You know the procedure for Wednesdays - it’s the Oricon charts!

- We’ll first look at the monthly rankings for June. On the singles chart, it’s no surprise that Kat-tun’s latest won, but I’m a little surprised that it won by such a large margin. Released on June 6th, the single sold 332,000 copies within the month of June, despite the song sucking quite hard. Meanwhile, the only two songs that are not new releases on the top ten are Keisuke Kuwata’s Ashita Hareru Kana and new band GReeeeN’s Ai Uta, both of which saw rising sales from the previous month.

Meanwhile, the competition on the album charts is a little closer, as Mariya Takeuchi’s latest album sold 357,000 copies in the month of June after being released on May 23rd. Not too far behind is Johnny’s Entertainment’s Kanjani, who sold 226,000 copies of their latest after it was released on June 6th. Zard’s last compilation album “Golden Best” sold an additional 155,000 copies due to the untimely death of singer Izumi Sakai. Sad for J-pop, 4 of the albums on the top 10 are American albums from Linkin Park, Avril Lavinge, Maroon 5, and Ne-Yo, respectively.

On to the weekly charts. On the singles side, Erika Sawajiri’s first single as herself debuted at the top spot, but with a fairly weak sales figure of 50,000 copies. Sawajiri is now the first female artist to have her first two singles debut at number 1 since Hiroko Yakushimaru became the first female artist to do it in the early 80s. Not very far behind is the much-touted new single from young artist Ayaka, who just announced she will hold a concert at the famous Budokan in December. Despite all the hoopla surrounding the song’s release, it only sold 38,600 copies in its first week. Still, I actually like the song quite a bit. Meanwhile, high-pitch boy band w-inds’ new single, which is apparently the Japanese theme for Shrek the Third, only mustered a 4th place debut after selling 28,7000 copies. As for returning singles, Koda Kumi’s latest lost about 67% of its first-week sales with only 35,000 copies sold this week, and Ketsumeishi’s latest suffered similar damage with their latest single as well. If daily rankings hold up (and they usually do), then the new single by a collaboration known as the Golden Circle should win the week with very weak sales.

As for the album chart this week, Namie Amuro’s latest also suffered a 64% drop in sales, selling only 90,500 copies despite staying at the top spot. In comparison, GReeeeN’s debut album lost only roughly 35% in sales for their second week, selling 85,700 copies at a close second place. Meanwhile, Zard’s Golden Best sells another 32,200 copies, while R&B/ballad pop act Melody, who I’ll always know as the girl in that cool M-Flo song, sees her latest album debut at 6th place with only 22,000 copies sold. Get ready for Arashi’s latest album to blow away all competition by the end of the week.

- As we reported yesterday, Andrew Lau/Alan Mak’s Confession of Pain arrived dead on arrival in Japan. On its opening weekend, the film made 23.7 million yen. That’s only 27% of the opening for Daisy and 54% of the opening for Infernal Affairs III. Eiga Consultant sees it as a failure of Ayumi Hamasaki’s theme song to bring audiences in, but I see it as a freefall of Takeshi Kaneshiro’s popularity in Japan. Even teaming up with who is arguably one of Asia’s top actors couldn’t lift this thing up. Then again, the movie isn’t all that great.

- Just a little preview of Friday’s Hong Kong box office report - Harry Potter is going to be huge, just look at the IMAX presales. Those tickets are twice the price of a normal ticket. Red means sold out, by the way.

- Twitch has a ton of reviews from the Fantasia - Dog Bite Dog, The Restless, Kim Ki-Duk’s Time, Hazard, and The Show Must Go On.

- Meanwhile, Variety reviews the Japanese-Chinese co-production The Longest Night in Shanghai, which this blogger actually would like to watch.

- This can’t be real, right? Dicky Cheung, best known as Hong Kong television’s answer to Stephen Chow, is starring as the Monkey King in a Hollywood film after he played the famous character in two different television dramas.

- In an attempt to search out for new inspirations for films, a popular blog about a group of students’ war of pranks with a local resident in a rural town is being adapted into a film. If it all goes well, I bet you they’ll be making various versions of TV as well. Then again, the film is being directed by Renpei Tsukamoto, whose last theatrical work is One Missed Call 2.

- There’s a new trailer for Benny Chan’s Hong Kong actioner Invisible Target online, except it just have a little bit more plot and it’s all dubbed in Mandarin. It didn’t get me anymore excited about the film than I already did, so watch at your own risk.

- The Tribeca Film Festival held a mini-edition in Beijing, and it seems to be a success, as it has attracted not just over-glamourized celebrities, but hip film buffs as well.

- MTV and Motorola held a series of concerts featuring Taiwanese star Jay Chou and Chinese star Cui Jian to remind people that music comes from real musical talent, not just getting lucky on some talent show. Wow, so MTV actually promotes music anywhere that’s NOT the United States.

- After all the pushing and pulling and the rumoring, the producer of John Woo’s Battle of Red Cliff has confirmed that Chow Yun-Fat will simply not be joining the production in any capacity.

- In DVD news, Studio Ghibli’s Tales From Earthsea is coming is a cheaper Hong Kong DVD on July 20th, while the Korean dark comedy Driving With My Wife’s Lover, which I linked a review for a while ago, is coming out in August. I actually want to watch both, despite the less-than-good reputation for Earthsea.

- The Thai government is just pissing off everyone in the Thai entertainment industry, as even the TV industry has come out against the new ratings system. They argue the new system, which they say was thought up without any careful consideration, will restrict artistic freedom and impossible to put into practice. Case in point: A program is rated PG if it contains “use of wrong grammar not used for comic effect.” Man, that’s worse than China.

Seems like I accidentally used this title for yesterday’s Song of the Day, my apologies.

- The Japan box office numbers are out on Box Office Mojo….kind of. They have a bunch of numbers and percentages, but I’m guessing that because not all the distributors delivered their numbers, so the rankings are somewhat incomplete. The only conclusions I can make out is that 1) No film took a real big hit. Not even Pirates of the Caribbean, which just would. not. go. away. and 2) Confession of Pain preformed pretty disappointingly, despite the presence of Takeshi Kaneshiro. Is he just not that popular in Japan?

On the arthouse side, the Finnish film Lights in the Dark by Aki Kurismaki. The only reasons I’m writing about the performance of this film are 1) it actually looks really interesting, and 2) The advertising suggests that director Kurismaki has some kind of small following in Japan. Anyway, the 2006 Cannes contender opened in one small theatre in Shibuya on the 7th, and attracted 703 admissions for an even 1 million yen gross on the opening day. With a capacity of 145 and 5 shows a day, that means each show had an average capacity of 97%, which is pretty damn good.

- Lovehkfilm has a couple of new reviews - The Milkyway “Handover commemoration” comedy-drama Hooked On You, the Barbara Wong-directed official “Handover film” Wonder Women, plus a review of A Ball Shot By a Midget (don’t let the name turn you off, it’s really pretty good) and Resurrection of Golden Wolf by yours truly.

- MTV and EMI asks all Asian songwriters and aspiring directors: “Are you proud to be Chinese?” I certainly hope this song isn’t the winner.

- Despite bad word-of-mouth pretty much anywhere it played, Studio Ghibli’s Tales From Earthsea managed to sell 147,000 copies the first week and is the best first-week sales of any animated DVD this year.

- After Tokyo International Film Festival found a new programmer, the AFI festival in Los Angeles found themselves a new artistic director too.

- Even though it’s easy to attack the Hong Kong print media for spending most of their pages on celebrity gossips, you can actually find some little pieces of news that matter. For example, while this report is about Hong Kong stars Gigi Leung and Lau Ching-Wan having to lose weight for their respective upcoming film roles, you also learn that Wai Ka-Fai is making a new movie starring Lau as a blind man this August.

- The hit drama Nodame Cantabile is coming back for a two-part drama special in January. Next stop: the movie? For those people in Hong Kong that hasn’t downloaded it yet (I’m sure there are a few of you out there), this will be showing on TVB in August.

- TV Tokyo is under fire for biased reporting of the upcoming elections for the House of Councilors. News agenda exists, but I doubt that TV Tokyo is the only TV station that has it.

- Hollywood continues their formulaic filmmaking by finding ways to either continuing franchises or starting new ones. I swear, I’ll never watch another Harry Potter film if they manage to just make one up out of thin air.

- MK Pictures, most well-known for producing Korean director Kang Je-Gyu’s Shiri and Taegukgi (if you know Korean films, you should know these films anyway), has been bought up by cable TV. One of the people who sold his shares? Kang Je-Gyu.

- The promotion for Wilson Yip’s Flash Point has started in Hong Kong, and is it quite possible that they’re centering the promotion on Louis Koo? No way, Donnie Yen’s bus is probably right behind it, probably with a larger close-up too.

- I totally missed it when it got reported on Tokyograph, but the troubled Yubari Film Festival is finally coming back in March.

- In the Sunday box office numbers from Hong Kong, Hollywood films split the box office booty as Die Hard 4.0 wins the day with HK$1.64 million on 51 screens for a so-called “4-day total” (it already had a week of previews) of HK$11.46 million. Not far behind is Shrek 3, which played on the same amount of screens and made another HK$1.59 million for a 11-day total of HK$17.25 million. Farther behind is the handover commemoration film from Milkyway Hooked on You, which is still going relatively strong by making HK$600,000 on 30 screens for a per-screen average of HK$20,000. After 11 days, the Miriam Yeung/Eason Chan starrer has made HK$7.1 million, and might even cross the champagne-worthy HK$10 million mark.

Meanwhile, this week’s Hong Kong opener Wonder Women, which opened on a lackluster 12 screens, bounced back a little bit from its soft opening to make HK$210,000 for a 4-day total of HK$660,000. Robert Rodriguez’s Grindhouse segment Planet Terror made only HK$180,000 on 15 screens for a 4-day total of HK$840,000. This would probably be because of the subject matter and the category-III rating (no one under 18 admitted). On its 20th day of release, Hong Kong comedy Simply Actors made HK$140,000 on 20 screens for a HK$9.13 million average. It’s not very likely this will pass the HK$10 million mark. Lastly, Julie Delpy’s Two Days in Paris continues to play strongly on its 4-screen limited release, making HK$70,000 for an 11-day total of HK$70,000.

US$1=HK$7.8

This week, the Harry Potter movie opens in Hong Kong, which pushes everything out of the way. This one is especially big because it’ll be the first major IMAX film to play in Hong Kong’ spanking-new IMAX theater, and lines for advanced tickets have already gotten quite huge.

- In South Korea, Transformers remained very very strong, losing only 2% in total market shares this past weekend. It’s also looking to break the attendance record for a foreign film, which was set by the final Lord of the Rings film at 6 million (Tranformers has already hit 4.2 mil). For how everything else is doing, check out Korea Pop Wars.

Meanwhile, Hollywood Reporter beats a dead horse on the declining local film industry in Korea.

- In Japan audience rankings, just about every film stays where they are, except for the entry of Dolphin Blue starring Kenichi Matsuyama at number 7 and Andrew Lau/Alan Mak’s Confession of Pain at only number 8. More numbers tomorrow from Box Office Mojo.

- In Japan drama ratings (yes, a majority of the Summer 2007 season has started), Fuji’s comic adaptation Hana Gi Kari No Kimi Tachi He (which, like Hana Yori Dango, was first made into a successful live-action drama in Taiwan) started ok with a 15.9 rating (roughly 10.3 million viewers). That’s lower than the premiere for TBS’ Hana Yori Dango, which opened with an 18.3 rating back in fall 2005. TBS’ Jigoku No Sata Mo Yome Shitai, which sounds eerily similar to the TV Asahi drama Erai Tokoro Ni Toide Shimatta, premiered with only a 13.7 rating (roughly 8.9 million viewers) up directly against TV Asahi’s third installment of Kikujiro to Saki (based on Takeshi Kitano’s childhood), which premiered with an even weaker 10.9 rating (roughly 7.1 million viewers).

By request, the Misaki Ito/Kyoko Fukada Fuji Thursday drama Yama Onna Kabe Onna does OK with a 14.1 premiere (Last season drama in that time slot, Watashi Tachi No Kyokasho, premiered with a 14.2 rating), scoring roughly 9.2 million viewers. At the same time slot is TBS’ Katagoshi No Koibito, which premiered with a 10.2 rating (roughly 6.6 million viewers, which is even lower than last season’s ratings poison Kodoku no Kake). The highest-rated debut this season so far is TBS’ Yamada Taro Monogatari, which stars two members of Arashi and takes up the old Hana Yori Dango timeslot. It premiered with a 17.4 rating (roughly 11.3 million viewers). The two dramas that are already in their second weeks , Fuji’s Life (their second in the successful Saturday 11pm time slot) and Papa To Musume No Nanakakan, are both holding up well. Life actually saw an increase in viewership, going from the premiere’s 11.0 rating to this past week’s 11.7 rating (roughly 7.6 million viewers). However, it’s still performing weaker than last season’s surprise hit Liar Game. On the other hand, Papa To Musume No Nanakakan, which was praised by the Daily Yomiuri this past weekend, saw only a small drop from 14.0 to 12.8 (roughly 8.3 million viewers) for its second episode.

Whew. I’m covering less drama ratings next week. Just leave a comment if you want me to cover a specific drama.

All Summer 2007 drama information here.

- According to the Hong Kong Film Blog, Derek Kwok’s The Pye-Dog, which was supposed to be released back in May, is now eyeing a September release date. However, someone in the comment section writes that it might even be looking at November. The mystery continues.

- In my continuing love for the Japanese government advisory panel that is encouraging wider distribution of Japanese entertainment, they have asked DVD recorder manufacturers to allow the limit for copying programs on DVDs be increased to nine from the current one. In other words, if you recorded something from a digital broadcast, you can only copy it onto a DVD once. Now, that limit is being upped to nine, in case the user fails to burn it completely. This is already after a compromise by the panel, who initially ordered that limit be removed.

- Twitch has a full trailer for Kenneth Bi’s The Drummer. Considering I didn’t like Rice Rhapsody very much, this film is actually looking very promising ever since I started following its production on Bi’s blog.

- Although the launch of the reinvented Bangkok International Film Festival has been a little bumpy, the Bangkok Film Market is going very well, with all the booths on the market floor already taken.

- Jay Chou’s directorial debut Secrets isn’t coming out until the end of this month, so I can’t say whether this is good news or bad news. But apparently Jay found the experience rewarding enough for him to say that he prefers directing over acting. Then again, someone with an ego like Chou probably can’t resist acting in his own films anyway.

- The New York Asian Film Festival (who I named one of the winners of the week in the Podcast) has ended, and Memories of Matsuko ended up taking the audience award!

- Twitch has a review of Invisible City, the Singaporean documentary that I wrote about two weeks ago.

- Lastly, my feature article about Hong Kong filmmakers that emerged in the last ten years is up. My most sincere thanks (and apologies) to the Yesasia editorial team for their work to get it to its current form.

- This week, Japan Times reviews the Ryuichi Hiroki(who also made Vibrator) film Koisuru Nichiyoubi - Koi Shita (Thanks to Ryuganji for the link this week, because it wasn’t found from the Japan Times film review listing for some reason). Made under a project for the satellite channel BS-i, the film is currently playing at a Shibuya theatre. However, it actually opened last month at another theater in Shinjuku already, and only saw 1025 admissions/1.37 million yen. Since the theater has a capacity of 330, that means the shows aren’t even half-full on average. However, unlike other television-financed blockbusters, the experimental project is meant to show off new talents with commercial genres.

- Meanwhile, the Daily Yomiuri have reviews of Andrew Lau/Alan Mak’s Confession of Pain (which opens this weekend in Japan with a better trailer, despite some inaccurate subtitles. Japan Times also reviews it, though reviewer Kaori Shoji incorrectly identifies Andrew Lau as the sole director.), Pedro Almodovar’s Volver, and of course - the new Harry Potter movie, which seems to be drawing the most negative reviews of the series. They also give a very enthusiastic review for the new drama “Papa To Musume No Nanakakan,” which seems more like a idea stolen from Walt Disney’s 1976 film Freaky Friday (it was even remade a few years ago, so the TBS guys have no excuse)

- I found a very interesting Chinese blog on Hong Kong cinema that covers everything from films to theaters to ticket inflation. Recently, the blogger looked at why Simply Actors (starring Jim Chim and Charlene Choi) did so much business its opening week, except for the fact that it opened on a public holiday. Turns out the promotional campaign includes three different types of HK$10 off coupons that are good for different days of the opening week, which may mean lower box office gross, but also means more incentive for people to go to the theater. It’s even cheaper than buying a VCD, for crying out loud.

- In DVD news, the Japanese comic adaptation film Nana 2, which flopped pretty horribly at the box office last winter, is coming to an English-subtitled Hong Kong region 3 DVD on July 12th. Also, the DVD for Han Jae-Rim’s The Show Must Go On is coming to Korean region 3 DVD on July 19th.

- Prepare to see Yoji Yakusho everywhere when you head off to the Japan International Contents Festival this fall, because the actor has been chosen as the face of the festival.

- Alexi Tan’s Blood Brothers, also produced by John Woo and Terence Chang, is slates to have its world premiere as the closing film at the Venice Film Festival in September. But what is this whole thing about it being a remake of Woo’s Bullet in the Head?

- In the first half of 2007, Korean cinema took up only a 47.3% share of the total theatrical market at home, which is its lowest since 2001. In comparison, Korean films took a 60% market share in 2006. I’ve said before, plenty of countries outside the United States would kill for that kind of numbers. Yes, even the 47.3 % one.

- Considering that it’s over on Monday, this news is a little late, but this year’s Taipei International Film Festival seems to have the largest Chinese cinema lineup in all of Asia. It even has Hou Hsiao-Hsien sitting on top!

Tomorrow, Podcast and more and more news.

Saw the new Disney/Pixar film Ratatouille today, and had a great time as expected. Of course, I was especially excited to see this because it marked Brad Bird’s first film since The Incredibles, which was also the last Pixar film I wanted to see (I still haven’t seen Cars yet). It’s less “action-packed” than The Incredibles, which can be expected since it’s about a rat who becomes a chef, but there are still some really exciting sequences here that shows how far computer animation has come. The best part is that as excitedly real as it looks at times, the animators still have their feet firmly planted on fantasy land, with rats that walk on two feet and emote as if they’re human. And the writing is again top notch, with great comedy bits and even instances of subverted cliches. The rat clan on the move scenes do get a little goosebump-inducing, but like the usual Pixar films, this is a ton of fun to watch.

- As always, we start with the Hong Kong Thursday opening day box office numbers. The “official” opening day for Die Hard 4.0 was a little lackluster, making “only” HK$740,000 on 51 screens after the weeklong preview made HK$6.36 million. Shrek 3 will remain a viable competitor this weekend, as it made another HK$600,000 on 51 screens for an 8-day total of HK$13.37 million. Hooked On You might seeing a fair drop this weekend, making only HK$350,000 on 32 screens on Thursday. I don’t see it doing any better than HK$500,000 per day over the weekend. After 8 days, it has earned HK$5.46 million, which means it should end up being a moderate earner, but not a homerun by any means.

Remember I said Wonder Woman might be a huge hit? I was dead wrong, especially when I found out it only opened on 12 screens on Thursday. What’s worse is that it only made HK$90,000, despite film critic Shek Ki giving it a very positive review on Ming Pao daily yesterday (no link, sorry). The weekend’s third opener, Robert Rodriguez’s Grindhouse segment Planet Terror, actually did better than Wonder Women and made HK$140,000 on 15 screens, despite the no-one-under-18 category III rating.

- The Korean summer hit Black House is heading to Japan in October. Unlike other Korean films, this one might actually have a fanbase in Japan because it was based on a Japanese novel. Hell, they’re even putting on a wide release of 250 screens.

- The Tokyo International Film Festival has picked a new programmer for the Winds of Asia section, which promotes young talents from Asia. He wants to expand the scope to South, Middle, and Central Asia. Why doesn’t he just say “the rest of Asia” instead?

- After a theatre in Tokyo found enormous success with their screenings of the hit Korean drama Hotelier, the theatre is going back for some more Yong-sama classics. Starting on Tuesday, the theatre is screening each week two episodes of the complete version of Winter Sonata, THE drama that started the Korean wave in Japan. The theatre first decided to play it on three of their screens simultaneously, but when the tickets were quickly sold out, they will now play it on all their screens except one. The power of Yong-sama prevails.

- On a related note, overseas sales of Korean TV programs, mostly dramas, has seen increase in some markets. However, it also saw a decrease in key markets such as China, Japan, and Taiwan.

- The New York Asian Film Festival is winding down, and Asian Cinema - While on the Road uploads another report, this time about the screening of the Pakistani zombie horror flick Hell’s Ground and hanging out with hip Asian directors on the 4th of July.

More news throughout the weekend as they come in. And remember the Podcast on Sunday.

- Director Satoshi Miki’s The Insects Unlisted in the Encyclopedia (review by Japan Times, and more info from Ryuganji) first got attention because it’s Oscar nominated actress Rinko Kikuchi’s first post-Oscar role (more on her later). But as the release date approached, the film picked up attention due to its director. Miki Satoshi got his start on TV doing variety shows. While he made his film debut in 2005, he went back to TV, writing and directing the cult favorite drama Jikou Keisatsu. At least it was popular enough to bring it back for a second run this past Spring season, and it became the most “satisfying” drama of the season (trust me, those rankings held up throughout the season, although the ranking came from right after its start). The popularity of the show has now come to explain the film’s relative success at one Tokyo theater. Opening on June 23rd, the opening day drew 772 admissions and grossed 1.19 million yen(4 shows a day, with a capacity of 218). For the entire week, it drew 2842 admissions, grossing 4.17 million yen at that theater alone. Even though it’s nowhere near full capacity, this is still better than Miki’s debut film Into the Pool.

- In addition to Insects, Rinko Kikuchi also stars in a new “web movie” for a popular cosmetics brand. However, the idea itself is better than the actual film, and try not to let Rinko’s hair distract you too much.

- In “Who cares Hollywood hasn’t sold us the rights yet?” news today, China’s Zonbo Media is going ahead with production for the Chinese version of the American series Prison Break, except 1) The production company states that it has nothing to do with the hit Fox series, and 2) Fox has denied ever selling the rights to China, even though Zonbo Media said they bought it. Huh…..

- The Bangkok International Film Festival, who hit yet another snag when the government took away its opening film Persepolis to maintain friendly relations with Iran and stave off the Muslim insurgency, decided to put in the Children of Glory as its new opening film. Apparently it’s about “the bloodiest water polo match in history.” What?

- Kenji Uchida, who made a brilliant debut with Unmei Janai Hito (Stranger of Mine), is moving on up with his follow-up film After School, about a teacher who searches for her childhood friend with a private detective. Just started shooting last week, the film has 7 times the budget of Stranger of Mine, though it’s still at a fairly small 180 million yen.

- The first Kansai Film Festival is starting late next month. Don’t worry, you don’t have to make a film about the Kansai region to get in, you just have to be a foreign director making a film in or about Japan.

- In DVD news today, Twitch announces the pre-order for the South Korean sleeper hit Paradise Murdered, and the Hong Kong editions for Japanese films Retribution and Studio Ghibli’s Tales from Earthsea.

- I should have seen this coming. Fuji Television, who managed to milk the novel Tokyo Tower for all its worth by making a made-for-TV movie, a 11-episode drama, and a hit movie, is now bringing the 11 billion yen-hit family drama Bizan(review by Hollywood Reporter) to TV. Starring Takako Tokiwa, Bizan the mini-series will start shooting at the end of the month with no broadcasting date set.

- The South Korean theatre chain Megabox just opened its first multiplex in China, and plans to open two more in Bejing. Sorry, I’m just a nerd for theatre openings everywhere.

- Associated Press’s entertainment writer Min Lee reviews the new Milkyway thriller Eye in the Sky.

- The Cinefan festival in India is putting a focus on Japanese and Arabic films this year, including a tribute to director Kenji Mizoguchi.

- I posted a long time ago that even Japanese music tend to copy each other, but I couldn’t even find the songs. Now I have - check out Porno Graffiti’s Sister, Undergraph’s Tsubasa, and BoA’s Everlasting. I posted these in the order of the release - one copies the same musical pattern, and the other copies the chorus of another. All three were pop hits, and all three are kind of crappy. Then again, the point is that it happens everywhere.

Hong Kong was on public holiday Monday, which means no weekend box office figure until later tonight Pacific Time (Tuesday in HK) or even tomorrow night.

- On the other hand, the Japanese box office numbers are already out, and Box Office Mojo already has the comprehensive chart. Die Hard 4.0 takes the top spot with a strong 603 million yen from 741 screens. Adding the Saturday’s preview screenings’ take of 289 million yen, it has already made 892 million yen to date. However, its 814,000 yen per-screen average is kind of weak for an opening this wide (Spiderman 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean saw higher per-screen average on even higher screen counts). Meanwhile, Shrek 3 opens at third, making 363.8 million yen on 543 screens, which is much higher than Shrek 2’s opening of 284.8 million yen on 551 screens in 2004. If the performance pattern is similar to Shrek 2, this one should end up doing better than the previous film by about 25%.

Except for The Haunted Samurai, Maiko Haaaan!!!, and Pirates of the Caribbean, everything else took a pretty big hit, especially Spiderman 3’s 52.2% hit, Zodiac’s 40.1% hit, and Dai Nipponjin’s 43% drop (at least it passed the 1 billion yen mark). Lastly, Pedro Almodovar’s Volver missed the top 10 because it’s only playing on 40 screens. It only make 19 million yen.

- By the way, I forgot to report that the Akihi To Kamo No Coin Locker opening in Tokyo also marked the best opening for a Japanese film at that theater after last year’s Mamiya Brothers, and is the 7th best opening ever at the theater.

- After the financial failure of Ichikawa Kon’s self-remake of The Inugami Family earlier in the year, director Nobuhiko Oobayashi’s self-remake of his 1982 film Exchange Students also failed in its limited release. Originally the first part of the “Onomichi Trilogy” (the director’s hometown), the remake, named Tenkousei - Sayonara Anata, takes the film out of its original location to Nagano. On 30 screens, the film made only 5 million yen with only a 166,666 yen per-screen average. Perhaps these self-remakes aren’t very good ideas.

- Meanwhile, Kiroi Namida, the Isshin Inusou film starring Johnny’s boy group Arashi, opened in South Korea to a seemingly weak 16,000 admissions, only because it’s compared to Memories of Tomorrow’s 38,000 admissions and Tears For You’s 64,000 admissions for their respective opening weekends. However, there’s nothing about how many screens it opened on, considering that the film is considered less mainstream than its counterparts in Japan. However, Eiga Consultant also points out that the film actually didn’t even do all that well in Japan. While the film has finally broke the 200 million yen barrier, other films starring individual members of Arashi (such as Letters From Iwo Jima and Honey and Clover) has actually done much better.

- It’s kind of been reported before, but Pirates of the Caribbean has officially surpassed Spiderman 3 in worldwide gross. I’m reporting this because a bulk of that cash comes from Asia.

- Get it here first, the first full-length trailer for Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution, starring Tony Leung, Joan Chen, Leehom Wang, and newcomer Tang Wei, is everywhere on Youtube. A Chinese neonoir/political thriller? Sign me up.

Speaking of trailer, the full-length trailer for Paul Greengrass’ The Bourne Ultimatum is up, and it’s looking good. Could this deliver even better old-school movie magic action than Live Free or Die Hard? (HD links can be found at Dave’s Trailer Page)

- Since Shinya Tsukamoto’s Nightmare Detective was recently announced to be in production, I should probably link the latest review for the first film here.

- Lovehkfilm has updated with some reviews. First, Derek Kwok’s directorial debut The Pye-Dog with Eason Chan, then a review for Herman Yau’s direct-to-video film A True Mob Story (also his third release this year), and one for the Japanese heist/romance/true story First Love.

OK, there’s also one for sleazy low-budget exploitation flick Lethal Angels.

- Jason Gray has more about the Japanese documentary Campaign, including his interview with the director on The Midnight Eye and news of nightly English-subtitled screenings.

- Eason Chan and Miriam Yeung win big at the 7th Chinese Music Media Awards in Hong Kong. I’ve never even heard of this award in the first place, let alone the winners for the first 6 ceremonies.

- Naked News, the show where reporters literally remove pieces of clothing while reporting the latest news, is on an adult-oriented channel in Japan. Guess what? It’s also subsidized by the government.

- Variety has a review of the action film Dynamite Warrior, which Michael Wells wrote about after it screened at the New York Asian Film Festival.

- Associated Press, via the Daily Yomiuri, reports further about the death of master filmmaker Edward Yang.

- A while ago I reported about yet another censorship case involving Hong Kong’s Television and Entertainment Licensing Council. An essay in Hong Kong’s inMediaHK site included a picture from Flickr with nudity, prompting a warning from TELA that it might be sent to be classified as a category II indecent material. However, the writer refuses to budge (the irony is that the essay is actually about this Hong Kong witch-hunt of “indecent” material by conservative groups), and a month later, the essay has been classified as category II material, with the writer now at risk to pay fines and serve jail time.

Now, EastSouthWestNorth has translated the latest interview with the writer, who still refuses to give in to the ridiculous and ineffective censorship this government council is doing.

- Reuters introduces the Singaporean documentary Invisible City, featuring footages of a forgotten Singapore from the 1950s.

- Universal Music, one of the few record companies that is actually uploading their own artists’ music videos onto Youtube voluntarily, is refusing to draw a long-term licensing deal with Apple’s iTunes, which takes up 70% of the digital music market, because they pretty much want more money. According to Hongkie Town, Universal Music feels that iTunes isn’t charging enough for songs and is looking for another provider that would make them more money. And corporations wonder why people don’t like giving money to them.

- I’m obliged to start every entry with some box office news, and this one is no exception. Remember a month and a half ago I mentioned about the success of the indie film Ahini to Kamo No Coin Locker’s limited release in Sendai (Tokyo Times review)? The film has been playing in one Tokyo theater since last weekend, and it’s a genuine hit. In its first weekend, the film made 3.68 million yen, attracting 2192 admissions total. Even last-minute added late shows were completely full in the 232-people theater. Good for them.

- Also playing at the same theater is the haunting documentary The Bridge, which examines why people commit suicide through the examination of several people who jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge. I’ve seen parts of the film when it played on the Independent Film Channel, and anyone looking for shocking footage of people jumping (the crew shot the sides of the bridge for an entire year) will be disappointed because it’s really more about the effects of depression through interviews with friends and family. Anyway, Japan Times has a review of it, as well as an interview with filmmaker Eric Steel.

- Japan Times also has a review of the animated omnibus film Genius Party, featuring seven animated films from established talents not named Miyazaki, Otomo, and Oshii. I’m not going to pretend I know anything about it, so I’ll let Japan Times do that for me.

Lastly, Japan Times also has a review of Kichitaro Negishi’s Side Car Ni Inu starring Yuko Takeuchi.

- Then The Daily Yomiuri reviews the deceptively j-horror-looking thriller Kissho Tennyo, which features a really creepy-looking Anne Suzuki. Click on 予告編 to see the trailer.

- Legendary Hong Kong comic actor Michael Hui, who made a comeback of sorts with Joe Ma’s Three of a Kind (would his cameo in Fantasia count as the start of his comeback?) is making his first film since 1992’s The Magic Touch this October. He openly praised Miriam Yeung, Louis Koo, and Lau Ching-Wan for their comedic skills, though he has not expressed any wish to cast them. As long as it’s better than the immensely disappointing Three of a Kind, I’ll show up.

Original Chinese report here.

- The first Hong Kong film to be in the HD-format war (HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray) is……[drum rolls]Infernal Affairs, and it’s coming on Blu-Ray. I’m sure the film will look nice, but I remember through my subsequent visits on DVD that aurally it’s just really unnecessarily loud.

- Man, those Japanese really know how to sell a movie. Their website for the disappointing Confession of Pain is up, and the url is www.drywhisky.com (trust me, you’ll get it when you see the movie). Hell, they even make the trailer look better than the Hong Kong one by incorporating actual music from the film….well, except for that ridiculous theme song by Ayumi Hamasaki. But the movie is partly funded by Avex (Hamasaki’s record company), so whatever. Man, that trailer actually make me want to see the movie.

- Oh, no, China doesn’t want porn on its internet!!!! No “unpatriotic words,” no foreign news source, and now no porn? Soon they’re going to be able to make a list of what they DO allow on the internet.

- In addition to Tokyograph’s Summer 2007 drama preview, Daily Yomiuri has their own preview of the upcoming season, and they don’t just write about dramas. Did you know Billy “Tae Bo” Blanks is now a hit in Japan?

- Lastly, but very certainly not the least, Shinji Nakae, most famous in recent years as the narrator for the Japanese variety program Trivia No Izumi (Fountain of Trivia), has passed away at the age of 73. His narration, to me, was the perfect match for the silly deadpan humor of the show, and he will be very much missed.

I was messing around with Audacity to plan for this weekend’s podcast, and I’ve already started planning it. Looks like I might put in some music after all. Anyway, review first:

Saw the latest Die Hard movie today in a 65-75% full house. I love the Die Hard franchise, though my love extends to only the first and the third movies. This time, Len “I can’t even make a cool comic idea entertaining” Wiseman takes the helm and actually directs the action quite capably. I’m very appreciative that he actually bothered to make most of the action look real (even the flipping car in the tunnel that you see in the trailer is actually real), although they’re over-the-top to an extreme. Also appreciative to see a few Asian-American actors, though I’m not sure if I’m comfortable with Maggie Q being THE character that can fight well with the generic Asian name.

After a while, I realize just how bored Wiseman was when he filmed all those dialogue scenes. He was probably so bored that in one scene, he just picked up the camera and just moved it a lot in close-ups to make it look “dynamic.” That, plus the unusual instances of obvious ADR (dubbing in post-production), just says how much the crew was into making the non-action stuff, which is not very. The violence, which people were worried about because of the PG-13 rating, actually isn’t all that watered down - the death count is still pretty high and there are a couple of groaners, even though they are mostly bloodless (no, Bruce Willis with a couple of wound doesn’t count as lots of blood. Him walking through a bathroom filled with broken glass on the floor, THAT’S bloody). If anything, it just shows the failure of the PG-13 rating since the Die Hard franchise was never made for kids in the first place, and the violence here is still R-worthy, with or without blood. Plus, the way they toned down his signature line (motherf*cker=instant R-rating!) just feels forced.

I think watching this just ended up proving how great of an action director John McTiernan was, because the third Die Hard film was genuinely funnier, more exciting, better shot, and even smarter than Live Free or Die Hard. Hell, I’ll even forgive him for Basic….though not Rollerball. And I liked The Last Action Hero, sue me. Live Free or Die Hard may be a ton of fun, but Die Hard it ain’t. Well, at least Japan Times loved it, even if it gets a couple of plot details wrong.

In North America, it goes up against the new Disney/Pixar flick Ratatouille this weekend, but it did do fairly well on its opening day, making US$9 million. Since the action flick is appealing to older male, and the Pixar flick is appealing to families, I think they’ll both end up doing well, especially since they are both going to have pretty good word-of-mouth.

Die Hard is having an entire weekend of sneak previews in Hong Kong until it officially opens on July 4th to take advantage of the holiday weekend. However, it only made HK$480,000 on 34 screens, which is a solid but unspectacular opening day. Nevertheless, looking at the Broadway website, the online booking is picking up for the weekend, so it might end up doing pretty well.

No one released the numbers for the sneak previews last weekend in Japan, so I expect this weekend’s numbers to be inflated a little bit since the preview numbers will probably be counted into the opening weekend total as well.

- Judging by the Thursday opening day numbers, this weekend looks to be fairly busy at the Hong Kong box office. In addition to the Die Hard previews, Shrek 3 and the Milkyway comedy Hooked On You are also out to take advantage of the long holiday weekend. Shrek 3 managed to get a very healthy HK$1.29 million gross on 49 screens, though I’m not sure how the screens are split between the Cantonese and English versions. Hooked On You also managed a healthy take of HK$580,000 on 32 screens, which should ensure a solid weekend take. Limited release 2 Days in Paris by Julie Delpy made HK$50,000 on a limited 4-screen release and should pick up the hip 20-40 arthouse audience this weekend.

On the other hand, there’s no telling how holdovers from last weekend will do. Simply Actors made another HK$310,000 on 29 screens for HK$6.47 million after 10 days and should maintain an over-HK$10,000 per-screen average this weekend. However, Eye in the Sky made only HK$120,000 on 27 screens for the current 8-day total of HK$2.86 million. Hopefully, it’ll do solid business over the weekend again to lift it over HK$4 million. But even then, Eye in the Sky remains a commercial failure, any way you look at it.

- The Harry Potter reviews by the two big Hollywood trade papers, and they are both kind of negative. Hollywood Reporter’s Kirk Honeycutt doesn’t have much to say, except that it’s the least enjoyable film of the bunch. Variety’s Todd McCarthy, meanwhile, actually doesn’t seem to have any solid opinion of it.

- Celestial is making their movie channel in Indonesia local by including subtitles and dubbing all on-air promotions in Bahasa Indonesia.

- Miyu Nagase, the lead vocalist of the Japanese pop band ZONE, is branching off on her own years after the popular band disbanded in 2005, now that she’s done with compulsory education. Guess how’s she launching her solo debut? By starting a blog.

- Ryuganji introduces this year’s Pia Film Festival, which is a pretty damn important festival since some of Japan’s best young filmmakers got their first breaks there. At least their Robert Altman retrospective is in English, though I’m sure the overlapping dialogue in his films make them hard to understand too.

- Lastly, famous American film critic Joel Siegel (He’s the on-air reviewer for ABC’s Good Morning America) passed away today at the age of 63 after a battle with colon cancer. I don’t always agree with respectable critics such as Siegal (especially his behavior at the Clerks 2 screening), but I always respect their expertise, and he will be missed.

- The Japanese box office numbers just came out on Box Office Mojo, except they didn’t provide the exchange rate they used this week, so we’ll just simply have to trust their number. Anyway, Pirates of the Caribbean drops another moderate 23% for a current total of roughly 8.36 billion yen already (and this monster is still making more than 500 million yen a weekend!) , so it should go well past the 10 billion mark Sony couldn’t get Spiderman 3 to hit. More amazingly, the comedy Maiko Haaaan!!! drops only 3.1% from last weekend’s gross to make roughly 738 million yen already and should go past the 1 billion mark pretty easily as well.

Other than Spiderman 3’s slow but consistent drop (only 25% this week, but a weak per-screen average means its pulse is quickly growing weak) and the small 20% drop for Sono Toki Kare Ni Yoroshiku, everything else on the top 10 are dropping at the usual 30-40% rate. Furthermore, this weekend’s double whammy of Shrek 3 and Die Hard 4.0 should give the box office a knock on its ass.

There’s an interesting addition this week on the chart worth mentioning that didn’t show up last week . The dark comedy-suspense-one-set film Kusaragi opened on the weekend on the 15th on only 28 screens and still managed to make 20.4 million yen. While that’s only 49% of the opening for star Oguri Shun’s last film Ghost Train. To be fair, Kusaragi opened only on 30% of the screens Ghost Train opened with, so this opening of 729,000 yen per-screen is pretty impressive. As for its second week, it seemed to have played even stronger with a roughly 839,000 yen per-screen average for 30 screens. I have to admit, a film about 6 guys coming together to mourn the death of their D-grade youth idol does sound pretty interesting, even if it’s from the writer of a commercial heart tugger like Always - Sunset on Third Street.

One movie that did open this past weekend but didn’t show up is Yuko Takeuchi’s return to the big screen with Side Car Ni Inu(more info from Hoga News). What’s the big deal, you might ask? The big deal is (and I’m afraid this involves a bit of geinou gossip) that this is Takeuchi’s first film role since her rather ugly divorce with Kabuki bad boy Shidou Nakamura (which got set off when he got caught drunk-driving with another woman in the car). To add irony into this, she actually plays the mistress of a married man who moves in to the family home one 80s summer.

Anyway, the film actually seems like a lot more innocent than it sounds, and it just opened in a limited release. I look forward to Eiga Consultant’s analysis of it (with a star like Takeuchi, it’s bound to come sooner or later), though some theaters seem to be reporting that it’s not bringing in a lot of audiences. Meanwhile, check out the official site for a trailer (click on 予告編)

- In Korea, the win by horror film Black House in nationwide attendance marks the first time a Korean film has taken the top spot at the box office in eight weeks.

- The hit drama of the Spring season Proposal Daisakusen (Operation Love) wrapped up its run Monday night Japan time, and it managed to score a season-high 20.9 rating (roughly 13.56 million viewers), effectively saving the season from total embarrassment. It’s also by far the winner of the season with a season average of 17.3 (roughly 11.23 million).

- Nielsen EDI, a firm that tracks box office and TV ratings, is expanding their box office tracking service to South Korea and Japan. Too bad a little blog like mine won’t benefit from it.

- The Tribeca Festival, started after the 2001 World Trade Center attack to revive New York, is bringing a mini-version to Beijing?! So, will it be more overpriced movie tickets and glamourous superstars, or will there actually be quality movies shown there?

- Yoji Yamada’s Love and Honor was released on DVD with English subtitles earlier this month in Japan. Now the people who didn’t want to shell out 3000 yen for it can get the Hong Kong edition in a few days.

- The Bangkok International Film Festival was forced to drop the Cannes jury award winner Persepolis as its opening film after the Iranian government called to complain. The animated film is directed by Marjane Satrapi, an Iranian living in France, and the film is an autobiographical work based on her childhood in Tehran. Another ugly example of politics unreasonably intervening in art.

- As I was browsing around the Tokyo movie theater websites, I found the new films by Yukihiko Tsutsumi, who made Trick the Movie, Memories of Tomorrow, AND Sairen in 2006. This year he’s off making three more with the already-released Taitei No Ken, Hotai Club (with Yuya Yagira), and Jigyaku no Uta (starring Hiroshi Abe and Miki Nakatani). Click on トレーラ to see the trailers in their respective official sites.

Anyway, this goes to show that Japanese directors work surprisingly hard, mostly regardless of the reaction to their work. Tsutsumi is not the only one that has made three films in a year: Isshin Inudou saw three films released in 2005, Takeshi Miike often see 3-4 releases each year, and Isao Yukisada even follows up the biggest blockbuster of the year in summer 2004 with a huge historical blockbuster in time for New Years 2005. Of course, the film industry has to be healthy enough to enable these filmmakers to make so many films, which would explain why people are so impressed that Johnnie To can work on so many films at once.

- This Sunday marks the 10th anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to China, and Vancouver, which has been named mini-Hong Kong by some, is holding a small film series as a part of the Vancouver International Film Festival to celebrate it. For some reason, they managed to pick both the Election films by Johnnie To to be part of the screening. Considering those films are known to be allegories for the relationship between mainland China and Hong Kong, it’s like showing Wag the Dog to celebrate Independence Day in the United States.

- In Hong Kong, one pop culture way to celebrate the handover anniversary is getting a bunch of pop stars together and sing a song! “Have You After All” features Andy Lau, Alan Tam, Hacken Lee, Eason Chan, Joey Yong, Leo Ku and even some Chinese opera singers pretty much praising how great Hong Kong has been in the last ten years. Especially cringe-inducing in its ass-kissing is the line about “Lion Rock connecting with the Great Wall/It can be felt in the veins” and the random Mandarin lines towards the end.

Then some Hong Kong netizens come along and make a spoof of the song (a version with English lyrics here), not only writing satirical lyrics to lampoon the Hong Kong government with a pro-democracy slant, but also finding buddies to imitate the singers in the original song (especially spot-on are the Alan Tam and Chinese opera singer impressions). The best part is that the spoof got 10 times more viewers than the original song on Youtube.

It has become such a pop culture phenomenon that a RTHK program (RTHK is the government-run radio station with television production as well) would use the spoof as a way to mock the government (At one point, the host says everyone should get a “Don’t Speak Taboo face mask” and a “Don’t Hear Taboo ear plug”) and the Chief Executive. Of course, there’s also the anti-democracy spoof of the spoof, which just goes to show how much freedom of speech people still have in Hong Kong.

(Thanks to EastSouthWestNorth for the idea)

- Lastly, Christina Aguilera says that she has been reading scripts to find the right role for her acting debut. I hope she never finds that script.