Almost caught up

Some more news that is a little late, but better than nothing.

- Good news came last week for Hong Kong filmmakers when the government announced a rahter large subsidy for Hong Kong films. It seems like now despite that promise, there is one good news and one bad news. The good news is that the fund will be targeted for small-to-medium-budgeted films, which means smaller films now have a chance in getting made. Bad news is that the fund plans to only cover up to 30% of production cost for each film.

- Korea Pop Wars has coverage on the upcoming Spring schedule, which would include films by Im Kwon Taek (Korea's own answer to Yoji Yamada) and Kim Ki Duk.

- Twitch also rounds up the February Korean box office, which was dominated by quite a few successes and total is up from January. However, it's slightly down from the total for February 2006. Then again, when you have local films taking up 67.4% of box office gross, you really have nothing to complain about. Hong Kong filmmakers would literally kill for that kind of number.

- Speaking of Korean films, The Host opens this weekend in the States, and it's getting very very good reviews. Rotten Tomatoes has it at 94%, and even though I have the HK DVD, I'll probably catch it in theaters just to show my support. Of course, I'll have to watch Zodiac first though.

- Hoga News brings us two pieces of news: One being a report on Eiga Consultant's analysis of the opening weekend for Takeshi Miike's "Ryu ga Gotoku," which despite being placed just 10th at the box office, is still "pretty good." Honestly, except for the cgi helicopter being so powerful that it removes the main actor's shirt, I don't see what's so "love and hate" about it. The other is the link to Jetro's quarterly newsletter on the Japanese showbiz.

- Mark Schilling of Japan Times actually has a review of "Ryu Ga Gotoku," along with "Genghis Kahn: To the Ends of the Earth and Sea."

- Oh, in case anyone was interested, Hot Fuzz is now officially a blockbuster. Yeah, baby.

- Lastly, director Mira Nair has a fluff interview with Variety Asia in light of her latest film, "The Namesake."

Tomorrow, I should be filling out missing links and post the best of the week.