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.
There’s not much news today, so let’s do a short overdue review:
Took a bit of time to check out Kinji Fukasaku’s classic gangster film Battle Without Honor or Humanity. The 99-minute epic (which easily packs a story double its length) opens right after World War II, where Japan is a recovering nation out of control. We’re introduced to at least 5 characters who would play important roles in the narrative later on. If you’re not taking notes, then just follow one guy: Hirono (played by Bunta Sugawara), whose rise in the syndicates is probably the closest thing to a central plot. As the film rolls along, we are treated to subplots about internal yakuza feuds, assassinations, betrayals - all done in a pseudo-documentary style that tells so much story that even a narrator is needed. And don’t worry if you don’t remember the names, you’ll know who dies from the matter-of-fact on-screen texts.
Needless to say, Battle Without Honor or Humanity can be brutal, but if you can manage to follow Hirono’s storyline, you’ll be treated to an engaging, powerful, and even somewhat affecting story of a man trying live by the code, only to realize his world is changing even before he entered it. The style is revolutionary (almost always shot with a handheld camera at canted angles), and the action is refreshingly real, even though the handheld camera seems to be foreshadowing the current way of shooting action scenes far too closely. If you’re a fan of triad films (I honestly believe the Young and Dangerous series from Hong Kong learned a thing or two from here) or gritty gangster flicks, then this is the one to watch. What a classic.
- Before doing the regular news stuff, another outward shout to Tokyograph, who mentioned The Golden Rock in their blog. They’ve been providing translated Japanese entertainment news that’s certainly far more trustworthy than this blogger’s own translations (trust me, my Japanese isn’t that good), and will remain a very important source of news for all interested in Japanese entertainment. My e-hat is off to you, Tokyograph.
- Time for a look at the Oricon music charts this week. The singles chart is livening up a little bit, as L’Arc~en~Ciel’s latest single sells 112,000 copies to debut at number 1. Aiko follows not too close behind with her latest, selling 70,000 copies at number 2. Chihiro Onitsuka’s comeback single everyhome debuts only at number 9 with 18,800 copies sold. Even more depressing is Aya Ueto’s latest, selling only 8900 copies for a 17th place debut. Next week, expect Kat-Tun to rule the charts.
As reported by the Japan Times, the solo “group” ZARD’s albums are seeing a sales surge following the accidental death of lead singer Izumi Sakai last week. While Mariya Takeuchi’s latest album rules the album chart for the second week in a row by selling 76,000 copies, ZARD’s last album, the compilation Golden Best ~ 15th Anniversary, jumped all the way back up to 3rd place with 41,000 copies sold. Their 1999 compilation also jumped back up to 18th place with 8,400 copies sold. Don’t be surprised if their record company decides to release more compilations in the future. Meanwhile, American pop artist Rihanna fails to duplicate the recent success of other American albums with her latest album, debuting only at 8th place with 24,700 copies sold. Looking at the daily rankings, don’t be surprised if the ZARD compilation shows up on the top 10 again next week.
- Korea Pop Wars is providing us with a mini-version of the box office charts this week, so let’s do some analysis ourselves. This week, seems like Pirates took a 63% drop in Seoul admissions, while Secret Sunshine saw a significant increase in Seoul, probably thanks to Jeon Do-Yeon’s win at Cannes. I was also surprised to see Confessions of Pain debuting at third place, even though it seemed to have done not as well outside of Seoul. Anyway, seems like Pirates is following somewhat close behind Spiderman, and both films will probably pass the 5 million mark.
- 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.
- Japanese TV just seems to get in trouble all the time - this time it’s TBS employees trying to put microphones on participants of an amateur golf tournament just to pick up what the new golf teen sensation Ryo Ishikawa is saying. TBS has since apologized for making the request, which was obviously denied.
- 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.
- Because of the size, there are essentially only two free TV stations in Hong Kong - TVB and ATV. They each run a main channel with Chinese programming and another channel mainly for English and foreign television shows. TVB pretty much takes up about 80% of viewership, which in American standards would make them NBC, CBS, ABC, and maybe even FOX combined, while ATV is like the CW with maybe the crappy side of FOX. This means ATV is only struggling to stay alive so TVB doesn’t get sued for monopoly. Lucky for ATV, they just got themselves a new investor. However, and this is from Hong Kong’s Oriental Daily rather than Variety Asia, the Cha family is known for their support of the Mainland Chinese communist government. With that in mind, there was an internal memo issued that promised ATV’s staff that despite the new investor’s political affiliations, freedom of speech and unbiased new reporting will continue to be upheld. And I say I’ll believe it when I see it.
- Good news for Orange Range fans (I am not one of them, by the way) - the Okinawan version of Limp Biskit is putting out two new albums this summer. Bad news for Orange Range fans - they are both compilation albums - one is a singles collection, and the other is a compilation of “fan favorites.”
- Election and Triad Election is heading to LA this weekend, so do go check it out. Me, I missed out on its one-week San Francisco engagement because they played it in a kind of inconvenient location, considering where I live, and they only showed Triad Election without the first film.
Today’s song of the day is an obvious choice - I already linked it in today’s post. From the 1975 album “A Night at the Opera,” it’s one of the greatest rock epics ever. It’s Bohemian Rhapsody.
From what we can tell, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End lost only 20% of its business (roughly, because the exchange rate is slightly different again), and the rest is all kind of confusing. For one, Mojo decided to include the money Warner Bros. reported it made on its weekend previews of 300. Not only that, Mojo also put it in the rankings, while the attendance ranking leaves it out completely (by the way, considering it only had showings on Saturday, it did pretty well). Also, Takeshi Kitano’s Glory to the Filmmaker is now placed at 10th place, which is what the attendance ranking reported, except it’s ahead of The Banquet, even though Mojo even reported The Banquet making about US$1000 more. They also reported that Glory opened only on one screen, when Variety Asia reports that figure at 113 screens.
Of course, the big news is the big opening of Hitoshi Matsumoto’s directorial debut “Dai Nipponjin.” On 221 screens, the superhero comedy made 230 million yen for an impressive 1,040,723 yen per-screen average (US$1=121 yen). However, the opening is only 83% of the opening of Train Man (Densha Otoko), which had a similarly secretive promotional campaign. Furthermore, the general public seems to be not liking the film very much, which means the opening weekend may only have satisfied the curious crowd and won’t have much legs in the long run.
Who cares, though, when you have won the battle of the comedians? Dai Nipponjin won a trifecta against Kitano’s Glory to the Filmmaker - screen count, total gross, and per-screen average.
- 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.
- Under the “jumping the gun” file today, TV Asahi already has plans to turn their Summer drama Sushi Ouji into a feature film, before any of the drama has even aired on TV. Starring KinKi Kids’ Koichi Domoto, filming on the feature film will start within the next few days and will be distributed by Warner Bros. for next year’s Golden Week slot.
- I saw a billboard in Tokyo with a countdown clock for when TV transmission signal is expect to go digital. That number was still over 1000 days, but it was a cool billboard anyway. Anyway, looks like Hong Kong needs to go get themselves one of those billboards, because the government is switching off analog in 2012, and people can already start watching digital transmitted TV by the end of the year.
- The second trailer for Kenta Fukasaku’s X Cross, an adaptation of the first “This Mystery is Amazing!” contest winner, is up. It’s shorter than the first trailer, and it actually features brief glimpses of behind-the-scenes work. Still, I don’t know why they’re waiting until December 1st to release it, especially it’s completed enough to already get slapped with a PG-12 rating.
- Under the “that’s overdoing it a little bit” file today, the otaku-targeted girl group AKB48, which already has an astonishing 48 members, is looking to add another 18, totaling 66 members when it’s all said and done. They’re not building a pop band; they’re gathering an army!
- I feel obliged to report any time an Asian-American director hits it big. This time, So Yong Kim’s debut film “In Between Days,” which was well-received when it premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, has been picked up for distribution by Kino International (they distributed Wong Kar-Wai’s Happy Together and the Wong Kar-Wai DVD box set as well). The film has also won an award at the Berlin Film Festival.
- I used to like Quentin Tarantino even when people attack him for ripping off Asian films, because at least he made them look (fairly) good. The man has a sense of style and he certainly knows how to make a movie. Then Death Proof was too self-indulgent to bear (despite a really cool car chase at the end), and suddenly Tarantino doesn’t seem like such a good filmmaker anymore. Recently at Cannes, he was lamenting the current state of the Italian film industry, which certainly didn’t make the Italians very happy at all. Quentin, don’t even say one word about Hong Kong, alright?
Today’s Song of the Day comes from Eason Chan. This is the kind of song that make him such a great singer in my mind, but the kind of song that people choose to forget. Originally from the album So Hot (track 2) during his EEG days, it’s “Low-class Animal.”
- The world is changing fast. These days, a movie makes US$218 million by the end of its second weekend, and suddenly it’s a disappointment. Of course, Pirates’ disappointment probably has something to do with the 61% drop from last weekend, but that can be easily attributed to it 1) opening on a record-breaking holiday weekend, and 2) on too many screens to meet demands rather than relying on steady stream of word-of-mouth. I think the movie is getting generally good responses from people, but everyone that needed to see it had plenty of chances to see it already, so those that need convincing aren’t going to because they missed out on the first two. Anyway, with a current global take of US$624 million (to add to the over US$1 billion the second movie already made) there’s absolutely no doubt that everyone’s going to be smiling to the bank when it’s all over - they’re just upset that their deposit is a little smaller than before.
Pirates continued to do strongly (though still lagging behind Spiderman 3) on Sunday in Hong Kong, making HK2.55 million on 88 screens for a 11-day total of HK$32.92 million - that’s an average of almost HK$30,000 per day. Look for this sucker to break the HK$40 million mark, but remember - the ticket prices are 20-30% higher than the usual ticket price, so the only real gauge of success is audience admissions, and I don’t see Hong Kong releasing that type of figures anytime soon.
Meanwhile, urban romantic-docudrama-comedy Single Blog makes HK$280,000 on 28 screens for a lackluster 4-day total of HK$1.06 million. The word-of-mouth seems to be doing OK on the mov3 message board (a lot of them are saying it’s funnier than they expected), but quite a few people seemed to have gone in with free tickets. With Ocean’s 13 taking over the screens this weekend, I doubt the chain theaters are going to give this film a chance. By the way, as I mentioned last week, the “blog” connection is stated in the trailer - that 99% of the film is based on experiences people write in blogs. Just what blogs and how many blogs I have no idea. The rest of Hong Kong cinemas seem kind of ho-hum, except for the surprising performance of British film Cashback. On 2 screens, the comedy made an impressive HK$60,000 for a 4-day total of HK$190,000.
Box Office Mojo only has the top 6 movies on their site, so I’ll wait until they have the full ranking before I talk about numbers. However, I do have the attendance rankings, and as expected, Pirates took the weekend again (but with much more staying power than it did in the States). The bigger surprise is Hitoshi Matsumoto’s Dai Nipponjin showing up at 2nd place. Apparently, it opened wider than I thought, though it’s not playing in that many theaters in Central Tokyo (look at the screen counts for Pirates and the new Masami Nagasawa movie for comparison). It also beat Takeshi Kitano’s Kantoku Banzai by quite a margin, as Kantoku opened at only 10th place, right under The Banquet (!!).
Eiga Consultant further analyzes the opening weekend of the previous mentioned new Masami Nagasawa film, Sono Toki Wa Kare Ni Yoroshiku. Nagasawa got her big break with the 2004 Japanese blockbuster Crying Out For Love In the Center of the World (whose DVD probably sold so many copies that I managed to get a second-hand DVD in Tokyo for just 500 yen), and has had a considerable presence in both movies (Tears For You and Rough) and TV (Sailor Suit and Machine Gun and the currently-playing Proposal Daisakusen) ever since. However, the opening of Sono seems to prove that maybe she isn’t the big box office attraction after all. Sono made 89 million yen on its Saturday opening, which is only 94% of Rough and 23% of Tears For You. After the ratings disappointment that was Sailor Suit (only a 13.3 average rating, including a 45% drop from its first to third episode) and this, Eiga Consultant wonders whether the success of Nagasawa’s outing depend more on her male co-stars? After all, Proposal Daisakusen has boy band member Tomohisa Yamashita, and Tears for You has hunky actor Satoshi Tsumabaki. Too bad, I actually fell quite head over heels for Masami-chan (she’s three years younger than me, so I get to call her that!) after Crying Out for Love.
- Meanwhile, 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.
- Speaking of Proposal Daisakusen (as always, see Tokyo Graph for all drama introductions), it took quite a dive in the Japanese dramas ratings last week, dropping from a 17.4 % in week 6 to a 14.7% rating in week 7. Sexy Voice and Robo suffered from NTV dropping their 7th episode as episode 8 shows a new ratings low with only 6.5%. The Japanese remake of Korean drama Hotelier, starring Aya Ueto, also saw its lowest rating at 7.1 this past week. After announcing its planned 3-hour finale, Liar Game saw its first ratings drop in 6 weeks, from 12.0% to 11.4%. This is Fuji’s first attempt at a late-night drama, and it appears to have worked quite well. Meanwhile, TBS’s Sunday night disappointment Joudan Janai! finally stopped its freefall by recovering a slight bit on Sunday night. Starring Yuji Oda, the sitcom-like drama went back up from a 10.7 % rating last week to a 11.3% rating this week.
- Over the weekend, I posted a link to the Korean monster film D-War. Now an August release date has finally been set in both North America (where the distributor plans to open in on over 1000 screens) and in Korea. It’s hard to believe director Shim Hyung-Rae managed to get US$70 million to make this, although over half of it went to starting up a brand-new effects house for it.
- Director Katsuhito Ishii (Taste of Tea, Funky Forest: The First Contact) has leaked out some details of his latest film “Yama no Anata ~Tokuichi no Koi~.” A “cover” of the 1938 silent film “Anma to Onna,” the film will star SMAP’s Tsuyoshi Kusanagi as a blind masseur that I assume is not named Zatoichi.
- After the Indian film Rang de Basanti got nominations at the BAFTA, its studio UTV decided to release a new cut that’s 30 minutes shorter to capture more audiences. No word whether the new cut is approved by director Rakeysh Screwvalla, but he does have a comment in the article, so it would seem so.
- 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.
- r@sardonicsmile is looking forward to the comedy Maiko haaaan, written by Ping Pong screenwriter Kankuro Kudo, and with good reason, too - it has Shibasaki Kou as a maiko.
- 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-cellmate.
- Lastly, one of those people who got sued by the America record industry for downloading is now fighting back, countersuing the RIAA and Universal on several counts, including trespassing. That way, everyone loses!
- After its win at the Cannes Film Festival, Variety finally has a review of Naomi Kawase’s The Mourning Forest. Reviewer Russell Edwards says its ambitions are undercut by conveniently underarticulated affections, and won’t reach far beyond festivals and European arthouse audiences.
Meanwhile, Jason Gray updated his previous about with a few more words about the film and its upcoming limited release in Japan.
- r@sardonicsmile has a look at the Hong Kong band scene, which include a clip of the documentary on my favorite HK rap group LMF. However, if you’re in a Cantonese-speaking work environment, the language is not work-safe.
- Stephen Fung’s Enter the Phoenix has been sold to be remade in Hollywood. I shuddered when the producer says “this movie should be remade for a bigger, broader audience.” Can you say bad gay jokes all around? Then again, the original has a kid smiling after a thermometer goes up his anus, it can’t really get any broader than that.
- On the Hong Kong Broadway Cinema website has the trailer for “Mr. Cinema,” which I introduced before as “Call me Left.” Directed by Samson Chiu and starring Anthony Wong as the title character, “Mr. Cinema” tells the story of a theater projector (at an old-school cinema that’s still up and running in my home turf Kwun Tong) and his family over the course of 40 years. WARNING: trailer features Anthony Wong trying to sing.
- Doraemon, or known as “Ding Dong” when I was growing up, is my favorite comic ever. Even though I own every issue that was translated into Hong Kong’s Chinese version under the title “Ding Dong” (It was later reprinted under “Do la A Mong,” which follows the Japanese title Doraemon), the comic never reached an ending because the creator Fujio F. Fujiko passed away. Over the years, there have been speculations of how the story ended, including one that showed Doraemon was a figment of protagonist Nobita’s imagination (which would’ve really pissed me off). The one I liked was Doraemon’s battery runs out and is revived by the adult Nobita, who becomes a scientist to revive his robot cat friend. Turns out that ending was just drawn by a 37-year-old man who drew up this “final episode” and sold it at Akihabara bookstores and the internet. Now he has come out to apologize for the copyright violation and has paid royalties to the copyright holders. So it’s official: There IS no ending to Doraemon. That should put the rumors to rest.
- When my friend told me about the ridiculousness of this, I thought he was behind about 2 months, because I thought Norika Fujiwara’s wedding already happened. Turns out they held a Western wedding reception, and for some reason, Nippon TV thought it was important enough to broadcast it live. Then viewers thought it was important enough to tune in. In the Kansai area, where Fujiwara is from, the ratings for the wedding actually reached 40%. It didn’t do too shabby in Kanto, either; it reached 24%.
- In Europe, authorities report that they seized 23.2 million copies of entertainment goods such as DVDs, CDs, and software. And they’re blaming China, reporting that 93% of what they seized came from there.
- Seems like the New York Asian Film Festival is running into some troubles after sponsor Midway Games decided to pull out of the festival. Now things are being rescheduled, but the festival is still on. I won’t be able to attend (due to the fact that i’m on the opposite end of the country), but I wish them mucho luck.
On the other hand, Suntory (yes, as in “For relaxing times, it’s Suntory time” Suntory) and the Weinstein Company’s Dragon Dynasty have stepped up to become sponsors, though the financial gap left by Midway’s departure still hasn’t been filled, which should say how big of a presence they would’ve been.
- Youtube/Google and record company EMI have struck a deal to place video contents on Youtube legally. Artists under the EMI label include Coldplay and David Bowie (wait, does David Bowie even make music anymore?). Universal music also has a similar deal in place with Youtube. Too bad only North American music labels have deals so far, everything else is just getting their copyrights violated.
- This weekend, two films by two major comedians in Japan opened. First, there’s Takeshi Kitano’s latest “Kantoku Banzai” (”Long Live the Director!”), which is supposed to be quite strange and alienating like Takeshis’. There’s also “Dai Nipponjin,” the directorial debut of famous comedian Hitoshi Matsumoto (he’s the bald guy that does those batsu games). There were rumors that the films are opening on the same day to allow some cross-promotion, since the two comedians seem to cross paths on TV quite often. I can’t seem to find any articles about it (though I remember I read something about that), but if you need any proof that there’s any of that happening, just look at the following clip of Hitoshi Matsumoto on the comedy show “Waratte Itomo,” where he not only talks about his Cannes experience, but also have a crew member hang posters of his own film AND Kantoku Banzai in the back. Damn it, I want both of those posters.
- I know Ryu Seung-Wan (City of Violence, Arahan, Crying Fist) is a favorite among Asian action film fans out there. After exploring contemporary films, now he’s kind of moving on to period films….except said period film will have zombies in it too.
- Joost is supposed to be the high-quality alternative to Youtube, plus legal content. I have it, but it doesn’t have much to keep me tuned in. This isn’t going to help me keep tuning in, but I think this might encourage some other people to try it. However, Joost is currently invitation-only. Still, just google “Joost invite” and you can find one easily.
- Nominees for the 44th Grand Bell Awards in Korea have been announced. They’re still busy giving awards to The Host? That felt like it was so long ago. The biggest surprise is to see films that I didn’t particularly care for (Seducing Mr. Perfect and Ice Bar) in the nominations.
- Anyone who follows this blog and Hong Kong music at the same time would know that I don’t have much love for Mark Lui, whose pop duplication skills is only second to Hanjin Chan (Edison Chen vs 2Pac, Jordan Chan vs. Justin Timberlake). But I have to admit that Hong Kong press tends to make far too much out of nothing, even when it’s about Mark Lui’s copycat skills.
Case in point, I point you to the blog of Hong Kong pop star Denise “HOCC” Ho (yes, that is actually her real blog). In a recent entry, she wrote:
(in translation) I was unconsciously listening to the radio today. I unconsciously heard such a thing. I wanted to die listening to it. Someone turned the thing I love the most into something like that…… I pray that I won’t have to listen to it ever again.
Somehow the Hong Kong media (and by that, I mean the Oriental Daily, circulation over 2,000,000 in Hong Kong, plus however many internet visitors it attracts) has connected it with reports that Mark Lui’s latest work “Money Money Money Money” by Leo Ku has been accused of copying Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. Then somehow, Oriental Daily connected it with HOCC’s post about listening to a song on the radio that has ruined the thing she loves, which is conveniently Queen. Thing is, she has nothing to deny because she never named the song, and the report states that HOCC admits to have heard the song, but doesn’t wish to criticize it. Then the reporter apparently continued to pursue the question, prompting her to say the following:
(in translation from the report)”Musicians have a bar in their hearts; I set the bar very high, and I try my best to avoid (copying). Actually, all artists have that responsibility!” Ah C also finally subtly criticizes Mark, saying “If there’s copied elements then it can’t be pursued, but someone always knows eventually!”
I love how these reports love to assume what the people are trying to say just by the report’s agenda.
Anyway, here’s the song in question, and here’s Bohemian Rhapsody. There’s a saying in Chinese, “The eyes are tall, but the hand is low,” meaning that the vision is ambitious, but the way it’s done is lackluster, which is the best way to describe the Leo Ku song. Lui’s ambition is high, trying to create a pop song that attempts to emulate Bohemian Rhapsody’s structure (it’s not the only song to do so anyway) and avoiding the Karaoke-friendly cliches. But the song sounds like a bunch of random melodies that Lui’s written before held together by the chorus; the whole thing just sounds like one of those bad pop song medleys…..like this one by Leo Ku rather than an actual song. Furthermore, Ku’s whole “can you hear me trying to sound like I’m having fun?” tongue-in-cheek delivery is irritating, especially when he does it for five minutes. I’m sure Leo Ku is a talented singer (though his “I love to sing” shtick is a little tiresome), but he’s no Freddie Mercury. And yes, the beginning and the random a capella does sound a bit like Bohemian Rhapsody’s structure, but saying that “Money Money Money Money” is copying from Bohemian Rhapsody is an insult.
Today’s song of the day is from Denise “HOCC” Ho for her possibly existent figurative balls to actually criticize Mark Lui for copying foreign songs. While the artists he’s worked with such as Kelly Chan and Miriam Yeung has supported Lui publicly, HOCC is the first pop singer to even possibly hint at Lui’s “songwriting.” So today, from her album “Our Time has Come,” it’s “I Wish I Can Learn to Put You Down.” Funny, both titles just somehow seem so appropriate for Mr. Lui….
- Anyone who follows this blog and Hong Kong music at the same time would know that I don’t have much love for Mark Lui, whose pop duplication skills is only second to Hanjin Chan(Edison Chen vs. 2Pac, Jordan Chan vs. Justin Timberlake). But I have to admit that Hong Kong press tends to make far too much out of nothing, even when it’s about Mark Lui’s copycat skills.
Case in point, I point you to the blog of Hong Kong pop star Denise “HOCC” Ho (yes, that is actually her real blog). In a recent entry, she wrote:
(in translation) I was unconsciously listening to the radio today. I unconsciously heard such a thing. I wanted to die listening to it. Someone turned the thing I love the most into something like that…… I pray that I won’t have to listen to it ever again.
Somehow the Hong Kong media (and by that, I mean the Oriental Daily, circulation over 2,000,000 in Hong Kong, plus however many internet visitors it attracts) has connected it with reports that Mark Lui’s latest work “Money Money Money Money” by Leo Ku has been accused of copying Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. Then somehow, Oriental Daily connected it with HOCC’s post about listening to a song on the radio that has ruined the thing she loves, which is conveniently Queen. Thing is, she has nothing to deny because she never named the song, and the report states that HOCC admits to have heard the song, but doesn’t wish to criticize it. Then the reporter apparently continued to pursue the question, prompting her to say the following:
(in translation from the report)”Musicians have a bar in their hearts; I set the bar very high, and I try my best to avoid (copying). Actually, all artists have that responsibility!” Ah C also finally subtly criticizes Mark, saying “If there’s copied elements then it can’t be pursued, but someone always knows eventually!”
I love how these reports love to assume what the people are trying to say just by the report’s agenda.
Anyway, here’s the song in question, and here’s Bohemian Rhapsody. There’s a saying in Chinese, “The eyes are tall, but the hand is low,” meaning that the vision is ambitious, but the way it’s done is lackluster, which is the best way to describe the Leo Ku song. Lui’s ambition is high, trying to create a pop song that attempts to emulate Bohemian Rhapsody’s structure (it’s not the only song to do so anyway) and avoiding the Karaoke-friendly cliches. But the song sounds like a bunch of random melodies that Lui’s written before held together by the chorus; the whole thing just sounds like one of those bad pop song medleys…..like this one by Leo Ku rather than an actual song. Furthermore, Ku’s whole “can you hear me trying to sound like I’m having fun?” tongue-in-cheek delivery is irritating, especially when he does it for five minutes. I’m sure Leo Ku is a talented singer (though his “I love to sing” shtick is a little tiresome), but he’s no Freddie Mercury. And yes, the beginning and the random a capella does sound a bit like Bohemian Rhapsody’s structure, but saying that “Money Money Money Money” is copying from Bohemian Rhapsody is an insult.
….an insult to Bohemian Rhapsody, that is.
Still, this isn’t the worst case of Mark Lui’s copying skills. You can even write this one off and call it an homage.
- Speaking of Oriental Daily and bad press behavior, the Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority has finally decided to send the erotic pages of several Hong Kong major newspapers, including Oriental Daily, to the Obscene Articles Tribunal for classifications. This comes after the TELA received hundreds of complaints following the Chinese University of Hong Kong student newspaper scandal, where bloggers accuse the TELA for holding a double standard. If they have any type of fairness, then they would classify these pages as category II, which then would just show that the people in charge might just be a tad too uptight about sex.
On the other hand, Suntory (yes, as in “For relaxing times, it’s Suntory time” Suntory) and the Weinstein Company’s Dragon Dynasty have stepped up to become sponsors, though the financial gap left by Midway’s departure still hasn’t been filled, which should say how big of a presence they would’ve been.
- TV Tokyo, which is still considered the CW of Japan (smallest network with the fewest affiliates in the country), is hoping to expand to four more major territories by 2011. More programming choices: good. More crappy variety shows: bad.
- Nominees for the 44th Grand Bell Awards in Korea have been announced. They’re still busy giving awards to The Host? That felt like it was so long ago. The biggest surprise is to see films that I didn’t particularly care for (Seducing Mr. Perfect and Ice Bar) in the nominations.
- Hideo Nakata is a very very busy man - he has the period horror film Kaidan coming out on August 4th, then he’s also shooting the Death Note spinoff film L this summer, and now he has signed on to return to Hollywood for Inhuman, a horror film that’s not a remake. Inhuman will be produced partly by Taka Ichise, who worked with Nakata on the original “Ring” series.
I had originally heard today’s song as a live rendition from Sandee Chan’s live album (disc 1, track 8). Though she’s known as a songwriter, the song was curiously written by Cheer Chan, who tends to write relaxing acoustic tunes, not haunting ballads like this. It was also originally sung by Karen Mok on her 1999 album “This is Karen Mok” (which I managed to find a second-hand copy in Hong Kong for less than US$2, where she sings the song in her best Faye Wong/Cranberries type of delivery. Anyway, it’s beautiful and poetic, and it’s “Do Not Love Me.”
There’s no MTV for it, but this live version by Karen Mok is surprisingly good and close to the real thing.
- Youtube/Google and record company EMI have struck a deal to place video contents on Youtube legally. Artists under the EMI label include Coldplay and David Bowie (wait, does David Bowie even make music anymore?). Universal music also has a similar deal in place with Youtube. Too bad only North American music labels have deals so far, everything else is just getting their copyrights violated.
- Meanwhile, Asian music is seeing a huge market at making their products available for mobile users, and for a very good reason. In fact, a survey says most people expect music to only be available digitally in the next few years….as long as these music will be provided in uncompressed 1400k wav files (OK, I added that last part myself).
- This weekend, two films by two major comedians in Japan opened. First, there’s Takeshi Kitano’s latest “Kantoku Banzai” (”Long Live the Director!”), which is supposed to be quite strange and alienating like Takeshis’. There’s also “Dai Nipponjin,” the directorial debut of famous comedian Hitoshi Matsumoto (he’s the bald guy that does those batsu games). There were rumors that the films are opening on the same day to allow some cross-promotion, since the two comedians seem to cross paths on TV quite often. I can’t seem to find any articles about it (though I remember I read something about that), but if you need any proof that there’s any of that happening, just look at the following clip of Hitoshi Matsumoto on the comedy show “Waratte Itomo,” where he not only talks about his Cannes experience, but also have a crew member hang posters of his own film AND Kantoku Banzai in the back. Damn it, I want both of those posters.
I also predicted that there might be some kind of box office battle this weekend between these two films. I was wrong, they’re both fairly small releases (maybe just under 100 screens?), so Pirates will probably win the weekend again.
- I wrote about the so-so box office of last weekend’s opener Shaberedomo Shaberedomo before. Turns out it’s not doing quite well. The film, a drama about Japanese stand-up comedy (except they sit down, which….I guess makes it sit-down comedy in Japan terms), stars Johnny’s Entertainment-managed group Tokio member Taichi Kokubun and is actually doing worse than films featuring other Johnny’s talents. For instance, compared to those films that opened on less than 250 screens, Shaberedomo’s 39.7 million yen opening is only 66% of Sakurai Sho’s Honey and Clover’s opening, though it did open 143% of the opening for “Nezu no Ban” (A Hardest Night), another film about Japanese comedians. In addition, its “main theater” in Ginza reported full houses all weekend. Perhaps word-of-mouth (partly from positive reviews) will give it legs at the box office.
- I know Ryu Seung-Wan (City of Violence, Arahan, Crying Fist) is a favorite among Asian action film fans out there. After exploring contemporary films, now he’s kind of moving on to period films….except said period film will have zombies in it too.
- Joost is supposed to be the high-quality alternative to Youtube, plus legal content. I have it, but it doesn’t have much to keep me tuned in. This isn’t going to help me keep tuning in, but I think this might encourage some other people to try it. However, Joost is currently invitation-only. Still, just google “Joost invite” and you can find one easily.
- A few weeks ago I put up the link to a teaser for Takeshi Miike’s high school brawl film Crows Zero. Apparently, the film won’t be an all-out boys fest; it will now have approximately one female character in it. Jeez, now I’m just making the movie sound like a prison sentence with periodical conjugal visits.
WordPress database error: [Expression #1 of ORDER BY clause is not in GROUP BY clause and contains nonaggregated column 'webkozo_wordpress.gr_posts.post_date' which is not functionally dependent on columns in GROUP BY clause; this is incompatible with sql_mode=only_full_group_by] SELECT DISTINCT YEAR(post_date) AS `year`, MONTH(post_date) AS `month`, count(ID) as posts FROM gr_posts WHERE post_type = 'post' AND post_status = 'publish' GROUP BY YEAR(post_date), MONTH(post_date) ORDER BY post_date DESC
WordPress database error: [Expression #1 of ORDER BY clause is not in SELECT list, references column 'webkozo_wordpress.gr_posts.post_date' which is not in SELECT list; this is incompatible with DISTINCT] SELECT DISTINCT MONTH(post_date) AS month, YEAR(post_date) AS year
FROM gr_posts
WHERE post_date < '2025-03-01'
AND post_type = 'post' AND post_status = 'publish'
ORDER BY post_date DESC
LIMIT 1
WordPress database error: [Expression #1 of ORDER BY clause is not in SELECT list, references column 'webkozo_wordpress.gr_posts.post_date' which is not in SELECT list; this is incompatible with DISTINCT] SELECT DISTINCT MONTH(post_date) AS month, YEAR(post_date) AS year
FROM gr_posts
WHERE post_date > '2025-03-01'
AND MONTH( post_date ) != MONTH( '2025-03-01' )
AND post_type = 'post' AND post_status = 'publish'
ORDER BY post_date ASC
LIMIT 1
話 係 冇 得 追 究 ， 不 過 總 會 有 人 知 ！ 」