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.
I apologize for the lack of news all around, but at least it makes the daily entries easier to read.
- Way to make a multimedia project - Japanese pop rapper Kreva’s latest single “Because” not only comes with a 9-minute short film (seen here, comprised of just two people talking a lot without subtitles), but also a mobile novel written by the same person who wrote the short film. That mobile novel is so popular that it received 10,000 hits in the first two days. Can anyone that understand Japanese watch the MTV and tell me if it’s THAT good?
- Twitch originally had more information about Koji Yakusho’s latest, but the site went down just as I’m writing this entry, so you can read it for yourself when the site gets back up.
- The same goes for their review of Alexi Tan’s disappointing Blood Brothers. But the review is written by contributor Stefan anyway. I would actually really like to see Twitch head honcho Todd’s reaction, especially after he looked so forward to it.
- Speaking of reviews, Mark Schilling of the Japan Times has a review of the drama adaptation film Hero, starring Kimura Takuya. Apparently this one is expected to do as well as the Bayside Shakedown series, but it has to be good first, don’t it?
- In addition to the lead actor being Kenichi Matsuyama, there is finally more details about the Death Note spin-off film L, including additional casting and even bits of the plot. Please, please, please not let there be a cute kid involved.
- Apparently the opening weekend for the sexually explicit flick Shortbus was quite successful, making 2.69 million yen over two days, attracting audiences of all kinds. However, no admissions figures are available
Today’s song of the day comes from Kreva, whose latest single was mentioned in the news post. He was considered “the talented one” in the pop-rap group Kick The Can Crew, but has moved on to doing solo (apparently everyone is too busy to reunite). This is one of his better singles. From the album Ai Jibunhaku, it’s “Start“.
I apologize for the lack of news all around, but at least it makes the daily entries easier to read.
- Way to make a multimedia project - Japanese pop rapper Kreva’s latest single “Because” not only comes with a 9-minute short film (seen here, comprised of just two people talking a lot without subtitles), but also a mobile novel written by the same person who wrote the short film. That mobile novel is so popular that it received 10,000 hits in the first two days. Can anyone that understand Japanese watch the MTV and tell me if it’s THAT good?
- Twitch originally had more information about Koji Yakusho’s latest, but the site went down just as I’m writing this entry, so you can read it for yourself when the site gets back up.
- The same goes for their review of Alexi Tan’s disappointing Blood Brothers. But the review is written by contributor Stefan anyway. I would actually really like to see Twitch head honcho Todd’s reaction, especially after he looked so forward to it.
- Speaking of reviews, Mark Schilling of the Japan Times has a review of the drama adaptation film Hero, starring Kimura Takuya. Apparently this one is expected to do as well as the Bayside Shakedown series, but it has to be good first, don’t it?
- In addition to the lead actor being Kenichi Matsuyama, there is finally more details about the Death Note spin-off film L, including additional casting and even bits of the plot. Please, please, please not let there be a cute kid involved.
- Apparently the opening weekend for the sexually explicit flick Shortbus was quite successful, making 2.69 million yen over two days, attracting audiences of all kinds. However, no admissions figures are available
I have to admit that today’s Song of the Day is kind of a random choice, but nevertheless it’s a good choice. I first heard it around the time I went to the Love Psychedelico concert (because the song was for the compilation released to promote the concert), and it was one of the songs they sang at the end. Originally from the now out-of-print compilation Early Times, it’s Love Psychedelico’s “Fantastic World“.
The 12th annual Golden Bauhinia Awards just wrapped up. This year, the award attracted controversy when it gave 10 nominations to Pang Ho-Cheung’s Exodus before it screened anywhere publicly. Shown on second-tier TV network ATV, the show was not live and seemed to be edited quickly to compress running time. Even worse, most of the winners didn’t even show up to claim their award, although Charlene Choi recorded a short clip for her previously-informed win for most popular performance in Simply Actors. However, that clip was in Mandarin because any artist signed with big network TVB means they also give the exclusive Cantonese interview rights to them, as in any TVB-signed artist may not speak Cantonese with any Hong Kong network except TVB.
Anyway, without further ado, here are the winners:
Best new actor:
Goum Ian Iskandar - After This, Our Exile
Best Sound:
Kinson Tsang - Confession of Pain
Best music:
Peter Kam - Protege
Art direction:
Tim Yip - The Banquet
Most popular actress:
Charlene Choi - Mostly Actors
Best cinematography:
Andrew Lau/Lai Yiu-Fai - Confession of Pain
Best editing:
Patrick Tam Ka-Ming - After This, Our Exile
Most Creative:
Exodus
Best action choreography:
Donnie Yen - Dragon Tiger Gate
Best supporting actress:
Zhou Xun - The Banquet
Best Supporting Actor:
Goum Ian Iskandar - After This, Our Exile
Best Film Song:
Curse of the Golden Flower/The Banquet (tie)
Best screenplay:
Patrick Tam Ka-Ming/Tin Kai-Leong - After This, Our Exile
Best actress:
Charlene Choi - Simply Actors/Gong Li - Curse of the Golden Flowers (tie)
Best actor:
Lau Ching Wan (he actually showed up!) - My Name is Fame
Best Director:
Johnnie To - Exiled
Best film:
Exiled, After This Our Exile, Battle of Wits (3-way tie)
So in the end, looks like those early nominations for Exodus really did end up hurting its chances. And why the hell did Battle of Wits get so many nominations? In fact, why were Lau Ching-Wan and Pang Ho-Cheung the only two that showed up to receive something? The people that DID show up (Simon Yam, Lam Suet, Nick Cheung) didn’t get anything.
Any thoughts? Who didn’t deserve something? Who deserved something? Who cares about the Golden Bauhinia? Actually, I do; it’s like the Golden Globes of Hong Kong film, people.
By the way, no news post tonight. Song of the Day might come after this.
I have to admit that today’s Song of the Day is kind of a random choice, but nevertheless it’s a good choice. I first heard it around the time I went to the Love Psychedelico concert (because the song was for the compilation released to promote the concert), and it was one of the songs they sang at the end. Originally from the now out-of-print compilation Early Times, it’s Love Psychedelico’s “Fantastic World“.
The 12th annual Golden Bauhinia Awards just wrapped up. This year, the award attracted controversy when it gave 10 nominations to Pang Ho-Cheung’s Exodus before it screened anywhere publicly. Shown on second-tier TV network ATV, the show was not live and seemed to be edited quickly to compress running time. Even worse, most of the winners didn’t even show up to claim their award, although Charlene Choi recorded a short clip for her previously-informed win for most popular performance in Simply Actors. However, that clip was in Mandarin because any artist signed with big network TVB means they also give the exclusive Cantonese interview rights to them, as in any TVB-signed artist may not speak Cantonese with any Hong Kong network except TVB.
Anyway, without further ado, here are the winners:
Best new actor:
Goum Ian Iskandar - After This, Our Exile
Best Sound:
Kinson Tsang - Confession of Pain
Best music:
Peter Kam - Protege
Art direction:
Tim Yip - The Banquet
Most popular actress:
Charlene Choi - Mostly Actors
Best cinematography:
Andrew Lau/Lai Yiu-Fai - Confession of Pain
Best editing:
Patrick Tam Ka-Ming - After This, Our Exile
Most Creative:
Exodus
Best action choreography:
Donnie Yen - Dragon Tiger Gate
Best supporting actress:
Zhou Xun - The Banquet
Best Supporting Actor:
Goum Ian Iskandar - After This, Our Exile
Best Film Song:
Curse of the Golden Flower/The Banquet (tie)
Best screenplay:
Patrick Tam Ka-Ming/Tin Kai-Leong - After This, Our Exile
Best actress:
Charlene Choi - Simply Actors/Gong Li - Curse of the Golden Flowers (tie)
Best actor:
Lau Ching Wan (he actually showed up!) - My Name is Fame
Best Director:
Johnnie To - Exiled
Best film:
Exiled, After This Our Exile, Battle of Wits (3-way tie)
So in the end, looks like those early nominations for Exodus really did end up hurting its chances. And why the hell did Battle of Wits get so many nominations? In fact, why were Lau Ching-Wan and Pang Ho-Cheung the only two that showed up to receive something? The people that DID show up (Simon Yam, Lam Suet, Nick Cheung) didn’t get anything.
Any thoughts? Who didn’t deserve something? Who deserved something? Who cares about the Golden Bauhinia? Actually, I do; it’s like the Golden Globes of Hong Kong film, people.
By the way, no news post tonight. Song of the Day might come after this.
- Johnnie To is getting to be an even harder-working man than Andy Lau. Not only did he just bring The Mad Detective (probably not named The Detective anymore because Aaron Kwok’s The Detective is coming), he also wrapped up the Mainland Chinese romance Linger, finishing up The Sparrow (another one of the Johnnie To films made on a Wong Kar-Wai schedule), the remake of the French film The Red Circle, AND now he’s going to produce a trilogy of films about tomb-raiding. I am almost sure they will suck less that those Tomb Raider movies.
Today’s only box office report is that of Hong Kong’s Thursday opening day. 7 films opened yesterday, with 3 of them I would consider as wide releases. Among them, the best performer was the teen thriller Disturbia (which didn’t get much promotion here). From 24 screens, the Rear Window-in-shitty-teen-rock-music made HK$230,000 for second place. The next one on the list is a bit of a surprise. Alfred Cheung’s Mainland-targeted Contract Lover (review soon in the spin-off) managed to make HK$220,000 from 26 screens, considering that the show I went to last night only had 12 people (and the group I saw it with made up 7 of them). Next on 20 screens is the Korean puppy drama Hearty Paws, which opened with just HK$120,000. This is also a little surprising because puppy films tend to do very well in Hong Kong.
As for the limited releases (I would consider 15 screens and under a limited release, by the way), only one made it to the top 10. The American torture porn Captivity made only HK$60,000 on 14 screens. The other 3 films - La Vie En Rose (2 screens), Renaissance (1 screen), and The Number 23 (1 screen) - naturally didn’t make it into the top 10.
US$1=HK$7.8
- I mentioned that Sicko opened at only about 10% of Fahrenheit 911, but I didn’t take into account that Fahrenheit had a wider opening. In fact, Sicko’s opening was actually 134% of the opening for Bowling for Columbine.
- Johnnie To is getting to be an even harder-working man than Andy Lau. Not only did he just bring The Mad Detective (probably not named The Detective anymore because Aaron Kwok’s The Detective is coming), he also wrapped up the Mainland Chinese romance Linger, finishing up The Sparrow (another one of the Johnnie To films made on a Wong Kar-Wai schedule), the remake of the French film The Red Circle, AND now he’s going to produce a trilogy of films about tomb-raiding. I am almost sure they will suck less that those Tomb Raider movies.
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