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.
Let’s start off with some more news from the TIFF (That’s what the Tokyo International Film Festival calling themselves these days, despite Toronto having the same abbreviations):
- Jason Gray won’t be in the country for the rest of the TIFF, but he does have a link to the two-hour video of red carpet coverage and opening ceremony. I don’t think anyone is expected to watch all 2 hours of it, but you can see some interesting things, including finding out that Akiko Wada and Tokoro Joji are voicing Marge and Homer in the Japanese dub of the Simpsons movie, which will screen during the festival. D’oh!
For those not in the know, some fans protested to 20th Century Fox for not using the original Japanese voice actors for the film, but I guess Fox cared about getting non-fans in more than loyal fans.
- Meanwhile, the Winds of Asia section has a new programmer this year: Asian film scholar Kenji Ishizaka. Like many film scholars, he decided to bring lesser-known Asian films to the festival this year, particularly films from Islamic countries. The problem is even if you bring the movies, will people go see them?
Now, back to your regular news.
- Of course, we always start off with box office news around here. In the first seven months of 2007, local Japanese films have fallen to making up just 43% of the market, down 10 % from the same period in the previous year. Judging from this year’s output, the answer lies in the fact that there hasn’t been any huge blockbuster that reached the size of those last year. local megahit Hero opened in September, so we won’t know until the end of the year whether Japanese films will regain its strength. But there are still a few possible crowdpleasers on the way.
- The Daily Yomiuri’s Teleview column looks at two dramas where the Kanto and Kansai separation seems to be an issue: the new NHK morning drama Chiritotechin, which is getting much better ratings in the Kansai region than Kanto, and the Masami Nagasawa drama Hatachi no Koibito.
- Today’s Oriental Daily reports that some netizens are saying that the MTV for Jay Chou’s latest single “A Cowboy is Very Busy” (directed by Chou himself) is similar to the video for Christina Aguilera’s Candyman.
Personally, just because the diner images are similar don’t mean that one is copying the other, but what do you think?
- In more possible plagiarizing news in Chinese music, the Chinese blog 3cmusic reveals that netizens are saying that Hong Kong pop singer Paisley Wu’s “Don’t Think Just Do” has a similar arrangement (credited to veteran C.Y. Kong) to British singer Sophie Ellis Bextor’s “The Sun’s On Us.”
Since “Don’t Think Just Do” seems to be a cover song, can anyone name the original track, and can that same person tell us whether that song has a similar arrangement as well?
- Under “cut off one head, another one will pop up” news today, Taiwanese police arrested two people who run the website XYZ and confiscated 40,000 pirated discs of Hollywood movies. Yes, just two people and one of the many many websites that sell pirated discs.
- Under “what things will Jackie Chan say” news today, the action star, who is producing the Chinese reality show The Disciple in a search for the next martial artist, tells aspiring action stars to not bow the “old-fashioned way”. I hope he doesn’t mean greet your master with high-fives.
The Tokyo International Film Festival is officially underway, with the action film Midnight Eagle premiering tonight. Variety’s already got their people on the job:
- Also part of both the film festival and the CoFesta (exclamation marks optional) is the Tiffcom. Slightly less ambitious than Kadokawa, Tiffcom would just like to be bigger than Filmart, which may happen if it isn’t programmed so close to the Asian Film Market in Pusan.
Now, we move over to the Daily Yomiuri for their coverage:
- Fest head Kadokawa also says as long as Japan is the second largest market in the world (note: that’s only for Hollywood films, and that’s because of how much Japan charges for a movie ticket), Tokyo will always be the center of Asia for films. I could argue that, but this entry’s getting long.
- Meanwhile, programming director Kazuo Kuroi talks about the films for the competition section this year. He said there’s only one Japanese film because the submissions “lack depth,” whatever the hell that means.
Today is a public holiday in Hong Kong, so no box office reports. However, from unscientific research (looking at the ticket sales on the internet and from my observation last night at the cinema), it’ll be between Derek Chiu’s Brothers (Four of the five tigers in one film! Review later on the spin-off) and the Japanese drama adaptation Hero. Andy Lau says he’s hoping for $HK8-10 million total gross. Can they pull it off over the holiday weekend? We shall know on Monday.
And now, your daily Lust, Caution news:
- EastSouthWestNorth has some stories about Lust, Caution’s Mainland release, including the fact that you don’t have to trek all the way to Hong Kong to see THE shot and how even the man who’s supposed to protect copyright in China can’t even believe there’s no pirated copy of the film out there.
Back to reality:
- The Tokyo International Film Festival is just getting underway, but don’t expect lots of reporting about the market there, especially when the tepid Asian Film Market just wrapped up a week ago at Pusan. More tomorrow when we get the news from The Daily Yomiuri.
- Twitch reports that Johnnie To’s Mad Detective, starring Lau Ching-Wan, has been bought up by the Independent Film Channel in North America. They will likely release the film in a small limited release before releasing it on DVD. Don’t take my word for it, though; I only said “likely”.
Three slow news days automatically add up to a slow news week in general. That means shorter entries. Expect short weekend entries if this keeps up. I may just post something in the spin-off instead.
- Lust, Caution’s chances at the Oscars has just decreased by quite a bit, as the Academy Awards foreign films committee disqualifies Ang Lee’s erotic drama as the Taiwanese entry because it’s not Taiwan enough. Essentially, the main gripe is that it doesn’t have enough Taiwanese involvement. That must suck for Lee, seeing that his Chinese movie for westerners, also known as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, manages to win best foreign film, while his Chinese movie for Chinese people gets disqualified.
Taiwan will submit Island Etude in its place.
- In another blow to the film (this ought to be the unofficial Lust, Caution blog), Chinese censors have apparently yet to screen the Mainland Chinese-safe version of the film, which means its November 1st opening date may get pushed further back. Meanwhile, pirated copies have finally gotten online, which may hurt the big chunk of change the film expected to make from the region.
- Poor Twitch contributor Blake only got two questions with Park Chan-Wook because what was supposed to be a one-on-one interview became a roundtable with people asking about ridiculous rumors such as whether Park took a 5-year break to train being an astronaut. At least now you know he’s making a bat film for his next project.
There are days like these where there are so little news, I just decide to combine all the entries together.
- The numbers for the Japanese box office came out, and the rankings are pretty much the same as the admission rankings. However, what the rankings don’t tell you is what a quiet week it was. In fact, only one film made more than 100 million yen (number 1 film Hero), and the rest of the holdovers all saw fairly significant drops. Yes, that includes Closed Note, which is supposed to be doing pretty well, but actually doesn’t look to make that 1.5 billion yen mark Toho is setting.
Signs of Love (based on those Dreams Come True songs) actually lost only 25% of its audience in its second week, which is pretty typical in the pure love genre. It should wrap up with about 800 million yen. Not all that impressive, but it is what it is.
- Thanks to the success of Hero, Japanese distributor Toho is having their best September ever, which means expect more TV dramas going to a big screen near you in Japan.
- Two sites reported on the Sushi Ouji movie, so I’ll just use both links. Essentially, the drama that was the second worst-performer in the primetime ratings in the summer 2007 drama season (average 7.5 rating) was announced to have its own movie before the drama even began its broadcast. But now, TV Asahi has Warner Bros. Japan behind them and is planning to release it during next year’s Golden Week. They’re probably hoping for fans of the two stars’ respective boy groups to show up.
- The only reason I saved up this report was because I thought it was Tsai as in Tsai Chin.
Turns out it’s Jolin Tsai that’s doing a duet with Kylie Minogue in the Asian edition of her latest album. Actually, it would be so much more interesting if Tsai Chin, the songstress who brought us this, do a duet with Kylie Minogue, but that’s just what I think.
- The new drama season started in Japan last week (Fall 2007 drama information from Tokyograph), and Iryu 2, the sequel to the hit drama from Spring 2006, got off to an excellent start with a 21 rating on the ratings chart. Meanwhile, Dream Again, starring Takashi “Genghis Khan” Sorimachi could only score a 12.9 rating for its premiere. Another star who might not be such a star is Masami Nagasawa, as her latest drama Hatachi No Koibito got only a 13.5 rating for its first episode. More premieres to come this coming week, so look for a slightly more comprehensive wrap-up next week. It all depends how tired I’ll be, really.
Now, the wrap-up from Pusan International Film Festival:
- The competition section of Pusan, called New Currents, actually has the least well-known films. This is probably because the jury tends to pick heavy art films with social messages, and Variety reports that history has repeated again this year.
- Wong Kar-Wai was supposed to make a biopic about Bruce Lee’s master and it was supposed to star Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, who reportedly spend the last few years getting physically prepared for the role. However, his 5-year rights is expiring and Raymond Wong’s Mandarin Films (who last made the Donnie Yen lovefest Flash Point) is stepping in and make their own film about Bruce Lee’s master.
This is in addition to the planned film by Fruit Chan about two childhood friends in 1950s Hong Kong who split up on their own roads, one of them being Bruce Lee.
- And yet, they decided to allow a shorter version of Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution, which was edited by Lee himself and is a few minutes longer than the Malaysian version, to play nationwide starting November 1st. Can someone tell me whether Lam Ka Tung makes an appearance at the end of the Mainland version? Someone who’s seen both Infernal Affairs and Lust, Caution should get this.
- China may seem pretty bad, but then the head of the Thai ministry of culture came out and pretty much says: 1) Thai audiences are not educated, and 2) just because said audience doesn’t understand a movie, it should be be classified and/or banned.
- In Hong Kong, Lust, Caution wins the Sunday box office yet again, making HK$1.25 million from 52 screens for a 19-day total of HK$30.06 million. Not only has Ang Lee’s erotic thriller now become the highest-grossing Chinese film of the year in Hong Kong, it is also now the highest-grossing category-III film (no one under 18 admitted) in Hong Kong history.
In the rest of the box office, the Hollywood romantic drama No Reservations is the strongest of the newcomers, making HK$340,000 from 28 screens for a 4-day total of HK$1.19 million. Tony Gilroy’s Michael Clayton, starring George Clooney, did only ok (for a film of its kind, that is) with HK$200,000 from 17 screens for a 4-day HK$700,000 total.
Now we’re down to the disappointments - Kenneth Bi’s well-meaning but disappointing drama The Drummer made only HK$60,000 from 18 screens for a 4-day total of just HK$210,000. HK$30,000 of those came from opening day. Ouch. Death Sentence, starring Kevin Bacon, had a Drummer-like per-screen average and made only HK$40,000 from 12 screens for a 4-day total of HK$160,000.
In holdovers, Resident Evil 3 had a pretty solid second weekend with HK$600,000 from 36 screens on Sunday. After 11 days, the horror-action flick has made HK$8.95 million. Oxide Pang’s The Detective continues its slow fade with only HK$90,000 from 18 screens for a 18-day total of HK$5.22 million. Sadly, Wong Jing’s Beauty and the Seven Beasts had a higher per-screen average with HK$70,000 from 8 screens. Its 19-day total is only HK$2.88 million.
- In Korean box office, it was such a slow week that even The Nanny Diaries and Becoming Jane made the top 10. Hur Jin-Ho’s Happiness leads the chart again. Can anyone tell me whether it was any good?
- In Japanese box office, no numbers yet, but the audience ranking says that Closed Note is still doing quite well (despite never having made it to the top spot), Peter Berg’s The Kingdom made second place, and people are actually still going to watch A Perfect Stranger. Scary.
The Golden Rock should be back from its break tomorrow. Until then, it’ll slowly get back onto schedule.
This week’s artist was almost completely forgotten by this blogger until he started listening to their last album on MD. It’s kind of commercial, and I expect choosing it would make my credibility as a music critic go down further, but I’ll risk it. From A Rush of Blood to the Head, it’s Coldplay’s The Scientist.
Recently, I raved about a small Japanese independent film named This World Of Ours on Lovehkfilm after I received a copy of the film from its director Ryo Nakajima and enjoyed it thoroughly. Through our e-mail correspondence, Nakajima-san also graciously agreed to an e-mail interview for The Golden Rock. This is the result. Please note that English is not Nakajima-san’s first language, and that none of his answers have been edited from his email replies.
Answers are in bold.
1) Please tell the world about yourself - your background, your life, etc..
I am an only child. My parents brought up me with loving care. i was a spoiled child. My world was very small.
I began working on the screenplay when I was 19 going 20 ; at the time, I was a hikikomorin which means I was socially withdrawn and never left the house.
I could not find my place in life, and through days of doing nothing, because emotionally cornered. I decided to make a film back then because I felt a strong desire “ to connect with somebody and break out of my own shell”.
2) Why did you name the character acted by Okutsu Satoshi as Ryo Nakajima? Does he represent your personality/thoughts the most?
I was asked this Question in Vancouver. Ryo is not me. He is Dark Hero for me . It represent that I want to be Dark Hero. Hiroki represent my personality / thoughts most.
3) Has your views of the world, specifically of Japanese society, changed since the making of the film?
No. Now our surroundings changes more hopeless ( environmental pollution,uncertainty over the course of the economy, inconvenience of he mind and the body and so on) I am having difficulty in breathing in my life. But I found a ray of hope. That is to develop rapport with somebody. for example ,I and you have communication through the movie.
4) Some reviewers have compared your film to those of Shunji Iwai. How do you feel about that? And what are some of your cinematic influences, both foreign and Japanese?
The honor is more than I deserve.
In Japan , Most young people like my movie, But most adults feel unpleasant. They said it is full of Violence and ill. So far ,some of foreign people like my movie. I have posted about 25～30 DVD. 5 people mailed me and liked it.
(regarding cinematic influence)
Lars von Trier and Fernando Meirelles(city of god) They are the best directors for me
5) You mentioned on your website that you ran into many obstacles during production, what were some of them specifically? And how did the cast and crew help you overcome them?
Mr Taniguchi, main actor, played Hiroki, was stabbed with knife by madness man. The shooting was adjourned until he recoverd. Fortunately he got smoothly better, and his passion to make this movie became even stronger since he overcame his own death. It also strengthened the bonds of all the casts and staffs, and the story that young people fell into the attraction of destruction in despair changed into the one that they struggle to reach for hopes.
6) You didn’t have introduction of two of your stars - Hata Arisa and Okutsu Satoshi - on the website. Who are they, and will they continue to act in the future?
They quit to be an actor and actress. Now Okutsu is married. He is working on Hospital. Hata is fickle girl. Now She wants to be a singer. She takes lessons twice a week. I want them to became good actor and actress. But it cannot be helped.
7) I read recently that you were hired by a major Japanese production company. Do you plan to continue making films about tough topics like those you explored in your film, or will it be time to explore new directions?
I got a job in Star Dust Pictures. It is difficult to make Tough topics movie in Star Dust Pictures. But I have a strategy. At first I make a typical a popular movie. If I make an enormous profit on that movie, I will have an increasingly powerful voice within the company in the future. Then I make a movie whatever I want. I wish I can do it.
Are you already working on first film under Star Dust Pictures? If so, can you give any information about it?
Now I am taking part in the Film of Miki Nakatani. She is actress ,「Memories of Masuko」so on. She is trying to make her own film. I am her assistant.
Again, I would like to thank director Ryo Nakajima for his candid answers. I wish him all the best with his future endeavors. Please do find out more about the film at its official website.
As you can see from the wrong date in the last entry, this week has been quite tiring for this blogger. With at least two more student productions to work on the next two days and all the news about Pusan not all that engaging, the news entries will be taking a short break. There will probably be a box office report tomorrow, and if there’s something interesting, I might do a news post. But until the end of the weekend, don’t expect too much.
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Are you already working on first film under Star Dust Pictures? If