I started playing the game The Movies again today, and I remember why I stopped in the first place - this game is addictive as hell. Maybe I just have a thing for sim games, but once i start, I couldn’t stop playing for well over an hour (an hour that i didn’t really have to spare). Good thing I stopped playing, went out and grabbed two books - Haruki Murakami’s After Dark and David Mamet’s Bambi VS. Gozilla. Otherwise, I would’ve never got myself to start today’s entry.

- Japan’s music charts continue to be weak, which might mean that Golden Week isn’t much of a shopping week. On the singles chart, Arashi’s latest gets the number 1 spot again, selling 150,000 copies. That might not sound too bad, but the number 2 singles. a solo effort from a Morning Musume member, sold only 27,000 copies. You can imagine how the rest of the charts go. This week, B’z releases their brand-new single, and they’ll probably debut at number 1 (again for the umpteenth time) on next week’s chart.

The albums chart is somewhat stronger, though not for Japanese music. Pop group mihimaru GT’s compilation album managed to debut at number 1 selling just 146,000 copies, but American pop albums from Avril Lavigne and Ne-Yo take the second and third spots with their albums, selling 118, 000 copies and 58,800 copies, respectively. Wait a minute, how the hell did Kat-tun fall to 13th place already? Ouch. There are no major album releases this week (at least none that is making a huge dent on the charts), so it’ll be kind of boring next week.

- Under kind of exciting news, Kenta Fukusaku announced that his latest film will be more like the hardcore masculine action movie his father Kinji Fukusaku used to make and a “real fight movie.” If it’s going to be anything like Kinji’s Yakuza Papers series, I can already tell it’s going to be quite good. Just look at who he has for his star.

- The Japanese string puppet film “Strings,” which is kind of like Team America: World Police except not, opened two weekends ago in Japan (the first half of Golden Week) in one theater. According to Eiga Consultant, in the opening 3 days, it attracted 2738 people and 4.65 million yen. For one screen, that’s really really good. However, it seems like the gender ratio of the audience is 2 males for 8 females, and most of the audience seems to be 20-30s females. Perhaps it’s not the gimmick that’s attracting people, but rather the presence of two of the Smap members in the voice cast.

- Korean films may still have a market in Asia, as plastic surgery comedy (I guess a new genre has just been invented!) 200 Pound Beauty hits it big in Singapore.

- In Hong Kong, Spiderman isn’t wasting his 120 screens, as the first hit of the summer makes another HK$1.9 million on Tuesday to an 8-day total of HK$32.28 million. I might go watch this tomorrow.

- Even though a lot of people are buying season pass to the Hong Kong Disneyland, it looks like it’s still struggling since its opening in fall 2005.

- Twitch introduces Funukedomo, Kanashimino Ai Wo Misero, one of the Japanese films going to Cannes’ Critics’ Week. It looks like a messy and twisted little family drama that might turn a couple of heads….or it might be another pretentious digital film that show maybe not everyone that can hold a digital camera can make a movie. I think it’s more likely to go the first route, though.

- Holy crap, it’s the trailer for Wilson Yip/Donnie Yen’s Flash Point. Dig it. (Thanks to Beat TG on the Lovehkfilm Forum for the link)

- India is trying to simultaneous release strategy, where a film opens in theater is also available in other formats almost instantly. “Life in a Metro,” starring Shilpa Shetty, who not only attracted attention from her win at the British Big Brother this past winter, but also from her PDA with Richard Gere two weeks ago, will open in several countries at the same time and also be made available on the internet for at least US$9.99 for a low-resolution version for only 72 hours.

- Darcy Paquet over at Koreanfilm.org updated his site with his thoughts on 2007 Korean cinema so far. It just made me more excited about Sai Yaichi’s Soo.

- Hong Kong’s Mandarin Films (When’s the last time they actually made profitable movie again?) has signed on to be a distributor for Tsui Hark’s latest film “Missing,” about a man diving into an ancient ruins underwater to retrieve his engagement ring. It’s a romantic thriller, folks.

- Anyone in Japan be sure to watch the Foreigner Otaku Champion on the night of May 10th Japan time! This ought to be interesting, to say the lease. More details from Japan Probe.

Been gone for a bit, now I’m back, hopefully sticking to a regular posting schedule again.

- Obviously, the big story is the domination of Spiderman 3 pretty much all over the world. In North America alone, the second sequel to the popular franchise made US$151 million. I’ll break down the individual Asian box office results (at least the ones I have) later, but after 5 days of release, it has already shattered all types of box office records (though the Box Office Mojo article suggests that’s due to the super expanded release.) AND well on the way to recuperating its US$250 million budget (plus at least 150 million for advertising and print, minus 50% for exhibitors, actors’ back end salaries, etc.), or dare I say - make a healthy profit.

- And when Box Office Mojo meant super expanded release, they mean Sony pretty much took up a majority of the screens available in the countries they invaded. Case in point - the film made another HK$5.78 million from 127 screens on Sunday in Hong Kong, bringing the 6-day total to an amazing HK$28.6 million already. This sucker is on the way to an at least HK$50 million take, which will be the biggest performer in Hong Kong since Initial D back in 2005. But don’t expect it to surpass the HK$60 million box office take set by Kung Fu Hustle.

With 127 screens taken up already, there’s not much room for anything else - Love is Not All Around (which Ming Pao columns are treating like it’s the second coming) continues to succeed with HK$240,000 on 31 screens for a 18-day total of HK$11.41 million, Paul Verhoeven’s Black Book continues to perform strongly on its 2 screens with HK$40,000 on Sunday, and well….everything else is just kinda embarrassing.

(US$1=HK$7.8)

- The same thing happened in South Korea, where Spidey took up 816 screens and attracted 2.56 million viewers (just a tad under The Host). And just like Hong Kong, everything else got left in the dust.

- In Japan, on the other hand, Spiderman still made a boatload of money, but since people in Japan got the entire week off, the box office was quite strong. After 6 days, Spidey managed to make 3.18 billion yen and recording 2.57 million viewers already. But most films on the top 10, such as Gegege no Kitaro and Conan, actually managed to record increasing box office for the latter half of Golden Week (Gegege actually recorded the biggest increase). Last weekend’s other big opener Babel lost about 20% of its audience, but still scored a strong 218 million yen and has already passed the 1 billion yen mark.

In fact, remember last weekend, when Gegege no Kitaro opened, and Shochiku proclaimed that it’ll make 3 billion because The Great Yokai War made 2 billion? Turns out they were right! Eiga Consultant realized that the opening weekend for Gegege was actually 175% of The Great Yokai War, which means it’s now on the way to make at least 3.5 billion yen. Wow, they got it right for once.

(US$1=120 yen)

- Since many in Japan travel during Golden Week, TV ratings also went further down for a bit. Last week’s ratings winner Proposal Daisakusen takes a huge dive because of its Monday time slot, losing 21% of its audience for a 13.4 rating. However, ratings for other dramas also stabilized a little bit - ratings disaster Sexy Voice and Robo steadies with a 7.0 rating, Bambino falls a little bit for its third episode with a 13.7 rating, sequel Kui-Tan 2 drops to its lowest rating with 11.8, and ratings disappointment Joudan Janai goes up a little bit again with 14.4, up from 13. 2 last week, when it was the beginning of Golden Week.

- Anyone that doesn’t feel like shelling out a lot of money for a book on Korean history can now just get the official version. According to Twitch, the Korean Film Council now has an English version of a book of Korean film history on their website.

- Johnnie To is no longer under the control of Dennis Law. Milky Way Image, which is under Law, can no longer afford To’s movies, so To decided to just buy his way out, taking two subsidiaries, which includes his own Milkyway Image, and his production team with him. Once the split is approved, Law’s company will no longer be Milkyway, but Brilliant Arts (which is just plain ironic, considering Law’s quality of work).

- I still haven’t seen War of Flowers (or Tezza: The High Rollers), and they’re already making a sequel. Even though the sequel won’t be made by the director of the original, they were creative enough to bring on Jang Joon-Hwan, the man who made the cult favorite Save the Green Planet (file this under “like, but don’t love” category for me), to do it instead. Like I just wrote, I haven’t seen the original, but is a director who made something as crazy as Save the Green Planet really up for a high-profile sequel for a blockbuster film?

- The Thailand film censorship issue continues, this time with Variety Asia writing about Thai filmmakers’ petitions for a new Film Act that allows freedom of expression.

This type of irregular schedule of posting will probably continue until next Monday, but I’ll try to deliver as much as I can each time i post.

- I read a column on Ming Pao yesterday (that I’m not going to translate) and contributes to Spiderman 3’s current success in Asia to a weak market. Well, how can you have any type of market when Spiderman 3 is taking up 102 screens in Hong Kong? The usual Hollywood blockbusters opens on 50 screens at most. That’s probably why Spiderman managed a huge HK$2.35 million on Thursday’s opening day (technically it’s opening day for all films, but the only major release this week opened on Tuesday), which is a lot less than the record-breaking HK$7 million it made on Tuesday’s public holiday (the previous holder for opening day was Kung Fu Hustle with over HK$4.5 million), but still very huge. After 3 days, Spiderman 3 has already made HK$12.68 million, and expect it to pass the HK$25 million mark by the end of the weekend.

The films from 3rd place all the way down to the 10th all made under HK$50,000 on Thursday. That’s so sad I’m not even going to analyze it.

- Reporting this a little late here, but ratings for Japanese dramas was dealt with another blow last week as ratings continue to plummet overall. Sunday prime time drama Joudan janai drops further to a 13.2 rating, while second place Proposal Daisakusen drops only by 2.2 % in its second week for a 17.1 rating, which makes it now the number 1 drama this season. Kenichi Matsuyama’s Sexy Voice and Robo drops to a desparate 6.9 rating its third week. In fact, Proposal Daisakusen is the only drama that cracked the 15.0 rating, and no drama this season has cracked the 20 rating line, a line that 3 dramas crossed last season. Sad state of affairs, indeed.

- After the complaints received because of Hong Kong broadcaster TVB’s uncensored broadcast of the classic film An Autumn’s Tale, TVB is looking to get in trouble again, this time because of a protester’s foul mouth during a live broadcast.

- Korea Pop Wars has a story on how the Korean distributor of John Cameron Mitchell’s sexually explicit film Shortbus found a way to get around the Korean film board to get a general release.

- Anyone in Los Angeles heads up: The Visual Communications Film Festival is happening now, and it includes a screening of John Woo’s Hard Boiled, the Japanese film What the Snow Brings, and Korean blockbuster King and the Clown, among many more.

- Jason Gray has a few more tidbits, including the first photos of Yoji Yamada’s latest film, and Asian film- destroy…er, I mean remaker Roy Lee’s decision to scrap a remake of Battle Royale.

- Why, oh, why do they bother? First it’s Sin City, then it’s 300, and now, the latest Frank Miller graphic novel (a glorified way to say comics) ready for adaptation is “Ronin,” about mutants, thugs, and a ronin duking it out in modern New York for a sword, or something like that. And the directors’ pedigree continues to slip too - first it’s Robert Rodridguez, then Zack Synder (in all fairness, I surprisingly liked Dawn of the Dead), and now it’s the director of “Stomp the Yard.”

- Speaking of “why do they bother,” the trailer for Rush Hour 3 is up, and it just looks like a sillier version of Kiss of the Dragon with an annoying-as-usual Chris Tucker. Even Jackie Chan once said he was baffled at the success of Rush Hour.

- Hong Kong gets film development council to figure out what to do with the US$38 million film fund - good. Council then establishes four other committees to figure out more stuff in more detail - bad. This fund is in serious danger of being held up by bureaucracy.

- At least the man has the good sense to finally announce that he’s retiring in next 5 years. I wonder if that’s just action films, or all filmmaking, period.

- Continuing on “why do they bother” news, Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh will be in auteur of crap Rob Cohen’s latest film “The Mummy 3.” Apparently they signed on a young actor named Luke Ford in order to have him carry the franchise. Just read the plot description for yourself.

- In more screen development news, the big discovery in 2007 for Japanese music is the song “Sen No Kaze ni natte” sung by tenor Misafumi Akikawa, based on the poem, “Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep.” The supposed history of how this song came about is that a Japanese author read the anonymous poem at Ground Zero in New York, translated it into Japanese, and wrote a song out of it. The song was sung at the annual Kohaku Singing Contest on New Year’s Eve this past year, and the single has now sold 920,000 copies to date. Anyway, I’m mentioning this song because Japan’s fascination with the song–>screen process is kicking in again, with a mini-series based on the song to be shown on TV in August.

- Want to know who are the most powerful people in Korean cinema? Look no further than this report.

- Twitch also has a trailer for Lee Chang-Dong’s first film since Oasis - Secret Sunshine.

- Be proud, Asia. Even though we’re not well-represented at Cannes this year, we still have three spots at Director’s Fortnight.

That’s it for now. When will I be back? I have no idea. Just keep reading, m’kay? Thanks.

Just watched Hot Fuzz, the latest from Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg of “Spaced” and “Shaun of the Dead” fame. As many know, this time Wright and Pegg take on the action genre, and as expected, it’s a ton of fun. Unlike spoofs, which mocks the cliches of the genre it’s taking on, Hot Fuzz embraces the action genre, taking every editing, sound, visual cliche from Hollywood and blows them up to the max. It’s so into it that audiences who aren’t in on the joke will probably love it at face value, when the filmmakers are probably making fun of them for buying into its Hollywood counterparts. On the other hand, those who “get it” would probably still find it pretty cool.

- Continuing with the previously-reported story about the appearance of pirated Spiderman 3 DVDs on the streets of China, Sony has confirmed that cheap suckers have been scammed by those amateur entrepreneurs. That’s right, the poor bastards who thought they got a chance to watch Spiderman 3 before everyone else in the comforts of their own home spent their hard-earned renminbi for just another copy of Spiderman 2 packaged as Spiderman 3. Ha-ha!

- It’s time for Oricon rankings. On the singles chart, concocted pop boy duo Takki and Tsubasa’s latest single gets the number one spot with only 65000 copies sold. As predicted, all but two on the top 10 happen to be new singles, including the new single by AAA, SEAMO (who hit it big with his 2006 single Mada Aimasho), and Spitz, all selling less than 35,000 copies in their first week. Next week’s sales should be healthier, as KinKi Kids’ latest already sold over 40,000 copies on its first day.

As for the albums chart, Kat-tun’s second album rule the charts with 270,000 copies sold. The surprise, at least for me, was Avril Lavigne’s second place debut with her latest “The Best Damn Thing,” selling 220,000 copies and making her an even richer woman for having not all that much talent. Why?! How?! Which?!

- Japan has a new pop group, which features a former Morning Musume member (I suspect there are a lot of them out there floating in the J-pop world anyway). This time, the gimmick is the “gyaru” image, and the pop group name is - you guessed it - “Gyaruru.” I’ve seen these “gyarus” in Tokyo before, and they’re not really all that appealing to me. Who wants to guess that they’re not gonna go very far?

- In something that comes as absolutely no surprise, Hollywood has come out saying that they are backing the United States government’s complaint against China for intellectual copyright. In fact, they’re even threatening a ban, which means it might just rescue China from crappy Hollywood films, only to be replaced by more happy Chinese blockbusters promoting messages of peace and communism.

- To show those Americans that China takes copyright very seriously, a Chinese courts just found Yahoo! China guilty of copyright violation because the site provide links to sites with unauthorized MP3 downloads and lyrics.

- On the other hand, Chinese public television broadcaster CCTV has nothing to complain about, seeing how they just found a distributor for their content, thanks to the BBC.

- But then, the Asian media is not quite happy about how they are always in the shadow of Western media. They complain about how Western media only represents 1/7 of the world’s population, yet they control 2/3 of the world’s media, blah blah blah. Well, guess what, this report is right: Asian media does kind of suck. When they decide to stop sensationalist, inaccurate, and xenophobic reporting, then maybe someone will pay attention to you.

- Those who loved Hong Kong director Soi Cheang’s Dog Bite Dog are surely looking forward to the director’s latest, the Japanese comic adaptation Shamo. Even though it’s not being released in Hong Kong until September, the film will be shown at the Cannes film festival for potential overseas buyers. The bad news? Unlike Dog Bite Dog, which is category III due to violence and subject matter (meaning no one under 18 may be admitted, PERIOD), Shamo will only be category IIB (which is the equivalent of an R, except anyone can get in).

- When people watch Hong Kong film credits, they usually see the same guy for sound: Kinson Tsang. Honestly, I don’t know how that guy manages to do sound for almost every single Hong Kong film, but guess what? There’s actually another sound guy out there in the Hong Kong film world, and his name is Martin Chappell. KFC Cinema has an interview with him, and it’s quite informative.

- Director Mira Nair, who’s made films from Mississippi Masala to Monsoon Wedding, is getting the Pride of India award at the Bollywood Film Awards next month. Good for her.

- Lastly, in light of the “surprise” success of Hong Kong film Love is Not All Around, Ming Pao has a column on possible direction Hong Kong films can go:

青春愛情片在日本、韓國很流行，香港則甚少見也少有好票房，其實是傳統市場計算的問題。理論上，影市萎縮，餘下入場看電影的觀眾群，以青少年為主，是拍拖的主要活動，但港片偏就缺乏青春愛情片。

Youth romances are popular in Korea and Japan, but those in Hong Kong have seen low box office gross. That’s because there’s a problem with market calculations. Theoretically, the market has shrunk, and the audience that remains are mostly teens, who see moviegoing as a date activity. But Hong Kong film lacks youth romance.

最主要原因，是愛情片從來是港片的弱項，不是沒有，是少之又少，較有這方面才華的創作人，年紀已大，心態也大了，拍出來的作品，成熟觀眾喜歡，青少年沒有共鳴。可惜成熟觀眾多半已不入場看戲。

The primarily reason is that romance is a weakness of Hong Kong films. It’s not that they don’t exists, they just amount to very little. The artists that have talent in that aspect have grown old, and their mentalities have matured. Older audiences like those films, but youths can’t connect with it. Sadly, mature audiences mostly don’t go to cinemas anymore.

港片最有市場的是動作片，在香港可能只收幾百萬，但內地有市場，歐美也要這些片，拍幾千萬不是問題，再貴些都可以。黑社會片也可以，或者鬼片，一樣有埠。

Hong Kong’s biggest market is in action films. It may only earn a couple of million Hong Kong dollars locally, but there’s an audience for them in the Mainland, Europe, and America. The budget can go to tens of million dollars. Triad films and horror films have overseas markets as well.

在香港拍青春愛情片市場太窄，成本不能高，否則風險大。成本不高，可以請的卡士也不能太大，大也不一定好，因為當今的一線明星，個個年紀有番咁上下。

The market for youth romance in Hong Kong is too narrow; budget can’t be high, or the risk is too much. With a small budget, the cast can’t be too great. Even if they attract the big stars, all the big stars are past their prime.

韓、日動作片不及香港，愛情片反而有市，製作費也較高，無論畫面、美術、音樂各方面也做得比港片好，浪漫感也更強。愛情片拍得好，其實有很大空間，可惜香港電影公司把投資放在更有把握的片種上，不拍青春愛情片，也就少培養這方面的創作人才。

Korean and Japanese action films aren’t as huge as Hong Kong’s, but the market for romance exists. The budget is higher, hence visuals, production values, music, etc. are done better than Hong Kong films. The romantic feeling is stronger. Actually there is quite a bit of space to make good romance, but Hong Kong film studios put their investments in films they are more confident in instead of making romances. This prevents the cultivation of talents for those type of films.

《十分愛》的成功，希望可為香港年輕觀眾帶來更多有共鳴的電影。

Hopefully, the success of “Love is Not All Around” can bring more films that can connect with the young audiences of Hong Kong.

Original Chinese article

There are quite a few romances aimed at youths. Too bad the ones that exist - My Sweetie, Love@ First Note, and Super Fans - happen to be really crappy and manufactured to please record companies/Karaoke joints. Thing is, are the Japanese and Korean youth romance films all that much better?

You guessed it, folks, it’s box office time.

- For Hong Kong’s Sunday numbers, there was plenty of love for the cynical Gold Label pop stars vehicle Love is Not All Around. On 37 screens, the film made HK$1.22 million on Sunday for a very healthy HK5.19 million total (including previews). Look for this one to actually have a chance to pass the $10 million mark with two fairly weak HK competition films this weekend - Susie Au’s Ming Ming, which will attract the cool art 20s crowd, and Francis Ng’s Dancing Lions, which might attract the slightly older crowd.

In other openings, Hollywood crap fests Epic Movie and Shooter gets 3rd and 4th place, respectively. On 26 screens, Epic Movie made HK$330,000 for a 4-day total of HK$1.25 million. As for Shooter, it made a healthier HK$310,000 on just 19 screens for a HK$1.11 million 4-day total. As expected, The Painted Veil saw a bit of a surge, making HK$100,000 on 5 screens with a 4-day total of HK400,000. One place ahead is the lesbian drama Spider Lilies in its second weekend, making HK$160,000 on 10 screens on Sunday for a 11-day total of HK$2.44 million.

- Speaking of Ming Ming, Lovehkfilm actually has a review of it already, but many of you probably know that already since you probably found this blog from it. For those who’s been tracking the Hong Kong box office and has no idea what the hell is Easter box office flop Super Fans all about, Kozo has a review of that as well. I knew Eric Kot sold out with this movie, but I didn’t know he sold out to a Karaoke chain.

- In Japan audience rankings, the kids ruled the cinemas as two newly-opened animated films top the box office. The latest Conan (the child detective, not the barbarian) film opened up on top as expected, while Crayon Shinchan opened on 2nd. Three foreign films also joined the fray - Rocky Balboa performed the best after this week’s screen expansion, scoring fourth place, while the unworthy sequel Hannibal Rising scored fifth place. Performing even worse is Hugh Grant/Drew Berrymore’s Music and Lyrics, managing only an 8th place opening. Meanwhile, Box office Mojo seems to have some discrepancy again with the numbers, so we’ll go into that tomorrow when they have the entire top 10.

- Just about all the Spring Japanese drama has started, and the ratings are nowhere near the numbers networks enjoyed last season or even last year, for that matter. This season, the most anticipated new dramas are “Proposal Daisakusen,” starring boy band NEWS member Tomohisa Yamashita and Masami Nagasawa taking over Fuji’s best drama time slot, “the food drama “Banbino,” and Yuji Oda/Juri Ueno’s May-September romance “Joudan Janai!” After one full week, Joudan Janai opened strong with a 19.4 rating for its first episode, but has since fallen to a disastrous 14.7 rating for its second week. Proposal Daisakusen is in a close second place with a 19.3 opening episode with its second episode just aired a few hours ago in Japan. As for Banbino, it opened at an OK 16.6 rating.

Other dramas this Spring include the Japanese adaptation of the hit Korean drama Hotelier, starring idol Aya Ueto and a cameo by original star Bae Yong Joon (better known as Yonsama in Japan). It opened at a weak 11.1 rating in its first week. Even Death Note star Kenichi Matsuyama can’t help comic adaptation Sexy Voice and Robo, which had a weak first-week rating of 12.5, only to slip further into an 8.7 rating for its second week.

- In the North American box office, Disturbia, or better known as “Rear Window for Gen-Y,” topped the box office again. Grindhouse continues its freefall for its third weekend, and Hot Fuzz opens with an impressive $7,089 per-screen average on just 825 screens. In Asian film news, while Mark Cuban may be pissed about his Dallas Mavericks losing to the Golden State Warriors in their first game in the NBA playoffs (go Warriors!), he should be happy to know that The Host is now his Magnolia Picture’s 8th highest-grossing film ever. It’s only a little over $2 million in box office, but Cuban needs a little consolation prize right now, so there.

- That was fast. The recent commercial South Korean disappointment The Show Must Go On, starring Song Kang-Ho and directed by Rules of Dating’s Han Jae-Rim, is already seeing a DVD release date. According to Twitch, the DVD is coming out on July 30th, which isn’t that small of a theatrical-to-DVD window, but I’m surprised they’re announcing it so quickly. Funny enough, Paradise Murdered, the film that took The Show Must Go On off its box office throne, is also coming to DVD on July 30th.

- Everyone is picking on poor China. After the United States filed a formal complaint with the World Trade Organization over China’s rampant piracy of Hollywood films, Japan is now planning to file their own complaint against China as well. Oh, and sources say the EU is planning to do the same. Talk about the dirty Capitalists ganging up on the poor giant Communist.

- In true Japan fashion, while they blame the Chinese for not doing enough, the Japanese also have to praise themselves for cracking down piracy the right way. Oh, and they’re blaming foreigners for that too! I wonder if those Japanese street vendors at Osaka’s Electronic Street are still working the streets as if nothing is happening….

- Speaking of Hollywood and Japan, after the successful premiere of Spiderman 3 last week in Tokyo, Warner Bros. is now planning a similar rote for their summer tentpole film - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Hoping to continue their over-10 billion yen box office streak in Japan for the franchise, Warner Bros. will hold its premiere in Tokyo on June 28th, while the rest of the world will start seeing the film on the weekend of July 11th. Oh, except Japan, where it’ll actually open a week late.

- British Airway wants to provide the latest hit movies for their passengers, but it doesn’t want to do it if a rival airline and its chairman show up in it. In a petty immature fashion, BA decided to cut out Virgin Atlantic chairman Richard Branson’s cameo in the latest James Bond film Casino Royale. They also blurred out the appearance of a Virgin Atlantic plane in the film. Oh, behave!

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.

- 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.