasaki Kou and Bonnie Pink debuted only at 8th and 9th place, respectively. Next week, it looks like Glay’s latest single will come up and dethrone the pop duo, but let’s worry about that next week.

As for the monthly singles chart (for the month of March), the pesky Flower boys continue their invasion of the consuming public with its two theme songs taking over the charts. As expected, Utada Hikaru’s Flavor of Life is number one with nearly 500,000 copies sold, while Arashi’s Love So Sweet is at second place.

On the albums side, Ai Otsuka’s compilation album “Ai Am Best” (ha ha, I get it) knocked Mr. Children of its high horse by selling 350,000 copies, while Mr. Children gets knocked down to second place. Compilation albums don’t have a history of staying strong, so expect it Ai’s to slide down the rankings fairly quickly. Meanwhile, M-Flo’s latest album “Cosmicolor” debuts with an OK 76,000 copies for its first week. Next week, expect young rockster YUI’s album to hit number one.

For the month of March, Mr. Children was obviously the winner, selling 693,000 copies of its latest album. The rest of the top 10 were no slouches, either - Ayumi’s double CD compilation managed to sell a combined 1.3 million copies (roughly 620,000 each), Exile’s latest sold 389,000 copies, and even Shiina Ringo’s latest sold 155,000 copies, about 2000 more than Mika Nakashima’s latest.

- What else do we have from Oricon on this fine day? Those drama satisfaction ratings! The Flower boys are number one with 81.8 points, the long-running 5th series Aibou is in 2nd place with 80.2 points, the family epic/ratings winner Karei Naru Ichizoku is at a close 3rd with 79.5 points, sleeper hit Haken no Hinkaku is in 4th with 77.5 points, and the rest of the ranking is here.

- Korea Pop War returns with the Korean box office from this past weekend, where the 300 ruled again.

- I meant it when I said we have a lot of pictures to look at today. For one, we have three posters/promo materials from Twitch. First, we have the poster for Feng Xiaogang’s The Assembly, which looks…..kinda cheap. Then we have the sales flyer for the Benny Chan-helmed Nicholas Tse-starrer Invisible Target, which looks extremely cool. Lastly, we have Joe Ma (Is this “Love Undercover” Joe Ma Wai-ho?) and his Japaense/Hong Kong co-production of Sasori.

- Speaking of pictures, we also have a picture of Taiwanese pop star Rainie Yang apologizing again for remarks she made about the Sino-Japanese war on a Taiwan TV show, which angered those pesky Chinese netizens. Of course, then she takes it too far and starts reading the history book that was given to her at the press conference. Er…..

- Hong Kong is not only passing out awards at its International Film Festival, where the Malaysian film “Love Conquers All” got the big prize, but also the RTHK award for the best films in light of the 10th anniversary of the handover. Infernal Affairs got best film and best screenplay, while Johnnie To won best director for The Mission (!!!!!). More details over at Variety Asia.

- Hoga News has a report on two new films, one of which is Yuko Takeuchi’s first film after her divorce with kabuki bad boy Shido Nakamura.

- The NHK special I mentioned on Miyazaki showed here in the US on TV Japan last week. It was an episode of the “The Professonials” series where NHK cameras follow a professional something for a while, and this episode happened to be on Mr. Miyazaki. The last 15 minutes I watched featured him watching son Goro’s Tales from Earthsea (which he opposed to Goro directing), complimenting that it was “well-directed in a straightforward manner,” walking out of the screening for a smoke, go to the country to brainstorm his latest (while smoking some more, of course), then as of the beginning of March, drawing Ponyo on the Cliff (his latest film).

Why am I mentioning this? Because Goro’s much-hated (though it made about $80 million in Japan alone) Tales From Earthsea is coming to DVD in Japan in July. What about the US, you say? It’s stuck because the Sci-Fi Channel (the schlockmasters that bring us cheap sci-fi flicks and Stargate episodes) holds the right to the story until 2009, so it won’t be until after 2009 that Studio Ghibli’s Tales From Earthsea can be seen.

- I like Media Asia because they released Isabella and Exiled, two of my favorite films from 2006 that both sadly flopped. But then they also released 2 Become 1 and Confession of Pain, which makes them not one of my favorite film studios in HK. Sadly, because of their wish to be makes of huge blockbuster, they are now losing money and now being bought out by another firm that’s owned by the same guy. Now they’ll become a private company, and maybe make better movies?

- Jason Gray has a tidbit on a part of Japanese cinema that I know nothing about (the films of Tanaka Noboru) and the recently-revived Yubari Film Festival.

- I couldn’t resist a movie with a name like this: Self-Defense Force Zombies.

- Meanwhile, the Korean Film Council seems determined to continue cultivating new talents. Way to go, South Korea! Oh, they want them overseas? Maybe not so good…

- Professor Bordwell is back with another entry from Hong Kong, where he praises Wo Hu as better than Protege and Dog Bite Dog…..whhaaaaa? It’s OK, he’s still awesome.

- China is seeing its first series about homosexuals, good for them! But it might not make it past the censors, although it will broadcast online. I honestly don’t know who would expect them to get past the mainland censors when even Hong Kong people couldn’t accept public broadcaster RTHK’s 30-minute documentary on homosexuals. Good try, though.

- There are two reviews out there for Danny Boyle’s Sunshine, which opens this week in some countries including Hong Kong. One calls it terrific and extraordinary, the other calls it an atmospheric thriller that’s gripping for two-thirds of the voyage.

- Variety also has reviews of the Death Note saga (which I generally agree since he’s watching it at a non-fan perspective like I did) and Bubble Fiction: Boom or Bust, which played at the Hong Kong International Film Festival.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The original Chinese text is here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

在不公平的制度下，怎可能叫人用心創作？

How can people create under an unfair system?

好劇本不必然是用錢買的，優良創作環境，才最重要。

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

Original Chinese text is here.