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.
- Then again, maybe it’s not so bad to be Shrek 3 in Hong Kong. On Sunday of the 4-day holiday weekend, the animated sequel made HK$3.01 million on 54 screens for a impressive 4-day total of HK$8.2 million, and probably crossed the HK$10 million mark on Sunday already. Die Hard 4.0 is far behind, making HK$1.28 million on 36 screens on its 4th day of previews. It has made HK$3.58 million and will officially open on naturally July 4th. The biggest local performer, meanwhile, is the Milkyway comedy-drama-handover commemoration film Hooked On You. On Sunday, it made HK$960,000 on 34 screens for a 40-day total of HK$3.14 million.
Golden Scene should be happy that Simply Actors managed to hang on this weekend, making HK$500,000 on 30 screen for a HK$7.81 million cume after 13 days. However, Milkyway’s other release Eye in the Sky failed to retain the male audience, making only HK$210,000 on 25 screens for a 11-day total of just HK$3.4 million. Lastly, the only limited release arthouse film on the top 10 is Julie Delpy’s Two Days in Paris, which made HK$100,000 on 4 screens for a 4-day total of HK$300,000.
- Meanwhile, South Korea saw a invasion of Michael Bay’s Transformers, as it scored 75% of all ticket sales this past weekend. It also attracted 1.3 million people on an unknown number of screens (though I suspect that number is pretty high up there). Meanwhile, Black House (which Korean Film Page’s Kyu Kyun Kim, who teaches at alma mater UC Davis but I have not met before, recently reviewed) stays at second place and has nearly attracted a million admissions already. Go to Korea Pop Wars for the rest of the rankings.
- Global music sales are down, and the industry goes after its favorite scapegoat - piracy. However, not only has digital music sales now responsible for 11% of all music sales, Asian countries such as Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, and even China saw growth in sales. So much for blaming Asia.
- Takeshi Miike’s all-English “Sukiyaki Western Django” now has a release date of September 15th. Sony financed and will be distributing this one, so Miike doesn’t have to worry.
- My role model Takeshi Kaneshiro (despite my appearance and charisma nowhere near his in any way) is back to Japanese cinema after 2002’s Returner in Shinagami No Seido, which according to Ryuganji, most definitely sounds like a Japanese version of Wings of Desire.
- Japan’s Docomo just started a movie download service for your mobile phones, in their attempt to get people to stop typing so damn much on their phone while riding the trains. Too bad the service is nowhere near free, though.
- In “News that everyone already knows before it got reported” today, Hong Kong’s Big Media, who promises to make 100 films in the next 5 years, is in a co-production deal with Mei-Ah. I kind of figured that out when I found Big Media’s sales fliers through Mei-Ah’s website.
- The Wii has now outsold the Playstation 3 in a ratio of 6:1 in Japan, increased from the 5:1 ratio last month. I suspect PS3 sales will increase when television standards turns completely to digital broadcasting, but that would also mean Sony has a tough couple of years to go.
- Hollywood Reporter checks in with two Asian film reviews that I missed out on. First it’s Isshin Inudou’s big commercial release Bizan, which did respectable business in Japan, then the other is the J-horror flick Ghost Train, which somehow got itself a North American distribution deal. It’s worth watching just to see the ridiculously over-the-top finale.
- Moving their efforts away from Japan, the Korean Film Council has opened their first office in North America in Los Angeles. The office will help coordinate festival screenings, do research on the North American market, and of course, give information about Korean cinema in general.
- Speaking of Korean films, Twitch has the first trailer for Korean horror film Epitaph. Honestly, the only thing that might make this film promising is the fact that the director used to work for Park Chan-Wook.
- Salon Film have established itself for many years as THE provider of film equipment throughout Asia. Now they’re taking on the business of selling Asian things back to the rest of the world by taking on international sales. Their first film will be the “supernatural action” film The Painted Skin, the 4th collaboration between Donnie Yen and Wilson Yip.
Continuing the unofficial Golden Rock summer series, today we have the Japanese rap/pop fusion group Ketsumeishi. I’ve been in love with these guys’ music since I checked out their Ketsu No Police album 4 2 years ago, when their single Sakura blew up the charts. So today’s song is their latest single “Mata Kimi Ni Aeru” (Able to Meet You Again).
Considering Yuri Ebihara showed up last week in the suntan lotion ad, it seems like I might have an unconscious crush on the girl. It’s not that hard to see why, though.
Hong Kong was on public holiday Monday, which means no weekend box office figure until later tonight Pacific Time (Tuesday in HK) or even tomorrow night.
- On the other hand, the Japanese box office numbers are already out, and Box Office Mojo already has the comprehensive chart. Die Hard 4.0 takes the top spot with a strong 603 million yen from 741 screens. Adding the Saturday’s preview screenings’ take of 289 million yen, it has already made 892 million yen to date. However, its 814,000 yen per-screen average is kind of weak for an opening this wide (Spiderman 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean saw higher per-screen average on even higher screen counts). Meanwhile, Shrek 3 opens at third, making 363.8 million yen on 543 screens, which is much higher than Shrek 2’s opening of 284.8 million yen on 551 screens in 2004. If the performance pattern is similar to Shrek 2, this one should end up doing better than the previous film by about 25%.
Except for The Haunted Samurai, Maiko Haaaan!!!, and Pirates of the Caribbean, everything else took a pretty big hit, especially Spiderman 3’s 52.2% hit, Zodiac’s 40.1% hit, and Dai Nipponjin’s 43% drop (at least it passed the 1 billion yen mark). Lastly, Pedro Almodovar’s Volver missed the top 10 because it’s only playing on 40 screens. It only make 19 million yen.
- By the way, I forgot to report that the Akihi To Kamo No Coin Locker opening in Tokyo also marked the best opening for a Japanese film at that theater after last year’s Mamiya Brothers, and is the 7th best opening ever at the theater.
- After the financial failure of Ichikawa Kon’s self-remake of The Inugami Family earlier in the year, director Nobuhiko Oobayashi’s self-remake of his 1982 film Exchange Students also failed in its limited release. Originally the first part of the “Onomichi Trilogy” (the director’s hometown), the remake, named Tenkousei - Sayonara Anata, takes the film out of its original location to Nagano. On 30 screens, the film made only 5 million yen with only a 166,666 yen per-screen average. Perhaps these self-remakes aren’t very good ideas.
- Meanwhile, Kiroi Namida, the Isshin Inusou film starring Johnny’s boy group Arashi, opened in South Korea to a seemingly weak 16,000 admissions, only because it’s compared to Memories of Tomorrow’s 38,000 admissions and Tears For You’s 64,000 admissions for their respective opening weekends. However, there’s nothing about how many screens it opened on, considering that the film is considered less mainstream than its counterparts in Japan. However, Eiga Consultant also points out that the film actually didn’t even do all that well in Japan. While the film has finally broke the 200 million yen barrier, other films starring individual members of Arashi (such as Letters From Iwo Jima and Honey and Clover) has actually done much better.
- Naked News, the show where reporters literally remove pieces of clothing while reporting the latest news, is on an adult-oriented channel in Japan. Guess what? It’s also subsidized by the government.
- A while ago I reported about yet another censorship case involving Hong Kong’s Television and Entertainment Licensing Council. An essay in Hong Kong’s inMediaHK site included a picture from Flickr with nudity, prompting a warning from TELA that it might be sent to be classified as a category II indecent material. However, the writer refuses to budge (the irony is that the essay is actually about this Hong Kong witch-hunt of “indecent” material by conservative groups), and a month later, the essay has been classified as category II material, with the writer now at risk to pay fines and serve jail time.
- Universal Music, one of the few record companies that is actually uploading their own artists’ music videos onto Youtube voluntarily, is refusing to draw a long-term licensing deal with Apple’s iTunes, which takes up 70% of the digital music market, because they pretty much want more money. According to Hongkie Town, Universal Music feels that iTunes isn’t charging enough for songs and is looking for another provider that would make them more money. And corporations wonder why people don’t like giving money to them.
Today’s song of the day is inspired by Kanye West’s use of a Daft Punk song for his latest track “Sutosoga”…….ok, it’s “Stronger.” This is a Daft Punk song I liked more than the one Kanye sampled from, and that’s why it’s the song of the day. It originally appeared on their album Homework, but I myself have it on the soundtrack of The Saint, it’s “Da Funk.”
I spent several hours editing the podcast, only to realize I botched it up on Audacity, so it’ll be a few more hours of re-editing the whole thing, and it’ll be up a little later than I originally thought.
- Kanye West’s video for “Sutosoga” (hey, that’s what the title says in Japanese) is up. The big deal about it is that he shot it in Tokyo reportedly in the style of the animated film Akira (it’s been too long since I’ve seen it to remember), and it also features a real biker gang. The song still sounds like nursery rhyme, but the video looks pretty cool.
- This past week, I wrote about the somewhat disappointing performance of the period comedy The Haunted Samurai starring Satoshi Tsumaboki. If you wanted to know more about the film, which is a rare non-horror supernatural samurai film, check out the Daily Yomiuri’s introduction.
- Under “New York Asian Film Festival” news today - Asian Cinema - While on the Road posted the Q&A with E J-Yong, the director of Untold Scandal and Dasepo Naughty Girls.
- Apparently it took two major Hollywood films to fail enough in order to show Hollywood that it needs more Japanese actors. Why did I already know that when they casted three Chinese women for all the lead roles in Memoirs of a Geisha?
- Disney has localized itself in China by producing and releasing the very first Disney film produced for the Chinese market. Filmed in China and partly produced by Hong Kong effects house Centro (they’re the pioneer of CGI in Hong Kong films, having done blockbusters such as Stormriders and A Man Called Hero), the effort is set for release this summer.
- Oh yes, it’s July 1st, so while a lot of people are filled with patriotism, especially the writers for TVB’s broadcast of the Hong Kong fireworks, I would rather post a link about Chinese censorship.
This was supposed to be tomorrow’s Song of the Day, but my original choice for today’s song would only make sense under a news I’m reporting tomorrow. Plus, it’s July 1st in Hong Kong right now, so it would make sense anyway. I reported this song earlier in the week, but I thought it’s the appropriate time to play this. At least it ought to represent my political views. From Kay Lam and Friends, it’s Folk Guy’s Always With You
- Also playing at the same theater is the haunting documentary The Bridge, which examines why people commit suicide through the examination of several people who jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge. I’ve seen parts of the film when it played on the Independent Film Channel, and anyone looking for shocking footage of people jumping (the crew shot the sides of the bridge for an entire year) will be disappointed because it’s really more about the effects of depression through interviews with friends and family. Anyway, Japan Times has a review of it, as well as an interview with filmmaker Eric Steel.
- Legendary Hong Kong comic actor Michael Hui, who made a comeback of sorts with Joe Ma’s Three of a Kind (would his cameo in Fantasia count as the start of his comeback?) is making his first film since 1992’s The Magic Touch this October. He openly praised Miriam Yeung, Louis Koo, and Lau Ching-Wan for their comedic skills, though he has not expressed any wish to cast them. As long as it’s better than the immensely disappointing Three of a Kind, I’ll show up.
- The first Hong Kong film to be in the HD-format war (HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray) is……[drum rolls]Infernal Affairs, and it’s coming on Blu-Ray. I’m sure the film will look nice, but I remember through my subsequent visits on DVD that aurally it’s just really unnecessarily loud.
- Kim Ji-Woon’s Western The Good, the Bad and The Weird ran into a bit of trouble when distributor/investor Showbox (The Host) dropped out. Good thing CJ Entertainment has now taken over for the US$11 million film. Strange, I thought Showbox made a ton of money last year on The Host, so why would they have particular trouble investing in this movie?
- Man, those Japanese really know how to sell a movie. Their website for the disappointing Confession of Pain is up, and the url is www.drywhisky.com (trust me, you’ll get it when you see the movie). Hell, they even make the trailer look better than the Hong Kong one by incorporating actual music from the film….well, except for that ridiculous theme song by Ayumi Hamasaki. But the movie is partly funded by Avex (Hamasaki’s record company), so whatever. Man, that trailer actually make me want to see the movie.
- Oh, no, China doesn’t want porn on its internet!!!! No “unpatriotic words,” no foreign news source, and now no porn? Soon they’re going to be able to make a list of what they DO allow on the internet.
Today’s song comes in light of the news that ex-Zone vocalist Miyu going off to do her own solo thing. So today’s song is going to be the first Zone song I’ve ever heard. Now on their compilation album, it’s Zone’s “Secret Base ~ Kimi Ga Kureta Mono“
And here is how I first discovered the song (stick with it, it gets really really good)
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