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.
Yet another Podcast done, will be up in a little bit.
- Perhaps the Korean Wave hasn’t quite disappeared in Japan, as the drama Maundy Sunday opened last weekend on 7 screens in Japan, grossing 8.7 million yen over three days for a not-too-bad per-screen average of 1.24 million yen. The most promising news about that opening is actually the fact that word-of-mouth is so good that audiences are buying up the pamphlets at the theatres after they watched the film, with more than 30% sold from each theatre. This means people might be showing the pamphlets to other people, driving a healthy final gross in the long run. Then again, best we don’t get all excited over the results of just one film.
- Proving that there is not such thing as double jeopardy in China, Chinese search engine site Baidu has been sued yet again for the same crime by another company. The popular search engine was once sued by record companies for providing links to illegal downloads of music, and now it has been sued for the same thing by another record company. If four internationally-renowned record companies couldn’t win, what makes this company think it would?
- How can Japanese films, even blockbuster films, manage to come in at such a low budget? Simple, according to produce Taka Ichise - just underpay everyone.
- As a amateur music critic, I know i shouldn’t indulge in having an idol and all, but I admit it - despite my criticisms for her recent work, J-pop artist Hikaru Utada is my idol, which is why I am pretty happy to know that she has been voted as Japan’s favorite artist once again after a few years off the popularity wagon. Too bad it was due to her most mediocre single ever released.
- Korea Pop War’s Mark Russell has a review of the new big Korean film May 18, which is one of the few final hopes for Korean cinema this summer amid the Hollywood invasion.
I picked something groovy for the Song of the Day today. It needs little introduction, and there’s little to say because people talk very little about this track from that particular album. From Daft Punk’s 2001 album Discovery, it’s Something About Us.
- Monkey Magic and Pokemon better watch out in Japan this weekend, because Harry Potter has officially landed and is set wipe out everything in its way. Just last weekend, Potter managed to make 1.17 billion yen (US$1=121 yen, at least as of today) from three days of previews. That shatters the three-day preview record previously set by Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, which made 940 million yen during its 3-day previews. Looks like that 5.9 billion yen mark Fuji TV wants for Monkey Magic is looking tougher and tougher.
- The saga with Hong Kong’s Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority continues after it was widely criticized by even mainstream newspaper for gripping their iron fist at the Hong Kong book fair. Now the head has come out and does what every salaried worker doesn’t want their managers to do: blame the little guys. More on this ongoing saga on the podcast tomorrow.
- The Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival has just wrapped up, although its closing ceremonies and awards were handed out on Thursday. Korea Pop Wars has a small wrap-up of the festival, which is going down as one of the best in years.
- Yet another copying incident with a Hong Kong pop star - Joey Yung’s latest MTV for her song “On Your Left and Right” has been revealed to be eerily similar (as in almost identical) to the Mandy Moore MTV Extraordinary (I didn’t know Mandy Moore is still singing, and I live in her target market). If this is true, this wouldn’t be Yung’s fault anyway, but it can’t be reflecting too well on her character after the “pirated wardrobe” incident earlier in the year. Click on the links next to the pictures to see the respective MTVs.
Still plenty of news coming tomorrow, as well as the Podcast. Sorry for the delays in replying to your comments, they should all be replied to by now.
I picked something groovy for the Song of the Day today. It needs little introduction, and there’s little to say because people talk very little about this track from that particular album. From Daft Punk’s 2001 album Discovery, it’s Something About Us.
- Monkey Magic and Pokemon better watch out in Japan this weekend, because Harry Potter has officially landed and is set wipe out everything in its way. Just last weekend, Potter managed to make 1.17 billion yen (US$1=121 yen, at least as of today) from three days of previews. That shatters the three-day preview record previously set by Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, which made 940 million yen during its 3-day previews. Looks like that 5.9 billion yen mark Fuji TV wants for Monkey Magic is looking tougher and tougher.
- The saga with Hong Kong’s Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority continues after it was widely criticized by even mainstream newspaper for gripping their iron fist at the Hong Kong book fair. Now the head has come out and does what every salaried worker doesn’t want their managers to do: blame the little guys. More on this ongoing saga on the podcast tomorrow.
- The Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival has just wrapped up, although its closing ceremonies and awards were handed out on Thursday. Korea Pop Wars has a small wrap-up of the festival, which is going down as one of the best in years.
- Yet another copying incident with a Hong Kong pop star - Joey Yung’s latest MTV for her song “On Your Left and Right” has been revealed to be eerily similar (as in almost identical) to the Mandy Moore MTV Extraordinary (I didn’t know Mandy Moore is still singing, and I live in her target market). If this is true, this wouldn’t be Yung’s fault anyway, but it can’t be reflecting too well on her character after the “pirated wardrobe” incident earlier in the year. Click on the links next to the pictures to see the respective MTVs.
Still plenty of news coming tomorrow, as well as the Podcast. Sorry for the delays in replying to your comments, they should all be replied to by now.
Back a little earlier than expected with a somewhat shorter entry than usual. But I do bring good news AND bad news.
- In Hong Kong Thursday opening day box office numbers, despite Harry Potter and an assortment of foreign movies taking up screens in Hong Kong (Transformers is looking to do the same next weekend), Benny Chan’s Invisible Targets managed to open strongly with HK$940,000 on 34 screens. Considering almost all multiplexes simply throwing it into smaller screens (Pot-tah still has those big screens), this is a really promising start. If these numbers hold up, it could be doing HK$4 million or so by the end of the weekend, and it might even cross the HK$10 million mark. By the way, Twitch has a review.
Still, Pot-tah and his buddies took the day with HK$1.35 million on 90 screens for a 9-day total of HK$28.16 million. Somehow, HK$40 million is looking a little farther than I thought. In other opening films, the Japanese cartoon Keroro movie took HK$530,000 on 27 screens, Next with Nicholas Cage (I already get to watch this on the plane in 2 weeks) took just HK$140,000 on 17 screens, and Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof took in just HK$50,000 on 6 screens after making HK$90,000 on previews the last few weeks. It probably won’t even match Planet Terror’s current total of HK$1.54 million.
- Speaking of embarrassing, America is acting like the schoolyard bully-turned-yard snitch and threatening China to remove barriers for foreign music or risk having that added to their current complaint with the World Trade Organization. You mean let uncensored entertainment enter China in their unaltered original form, thus protecting the artistic integrity of the original works? Impossible!
- I didn’t report on that Chinese cardboard box meat bun story because it was kind of nasty and had nothing to do with Asian entertainment. Little did I know that it IS Asian entertainment, because it was faked by a producer of the Chinese TV program.
No song of the day, but a full entry and back on the usual schedule tomorrow.
Back a little earlier than expected with a somewhat shorter entry than usual. But I do bring good news AND bad news.
- In Hong Kong Thursday opening day box office numbers, despite Harry Potter and an assortment of foreign movies taking up screens in Hong Kong (Transformers is looking to do the same next weekend), Benny Chan’s Invisible Targets managed to open strongly with HK$940,000 on 34 screens. Considering almost all multiplexes simply throwing it into smaller screens (Pot-tah still has those big screens), this is a really promising start. If these numbers hold up, it could be doing HK$4 million or so by the end of the weekend, and it might even cross the HK$10 million mark. By the way, Twitch has a review.
Still, Pot-tah and his buddies took the day with HK$1.35 million on 90 screens for a 9-day total of HK$28.16 million. Somehow, HK$40 million is looking a little farther than I thought. In other opening films, the Japanese cartoon Keroro movie took HK$530,000 on 27 screens, Next with Nicholas Cage (I already get to watch this on the plane in 2 weeks) took just HK$140,000 on 17 screens, and Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof took in just HK$50,000 on 6 screens after making HK$90,000 on previews the last few weeks. It probably won’t even match Planet Terror’s current total of HK$1.54 million.
- Speaking of embarrassing, America is acting like the schoolyard bully-turned-yard snitch and threatening China to remove barriers for foreign music or risk having that added to their current complaint with the World Trade Organization. You mean let uncensored entertainment enter China in their unaltered original form, thus protecting the artistic integrity of the original works? Impossible!
- I didn’t report on that Chinese cardboard box meat bun story because it was kind of nasty and had nothing to do with Asian entertainment. Little did I know that it IS Asian entertainment, because it was faked by a producer of the Chinese TV program.
No song of the day, but a full entry and back on the usual schedule tomorrow.
OK, just a relatively short entry today, and perhaps a break for the rest of the week due to familial obligations.
- Box Office Mojo has no box office figures for Japan up yet, but the audience ranking for the 14th and 15th (I emphasize this because it was a three-day weekend. More later) shows the Pokemon movie at number one, and super-duper-ultra-wide release Monkey Magic/Saiyuki (which Jason Gray pointed out it’s actually the widest Japanese live-action release ever. The widest animation release has got to be a Ghibli movie, just not the last two) managed only number two.
Here’s where it gets messy - Variety reports that the film made about 795 million yen over three days, despite the typhoon (understandable - typhoon means bad weather, bad weather means people don’t want to go out…..or go somewhere indoors like a movie theater) and the earthquake in Niigata? Not to undermine Niigata, been there once, real pretty, but real rural too. So people can possibly be so upset about a devastating earthquake in Niigata to stop themselves from watching a movie about a monkey and a female monk fighting some cgi monsters? I don’t mean to show any lack of sympathy for the victims - I was in Japan during the last Niigata earthquake, and it wasn’t fun even from Tokyo - but I agree with Jason that writing as if Monkey Magic had fought mother nature and won seems….ridiculous.
Meanwhile, the story of the weekend ought to be the Pokemon movie, because it managed to make 780 million yen in TWO days. Of course, there’s this whole thing about getting something on the Nintendo DS in the movie theater, but it managed to open at 190% of the last movie’s opening, and may very well get pretty close to the highest Pokemon film gross of 7.24 billion yen, set by the first film. However, I think it has more to do with the fact that it’s the 10th anniversary movie anyway. Take that, SMAP monkey king.
- In Korea box office, Harry Potter dominated to no one’s surprise. Transformers is getting very close to breaking the record for highest number of admissions for a foreign film (yay, fighting robots!), and Black House continues to hang on for Korean films at 4th place with 1.2 million admissions.
- Sorry, Japanese TV ratings take too long to go over, so I’ll keep things really short. The Monday night 9pm Fuji TV drama (typically the hottest time slot for dramas) First Kiss scored a huge premiere with 19.7 rating (we’ll talk about its crash and burn next week). The apparently very annoying Hana Sakari No Kimi Tachi He earned more viewers with an 16.8 rating, Yama Onna Kabe Onna, which someone asked me to track, fell just a little bit to a 13.5 rating in its second week, and TV Asahi’s bar hostess drama Jotei scored a so-so 12.4 rating. As always, read up on information on dramas at Tokyograph.
- Director Jiang Wen’s The Sun Also Rises disappeared just before it was supposed to premiere at Cannes. Turns out it got rejected, because “parts of the film were mangled in post-production,” which might be the Chinese excuse for a messy third-act that people hated. Anyway, the film will now finally premiere this fall in Venice and China.
- Japanese public broadcaster NHK charges every household in Japan for watching, no matter how much time you spend watching it. After a wave of people finally fed with their recent corruption scandals, a bunch of people stopped paying. Now NHK has decided to cut fees by 20% and get rid of those annoying door-to-door guys that came to my dorm room to collect. As a side note: I apologize to NHK again for just cancelling my bank account before leaving Japan without notifying them. Thank you for not taking me to court, you greedy assholes.
That’s it for the week (probably). I’ll be back on time for the weekend, and I’ll keep tracking world out there.
OK, just a relatively short entry today, and perhaps a break for the rest of the week due to familial obligations.
- Box Office Mojo has no box office figures for Japan up yet, but the audience ranking for the 14th and 15th (I emphasize this because it was a three-day weekend. More later) shows the Pokemon movie at number one, and super-duper-ultra-wide release Monkey Magic/Saiyuki (which Jason Gray pointed out it’s actually the widest Japanese live-action release ever. The widest animation release has got to be a Ghibli movie, just not the last two) managed only number two.
Here’s where it gets messy - Variety reports that the film made about 795 million yen over three days, despite the typhoon (understandable - typhoon means bad weather, bad weather means people don’t want to go out…..or go somewhere indoors like a movie theater) and the earthquake in Niigata? Not to undermine Niigata, been there once, real pretty, but real rural too. So people can possibly be so upset about a devastating earthquake in Niigata to stop themselves from watching a movie about a monkey and a female monk fighting some cgi monsters? I don’t mean to show any lack of sympathy for the victims - I was in Japan during the last Niigata earthquake, and it wasn’t fun even from Tokyo - but I agree with Jason that writing as if Monkey Magic had fought mother nature and won seems….ridiculous.
Meanwhile, the story of the weekend ought to be the Pokemon movie, because it managed to make 780 million yen in TWO days. Of course, there’s this whole thing about getting something on the Nintendo DS in the movie theater, but it managed to open at 190% of the last movie’s opening, and may very well get pretty close to the highest Pokemon film gross of 7.24 billion yen, set by the first film. However, I think it has more to do with the fact that it’s the 10th anniversary movie anyway. Take that, SMAP monkey king.
- In Korea box office, Harry Potter dominated to no one’s surprise. Transformers is getting very close to breaking the record for highest number of admissions for a foreign film (yay, fighting robots!), and Black House continues to hang on for Korean films at 4th place with 1.2 million admissions.
- Sorry, Japanese TV ratings take too long to go over, so I’ll keep things really short. The Monday night 9pm Fuji TV drama (typically the hottest time slot for dramas) First Kiss scored a huge premiere with 19.7 rating (we’ll talk about its crash and burn next week). The apparently very annoying Hana Sakari No Kimi Tachi He earned more viewers with an 16.8 rating, Yama Onna Kabe Onna, which someone asked me to track, fell just a little bit to a 13.5 rating in its second week, and TV Asahi’s bar hostess drama Jotei scored a so-so 12.4 rating. As always, read up on information on dramas at Tokyograph.
- Director Jiang Wen’s The Sun Also Rises disappeared just before it was supposed to premiere at Cannes. Turns out it got rejected, because “parts of the film were mangled in post-production,” which might be the Chinese excuse for a messy third-act that people hated. Anyway, the film will now finally premiere this fall in Venice and China.
- Japanese public broadcaster NHK charges every household in Japan for watching, no matter how much time you spend watching it. After a wave of people finally fed with their recent corruption scandals, a bunch of people stopped paying. Now NHK has decided to cut fees by 20% and get rid of those annoying door-to-door guys that came to my dorm room to collect. As a side note: I apologize to NHK again for just cancelling my bank account before leaving Japan without notifying them. Thank you for not taking me to court, you greedy assholes.
That’s it for the week (probably). I’ll be back on time for the weekend, and I’ll keep tracking world out there.
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