Note: This blog expresses only the opinions of the blog owner, and does not represent the opinion of any organization or blog that is associated with The Golden Rock.
The Sunday Hong Kong box office has not been updated yet, so just wait for another day.
- Japanese attendance ranking is out, but only in Japanese. Finally, Hero has been dethroned, and by a Takashi Miike film, no less. Crows Zero marks Miike’s first number one debut this year (out of his four or five theatrical release this year so far), and Miike’s first number one film….ever?
Meanwhile, Hero is still at number 2, while the melodrama Zo No Senaka starring Koji Yakusho opened at number 3, Neil Jordan’s The Brave One with Jodie Foster could only muster a number 5 opening, Matthew Vaughn’s Stardust did even worse with a 6th place opening. Opening in a somewhat wide release (only three screens in central Tokyo, but looks like a total screen count of 100 or so) is Jigyaku No Uta with Miki Nakatani and Hiroshi Abe only got an 8th place opening.
While the box office still seems somewhat quiet, there were still 6 newcomers on the top 10. We’ll see how everything else did when the numbers come out.
- In Korea, things were pretty quiet as Lee Myung-Se’s M opens only a third place with 276,000 admissions. Still 6 of the top 10 films are Korean, which has to be a sign of the industry turning around…or Hollywood just isn’t offering very good products.
With The Hong Kong Film blog wondering whether Hong Kong box office source mov3.com has closed down for good, this blogger has found a new box office source in now.com.hk. Starting tomorrow, the Hong Kong box office report should get back to normal.
- The American Film Market starts this coming week, and both Korean and Japanese film companies have quite a few films in store for buyers there (probably ignoring the Tokyo Film Market in the process).
Korea’s Cineclick has Volcano High director Kim Tae-Kyun’s latest, about a North Korean ex-soccer player who crosses over to China and tries to get his family to join him. It will also be bringing a promo reel for Kim Jee-woon’s highly anticipated The Good, The Bad, and the Weird.
Meanwhile, Japan’s Fuji TV is taking Shaolin Girl (the Stephen Chow-approved “sequel” to Shaolin Soccer) and Koki Mitani’s The Magic Hour, the follow-up to the ensemble hit The Uchoten Hotel.
- There’s a pretty big possibility that I’ll be watching the Kohaku in Japan again this year, which is why I care about this news: After two years of actress Yukie Nakama hosting as head of the red team, this year may see young actress Masami Nagasawa taking on hosting duties. The problem is that Nakama was chosen because she starred in NHK dramas, while Nagasawa hasn’t been doing anything for NHK. This signals a possible desperate move by NHK to bring in more viewers for the struggling new years show.
- If you are Japanese, and you’re asking what the hell is a Galileo, who the hell is Masami Nagasawa, and the only thing you get from this entry is Kohaku, then this new TV station is for you.
- Posters for Johnnie To/Wai Ka-Fai’s latest Mad Detective, starring Lau Ching-Wan and premiered in Venice, has started appearing in Hong Kong theaters. There’s no official release date yet, but the poster shows that it’s already been rated category-III (no one under 18 may be admitted). It seems like after the success of Election, SPL, and Lust, Caution, Hong Kong filmmakers are finding the guts to make some hardcore films again.
- The biggest news of the day is the announcement of the Golden Horse Awards. After getting rejected from two important film awards, Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution finds a home in the Golden Horse with 11 nominations, including one in every major category (except for supporting acting roles, because let’s face it, Leehom Wang isn’t that good of an actor). Sadly, no Hong Kong films were deemed good enough to get a best picture, but it did get a nomination in all the other major categories.
Here are the nominees for the major categories:
Best film
What on Earth Have I Done Wrong?! Tuya’s Marriage Getting Home Lust, Caution The Home Song Stories
Best Director
Wong Quan An (Tuya’s Marriage) Yau Nai Hoi (Eye in the Sky) Ang Lee (Lust, Caution) Li Yang (Blind Mountain)
Best Actor
Gurmit Singh (Just Follow Law) Aaron Kwok (The Detective) Tony Leung Chiu-Wai (Lust, Caution) Zhao Ben Shan (Getting Home)
Best Actress
Yu Nan (Tuya’s Marriage) Joan Chen (Home Song Stories) Tang Wei (Lust, Caution) Li Bing Bing (The Knot)
Best Supporting Actor
Tony Leung Ka-Fai (The Drummer) Louis Koo (Protege) Wu Jing (Invisible Target) Joel Lok (The Home Song Stories)
Best Supporting Actress
Chang Chun Ning (What On Earth Have I Done?) Maggie Shiu (Eye In the Sky) Fan Bing Bing (The Matrimony) Alice Tzeng (Secret)
Best Adapted Screenplay
Shamo A Battle of Wits The Sun Also Rises Lust, Caution
Best Original Screenplay
Just Follow Law Tuya’s Marriage God Man Dog The Home Song Stories
Hong Kong films (meaning the film is in Cantonese and/or the director originated from Hong Kong) accounted for a total of 22 nominations, although I’m somewhat disappointed that there are actually feature film categories with no Hong Kong films nominated at all.
Why the hell is Alice Tzeng nominate for Secret, but not lead actress Guey Lun-Mei?
Tony Leung Ka-Fai for The Drummer? Really? I swear half his scenes were leftover footage from Election.
The committee seems to love Aaron Kwok so much they should probably just give him an honorary lifetime achievement acting award already.
The start of another weekend, and the beginning of spreading news out over 3 days. Don’t worry, there’s plenty of news all weekend.
- Last week I linked to the review for Suzuki Matsuo’s Welcome to the Quiet Room, which opened on 13 screens last weekend. With one theater in Shibuya seeing full house all day on opening day, the comedy-drama made an impressive 15.47 million yen, surely scoring the best per-screen average amidst the weak box office.
- There are also a ton of stories about the animated series Afro Samurai, which is seeing its extended cut get a theatrical release in Japan this weekend.
- Don’t think I forgot about the Tokyo International Film Festival. Actually, I’ve been waiting all week for a review anywhere for the opening film Midnight Eagle. But the only news about the film so far is that it’s been sold to a few more territories, including this blogger’s current city of residency Hong Kong.
Sadly, it has also become the little puppy without a home, as the Hong Kong Film Awards have also disqualified the Asian co-production because it doesn’t feature eight Hong Kong residents in key creative roles.
For convenience, everything will be combined into one entry today:
- The Japanese box office numbers are out, and it’s consistent with the audience admission rankings. As expected, the box office is fairly weak, with The Good Shepard managing only a third place opening with only 97 million yen from 290 screens. Even less lucky is The Invasion with only 560 million yen. Disastrous is the Hollywood action film The Kingdom, which lost almost 53% of business from last weekend. The only films that are still really hanging in there are Hero, The Sign of Love, and Pan’s Labyrinth.
- Under “What silly thing will Jackie Chan do today?” news today, someone actually have the bad taste to ask Jackie Chan to sing the official countdown song for the Chinese Olympics. It’s OK, it’s one of the many songs the Olympic organizers plan to release to celebrate the Olympics. Seriously, how many songs does China need to celebrate the damn thing?
- Hideo Nakata is going back to Hollywood, this time adapting a Japanese novel for English-speaking audiences. No word on whether the adaptation will retain the Tokyo setting.
- There will be a Japan Film Council established by April 2009 to help foreign producers coordinate their shoots in Japan. One of the reasons: The Last Samurai could’ve been shot in Japan instead of New Zealand. They probably shot in New Zealand because a bottle of coke doesn’t cost 140 yen there.
This is going to be another relatively short entry. Quite frankly, I was expecting more news from the Tokyo International Film Festival, but we only have this so far:
- The Tokyo film market started yesterday with higher attendance. However, with the Asian Film Market just wrapped up at Pusan and the American Film Market coming up, it seems like not quite enough is happening there.
- Satoshi Tsumabuki will actually be in a film that might be interesting (as opposed to…5 seconds in The Fast and the Furious 3): He will play a teacher in a pseudo-documentary (based on a real 1993 documentary) featuring 28 children that will actually live together and raise a pig together. The film will follow a general plot, there will not be a script.
- This week’s Hong Kong numbers come courtesy of Box Office Mojo, because mov3.com hasn’t been doing its job for over a week now. Hence, the following covers the entire weekend rather than just Sunday.
As reported, Brothers takes the top spot over the holiday weekend with roughly HK$5.46 million from 35 screens. However, with its not-so-good word of mouth, it’s expected to take a dive this weekend and will probably wrap with under HK$10 million. Meanwhile, Lust, Caution is now at HK$35 million and may very well end with HK$40 million, making it harder for any film to even try and beat it for the rest of the year. Of course, be aware that like all films of this length, Lust, Caution is buoyed by a 10-20% ticket price inflation due to its length.
The TV drama adaptation Hero scores one of the more impressive opening weekends for a Japanese film with HK$2.21 million over 4 days from 27 screens, thanks to the now-legendary pairing of Kimura Takuya and Takako Matsu. The entertaining legal drama seems to carry pretty good word-of-mouth and maybe end up with over HK$5 million.
Also, two limited releases did fairly well in the crowded market this weekend: The British film Becoming Jane made HK$347,000 from 6 screens over 4 days, while the American hit comedy Knocked Up made HK$229,000 from 4 screens over 4 days.
- In South Korean box office, two big Korean films took over the box office with over 500,000 admissions each, while Resident Evil 3 could only get a 3rd place opening. Only 4 Korean films on the top 10 this week, and a surprising amount of small European films on the chart as well.
Try not to be shocked - most of today’s news come from only Variety Asia and Tokyograph.
- Let’s do the Japanese drama ratings first (All drama information on Tokyograph) - a few more dramas premiered this past week, including the Monday 9 pm Fuji drama Galileo. With the hottest prime time drama spot, the Masaharu Fukuyama/Kou Shibasaki-starrer with a terrible theme song scored a very impressive 24.7 rating for the first episode. Meanwhile, the Aya Ueto drama Abarenbou Mama did OK in its premiere with a 15.3 rating.
Last week’s winner Iryu 2 (which may be getting its own movie with its strong ratings) saw a pretty big drop from its 21-rating premiere to a 16.8 rating for its second episode. Joshi Deka, the latest drama with Yukie Nakama, opened weakly with just a 13.4 rating playing at the same time as Iryu 2. Hatachi No Koibito, which the Daily Yomiuri’s Teleview column recommended this past weekend, saw its ratings drop even further to a 10.4 on Sunday night.
- Fuji TV is so happy about Galileo’s premiere ratings (the strongest since Saiyuki’s premiere back in January ‘06 for that time slot) that they’ve already greenlighted the movie version. The source material, a series of novels about a math genius, is probably all ready to be adapted, as soon as the movie makes Fuji a ton of cash.
- If you stop by a certain chain of love hotels in Tokyo, you’ll get to watch the Hollywood thriller Vacancy for free in your room. Apparently, these people got the idea that watching a movie about a couple trapped by maniacs in a run-down hotel room with hidden cameras and snuff tapes will “deepen the love”. I think they’ll probably just have sex instead.
- For some reason, mov3.com has not updated their box office page for a week now. However, the Hong Kong Film blog comes to the rescue with their own box office report. On Sunday, the ranking the Hong Kong box office grosses are as follows:
1) Brothers 2) Lust, Caution 3) Hero 4) Resident Evil: Extinction 5) No Reservations 6) Becoming Jane 7) Michael Clayton Knocked Up 9) Detective Conan
While there are no numbers, newspaper reports indicated that Brothers had a HK$1 million-plus opening day, and that it might’ve reached as much as HK$2 million daily gross over the holiday weekend. No idea whether it got anywhere near the HK$8 million goal producer Andy Lau is shooting for, though.
HK$7.8=US$1
Measure of success in HK box office: HK$10 million
- Only the audience admission ranking is currently out for Japan. It shows Hero on top again, with three opening films from Hollywood taking the second through fourth spots: Hairspray, The Good Shepard, and The Invasion. However, if you remember, last week was a really slow week at the box office. With Hero on top again, it must’ve been REALLY slow this week.
This week’s Song of the Week is again not picked because it’s any good, but because the video is so damn out there. From the man who introduced naked boob suits to the yearly New Year Kohaku show, it’s DJ Ozma’s Spiderman, courtesy of TV In Japan.
Seriously, the song is no good, and the video may not even be work-safe. Watch at your own risk.
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Knocked Up