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 following is a compilation of the most notable news covered by The Golden Rock from June 4th to June 10th, 2007:
- The recent blockbusters have been taking up so much screens in Korea (and pretty much everywhere else, come to think of it) that the Korean government is actually looking into whether studios are breaking monopoly laws. However, since these screen counts were reached by consensus between theaterowners and distributors (more demand=more screens=bigger cut), not much wrongdoing is likely to be found.
- After appearing in 6 films, starring in one TV drama (Taiyou no Uta, or the drama version of Midnight Sun, which was confirmed to be inspired by the Hong Kong film C’est la vie, Mon Cheri), and releasing a single under said drama character’s name, Erika Sawajiri may be headed for a singing career. Sony Music has introduced a new singer named Erika who happens to look like her, has the same birthday as her, and even has the same voice….except she was born in Paris, unlike Sawajiri. But, but, she’s not even much of a singer.
- Jim Carrey is getting to be more of an actor than just another funnyman - I loved his performance in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and I guess taking on a thriller like The Number 23 sounded pretty good on paper. Now he’s taking on the dark comedy I Love You Philip Morris, as a real-life character who escaped prison four times after falling in love madly with his released-cell mate.
- The “HOCC vs Leo Ku” debacle has blown up just a little bit more when the two showed up for a concert put together by a radio station. And of course, the media is fanning the flame to sell more newspapers:
(in translation)Leo immediately said that his new song “Money Money Money Money” belongs in the category of Progressive Rock, the same style as Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” but the melodies are absolutely different.
OK, Mr. Ku, I’ll buy that your song doesn’t sound like Bohemian Rhapsody, but let’s make this clear - this song is Progressive Rock; your song is not.
Meanwhile, Paco Wong, the manager of all Gold Label artists, has this to say:
(in translation) “Perspectives are different. Denise Ho expressed her opinion without naming any names. That is her personal opinion; if she says that it’s Mark Lui and Leo Ku’s song, then thanks for helping with the promotion, but please clear up the names.” Then Leo pat his manager’s shoulder, trying to make peace saying, “she didn’t say any names, do not jump to conclusions.”
This is essentially a battle that the press started. HOCC didn’t even write that anyone copied any songs. Anyway, I won’t be translating the next line about Leo not smiling when they greeted each other since that’s just gossip. You can read the Chinese report to read about it.
- Twitch has a link to two more fragmented trailers to Wong Kar-Wai’s My Blueberry Nights. In line with the episodic structure of the film, the first trailer, released just before Cannes, showed the Jude Law subplot, while the second trailer is about Rachel Weisz’s subplot, and the third trailer is on Natalie Portman’s. It still looks pretty, but I’m not so sure about Portman’s country accent myself. By the way, you have to click on the French yellow button under that poster of Wild Hogs to get to the trailers.
- After a bit of rescheduling and whatnot, the New York Asian Film Festival finally announces its lineup, and it’s looking real good (so good that I wish I can fly to New York for it).
Looking even better is Japan Society’s own film festival Japan Cuts, which has quite a lineup this year as well, some of which is part of the New York Asian Film Festival.
- I first picked it up here, which somewhat wrongly translated the article. John Cameron Mitchell’s controversial film Shortbus is finally making its way to Japan, but not without a few modifications. According to the director, he personally supervised the placing of mosiac at 100 different places for the Japanese theatrical release due to the watchdog Eirin, who is basically the MPAA of Japan. Still, it’s not exactly the kiss of death, because unlike America, about 100 films are rated R-18 each year, including American Beauty. In fact, this news might even attract more people to see Shortbus in its limited run. Then again, Eirin is kind of weird, because even a violent war film like Letters of Iwo Jima got away with a general rating, while Flags of Our Fathers was a PG-12.
- Professor Bordwell writes about the recent wave of omnibus films, especially the Cannese 60th Anniversary anthology film To Each His Own Cinema.
- Naomi Kawase (director of the Cannes Grand Prix-winning The Mourning Forest) announced at Cannes that her next film will be a romantic comedy. Now more details have emerged that it’ll be shot in Thailand with Japanese drama star Kyoko Hasegawa. According to Ryuganji, just because Kawase is using a major actress for the first time doesn’t mean she’s going to be any easier on Hasegawa. She also wants to be among the ranks of Akira Kuroasawa and Nagisa Oshima as the “Japan’s Kawase” by the next generation and that she’ll win the Palme d’Or next time, though The Daily Yomiuri adds that she said it with a smile, suggesting that she might have just been half joking. Because, you know, I half-joke about winning the Palme d’Or all the time.
- China is suspending the issuing of internet cafe licenses as they do a thorough investigation to make sure the customers are behaving properly, as in they’re not playing violent games, looking up porn, or speaking ill of the nation. In other words, what Americans do on the internet most of the time.
- In a piece of more serious news, the erotic pages of major Hong Kong newspapers were sent to the Obscene Articles Tribunal recently for classification after some accused the TELA of having a double standard in the classification process, especially in the handling of the Chinese University of Hong Kong student newspaper case. Well, it seems like these erotic pages were classified as category I: Neither obscene nor indecent, which is baffling to me, since they are saying that kids are allowed to read erotic pages of mainstream newspapers without any warning printed on its pages.
Mark Schilling of Japan Times reviewed both Dai Nipponjin and Takeshi Kitano’s Kantoku Banzai, and he declares a clear winner.
It seems like the Western reviewers are really loving Dai Nipponjin, but why is the Japanese audience ripping it to pieces? The most popular film review blog in the Japanese blogosphere gives the film only 915 yen out of a full score of 1800, and 38% of votes at Walkerplus are one star out of five. Perhaps that goes to show that general audience’s disdain for cult films aren’t all that different across cultures.
- The Korean film Failan, the story about a low-life gangster investigating the life of the wife he never met, was a hell of a heartbreaker. Finally someone seems to have appreciated it enough to pick it up for a remake, and the plot seems pretty faithful to the original, too. However, the revenge thing seems to indicated that it might even be more violent.
- Two NHK mini-dramas were recently announced, but the reason we care here is because one of them is a milestone of sorts. The six-episode drama Shanghai Typhoon will be the first NHK drama to have a non-Japanese lead with Taiwanese star Peter Ho. Apparently, he will plays a Chinese exchange student in Japan that will be a romantic interest for the female lead, played by Tae Kimura. According to Ming Pao, it’ll play at the very time slot that the hit Korean drama Winter Sonata played in 3 years ago, and Ho said like Winter Sonata star Bae Yong-Joon brought on the Korean Wave, he hopes to bring in the Chinese Wave. I doubt it, but go for it, Peter.
- The winners of the 44th Grand Bell Awards have been announced (didn’t I just write about the nominees last week?). Family Ties picked up best picture, while The Host still managed to grab best director. My favorite win of the whole award, though, is Ryu Deok-Hwan’s best newcomer award for Like a Virgin. It’s most definitely well-deserved!
- Jason Gray reports that Japanese director Sabu’s (whose Dead Run I sort of liked) first foreign language film Arrested Memories, which Gray did the English translation for, has been green-lit.
Today’s choice is back to the old school, as I dig up a single from my mother’s favorite pop group Anzen Chitai (Safety Zone). From 1986, and available on probably every Anzen Chitai compilation, including this one, it’s “Sukisa” (I love you!…the sa is the exclamation mark).
There’s no MTV of it anywhere, so here’s this kick-ass live version instead.
- Two NHK mini-dramas were recently announced, but the reason we care here is because one of them is a milestone of sorts. The six-episode drama Shanghai Typhoon will be the first NHK drama to have a non-Japanese lead with Taiwanese star Peter Ho. Apparently, he will plays a Chinese exchange student in Japan that will be a romantic interest for the female lead, played by Tae Kimura. According to Ming Pao, it’ll play at the very time slot that the hit Korean drama Winter Sonata played in 3 years ago, and Ho said like Winter Sonata star Bae Yong-Joon brought on the Korean Wave, he hopes to bring in the Chinese Wave. I doubt it, but go for it, Peter.
- The winners of the 44th Grand Bell Awards have been announced (didn’t I just write about the nominees last week?). Family Ties picked up best picture, while The Host still managed to grab best director. My favorite win of the whole award, though, is Ryu Deok-Hwan’s best newcomer award for Like a Virgin. It’s most definitely well-deserved!
- Speaking of Linda Linda Linda, the songs the girls cover are by the Japanese punk band The Blue Hearts. Two of its members - vocalist Hiroto Komoto and guitarist Masatoshi Mashima - actually went on to form The High-Lows, and since last year, they have been playing as the Cro-Magnons. So even though the Blue Hearts have been broken up for 12 years now, their spirit is still very much alive. Anyway, the Cro-Magnons will be doing their first movie theme for the film Waruboro, though it’s not clear if The High-Low or The Blue Hearts have done any movie themes before.
- The Fujimoto prize, which recognizes producers and directors, was recently given in Japan. TBS has now officially shown their strength over Fuji Television as its producers picked up an award for their ten films last year, including the hit films Tears For You and The Sinking of Japan.
- The restructuring Bangkok International Film Festival has announced a preliminary lineup for its competition, which includes the Chinese film Lost in Beijing and two Thai films as well, one of which is Pen-ek Ratanaruang’s latest Ploy.
- It’s getting more and more dangerous to be an otaku these days in Japan, as crimes in Akihabara has gone on the rise after extensive construction to change the face of the electronic town has brought out more otakus than ever. Of course, it seems like another concern would be whether these otakus would do their part to stopcrime (that’s two links there at the end).
- As random as it sounds, Korea Pop Wars has some random notes, including the poor start for the hyped historical epic Hwang Jin-Yi. We’ll find out more about Hwang’s weekend in the next few days.
- Jason Gray reports that Japanese director Sabu’s (whose Dead Run I sort of liked) first foreign language film Arrested Memories, which Gray did the English translation for, has been green-lit.
Today’s song needs a whole lot of explaining. In Chinese, the song’s name is 潛龍勿用, which literally translates to “Don’t Use the Hidden Dragon.” The phrase itself refers to a person’s hidden talent or power. Like a dragon hiding underground, a person shouldn’t show his/her hidden power when the time isn’t right just because of ambitions. Basically, it probably means, in more casual terms, not to be so eager to show your strength when the time isn’t right. The best explanation I’ve found (in Chinese) is here, so let me know if I got anything wrong.
In this song’s context (thanks to this explanation in Chinese), it can be said the song is written from the perspective of a very jealous man to his beautiful and unfaithful lover. The man is telling her that just because she’s beautiful doesn’t mean she has to share that beauty with the world (hidden strengths at the wrong time). It took me several years to understand it.
From Nicholas Tse’s album Jade Butterfly (which I still believe to be the peak of his musical career), it’s “Don’t Use the Hidden Dragon.”
Mark Schilling of Japan Times reviewed both Dai Nipponjin and Takeshi Kitano’s Kantoku Banzai, and he declares a clear winner.
It seems like the Western reviewers are really loving Dai Nipponjin, but why is the Japanese audience ripping it to pieces? The most popular film review blog in the Japanese blogosphere gives the film only 915 yen out of a full score of 1800, and 38% of votes at Walkerplus are one star out of five. Perhaps that goes to show that general audience’s disdain for cult films aren’t all that different across cultures.
- The Global Film Initiative, a nonprofit distributor of foreign independent films, have announced their awards for six promising film projects from around the world. These funds will provide the filmmakers with a way of paying for their respective films’ post-production, which these independent projects surely need.
- After the United States government squealed to the World Trade Organization about rampant policy in China, the Chinese government is now officially cooperating with the USA by setting in tougher policies and increased raids by customs.
- Meanwhile, the leaders at the G-8 summit are also talking about ways to fight piracy, especially now China is the new whipping boy in the piracy problem. Still, I doubt they actually managed to reach any conclusion except that they need to fight it.
- The Korean film Failan, the story about a low-life gangster investigating the life of the wife he never met, was a hell of a heartbreaker. Finally someone seems to have appreciated it enough to pick it up for a remake, and the plot seems pretty faithful to the original, too. However, the revenge thing seems to indicated that it might even be more violent.
Today’s song of the day goes back to hip-hop, which I hadn’t chosen much throughout this blog (I guess Paul Wong and LMF are kind of hip-hop). If you can ignore the Kanye West “Go go go go go” rap in the chorus, its music is even smoother than the lyrics. From the album “Be,” it’s Common’s “Go.”
Sorry, I can only find the censored version on Youtube.
I rarely watch a Japanese drama that I was really sorry to see end, but Kekkon Dekinai Otoko (He Who Can’t Marry) has become one of them. It’s a relaxing and charming little show that can best be described as the Japanese version of James L. Brooks’ As Good as It Gets. Hiroshi Abe stars as Shinsuke, a talented 40-year-old architect who thrives on living the good life in solitude - steak for one, followed by a glass of milk and some loud classical music in his unusually large Tokyo apartment. He’s committed to keeping that life of solitude by being generally unkind to everyone he runs across, even his own mother. However, when his all-meat diet causes him a trip to the hospital, Shinsuke finds his life slowly becoming a John Donne meditation. Will he stop being so mean and eccentric? When will the people around up get fed up? And in a society where unmarried 40-year-old man are not seen in a very good light, will he meet his match and finally get married like everyone else?
That’s about the gist of the drama, which plays out more like an American TV show with a mostly episodic structure rather than a serial one. Each episode deals with an aspect of Shinsuke’s lifestyle being questioned (the title of each episode is “So What if I______?!”, and they are often hilarious as they are insightful. The writer also managed to craft one of the most interesting protagonists in recent Japanese drama with Shinsuke, thanks to a great performance by a deadpan Hiroshi Abe. Yui Natsukawa is also great as Natsumi, Shinsuke’s new doctor that makes up the second half of the unlikely couple. Yes, traces of the great As Good as It Gets are apparent - the cute dog (and the dog is REALLY cute), the rude protagonist, and the apartment setting. Still, the whole thing plays much more to a younger urban crowd, as well as the middle age crowd; the Tokyo cityscapes are nicely captured, and if the whole thing doesn’t make you want to live in Tokyo, I don’t know what else can.
I watched this on a Chinese-subtitled DVD bought in Hong Kong by a family member. If I’m not mistaken, an English-subtitled version was shown on Hong Kong TVB Pearl a while back, and the (sadly) unsubtitled DVD from Japan will set you back a good 200 dollars (I really wish Fuji would release their dramas with subtitles like TBS has done in Hong Kong). Still, I encourage you to seek this one out - it’s really the best Japanese drama I’ve seen in the past year.
- Looking at Hong Kong’s Thursday opening day numbers, this weekend is shaping up to be a little more balanced than the month of May. The big opening this week is Steven Soderbergh’s big heist flick Ocean’s Thirteen. On 57 screens (Spiderman 3 opened to double that number in Hong Kong!), the star-studded film made HK$930,000 on its first day (If you put it at Pirate’s ticket price inflation of 30%, that’s about HK$1.2 million). With Pirates already fading away at the opening of its third weekend (HK$440,000 on 53 screens), Ocean’s should do fairly healthy, though unspectacular business over the weekend, probably making about HK$5 million at the end of Sunday, just about on par with Ocean’s Twelve’s opening 2 and a half years ago.
If anyone cares (I sure don’t), Eddie Murphy’s Norbit opened with HK$170,000 on 16 screens. It probably won’t even make HK$1 million by the end of the weekend. Good riddance. Japanese sports comic adaptation Rough (by Nana director Kentaro Otani) opens weak with only HK20,000 on 7 screens. British film Cashback stays strong with HK$30,000 on 2 screens at the start of its second weekend with an 8-day total of HK$360,000. And the only Hong Kong film in the top 10 is Single Blog, taking in just HK$80,000 on 18 screens with the 8-day total of HK$1.84 million.
- As reported on this blog before, Naomi Kawase (director of the Cannes Grand Prix-winning The Mourning Forest) announced at Cannes that her next film will be a romantic comedy. Now more details have emerged that it’ll be shot in Thailand with Japanese drama star Kyoko Hasegawa. According to Ryuganji, just because Kawase is using a major actress for the first time doesn’t mean she’s going to be any easier on Hasegawa. She also wants to be among the ranks of Akira Kuroasawa and Nagisa Oshima as the “Japan’s Kawase” by the next generation and that she’ll win the Palme d’Or next time, though The Daily Yomiuri adds that she said it with a smile, suggesting that she might have just been half joking. Because, you know, I half-joke about winning the Palme d’Or all the time.
- The trouble is over, as Midway has now rejoined the New York Asian Film Festival as a sponsor. However, they are no longer the main sponsor, as Dragon Dynasty has taken that spot while they were gone. Maybe someone can now afford to fly me to New York to cover this as an official assignment for The Golden Rock…
- If you’re in Japan this weekend with limited Japanese ability (being able to read katakana is just fine), then your movie choice this weekend ought to be Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige. It’s a hell of a movie I wrote about back in April that’s damn well worth your time. Even the Daily Yomiuri gives it five stars.
- China is suspending the issuing of internet cafe licenses as they do a thorough investigation to make sure the customers are behaving properly, as in they’re not playing violent games, looking up porn, or speaking ill of the nation. In other words, what Americans do on the internet most of the time.
- In related Tartan news, they also picked up Park Chan-Wook’s I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK and prebought Kim Ji-Woon’s The Good, The Bad, and The Weird. Since Tartan originates from the UK, no word if this means that they’ll also be releasing these films through their USA divisions as well.
- In a piece of more serious news, the erotic pages of major Hong Kong newspapers were sent to the Obscene Articles Tribunal recently for classification after some accused the TELA of having a double standard in the classification process, especially in the handling of the Chinese University of Hong Kong student newspaper case. Well, it seems like these erotic pages were classified as category I: Neither obscene nor indecent, which is baffling to me, since they are saying that kids are allowed to read erotic pages of mainstream newspapers without any warning printed on its pages.
In the previous entry, I posted a link to Japanese artist Ayaka’s first official singles release. Today’s song of the day is an unofficial release because it was originally done for a television show a year before it was officially released. I chose this over I Believe because I can kind of connect with the lyrics for this song (and that’s more than what I’m usually willing to tell). From her first album “First Message,” it’s Ayaka’s “Mikazuki“
- More on the opening of Kantoku Banzai. It’s 40 million yen opening on 113 screens is merely 72% of Takeshis’, which only made 280 million yen. Just like Takeshis’, the alienating nature of the film will probably mean that word of mouth won’t be good. On the other hand, like Takeshis’, Office Kitano should make its money back through foreign sales.
- One of the filmmakers mentioned in the Japan Times commentary is Cannes winner Naomi Kawase. Thanks to her Cannes win, she was recently able to go to the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry to try and convince the government in helping out the film industry. Why? Because her film is playing on only 28 screens in Japan when it’ll open on 70 of them in France.
- Fans of Hong Kong films in Japan: Milkyway screenwriter Yau Nai-Hoi’s Eye in the Sky is heading your way. Fans of Cheng Chen in North America: The Go Master is heading your way, too, but only if you have Netflix.
- Toho-Towa, a major foreign film distributor in Japan, has signed up to release 14 movies for Universal, including about one film per month in 2008. I thought Universal is already trying their hand at investing Japanese films, but looks like they still need some help from one of the big three.
- Until recent years, martial arts films were actually banned from being made in China. Now that the ban has been lifted, it seems like studios are trying to catch up. Yuen Woo-Ping is rumored to be getting back into the director’s chair after years of working in major films in both Hollywood and China, and it might be a sequel to Iron Monkey starring Andy Lau. Yawn.
- Young singer-songwriter Ayaka (whose first official single was already her first bona-fide hit) is now the first Japanese artist to have a video debut as a world premiere on the iTunes store. No big deal, you say? She’s only the third artist in the world to have such a privilege. Her new single Jewelry Day will be released on July 4th, as her first album will also be sold in 22 regions around the world after already selling over one million copies in Japan alone.
- Professor Bordwell writes about the recent wave of omnibus films, especially the Cannese 60th Anniversary anthology film To Each His Own Cinema.
- I’ve been looking forward to Shoot ‘Em Up since Jeffrey Wells wrote about its development on Hollywood Elsewhere, and now a trailer is finally up. It’s not as crazy as I thought it would be, but considering it’s just a trailer, it looks like quite a bit of fun to me already. But what the hell is a classy lady like Monica Bellucci doing in a film like this?
- Someone is suing Universal and director Judd Apatow because she believes his new hit film Knocked Up, about an up-and-coming reporter having a one-night stand that leads to an unplanned pregnancy, was obviously based on her book, about an up-and-coming reporter’s night at her engagement party that leads to an unplanned pregnancy. This one could go either way.
Today’s song is a bit angry, and it’s also filled with Cantonese cuss words. That means if you work in a Cantonese-speaking environment, this song isn’t work-safe. From Paul Wong’s first solo album Yellow Paul Wong, it’s “Hong Kong For Sure,” featuring rap group LMF. With a title like that, you’d expect them to be less angry. They’re not.
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