As the title suggests, there’s a lot of news coming out to Japan again. Of course, there’s news from everywhere else, but we’ll start with Japan

- Oricon rankings again fairly weak this week. On the singles chart, Seki Jani Eight (I don’t really get them, but whatever floats Japan’s boat) rules the chart with their new single, selling 190,000 copies. In second and third place are also new singles, but sales are way lower than the top single. As for remaining singles, Glay drops all the way down to 7th place, and Namie Amuro’s “Funky Town” (Not a cover of the disco hit) is already out of the top 10. Next week should be interesting, as the daily chart indicates 14 singles vying for the top 10.

Albums sales are even weaker this week, as YUI hangs for to number 1 again with just 100,000 copies sold. The best-selling new album of the week is the second album by Endlicheri Endlicheri (also known as Tsuyoshi Domoto of Kinki Kids), which sold only 77,000 copies. Most of the albums still on the top 10 are holdovers such as Ai Otsuka and Kobukuro’s compilation albums and Mr. Children’s latest. Next week, expect boy pop collective Kat-tun to rule the charts with their latest (probably cashing in on the respective members’ debuting dramas).

- And looks like the music sales slump isn’t just a seasonal thing either - Hollywood Reporter reports that Japanese music sales have been declining since last year, and the majority of that loss actually is in declining sales of foreign music. Not that Japanese music weren’t selling less either; their decline just wasn’t as bad. One thing I don’t understand is why Japanese music as priced so much more expensive than its foreign counterpart - According to the figures, even foreign CD (album and singles included) cost an average of $9.30, while a Japanese music cost an average of $10.54. It doesn’t seem like a big difference, but Japanese albums can cost over 1000 yen more than American albums. Is it production costs? Is it simply a way to cash in on a market that can move almost 53 million units?

- Academy Award winner The Queen opened in one theater over the weekend, and in light of high advance ticket sales, the theater decides wisely to put it on two of its three screens. Eiga Consultant reports that decision was right, because with 428 seats available for 10 shows a day, The Queen attracted 4072 people, bringing in 5.59 million yen over the weekend. With expansion over the next two weekends, can The Queen become a sleeper hit in Japan?

- A while ago, I complained that Japanese television broadcasters were not stepping up quick enough to get its dramas overseas. Once a giant market for exporting dramas, Japan has since been overshadowed by South Korea. Finally, the broadcasters are waking up, and are collaborating with the Communication Ministry to build an online database for potential buyers of TV shows. Japan does make decent television shows that should be just as popular as the ones in South Korea, but its lack of access for foreign audience has caused those potential audiences to find other ways to access these contents such as Bittorrent and triad-sanctioned pirated discs.

- Speaking of TV, looks like TBS screwed up again, this time on reporting the Fujita food scandal.

- I like Lee Byung-Hun. I never watched his dramas, but he’s done some great movies such as J.S.A., Bungee Jumping of Their Own, and A Bittersweet Life. He’s also quite a heartthrob in Japan, although his movies haven’t done very well there. Of course, it would make sense that if a Japanese blockbuster were to need a Korean heartthrob, it’d be him or Bae Yong Joon (or Yonsama, as Japanese people call him). That’s why I’m not very surprised to hear that Lee has been casted in SMAP member/Asian superstar Kimura Takuya’s latest film Hero, a film version of the hit drama. It’s official - this movie is gonna be huge.

- Two weeks ago, I introduced the Japanese film Campaign. Turns out Jason Gray has seen it (as did people in film festivals around the world), and he offers far more information than I had on it. This makes me want to watch it even more.

- Now that I’m done with Japan, let’s pick on China. I swear I didn’t make this up:

CBS has chosen China as the next spot for its popular reality show Survivor. While this is a great development for western media trying to break into China, it should also speak volumes about how living in Mainland China can actually be equal to living on a jungle island in the middle of nowhere with no civilized necessity. Maybe finding a way to talk about Tiananmen Square in public without getting sent to a labor camp can be one of the challenges.

- Meanwhile, Hong Kong has its own battle to fight. On film, that is. More details have emerged about the so-called “Battle of Hong Kong” trilogy that actually sounds like it might be good. Called “The Exodus,” the sci-fi epic is about how enslaved citizens in Kowloon rise up against their wealthy captors on Hong Kong Island. Of course, if you look at the map of Hong Kong, you would realize that logistically, you don’t want to be the power holder and be stuck on an island, but I’m just nitpicking.

The summary still sounds very promising, until I read this ugly tagline by the director that seems better used for a Hollywood boardroom - ““This is Ten Commandments meets Blade Runner shot like 300.” Honestly, I don’t know how that’s gonna work out.

- The Singapore International Film Festival lineup has been announced, and this time the theme is “fuck the censors.” They will be showing “Syndromes and a Century” and “Village People Radio Show,” both Thai films that are in big trouble with the Thai censors. Also, they are fighting the Singaporean censors to get the local homosexual film “Solos” played at the festival uncut. The censors have already forced the Danish film “Princess” to withdraw from the festival, so they ain’t taking this fight lying down.

Edit: Ummm…I need to read the stories closer. As YTSL pointed out, the film festival is already underway, and Village People Radio Show was banned by the Malaysian censors. Disregard all that you just read and read the story yourself.

- The Herman Yau-directed/Dennis Law-produced Gong Tau (Curse) has a trailer up, thanks to the good people at Twitch. I personally loved the purple floating head, what’s your favorite?

- In an exercise in redundancy, the Australian government has backed the establishment of a Pan-Asian film awards. The Asia Pacific Screen Awards will take place in November in Queensland for at least three years before being moved to another country. In an even wiser movie, the show will be recorded for CNN and would concentrate on recognizing films from countries we don’t necessarily associate with film rather than blinging it up on the red carpet.

The bad news? It’ll only offer 3 nominations per category and its winner will be determined by a 3-member jury? It may beat Hong Kong in presentation, but this award might just lose on credibility.

- The developing story in Hong Kong is obviously the future of John Woo’s Battle of Red Cliff. Producer Terence Chang has shot back, citing Chow Yun-Fat’s attitude as the reason for his withdrawal. From Ming Pao, excerpt are as follows:

張家振承認投資者和發行商的確嫌發哥演周瑜太老，發哥的年齡的確是比周瑜大了20歲，但他和吳宇森一直都很維護發哥。真正的原因是發哥經律師擬定的合約，美國保險公司有73條不接納，他已盡量作出讓步，但可惜還是不能成事。

Terence Chang admits that investors and distributors complained that Chow was 20 years too old for the role, but John Woo and he have always protected Chow. The real reason is that the contract Chow’s lawyer wrote up - the American insurance company would not except 73 of the conditions. He [Chang?] already tried to compromise, but they couldn’t finalize it.

張家振說﹕「發哥要求在開拍前一次付清片酬，他說對每部獨立電影也一視同仁，後來我苦苦哀求，他才答應先付50%，收到錢3天後才向劇組報到，另外50%要我們在銀行一個帳戶，拍到一半時給他，雖然他不是一次拿到錢，但我也要一次把錢拿出來。（發哥的片酬是否很昂貴？）是500萬美元，另加全球分紅，沒有虧待他，他最近拍了4部電影的片酬加起來也不及此數目。」

Chang says: “Chow requested that his salary be paid in one installment before shooting began, he said that he treats every independent film the same. I end up pleading to him, so he agreed to taking 50% first and reporting to the set 3 days after receiving the money. The other 50% would be given to him halfway through shooting from a bank account. Even though Chow’s not getting the money in one installment, I have to raise the money in one installment. (Was Chow’s salary high?) It’s US$5 million, plus a cut of the worldwide gross. We don’t mistreat him, this salary is higher than the salaries he got from the last four movies he did combined.”

對於發哥指一星期前才收到劇本，張家振直斥這是廢話，他說﹕「早在去年，我就偷偷地交稿給他看。他在美國拍戲時，也跟我們提出了一些周瑜和小喬的感情戲，我們都覺得不錯。去年初，第一稿出來，我們同時給了他和梁朝偉，發哥有一些意見，向吳宇森和編導陳汗提出，編劇就發哥的說法潤飾了劇本， 此稿的確是一周前給他。」

Regarding Chow’s claim that he only got the script a week before shooting, Chang says that’s a lie. He says, “We’ve been showing him drafts since last year. When he was shooting another film in the States, he even gave us some suggestions regarding the romance that we thought was good. At the beginning of last year, the first draft came out, and we showed it to him and Tony Leung Chiu-Wai. Chow had some suggestions for John Woo and the screenwriter, so he changed the screenplay according to those suggestions. That draft did get to him a week beforehand.”

Original text in Chinese is here.

So there you have it. Who’s in the right? Who’s in the wrong? Chow admits that he did write up his contract in accordance to the Hollywood treatment he had, while Chang did admit that he only sent Chow the complete final draft a week before shooting. Meanwhile, even some of the Chinese press is blaming Chow’s wife for making these demands on the contract.

With Oriental Daily reporting that Tony Leung Chiu-Wai has actually joined the film again, but this time taking over Chow’s role, the plot thickens. More tomorrow when the latest Ming Pao comes online.

In less gossipy news about Red Cliff, Mei Ah has signed on as the distributor for the film, even without Chow, and predicted a HK$100-200 million gross in Hong Kong alone. Yeah, right.

I believe today’s song was chosen by fate. Last night I caught a broadcast of the classic film Saturday Night Fever. I’ve never seen the whole thing in its entirety (honestly, it didn’t even look like that good of a movie), but any film fan has probably seen at least parts of it because of the soundtrack. I watched the opening 20 minutes, and I heard today’s song when I manage to catch the last 20 minutes. And then this morning at the dentist, I heard the song again playing on the radio at the clinic. That’s when I knew the Bee Gees were calling out to me. You may call me silly, but I can’t escape fate. So from the Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack, it’s “How Deep is Your Love”

Why? Because John Travolta emoted to this song at the end of the movie!

- So remember over the weekend, Shochiku announced that the opening day box office was so high for the film version of Tokyo Tower that they expect it to surpass Kimura Takuya X Yoji Yamada’s 4 billion yen hit “Love and Honor?” Well, the Japan box office numbers are out, and Eiga Consultant can’t see how that’s possible. On its opening day, Tokyo Tower made only 196 million yen, which is 90% of the 1.41 billion yen-grossing Shinobi. In fact, its opening day gross was only 65% of what Love and Honor made on its opening day. You can compare the results yourself for Love and Honor and Tokyo Tower with those links. My own calculation (following the exchange rate BOM used for the respective weeks) actually showed that Tokyo Tower only made 53% of Love and Honor’s opening weekend, but that only furthers the point that Shochiku is lying out of their asses. This isn’t the first time Japanese distributors overestimated final grosses anyway; remember the Genghis Kahn movie? Exactly.

Elsewhere on the top 10, Blood Diamond seems to be hanging on thanks to word-of-mouth, and Sunshine opened weaker than I thought with only roughly $500,000. Otherwise, it’s been a pretty quiet weekend in Japan again.

- Meanwhile, South Korea had a fairly quiet weekend at the box office as well, with The Show Must Go On falling a sad 58% in its second week.

- The South Korean box office isn’t really looking all that bright for the summer either, with Hollywood offering Spiderman, pirates, and transformers, while Korea is offering horror flicks and….D-War?!

- The big news out of Hong Kong is not only Lau Ching-Wan’s best actor win at the Hong Kong Film Awards, but also fellow nominee Chow Yun-Fat withdrawing from John Woo’s epic The Battle of Red Cliff. It’s another “he-said-he-said” (there’s no she in this story) type of situation - producer Terence Chang said that the financiers can’t acquiesce to Chow’s request to pay his salary of US$5 million at once (which is reportedly 3 times the salary he got for Curse of the Golden Flower), while Chow’s side says that he got the script too late, which meant he couldn’t prepare early enough for a role that requires him to speak in Mandarin (Chow’s native tongue is Cantonese). He also said he already took a pay cut for not demanding a raise after the decision was make to split the films in two (um….they’re shooting it at the same time anyway). This is the second major blow to Woo’s ambitious US$70-million project after star Tony Leung Chiu-Wai dropped out due to the 6-month shooting schedule. Of course, the bigger question is whether Chow’s withdrawal will affect Woo and Chow’s legendary friendship.

- I read about this about a week ago in Oriental Daily, but I don’t remember reporting it. Anyone waiting for a Shaolin Soccer sequel can release half their breath. The good news is that there is a Stephen Chow-involved sequel being made, the bad news is that it probably won’t have anything to do with the first film. Fuji TV has teamed up with Chow to make a pseudo-sequel called “Shorin Shoujo” (Or Shaolin Girl) starring Ko Shibasaki as the title character and Bayside Shakedown helmer Katsuyuki Motohiro directing. It’ll be about a young girl returning from Japan after training at the Shaolin Temple and ends up helping out a college Lacrosse team. Shaolin Soccer co-stars Lam Chi-Chung and Tin Kai-Man will appear, Chow will apparently not. While in anyone else’s hands, this might be a bad idea, but I like Robot Productions and Motohiro enough that it might turn out to be a good popcorn flick.

- The big news coming out of Tokyo is the world premiere of Spiderman 3. Honestly, the only interesting part about the report is how making sequels actually keep down marketing costs and allow the studio to leave that for the production instead. Other than that, there’s no advance review out yet.

- Reading Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” (for a Comparative Literature class) and Kobo Abe’s “Woman in the Dunes” in the same quarter put me in a huge existential crisis. In other words, it was one of the greatest academic periods of my life. Anyway, I mention this because Criterion is releasing Teshigahara’s surprisingly faithful adaptation of Woman in the Dunes in July on DVD as part of a Teshigahara boxset. Anyone looking to get into an existential funk should check out this surreal classic.

- Like Warner Bros. in Japan, 20th Century Fox has struck a deal with Showbox (who distributed The Host) to finance and distribute South Korean films. This comes as no surprise to me since my Kick the Moon DVD was actually released by Fox already. Is this good news or not? Look at what Warner Bros. did in Japan and you might have an idea.

- Professor Bordwell is back from Hong Kong, and his first entry since returning tackles a subject that I, as a wannabe filmmaker, is actually immensely interested in. Many film viewers may not notice, but for me, the toughest part of editing a film is dialog scenes. Editing rely on a capturing a certain beat, and shooting dialog scenes are particularly tough because when you only have one camera, you have to shoot the scene many times at different angles, which can be tough for actors AND directors. Then when you have all that footage, you have to decide when to cut to which angle without ruining the pace of the scene. The cutting-in-between technique in dialog scenes is called “reverse shots,” meaning you start on one angle, then you cut to where the opposite angle where the camera shows where the initial shot was from.

Anyway, Professor Bordwell goes into how certain directors don’t use reverse shots. For me, it’s fascinating. Maybe for me only though.

- I’m sure many have heard about the Virginia Tech shooting allegedly committed by a disturbed neutralized South Korean student (please let it be known that he is a naturalized American citizen, not just some foreigner that went crazy on Americans) that killed 32 people, including himself. At one point, the Chinese press got a hold of reports that a Chinese student actually did the deed and ran with it (the local Chinese papers I saw today all have it on their headlines). During that time, the Chinese press ran into chaos, trying to decide whether to run the story or not, while the netizens reacted very quickly on the message boards. This is their story.

“1960 April 16th, one minute before 3 pm, we were together. I’ll remember that minute because of you. We’re one-minute friends from now on. This is fact, you can’t deny it because it’s already past.”—-Days of Being Wild.

Originally appeared on 1992’s The Legend of Pop Queen Part II album, but now only available on compilations such as this one, today’s song of the day is inspired by Wong Kar-Wai’s Days of Being Wild. The line above is probably my favorite moment in Wong Kar-Wai film history. That’s why today’s song of the day is the film’s theme song by Anita Mui - “It’s Like This”

Why? It’s one of my favorite moments from one of my favorite movies. This should make this one of my favorite songs. Even if it’s not, it’s awfully fitting for the film, isn’t it?

Here’s a Mandarin cover done by Leslie Cheung, with the famous moment right at the very end.

Watched the rather unprofessionally edited version of the Hong Kong Film Awards last night on the local TVB. At one point, it was so badly edited down for time that they actually cut off an entire section, then played that section about 15 minutes later. Acceptance speeches were cut down, and somehow they still had time to cut to TVB’s own host sitting in an empty studio for a round-up. Either the show was on tape delay in HK as well, or they just botched the little time they had to edit the show down. I probably should have been thankful that I got to watch it so quickly on TV in the first place, but how hard is it to just show the whole thing uncut?

This year, the show was hosted by Eric Tsang’s daughter Bowie, who actually hosts several TV shows in Taiwan, Lam Chi-Chung, and Nick Cheung (Yes, Johnnie To recent favorite Nick Cheung). Unlike the Asian Film Awards, which featured awkward English bantering between Fiona Sit and David Wu or a solo Wu doing his Tarantino impression, the hosts this time actually got some good bantering in. But Nick Cheung, a stranger to hosting awards, had trouble remembering the script, which made him the butt of jokes by the other two hosts. At points, at least one of the host had to look at the script on the podium. Note to Hong Kong award shows: get a teleprompter.

Apparently, people complained about the large amount of Mandarin presenters for last year’s ceremony, so what do they do this year? Bring even more and lesser known Mandarin-speaker presenters to the stage! Thankfully, TVB provided subtitles for most of the Mandarin presenters’ lines (another sign of a tape delay).

The now-defunct mock boy band alive also came out for a performance. Instead of singing their single “Adam’s Choice” themselves, they brought out Paul Wong on the guitar and a bunch of local independent bands to sing most of the song while the Alive boys took out cue cards featuring messages they have for the entertainment industry (”Don’t Copy, support original creation!”). Of course, if I didn’t know that Paul Wong was putting on a concert with these independent bands next month, I would’ve actually saw it as more than a promotional gesture. I couldn’t even see 1/3 of the cards/band members performing because TVB kept cutting to cameras that WEREN’T shooting where things were happening, as if TVB doesn’t want us to see the Alive boys promoting independent music.

Of course, this year the Hong Kong Film Awards has something to be proud of - the Oscar win of The Departed. They use it as a way of encouraging the business, telling them to write scripts that Hollywood will want to buy. Personally, I thought Patrick Tam winning the best screenplay award with his student was a better encouragement to this budding filmmaker than any Hollywood awards.

After the way rabid fans acted for Rain and Andy Lau at the Asian Film Awards, the fans for EEG artist Isabella Leung also showed up to see her lose twice for the supporting actress and best actress. It was refreshing to see Anthony Wong getting so pissed that he said if the fans didn’t shut up, he would announce someone else as the winner even if Isabella won. I can’t wait to earn that type of respect.

As for the awards, I’m glad Lau Ching-Wan found that the 7th time’s the charm, and that a 17-year absence behind the camera would bring Patrick Tam some of the biggest applause of the evening. However, I’m a little saddened that Johnnie To went home empty-handed (Exiled’s editing was hands-down some of the best in HK film), probably because of multiple nominations in one category. and that young filmmakers not named Daniel Wu didn’t see their films recognized. Next year, I’ll get to watch the whole thing live (on TV or at the venue, either one is good), I just hope the movies will be just as good, if not better.

Here is the Variety Asia report on the awards, if anyone wanted it.

- Let’s start with Hong Kong Sunday numbers. As expected, Mr. Bean’s Holiday hangs on at number 1 with HK$1.09 million on 32 screens (US$1=HK$7.8) for a 11-day total of HK$17.83 million. As for openings, Taiwan lesbian romance Spider Lilies expanded from Thursday’s 6 screens to 9 screens over the weekend, earning an impressive HK$320,000 on Sunday for a 4-day total of HK$1.23 million. Hong Kong director Yip Lim-Sum follows his cynical romantic-dramedy Marriage with a Fool with an even more cynical take of love with Love is Not All Around, starring a bunch of Gold Label idols. It had preview showings over the weekend, and it made HK$200,000 on 32 screens (not sure how many showings per day) for a HK$540,000 3-day total. It opens next week.

- As reported yesterday, Tokyo Tower managed to open huge enough that it got the number 1 spot in Japan this weekend. In a continuing slump of futuristic films, Sunshine opens weak at 7th place, despite the presence of Japanese star Hiroyuki Sanada. More tomorrow when the numbers come out from Box Office Mojo.

- As for the North American box office, Rear Win…I mean Disturbia opens huge with 28 million. The big story is, of course, Grindhouse’s 63% freefall. Made for nearly $100 million (with prints and advertising), the double feature has only made $19 million so far.

- On Saturday, I was going to report on the latest attempt of censorship by the Thai government, this time for the independent film “Syndrome and a Century.” Basically, as Variety Asia reported, the Thai censorship board asked for several cuts to the film that show doctors behaving (comparatively) badly. When the director refused, the board refused to give the film back and threatens to make the cuts anyway. Now, the whole issue is getting huge, as Jason Gray reports that there is now an internet petition against the Thai censorship board, calling for a free Thai film industry.

On a related note, Twitch has an interview with director Apithatpong Weerasethakul, even though it makes no mention of the censorship issue because it was done probably during the San Francisco Asian American Film Festival.

- In light of the complaint by the United States against China at the World Trade Organization, China held a huge display of pirated materials burning to raise awareness of the government’s attitude, and again to show American a big red middle finger.

At least it wasn’t a book burning.

- Here’s something to get excited about for today - the first full length trailer for Takeshi Kitano’s comedy “Kantoku Banzai,” courtesy of Twitch. It looks crazy as hell, and a lot of fun too.

- In the history of bad ideas, Edward Norton has signed up to star in “The Incredible Hulk,” Universal’s sad sad attempt to undo Ang Lee’s film. But rather than resetting the whole franchise, it will actually be a continuation from the first film. It’ll be directed by Louis Leterrier, who did the Transporter films, and I assume it’ll be much less ambitious that Ang Lee’s misunderstood film.

That’s right, I actually liked Ang Lee’s version of The Hulk. The freefalling of my credibility continues.

The following is a compilation of the most notable news covered by The Golden Rock from April 9th to April 15th:

- Those censors strike again. No, not China (more of those guys later), this time it’s Thailand, who has banned internet video service Youtube after anti-monarchist films appeared on the site. Youtube offers to help the Thai authorities delete the films in question without really going to the point of censorship.

- OK, China, your turn. Remember the Chinese idol show Super Girl that got renamed to Happy Boy? Well, not only does the Chinese government hate girls that are happy, they are forcing the show to follow a strict set of guidelines that include no “weirdness” or “low taste,” allowing only “healthy and ethnically inspiring songs,” and no screaming fans or crying contestants, because god help them if the winner might be popular enough to be the next Premier of the Communist party.

(not sure where the link went here)

- Japanese pop queen/suspect outer space alien Ayumi Hamasaki had her sold-out concert in Hong Kong, and with Eason Chan’s tendency to speak his mind, he decided to say that she was probably lip-syncing. Ming Pao has the report, and excerpt is as follows:

Eason形容濱崎步的演唱會是高成本製作，燈 光、爆破效果，以至整個演唱會的製作都很好，水準之高是本地演唱會難以做到；不過，他說：「看見濱崎步的勁歌熱舞，懷疑她有三分之一時間是『咪嘴』，而且 『咪嘴』功夫很到家。我看麥當娜的演唱會就覺得沒有『咪嘴』，雖然歌聲可能沒有唱片中的水準，但也很好看。」

Eason describes Ayumi Hamasaki’s concert as a high-budget production thanks to the lights and pyrotechnics. That type of quality is one that Hong Kong concerts have difficulty achieving. But he said “Seeing Ayumi Hamasaki’s singing and dancing, I suspect that she’s lip-syncing for 1/3 of the time, and her lip-syncing skills are quite good. I saw Madonna’s concert and didn’t feel she was lip-syncing. Though she didn’t sing as well as she does on her albums, it was still very good.”

對此，主辦單位強調濱崎步並無「咪嘴」，「濱崎步唱得太好，加上所有音響設備都來自日本，才會惹起誤會」。

In response, the organizers insist that Ayumi Hamasaki was not lip-syncing, “Ayumi Hamasaki sings too well, and plus all the audio equipments came from Japan, so that’s why there’s such a misunderstanding.”

Original Chinese text is here.

I’ve seen Ayumi Hamasaki’s live performance videos, and she can’t even hit those high notes when she’s NOT dancing. Plus, from Eason Chan, who still lip-sync some of his TV performances, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is true.

- Then again, it’s hard to tell whether one can trust Ming Pao’s reporting. Yesterday, they reported Professor David Bordwell’s visit to Johnnie To’s set for “Triangle” (which they got from his blog), but they seemed to have gotten some facts wrong, particular in its last section. Chinese excerpts (followed by translation) are as follows:

發覺杜琪㗖喜用手提拍攝，與荷李活所用的路軌拍攝不同，不過用手提拍攝確較靈活。David Bordwell亦認為香港製作有時不夠精細，如電影《放逐》中有一幕講述澳門酒店的場景，原來是在杜琪㗖公司的天台搭景，就嫌太過草率了。

[David] discovers that Johnnie To likes using handheld camera, unlike Hollywood, which favor tracking, but using handheld camera is more flexible. David Bordwell also thinks that Hong Kong productions are not meticulous enough, such as the hotel scene in “Exiled.” Turns out that the “hotel” was a set on the roof of Johnnie To’s production company, and he thinks that it’s too sloppy.

Original Chinese text is here.

The entry that report is referring to is here, and here are the mistakes the reporter at Ming Pao made:

The report writes that Johnnie To prefers handheld, but this is what Professor Bordwell wrote:

“To’s art is furthered by his craftsmanship in shot composition. Composing in anamorphic (2.35:1), nearly always putting the camera on a tripod or dolly, he gets precise results with few lighting units. When I complained that all the new films I saw at Filmart were shot shakycam, Shan Ding reported a neat saying that HK DPs have. The handheld camera covers 3 mistakes: Bad acting, bad set design, and bad directing.”

The report also wrote that Professor Bordwell complained that the hotel set in Exiled shows the sloppiness of Hong Kong filmmaking, but there is no such complaining in his entry. This is what Professor Bordwell wrote in regard to the rooftop set:

“In another echo of old production methods, To’s films sometimes use rooftop sets. Last year the set for the hotel in Exiled was erected on the top of the Milkyway building. Its Demy-like pastels looked very artificial in daylight.”

Any complaining in there? I don’t see it. That’s why Hong Kong Chinese reporting should always be taken with a grain of salt.

- Plagiarism is a plague in the Asian music industry - everyone is copying off each other, and they’re only spread around like urban legend on the net while it continues. That’s why I’m happy to see one of these cases go to court, as a South Korean court ruled that a MTV for a song by Korean pop singer Ivy was illegally copied off a scene from the movie Final Fantasy: Advent Children. According to the comments there, representatives for Ivy’s side are just blaming it on some Chinese guy. Riiiigggght.

Look for the rip-off of the song by Mark Lui for the HK pop market in the coming months.

- Korean films seemed to have hit a slump for March, taking only 21.6% of the market. But the fact that the big picture shows that Korean films is still enjoying a 55.3% share for the year, the reports may be blowing it out of proportion a little bit. Hong Kong would kill for that kind of number, people.

- The Hong Kong International Film Festival is coming to an end, with the Hong Kong Film Awards on Sunday (I’ll be watching it on Sunday night on the tape-delay broadcast by the local TVB channel in San Francisco), which means Professor Bordwell is leaving. But before he leaves, he shares a ton of pictures, and even mentions this blog! Thanks, Professor, I enjoyed your coverage of the HKIFF!

- Remember the highly-anticipated Jackie Chan-Jet Li project that turned out to be a kids’ movie? Variety Asia offers us more details, including the director (guy who did Lion and Stuart Little), and the plot, about an American teenager transported into ancient China, where he would join a crew of warriors (with it reportedly based on Journey to the West, it would probably be the monk and his disciples, which include the Monkey King) to free an imprison king. Holy ethnographic gaze, Batman!

- . Today, I offer Korea Pop Wars’ Mark Russell’s look at the ongoing struggles of vendors that sell pirated discs, only to find out that it’s all about location, location, location.

Today’s song of the day is from this album by the now defunct-band Luna Sea. I personally found this song when it was featured in the classic drama “Kamisama Mou Sugoshi Dake,” which I suspect is how a lot of people found this song as well. Not much introduction is necessary, it’s Luna Sea’s “I For You.”

Why? Because it was a huge part of my teenage years and an essential part of my Japanese culture acquisition. But why now? I just felt like it.

Here it is used in the drama.

In Cantonese, we call the best actor and best actress winners at film awards “King” and “Queen,” respectively. This year’s Hong Kong Film Awards was held a few hours ago, and while I’ll be watching the show tonight SF time, I can’t help but looking up the winners list. Turns out I got 4 right, and the one I wanted to win best actor - Lau Ching-Wan for My Name is Fame - actually won.

Why is Lau Ching-Wan winning the “King” such a big deal? He’s a great actor, and everyone knows that. That’s what made it such a big deal - despite being a great actor and having been nominated many times, he has actually never won a best actor award at the HK Film Awards. After some 20 years of acting, one of Hong Kong’s greatest finally wins. I hope that this will encourage LCW to do even more movies.

More on the show itself and the winners list tomorrow.

- North American box office actual numbers are out tomorrow, but estimates show Grindhouse dropping by 63% and barely hanging on to the top 10. In addition to the “let’s split the movies up in director’s cut” plan (which would not be financially viable since it means striking up new prints), I wonder what else do the Weinsteins have up their sleeves.

- Speaking of another failure, Sony has decided to stop selling the cheaper 20gb model of the Playstation 3 in the United States. The more expensive 60gb model remains in the market, which shows which market they’re really aiming at these days.

- This weekend Japan sees the third adaptation of the novel Tokyo Tower in a year opening in its cinemas. This time, it stars Joe Odagiri and Kirin Kiki. Despite the excess dose of the popular novel about a young man venturing to Tokyo from his rural town and the mother who supported him every step of the way, Hoga News reports that its opening day box office is huge enough that it’s expected to pass the 4 billion mark that Yoji Yamada’s Love and Honor did this past winter. Joe Odagiri>Kimura Takuya???

- Japanese video market is still flat. More people are buying DVDs, but they’re individually buying and spending less on them. zzzzzzz…….

- I was going to talk about how pirates put Chinese subtitles on those foreign shows that allows people to download the show and understand the whole thing within only a few days’ time. That was yesterday’s lost entry. Today, I offer Korea Pop Wars’ Mark Russell’s look at the ongoing struggles of vendors that sell pirated discs, only to find out that it’s all about location, location, location.

- Meanwhile, Twitch introduces Driving With My Wife’s Lover, a Korean film that sounds really interesting with a title that’s as tell-all as it gets.

- Lastly, thought the events in the Peter Chan-produced/Fruit Chan-directed film Dumplings can’t happen? Think again (warning, content may potentially gross you out.).

Today’s song of the day can be found on this album and this single. However, neither studio versions can compare to this version, which plays it at a considerably slower pace more suitable for the melody (at least in my opinion). It’s Shiina Ringo’s Sakuran.

Why? This cover is my favorite arrangement out of the 3 versions I’ve heard because it plays to the melody the most. It’s not meant to be fitted with a fast-paced big band symphonic arrangement, but rather with this type of sublime bossa nova beats. This, to me, is the definitive version of Sakuran, too bad it’s never going to be released as a studio recording.

This space represents a lost entry. It was lost when Firefox unexpectedly closed on me in the middle of an entry.

It included Hong Kong box office numbers for Thursday, why Nikkatsu announcing its lineup mattered, Japan Times reviews for this weekend (one of them is a Japanese film that opened on only one screen), how Chinese subtitling groups work, Information on Taiten no Ken, a new Japanese film investor, and how Thailand is unreasonably censoring an independent filmmaker.

Please leave a comment if you would actually like to see any of these stories, because I really don’t want to go and dig up all the links again.

The rest of the entry is my predictions for the Hong Kong Film Awards, happening tomorrow night Hong Kong time.

Overview: As always, the nominations tended to recognize established names rather than new filmmakers. All the nominees for best pics, best director and best screenplays are people who have spent 10 or more years in the industry. This points to a committee that seems to be just putting together an award that pats their buddies in the back rather than encouraging new talents. I’m not just saying this because a personal favorite Isabella didn’t get much major nominations, but also because this archaic system managed to recognize The Myth with multiple nominations.

With that said, here are my predictions for this year’s major awards (Those I want to win are in parenthesis):

Best Editing: After This, Our Exile (Exiled)

Best Cinematography: Curse of the Golden Flower (Isabella)

Best new actor: Gouw Ian Iskandar for After This, Our Exile (same)

Best Supporting Actress: Haven’t seen most of the films, can’t comment

Best Supporting Actor: Jay Chou for Curse of the Golden Flower (Simon Yam for Election 2)

Best Actress: Gong Li for Curse of the Golden Flower (same)

Best Actor: Chow Yun Fat for Curse of the Golden Flower (Lau Ching Wan for My Name is Fame)

Best Screenplay: Yau Nai Hoi and Yip Tin Shing for Election 2 (same)

Best Director: Patrick Tam for After This Our Exile (Johnnie To for Exiled)

Best Picture: After This, Our Exile (Election 2)

Results will be posted tomorrow morning, or tomorrow evening at the latest.