Best of Golden Rock - April 23rd to April 29th

The following is a compilation of the most notable news covered by The Golden Rock from April 23rd to April 29th.

- Everyone is picking on poor China. After the United States filed a formal complaint with the World Trade Organization over China's rampant piracy of Hollywood films, Japan is now planning to file their own complaint against China as well. Oh, and sources say the EU is planning to do the same. Talk about the dirty Capitalists ganging up on the poor giant Communist.

- In true Japan fashion, while they blame the Chinese for not doing enough, the Japanese also have to praise themselves for cracking down piracy the right way. Oh, and they're blaming foreigners for that too! I wonder if those Japanese street vendors at Osaka's Electronic Street are still working the streets as if nothing is happening....

- British Airway wants to provide the latest hit movies for their passengers, but it doesn't want to do it if a rival airline and its chairman show up in it. In a petty immature fashion, BA decided to cut out Virgin Atlantic chairman Richard Branson's cameo in the latest James Bond film Casino Royale. They also blurred out the appearance of a Virgin Atlantic plane in the film. Oh, behave!

- Some sad news to report in the Asian cinema blogsphere. Hoga News, run by Michi Kaifu, will no longer be updated. Hoga News has been a great source for news even before this blog started, especially for someone who can only understand maybe about half the Japanese cinema news stories out there. Michi has been there to put things into perspective (and not to mention English), and Hoga News' presence on the Japanese news front will be missed by all. Hopefully, my Japanese is still good enough to read Eiga Consultant's entries, whose links I originally got from Hoga news. Best of luck to you, Michi!

- Hey, America, you ain't so bad, with your formal complaints and shit. We Chinese already have pirated copies of your most anticipated movies a week and a half before anyone else is supposed to see it. Of course, it's probably a scam set to cash in on the hype cheating the poor bastards who think they lucked out, but still, how about them apples?

Sony has confirmed that cheap suckers have been scammed by those amateur entrepreneurs. That's right, the poor bastards who thought they got a chance to watch Spiderman 3 before everyone else in the comforts of their own home spent their hard-earned renminbi for just another copy of Spiderman 2 packaged as Spiderman 3. Ha-ha!

- In something that comes as absolutely no surprise, Hollywood has come out saying that they are backing the United States government's complaint against China for intellectual copyright. In fact, they're even threatening a ban, which means it might just rescue China from crappy Hollywood films, only to be replaced by more happy Chinese blockbusters promoting messages of peace and communism.

However, Silicon Hutong suggests that Hollywood might be bluffing because it probably needs China more than China needs them.

- The Asian media is not quite happy about how they are always in the shadow of Western media. They complain about how Western media only represents 1/7 of the world's population, yet they control 2/3 of the world's media, blah blah blah. Well, guess what, this report is right: Asian media does kind of suck. When they decide to stop sensationalist, inaccurate, and xenophobic reporting, then maybe someone will pay attention to you.

- Remember, Johnnie To's Election and Election 2 is currently under a 2-week run at New York's Film Forum. They even decided to add one more showing of Election starting tomorrow, Friday the 27th! Greencine has a round-up of reviews around the net, which seems to be generally positive, even though no one seems to be picking up the political implication in especially Election 2.

- After being on every Asian film buff's shit list for buying up Asian films and either cutting them or leaving them on the shelf (in most cases, both), the Weinsteins now figure why do the buying and cutting when they can just make the damn things themselves? Honestly, I am almost sure no good films will come out of this deal, but I'm a pessimist by nature.

- A new Chinese film producer is making their big debut at Cannes this year, and they managed to find some big Hong Kong market players like Nansun Shi to help them out. Among the five films they're bringing to Cannes is the latest by Tsui Hark, Ann Hui, Stanley Kwan, and Stephen Fung. Too bad all of them are "Chinese films," not "Hong Kong films."

Getting it out of the way

Lots and lots of news today, because I'm going to be participating in this tomorrow:

- Hong Kong's BC Magazine - THE magazine for foreigners in Hong Kong - has not only an article of Dancing Lion co-director Marco Mak, but if you scroll down, you'll also see an interview with Ming Ming director and Hong Kong MTV legend Susie Au.

- Too bad Ming Ming is flopping in Hong Kong. According to those nasty Sunday numbers, Ming Ming only made HK$140,000 on 12 screens for a 4-day total of HK$570,000. At least Ming Ming isn't doing as bad as Dancing Lion, which only made HK$100,000 on 19 screens on Sunday for a 4-day total of HK$350,000. As expected, Love is Not All Around (Which Lovehkfilm's Kozo is already calling one of the worst of the year) rules the weekend again with HK$660,000 on 38 screens for a 11-day total of HK9.36 million, which can only suggest that the HK teen audience is only as shallow as Hollywood's teen audience.

Meanwhile, Spider Lilies, which Kozo also reviewed this week, is beginning to die down a little bit with only HK$80,000 on 9 screens for a 18-day total of HK$3.01 million, which is pretty good for a limited-release Taiwanese film. The Painted Veil actually shows some staying power with HK$100,000 on 5 screens for a 11-day total of HK$910,000. This week's best limited release goes to opener Paul Verhoeven's Black Book, which made HK$70,000 on just 2 screens for a 4-day total of HK$180,000.

For reference: US$1=HK$7.8

- In my attempt to do what Hoga News did with its translation of Japanese news site Sanspo, the new adaptation of the classic cartoon Gegege No Kitaro opened on Saturday just in time for Golden Week in Japan. Shochiku, not embarrassed enough from their miscalculation of Tokyo Tower's box office, saw opening day's audience number was 150% of the opening day for Takeshi Miike's The Great Yokai War, which made 2 billion yen. So they decided to declare that Gegege is going to make 3 billion yen. Should I buy into that estimate? I think not...

- In other Japanese box office news, the trend of small animated films making it big continues with the 9-screen opening last weekend of the "Dengeki Bunko Movie Festival." According to Eiga Consultant, the Tokyo theater it played in found 4155 people over its opening 2 days. That's 415.5 people per show, which is pretty good, considering the biggest screen on the multiplex holds 426 people. On 9 screens, the film opened with a 15.82 million yen, which seems to be encouraging the distributor to expand it all that much more.

On the other hand, Eiga Consultant also looks at the first wide weekend of Rocky Balboa last weekend. While the film opened to around the same numbers as Sylvester Stallone's last starring role in Driven in North America, it ended up making more than double Driven's final gross. On the other hand, Rocky Balboa only opened in Japan at 58% of Driven, which grossed 1.6 billion yen. Can Rocky stay a few more rounds in Japan, or will it always remain the film that "only almost beat Driven?"

- A while ago, I reported Korean star Lee Byung-Hun putting a cameo in Kimura Takuya's latest film, the film adaptation of the drama Hero. Now, see the man on the set for yourself.

- The 43rd Baeksang Film Awards in Korea happened last week, and if an award can make it to its 43rd installment, it's gotta be pretty respectable, right? Twitch has the results.

- New news source Filmphilia has details about personal favorite Edmond Pang's latest film Exodus, which sounds like a dark comedy in the vein of Men Suddenly in Black. But his next film, which he recently got funding for at Filmart, sounds even better.

- Apparently, Quentin Tarantino is going to be bringing more of his "Grindhouse" installment Death Proof to Cannes - 30 minutes more???!!!! As if Tarantino didn't have enough self-indulgent show-off dialog already, he actually managed to find more to put more into what is essentially a self-masturbatory short film with no plot and a kick-ass car chase. With that said, I still would like to check it out.

- Oh, and there's a review for the modern Japanese pink film The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai.

Next, best of the week, and look for a revised report of the my SFIFF experience. By the way, because of the feature, there's no song of the day today.

SFIFF Report: After This, Our Exile - Director's cut.

Stop moving when you talk!!!!!

Director Patrick Tam introducing the film.


Roger Garcia and Patrick Tam at the after-screening Q&A, where I actually asked a question. For those at the Q&A, I was the kid that asked about Aaron Kwok shedding his pop star image, to which Tam actually called Aaron Kwok a very smart man.

I apologize for the bad quality of the pictures, which is partially due to the low lighting and not enough time to mess with the camera setting. With the sign strictly prohibiting photography, I wasn't sure if I should attempt taking a picture, but when several audience member took pictures of Tam himself (with flash, no less!), I decided to give it a try as well.

Anyway, this is my first viewing of After This, Our Exile on the big screen and with an audience. I was a little hesitant because of the length of the director's cut (160 minutes!) and a possibly unappreciative audience (i.e. those who don't know HK cinema), but I'm very glad I decided to sit through the film again. As far as I can remember, there aren't any huge changes from the theatrical cut to the director's cut. The extra 40 minutes of footage is spread out pretty evenly throughout the film, and some were cut probably not for length, but for language. There were at least three scenes where the "forbidden" Cantonese swear words were used, which would've landed the film in category III territory (no one under 18 admitted). Some of the notable changes, not in order, include (and I can't be sure all of these were new scenes, nor can I guarantee these are all the changes):

SPOILER WARNING:

Aaron Kwok's character having to break the lock he used to lock in his wife, played by Charlie Yeung, along with him swearing.

We realize Aaron's character isn't much of a cook.

The man that Charlie Yeung's character is seeing is actually a much cleaner-looking and a suit-wearing Aaron Kwok. Yup, the mother is attracted to a version of her husband that can offer her the opposite of what she's going through.

An extension of the scene in which Aaron is threatened by loan sharks. He goes back into the kitchen and gets into an heated argument with his co-worker, which probably led to his firing.

The entire sequence where Aaron's character plays pimp to his prostitute girlfriend, played by Kelly Lin. Turns out the customer is an 80-year-old man on vacation, and Aaron's character says he needs the money to send Kelly Lin's character to study abroad.

Before Aaron Kwok's character decides to abandon Boy for England, they have one last dinner together, where Aaron serves his son beer.

Boy beginning to realize why his mother left him, the argument that ensues between him and his father, and Boy wandering away again. Also, the scene afterwards feature Aaron almost becoming a thief himself.

SPOILER END.

And obviously, there are small moments scattered here and there that I didn't list and can't recall right now. But I'm sure the question is: how is the director's cut? Anyone who felt that the theatrical cut moved too slow is obviously gonna find it even slower, as the film's methodical pacing really shows here. Anyone who felt the epilogue is too short and sudden (like me) is gonna find that the epilogue is exactly the same, except the second viewing and Tam's explanation of the ending really helped me warm up to it. Some of the abrupt breaks in storytelling (like how the father and son decide to leave the house they live in during the first act) are still there, but the addition of the small moments really help to smooth out the story as a whole. There isn't any significant plot point added, but it's amazing none of the scenes added felt like filler. Every scene seems to be where they're supposed to be (except an awkward music cue around the middle, you know which one I mean), and After This, Our Exile remains a great film. It was also interesting to hear how the audience was into it based on their reactions - ranging from disgust for the actions of Aaron Kwok's character to nervous laughter.

Oh, anyone that wanted more of the sex scenes won't get any - they remain the same in the director's cut.

Random trivia about the film:

The idea came from Tam's student, who found an article in the newspaper about a father who forces his son to break into houses to steal for him. He brought the idea to Tam, and they began to craft the screenplay from there.

The screenplay was completed in 1996, and contained 135 scenes. The final product has 77. So the theatrical cut pretty much contains only half the original story.

The English title - "After This, Our Exile," comes from a Catholic prayer.

The music in the film was personally picked by Tam himself, and many of them played very personal roles in his life, from his favorite Malaysian pop songs to his mother's favorite piano piece.

Other starstruck moment: I was standing only 5 feet away from Hollywood Elsewhere's Jeffrey Wells. I was tempted to walk up and talk to the man, but I was just standing in line. I don't think he went to the screening though.

Of course, only a film geek like me would consider seeing Jeffrey Wells, Roger Garcia, and Patrick Tam in one day an extremely rewarding day.

NOTE: Patrick Tam will probably be at all the remaining screenings of the film, so do check it out!

The Golden Rock song of the day - 4/28/07

Today comes another joke song. A song worthy of an album title, it's Europe's "The Final Countdown."

Why? I've been watching reruns of the great TV comedy Arrested Development on TV, and its use of the song prompted me to use it today. It needs very little introduction and reason anyway. It's more 80s greatness, courtesy of The Golden Rock and Youtube.



Here is one of the numerous uses in Arrested Development

A little help

- Yesterday, I wrote about the relatively weak performance of the new Kenichi Matsuyama film Shindo. Turns out Japan Times has a review for it this weekend, in case you're curious. Sounds like an interesting character drama.

Meanwhile, Japan Times finally gives a positive review to a big blockbuster. This time it's Spiderman 3, which Japan will get to see on Tuesday during their big Golden Week holiday. As always, they're also covering small films, including a review for Michel Gondry's The Science of Sleep (which comes with an interview with director Gondry himself) and Cannes Grand Prix winner Flandres (again with an interview with the film's director Bruno Dumont.).

- While Hollywood is threatening to boycott China to back up the complaint by the United States government at the World Trade Organization, Silicon Hutong suggests that Hollywood might be bluffing because it probably needs China more than China needs them.

- After being on every Asian film buff's shit list for buying up Asian films and either cutting them or leaving them on the shelf (in most cases, both), the Weinsteins now figure why do the buying and cutting when they can just make the damn things themselves? Honestly, I am almost sure no good films will come out of this deal, but I'm a pessimist by nature.

- A new Chinese film producer is making their big debut at Cannes this year, and they managed to find some big Hong Kong market players like Nansun Shi to help them out. Among the five films they're bringing to Cannes is the latest by Tsui Hark, Ann Hui, Stanley Kwan, and Stephen Fung. Too bad all of them are "Chinese films," not "Hong Kong films."

- Someone in China finally fought the censors, and she won! Read about her story.

- Jeff Lau, the man responsible for the great Stephen Chow Chinese Odyssey movies and the shitty A Chinese Tall Story, is continuing Alex Fong Lik-Sun's reign of terror by casting him in his latest film, also starring Gillian Chung of the Twins. The rest of the report is gossip, so you can just read it in Chinese here.

That's it for today. Tomorrow - San Francisco International Film Festival for the screening of the After This Our Exile director's cut, hopefully with Patrick Tam in attendance. Reports and more news to come then.

The Golden Rock song of the day - 4/27/07

Today's song is a bit of a back-up for when I can't think of any songs to put on here. From Shunji Iwai's brilliant film Swallowtail, and from its promotional tie-in album Montage by Yen Town Band, it's Chara's interpretation of the classic song "My Way."

Why? It deviates from the traditional way of interpreting the song (the American Idol, let's scream it like you mean it way), and it's one of the best moments of the film.

A little up, a little down

Watched The Break-Up starring Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston last night, and was a little pleasantly surprised. I was only going to watch it for about 40 minutes before going to bed and ended up watching the whole thing until almost 3 in the morning. Anyone expecting a light romantic comedy can probably stay away from this, because the title itself should suggest that this movie isn't gonna be romantic, and this sucker can really sting. While the trailer may suggest this to be a fluffy battle of the sexes, it actually gets pretty down and dirty. The film pretty much chronicles the ugly break-up of a couple and the brief aftermath, and there are even some hidden truths in it. Sure, Vaughn plays his character a little too much on the creep side (even when he's actually one of the producers and helped craft the story), but he begins to grow on you at the end. And who knew Jennifer Aniston had a mean side to her? Looks like a mainstream commercial comedy, tries to be a commercial comedy, but at the heart of it, it's a little too close to comfort for the masses. It's good, it's occasionally funny, it's entertaining, just don't expect to come out too happy.

SPOILER WARNING

Actually, I would rather see the alternate ending where the two characters meet again, only to find that they're both dating people that look like them (Vaughn's new girlfriend looks like Aniston, and vice versa). The ending now seems too tacked on.

SPOILER END

- The big news out of Hollywood is the death of former MPAA head Jack Valenti, who is known as the father of the American rating system. Some may blast him for that rating system, but considering that this is the man who helped eliminate the Hays code, he deserves all the respect he can get.

- Despite all the hoopla about Kenichi Matsuyama's rising popularity thanks to the Death Note movies, it seems like that guy just can't catch a break. After the abysmal ratings for his new drama "Sexy Voice and Robo," his new film, Koji Hagiuda's musical prodigy drama "Shindo," opened on 35 screens in Japan this past weekend with only 15.68 million yen. According to Eiga Consultant, that's 26% of Honey and Clover's opening, although Honey and Clover opened on 110 screens. Still, for a limited release with a rising star, it's not a real impressive opening at all.

- Meanwhile, it's another opening Thursday at the Hong Kong box office. As expected, Love is Not All Around is at the top again with HK$380,000 on 35 screens for an 8-day total of HK$7.16 million. It's going to surpass the total for the team's last film Marriage with a Fool (sounds like a metaphor for the viewing experience itself). Meanwhile, the "modern wuxia" flick Ming Ming by MTV director Susie Au opens real weak with only HK$110,000 on 12 screens. That's probably because the hipster who wanted to see it already saw it at the Hong Kong International Film Festival. Francis Ng/Marco Mak's Dancing Lion flops on its opening day with just HK$70,000 on 20 screens. Ouch.

As for limited releases, the Genghis Kahn movie flops even worse in Hong Kong than it did in Japan, with only HK$30,000 on 8 screens. Paul Verhoeven's Black Book does slightly better with HK$20,000 on 2 screens. Looks like it'll be a pretty boring weekend at Hong Kong cinemas this weekend.

- Twitch has a friendly reminder that the DVD for Park Chan-Wook's I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK is coming out on DVD next Friday, May 4th. Expect a Hong Kong edition to come within the month.

- The new film Dark Matter, starring Chinese actor Liu Ye and Hollywood legend Meryl Streep, is being delayed indefinitely due to the film's subject matter being too close to the Virginia Tech Shootings. OK, let's delay all war movies from release until the war's over too, while you're at it, Hollywood, in respect for the 200 people killed in Iraq during that same week.

- A huge move in the gaming world, as Sony Game Unit CEO Ken Kutaragi, the man credited as the creator of the Playstation console, has stepped down as a way of taking responsibility for the failure of the Playstation 3. Meanwhile, Nintendo has reported soaring profits for 2006 thanks to the DS and the launch of the Wii.

- Sony has something else up its sleeves, though. They just announced the Sony eyeVio, a Youtube-like service that allows people to post videos 24 hours at a time for free. It's not exactly what people are asking for, but it's a good start.

That's it for today. Gotta save some of these news for the weekend.

The Golden Rock song of the day - 4/26/07

In the last entry, I mentioned Japanese pop group Dreams Come True's double-header "Mirai Yosouzu" (Map of the Future) I and II being adapted into a film. It jumped up in my mind because "Mirai Yosouzu II" happens to be one of my girlfriend's favorite songs. Only available in compilation albums these days (the two songs were from two different albums), today's song(s) of the day are Dreams Come True's "Mirai Yosouzu" - part I and II.

Why? the songs do seem like they're riped for adaptation, as the lyrics seem to tell a story rather than expressing a feeling. Other than that, they're pretty good songs to begin with, so why not?

Part I



Part II (Personally, I think this is the better song)

Around the corner

- The San Francisco International Film Festival is coming around the corner, and the local San Francisco newspapers have been running features for a while now, so I figure I should probably at least link one of them. From the San Francisco Bay Guardian, there's a feature dedicated to Daniel Wu's recent award-winning mockumentary The Heavenly Kings. Too bad I haven't seen one mention of Patrick Tam's After This, Our Exile in these features, considering that it's the heralded return of Wong Kar-Wai's mentor.

- Remember, Johnnie To's Election and Election 2 us currently under a 2-week run at New York's Film Forum. They even decided to add one more showing of Election starting tomorrow, Friday the 27th! Greencine has a round-up of reviews around the net, which seems to be generally positive, even though no one seems to be picking up the political implication in especially Election 2.

- Jason Gray writes about his recent contributions to Screen International, all of which I will actually link to the Variety or Hollywood Reporter version (sorry, Jason!). He also has some new tidbits about Japanese cinema, including a new title for "For You I Go To My Death," and even a shoutout to this here blog.

- As Jason mentioned in his entry, Shochiku is sending three more films over to the Cannes market - a horror movie, a romantic drama from the director of "Trick," and most notable for me: A film based on the songs "Mirai Yosouzu" I and II (it's misspelled in the Variety report) by the pop group Dreams Come True. Probably thanks to the success of "Nada Sousou" (Tears for You), looks like Shochiku decided to cash in on Toho's idea with a hit "pop song adaptation" of their own with Hiroshi Chono making his feature debut. Look at The Song of the Day to see why this is such a big deal to me.

- The other news in Jason's entry, and obviously good news again, is about the first Doraemon film to ever be shown legally in China. The comics have been hits for years in the region (I myself own all the comics from the Hong Kong version when it was still called "Ding Dong."), but the films have never gotten a decent release in China. Finally, someone got off their ass and decide to actually release one of these things in Chinese theaters come July. Too bad it'll be the movie from last year, not the recent hit.

- It was previously thought that Asian films might be a tad underrepresented this year at the Cannes Film Festival. Well, turns out Hou Hsiao-Hsien's latest film "Looking For the Red Balloon" is getting a chance by opening the Un Certain Regard Section. It's only kind of an Asian film, seeing how it's more French than Asian and it stars Juliette Binoche, but hell, we'll take what we can get.

- It has nothing to do with Asian films, but since we're writing about Europe, and this happens to be an European film I liked, it's worth talking about. Apparently, there's a debate going on in Germany about the critically-acclaimed film The Lives of Others. The film portrays a captain for East Germany's secret police that becomes sympathetic to the man he's assigned to investigate, but a former Stasi member has come out and criticize the film for portraying something that couldn't possibly have happened. Of course, while that takes away some of the credibility of the film (at least in the latter half. The stasi member still praises the film's first half as being an accurate portrayal of the former communist government), but The Lives of Others is still a great movie worth watching.

- Back in Asia, Korea Pop Wars have the latest box office chart for last weekend. Paradise Murdered, as reported earlier, tops the chart, and Danny Boyle's Sunshine continues its disappointing Asian run with just 68,100 viewers nationwide for its first weekend.

- Another film with a disappointing run pretty much all over the world is the prequel that no one asked for - Hannibal Rising. According to Eiga Consultant, the film opened with 150 million yen for a 5th place opening (wow, Box Office Mojo has a pretty comprehensive ranking this week). While that's a sad 46% of Red Dragon's opening (another Hannibal Lecter film), it's still 126% of the opening weekend for the Black Dahlia, which earned 650 million yen in Japan. It'll make a decent 800 million yen or so, but it's definitely not a hit.

- Poor Hong Kong Disneyland - it was made fun of as the smallest member of the family, it was overcrowded with tourists who don't know what "no spitting" means, then employee scandals popped up all over the place. That's OK, Hong Kong Disneyland is actually still quite popular - in fact, people enjoy it so much that they're buying up annual passes.

- The first two Pirates of the Caribbean films were banned in China, and the third one was threatened with banishment as well (you'd think Disney would stop trying by then). But lucky for them, it's looking like it's passed the censor board (though it didn't come out unscathed) and will open in China in June. Disney sure isn't worried about people not getting the film - its audience probably saw the first two films on pirated discs already! Anyway, Chinese report excerpts as follows:

昨日網上有消息指出，此片終於拿到公映許可證，暫定6月15日於全國各大戲院。就此事求證香港迪士尼發行部，負責人表示仍未收到批文，當收到落實批文後，必會正式向外公布。

Reports on the internet last night say that the film has gotten a permit to screen and is tentatively set to open nationwide on June 15th. When asked for confirmation from Hong Kong Disney, the spokesman says he hasn't heard the news. Once he can confirm the news, he will officially report it to the public.

而發行商為免重遇第2集被禁的命運，一度刪減了部分的內容作遷就。

The distributor, in order to avoid the fate that fell upon the first two films, has made cuts as a compromise.

Original Chinese report

Not that Pirates of the Caribbean should be mistaken as "art," (you know it's a cash cow meant to show off the latest digital effects Hollywood can offer and how crazy can Johnny Depp act without seeming like he sold his soul to Hollywood) but it's always a shame to see films get censored.

- Twitch has a teaser poster for the remake of Tsubaki Sanjuro. Why just a teaser? The film isn't even opening until December.

The Golden Rock song of the day - 4/25/07

Today's song of the day is another blast from the past. While she's gone the "eccentric quirky pop" route with her last album "Extraordinary Machine," Fiona Apple was even weirder and darker back then. Today's song of the day is probably the closest thing to pop she's done, and naturally it would be her first hit. From her debut album, it's "Criminal."

Why? Because it's the easiest Fiona Apple music video to find, and before she went all Jon Brion (which I really like), I didn't really pay attention to her music after this. So this is the best I can think of. Yeah, these songs of the day thing is getting to be a stretch.

Everybody's a little guilty

Just watched Hot Fuzz, the latest from Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg of "Spaced" and "Shaun of the Dead" fame. As many know, this time Wright and Pegg take on the action genre, and as expected, it's a ton of fun. Unlike spoofs, which mocks the cliches of the genre it's taking on, Hot Fuzz embraces the action genre, taking every editing, sound, visual cliche from Hollywood and blows them up to the max. It's so into it that audiences who aren't in on the joke will probably love it at face value, when the filmmakers are probably making fun of them for buying into its Hollywood counterparts. On the other hand, those who "get it" would probably still find it pretty cool.

- Continuing with the previously-reported story about the appearance of pirated Spiderman 3 DVDs on the streets of China, Sony has confirmed that cheap suckers have been scammed by those amateur entrepreneurs. That's right, the poor bastards who thought they got a chance to watch Spiderman 3 before everyone else in the comforts of their own home spent their hard-earned renminbi for just another copy of Spiderman 2 packaged as Spiderman 3. Ha-ha!

- It's time for Oricon rankings. On the singles chart, concocted pop boy duo Takki and Tsubasa's latest single gets the number one spot with only 65000 copies sold. As predicted, all but two on the top 10 happen to be new singles, including the new single by AAA, SEAMO (who hit it big with his 2006 single Mada Aimasho), and Spitz, all selling less than 35,000 copies in their first week. Next week's sales should be healthier, as KinKi Kids' latest already sold over 40,000 copies on its first day.

As for the albums chart, Kat-tun's second album rule the charts with 270,000 copies sold. The surprise, at least for me, was Avril Lavigne's second place debut with her latest "The Best Damn Thing," selling 220,000 copies and making her an even richer woman for having not all that much talent. Why?! How?! Which?!

- Japan has a new pop group, which features a former Morning Musume member (I suspect there are a lot of them out there floating in the J-pop world anyway). This time, the gimmick is the "gyaru" image, and the pop group name is - you guessed it - "Gyaruru." I've seen these "gyarus" in Tokyo before, and they're not really all that appealing to me. Who wants to guess that they're not gonna go very far?

- In something that comes as absolutely no surprise, Hollywood has come out saying that they are backing the United States government's complaint against China for intellectual copyright. In fact, they're even threatening a ban, which means it might just rescue China from crappy Hollywood films, only to be replaced by more happy Chinese blockbusters promoting messages of peace and communism.

- To show those Americans that China takes copyright very seriously, a Chinese courts just found Yahoo! China guilty of copyright violation because the site provide links to sites with unauthorized MP3 downloads and lyrics.

- On the other hand, Chinese public television broadcaster CCTV has nothing to complain about, seeing how they just found a distributor for their content, thanks to the BBC.

- But then, the Asian media is not quite happy about how they are always in the shadow of Western media. They complain about how Western media only represents 1/7 of the world's population, yet they control 2/3 of the world's media, blah blah blah. Well, guess what, this report is right: Asian media does kind of suck. When they decide to stop sensationalist, inaccurate, and xenophobic reporting, then maybe someone will pay attention to you.

- Those who loved Hong Kong director Soi Cheang's Dog Bite Dog are surely looking forward to the director's latest, the Japanese comic adaptation Shamo. Even though it's not being released in Hong Kong until September, the film will be shown at the Cannes film festival for potential overseas buyers. The bad news? Unlike Dog Bite Dog, which is category III due to violence and subject matter (meaning no one under 18 may be admitted, PERIOD), Shamo will only be category IIB (which is the equivalent of an R, except anyone can get in).

- When people watch Hong Kong film credits, they usually see the same guy for sound: Kinson Tsang. Honestly, I don't know how that guy manages to do sound for almost every single Hong Kong film, but guess what? There's actually another sound guy out there in the Hong Kong film world, and his name is Martin Chappell. KFC Cinema has an interview with him, and it's quite informative.

- Director Mira Nair, who's made films from Mississippi Masala to Monsoon Wedding, is getting the Pride of India award at the Bollywood Film Awards next month. Good for her.

- Lastly, in light of the "surprise" success of Hong Kong film Love is Not All Around, Ming Pao has a column on possible direction Hong Kong films can go:

青春愛情片在日本、韓國很流行，香港則甚少見也少有好票房，其實是傳統市場計算的問題。理論上，影市萎縮，餘下入場看電影的觀眾群，以青少年為主，是拍拖的主要活動，但港片偏就缺乏青春愛情片。

Youth romances are popular in Korea and Japan, but those in Hong Kong have seen low box office gross. That's because there's a problem with market calculations. Theoretically, the market has shrunk, and the audience that remains are mostly teens, who see moviegoing as a date activity. But Hong Kong film lacks youth romance.

最主要原因，是愛情片從來是港片的弱項，不是沒有，是少之又少，較有這方面才華的創作人，年紀已大，心態也大了，拍出來的作品，成熟觀眾喜歡，青少年沒有共鳴。可惜成熟觀眾多半已不入場看戲。

The primarily reason is that romance is a weakness of Hong Kong films. It's not that they don't exists, they just amount to very little. The artists that have talent in that aspect have grown old, and their mentalities have matured. Older audiences like those films, but youths can't connect with it. Sadly, mature audiences mostly don't go to cinemas anymore.

港片最有市場的是動作片，在香港可能只收幾百萬，但內地有市場，歐美也要這些片，拍幾千萬不是問題，再貴些都可以。黑社會片也可以，或者鬼片，一樣有埠。

Hong Kong's biggest market is in action films. It may only earn a couple of million Hong Kong dollars locally, but there's an audience for them in the Mainland, Europe, and America. The budget can go to tens of million dollars. Triad films and horror films have overseas markets as well.

在香港拍青春愛情片市場太窄，成本不能高，否則風險大。成本不高，可以請的卡士也不能太大，大也不一定好，因為當今的一線明星，個個年紀有番咁上下。

The market for youth romance in Hong Kong is too narrow; budget can't be high, or the risk is too much. With a small budget, the cast can't be too great. Even if they attract the big stars, all the big stars are past their prime.

韓、日動作片不及香港，愛情片反而有市，製作費也較高，無論畫面、美術、音樂各方面也做得比港片好，浪漫感也更強。愛情片拍得好，其實有很大空間，可惜香港電影公司把投資放在更有把握的片種上，不拍青春愛情片，也就少培養這方面的創作人才。

Korean and Japanese action films aren't as huge as Hong Kong's, but the market for romance exists. The budget is higher, hence visuals, production values, music, etc. are done better than Hong Kong films. The romantic feeling is stronger. Actually there is quite a bit of space to make good romance, but Hong Kong film studios put their investments in films they are more confident in instead of making romances. This prevents the cultivation of talents for those type of films.

《十分愛》的成功，希望可為香港年輕觀眾帶來更多有共鳴的電影。

Hopefully, the success of "Love is Not All Around" can bring more films that can connect with the young audiences of Hong Kong.

Original Chinese article

There are quite a few romances aimed at youths. Too bad the ones that exist - My Sweetie, Love@ First Note, and Super Fans - happen to be really crappy and manufactured to please record companies/Karaoke joints. Thing is, are the Japanese and Korean youth romance films all that much better?

Breaking news: First footage of Peter Chan's "The Warlords" leaked

According to Ming Pao Daily, the first footage of Peter Ho-Sun Chan's latest film "The Warlords," starring Jet Li, Andy Lau, and Takeshi Kaneshiro, has been leaked on Youtube. Media Asia is crying foul, but Ming Pao decides to link the video on their website anyway. Excerpt as follows:

寰亞電影主席莊澄發火要徹查預告片被盜竊事件，導演陳可辛最擔心是長半小時的片花也被上網，對電影構成很大影響。

John Chong, the chairman of Media Asia, is furious and promises to investigate the leak. Director Peter Ho-Sun Chan is most worried that the half-hour highlight reel will also be leaked to the web, causing negative impact on the film.

對YouTube有《投名狀》宣傳片先曝光，寰亞電影主席莊澄指這是非常嚴重的盜竊罪行；這段片原本是5月初才推出的，今次有人未經電影公司同意非法將宣傳片上網，會由專人徹查並追究到底。

Regarding the footage of "The Warlords" being on Youtube, Media Asia chairman John Chong says that it's a very serious case of robbery. This footage is supposed to be released in the beginning of May, and it's being shown without the permission of the studio. He'll have experts investigate to the end.

Original Chinese report

I think the leaked footage, which shows only about a minute of footage in slow motion, actually helps to raise buzz on the film. It's not like the entire film was leaked on the web, it's only promotional footage that can only help raise awareness of the film when it comes out in December. Chan says he's worried that the half-hour highlight reel, edited for the overseas buyers, will leak because it ought to be seen in a cinema and that once people see it, they will lose the desire to see the film in theaters. Honestly, that sounds like a filmmaker who doesn't have much confidence in his own film. A highlight reel ought to raise anticipation, not discourage people from seeing the film.

In fact, I'm not surprised if Peter Chan or someone at Media Asia pulled a "Heavenly Kings" and leaked the damn thing themselves and cried foul on purpose.

Anyway, this is the leaked footage. See it before it gets removed.

The Golden Rock song of the day - 4/24/07

Today's song of the day was originally from the film Popeye, but my inspiration came from P.T. Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love, which in my strange film geek mind is one of the best romantic comedies ever made. From Punch-Drunk Love's soundtrack, it's Shelley Duvall's "He Needs Me."

Why? Because even though Popeye is known to be a pretty crappy film, and the singing is kind of childish, its repetition in Punch-Drunk Love actually worked for the dreamy nature of that particular section of the film.



Here's the trailer for Punch-Drunk Love (which features the song).

Another one bites the dust

- First, some sad news to report in the Asian cinema blogsphere. Hoga News, run by Michi Kaifu, will no longer be updated. Hoga News has been a great source for news even before this blog started, especially for someone who can only understand maybe about half the Japanese cinema news stories out there. Michi has been there to put things into perspective (and not to mention English), and Hoga News' presence on the Japanese news front will be missed by all. Hopefully, my Japanese is still good enough to read Eiga Consultant's entries, whose links I originally got from Hoga news. Best of luck to you, Michi!

- Speaking of Eiga Consultant, he's been tracking the results of the two big animated films that opened this weekend - Conan (again, the detective, not the barbarian) and Crayon Shinchan. Both films, despite performing fairly well at 450 million yen and 300 million yen, respectively, are somewhat under-performing. In Conan's case, the opening is only 85% of the last film, which opened around the same time last year. However, since last year's installment was the 10th anniversary film that performed 141% of its previous installment, this installment is actually performing at the series average. As for Crayon Shinchan, it should actually performing better since it's the 15th anniversary film. Instead, it made 91% of the last film's opening weekend, which made 1.38 billion yen total. It should still be at the series' range of 1.28 billion yen to 1.45 billion yen, but for an anniversary film, it's still kind of disappointing.

- On to the real Japan box office numbers, which is at a higher exchange rate this week (last week: US$1=119.304 yen. This week: US$1=118.725). It's not much of a difference, but it was enough to put Tokyo Tower at 4th place, even though audience ranking puts it at 3rd. And the change in exchange rate means it shows the film dropping 19.4% in revenue when the film really lost about 20%. Of course, since Tokyo Tower appeals to an older audience, it just means more lower-priced tickets were sold. Meanwhile, Music and Lyrics still opened at 8th place (flop!), and even the well-received Blood Diamond (it's at third at the satisfaction ranking I just linked) lost 35% of its business.

- Under the "bad idea" label today, they're making a second sequel to the South Korean hit "My Boss My Hero" franchise. Under the "worst idea" label today, it's going to be made with a brand-new cast.

- Back in March, I might have written Twitch's entry on a cheesy-looking Japanese action film called "Midnight Eagle," which looks like the most manufactured Hollywood action film ever made (According to its website, it's about "orientals" who places an explosive device within a Japanese military aircraft). Now we find out that it's actually a $10 million (pretty huge budget in Japan standards) blockbuster thriller that is actually co-produced by Universal Japan, who made a whole lot of money with Dororo earlier in the year. I certainly hope it'll be better than its teaser trailer is suggesting.

- Also good to see Japan (kadokawa Pictures) and South Korea (CJ Entertainment) getting together to make movies - too bad it's another generic horror movie set for a summer release. At least the poster looks really groovy, man.

- Hey, America, you ain't so bad, with your formal complaints and shit. We Chinese already have pirated copies of your most anticipated movies a week and a half before anyone else is supposed to see it. Of course, it's probably a scam set to cash in on the hype cheating the poor bastards who think they lucked out, but still, how about them apples?

- A reminder to people in New York that Johnnie To's masterpiece Election 2 (renamed Triad Election in the states) is opening tomorrow for a limited run. You can also catch the first Election film during its one showing a day. I find it interesting that the theater's website have to assure people that "Triad Election" can be perfectly enjoyable on its own, although I personally don't necessarily agree. Let's just say you won't be too lost watching just Triad Election, but you're doing yourself a disservice if you don't watch the first film as well.

- Now to the folks in Tokyo, Jason Gray recommends the latest Japan Foundation Film Series, which features classic films at a discounted 600 yen AND English subtitles. Trust me, you're not gonna be able to get the subtitles at your local Japanese video store. What do you think was stopping me from renting Kurosawa movies there?

- Paradise Murdered, the latest hit in South Korea, has taken the top spot at the box office again, even though it's DVD release has already been announced. Too bad other Koreans films aren't doing so hot.

The Golden Rock song of the day - 4/23/07

The big hoopla just before the release of Stephanie Sun's 2003 album "To Be Continued" was her
newfound music influence from her trip to India. Of course, that turned out to be another gimmick, since she's pretty much singing the same style of pop songs 4 years later. Today's song of the day is inspired by a song I found in Sun's latest album "Against the Light". Specifically, the track is track 5 Unforgettable (not a translated title, it was the English title given to the song in the booklet), which I felt resemble"I'm Not Sad," which I felt was the best track from "To be Continued." Of course, that's because it's written by the same composer. So today's song of the day is Stephanie Sun's "I'm Not Sad."

Why? Sun's voice have always been fit for this type of slow ballad that builds up into a big climax, and it was perfect for this song. It's Karaoke-friendly pop stuff, but at least it's classy Karaoke-friendly pop stuff.



Here's "Unforgettable," or what I called in the review "the unofficial companion song to 'I'm Not Sad.'"

A Case of the Mondays part 4

You guessed it, folks, it's box office time.

- For Hong Kong's Sunday numbers, there was plenty of love for the cynical Gold Label pop stars vehicle Love is Not All Around. On 37 screens, the film made HK$1.22 million on Sunday for a very healthy HK5.19 million total (including previews). Look for this one to actually have a chance to pass the $10 million mark with two fairly weak HK competition films this weekend - Susie Au's Ming Ming, which will attract the cool art 20s crowd, and Francis Ng's Dancing Lions, which might attract the slightly older crowd.

In other openings, Hollywood crap fests Epic Movie and Shooter gets 3rd and 4th place, respectively. On 26 screens, Epic Movie made HK$330,000 for a 4-day total of HK$1.25 million. As for Shooter, it made a healthier HK$310,000 on just 19 screens for a HK$1.11 million 4-day total. As expected, The Painted Veil saw a bit of a surge, making HK$100,000 on 5 screens with a 4-day total of HK400,000. One place ahead is the lesbian drama Spider Lilies in its second weekend, making HK$160,000 on 10 screens on Sunday for a 11-day total of HK$2.44 million.

- Speaking of Ming Ming, Lovehkfilm actually has a review of it already, but many of you probably know that already since you probably found this blog from it. For those who's been tracking the Hong Kong box office and has no idea what the hell is Easter box office flop Super Fans all about, Kozo has a review of that as well. I knew Eric Kot sold out with this movie, but I didn't know he sold out to a Karaoke chain.

- In Japan audience rankings, the kids ruled the cinemas as two newly-opened animated films top the box office. The latest Conan (the child detective, not the barbarian) film opened up on top as expected, while Crayon Shinchan opened on 2nd. Three foreign films also joined the fray - Rocky Balboa performed the best after this week's screen expansion, scoring fourth place, while the unworthy sequel Hannibal Rising scored fifth place. Performing even worse is Hugh Grant/Drew Berrymore's Music and Lyrics, managing only an 8th place opening. Meanwhile, Box office Mojo seems to have some discrepancy again with the numbers, so we'll go into that tomorrow when they have the entire top 10.

- Just about all the Spring Japanese drama has started, and the ratings are nowhere near the numbers networks enjoyed last season or even last year, for that matter. This season, the most anticipated new dramas are "Proposal Daisakusen," starring boy band NEWS member Tomohisa Yamashita and Masami Nagasawa taking over Fuji's best drama time slot, "the food drama "Banbino," and Yuji Oda/Juri Ueno's May-September romance "Joudan Janai!" After one full week, Joudan Janai opened strong with a 19.4 rating for its first episode, but has since fallen to a disastrous 14.7 rating for its second week. Proposal Daisakusen is in a close second place with a 19.3 opening episode with its second episode just aired a few hours ago in Japan. As for Banbino, it opened at an OK 16.6 rating.

Other dramas this Spring include the Japanese adaptation of the hit Korean drama Hotelier, starring idol Aya Ueto and a cameo by original star Bae Yong Joon (better known as Yonsama in Japan). It opened at a weak 11.1 rating in its first week. Even Death Note star Kenichi Matsuyama can't help comic adaptation Sexy Voice and Robo, which had a weak first-week rating of 12.5, only to slip further into an 8.7 rating for its second week.

- In the North American box office, Disturbia, or better known as "Rear Window for Gen-Y," topped the box office again. Grindhouse continues its freefall for its third weekend, and Hot Fuzz opens with an impressive $7,089 per-screen average on just 825 screens. In Asian film news, while Mark Cuban may be pissed about his Dallas Mavericks losing to the Golden State Warriors in their first game in the NBA playoffs (go Warriors!), he should be happy to know that The Host is now his Magnolia Picture's 8th highest-grossing film ever. It's only a little over $2 million in box office, but Cuban needs a little consolation prize right now, so there.

- That was fast. The recent commercial South Korean disappointment The Show Must Go On, starring Song Kang-Ho and directed by Rules of Dating's Han Jae-Rim, is already seeing a DVD release date. According to Twitch, the DVD is coming out on July 30th, which isn't that small of a theatrical-to-DVD window, but I'm surprised they're announcing it so quickly. Funny enough, Paradise Murdered, the film that took The Show Must Go On off its box office throne, is also coming to DVD on July 30th.

- Everyone is picking on poor China. After the United States filed a formal complaint with the World Trade Organization over China's rampant piracy of Hollywood films, Japan is now planning to file their own complaint against China as well. Oh, and sources say the EU is planning to do the same. Talk about the dirty Capitalists ganging up on the poor giant Communist.

- In true Japan fashion, while they blame the Chinese for not doing enough, the Japanese also have to praise themselves for cracking down piracy the right way. Oh, and they're blaming foreigners for that too! I wonder if those Japanese street vendors at Osaka's Electronic Street are still working the streets as if nothing is happening....

- Speaking of Hollywood and Japan, after the successful premiere of Spiderman 3 last week in Tokyo, Warner Bros. is now planning a similar rote for their summer tentpole film - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Hoping to continue their over-10 billion yen box office streak in Japan for the franchise, Warner Bros. will hold its premiere in Tokyo on June 28th, while the rest of the world will start seeing the film on the weekend of July 11th. Oh, except Japan, where it'll actually open a week late.

- British Airway wants to provide the latest hit movies for their passengers, but it doesn't want to do it if a rival airline and its chairman show up in it. In a petty immature fashion, BA decided to cut out Virgin Atlantic chairman Richard Branson's cameo in the latest James Bond film Casino Royale. They also blurred out the appearance of a Virgin Atlantic plane in the film. Oh, behave!

Best of Golden Rock - April 16th to April 22nd

The following is a compilation of the most notable news covered by The Golden Rock from April 16th to April 22nd.

- 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.

- 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.

- 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.

- 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.

- 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.

- I'm sure many have heard about the Virginia Tech shooting allegedly committed by a disturbed South Korean immigrant student. 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.

- 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?

- 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.

- 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.

- 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.

- Tony Leung Chiu-Wai has signed back onto John Woo's troubled production of Battle on Red Cliff. Oriental Daily first broke the news without official confirmation, while Ming Pao waited. Excerpt as follows:

昨晚《赤壁》監製透過網上承認此消息，他說﹕「經與梁朝偉先生聯絡後，梁朝偉先生基於與吳宇森導演20多年的友誼，又見到周潤發離開了《赤壁》劇組，《赤壁》又是一部令人期待的作品，必須要拍下去，所以當吳宇森邀請他重返劇組時，他一口答應，替吳宇森解決燃眉之急。」

Last night, "Red Cliff" producer admitted to the news via the internet: "After communication with Mr. Leung Chiu-Wai, based on his 20-year friendship with John Woo, Chow Yun-Fat's departure, and the need to continue shooting the much-anticipated film, he decided to rejoin the film after John Woo invited him, helping John Woo due to the pressing need.

張家振表示，因偉仔已經熟讀劇本（去年初第一稿出時，已經給了偉仔）不會有發哥最介意的劇本問題（究竟發哥最介意的劇本問題是什麼，張家振未有回答）

Terence Chang said, since Tony have already read the script thoroughly (The first draft was given to him early last year), Chow's problem with the script will not occur (But Chang has not responded to the question of what specific script problem Chow had).

Original Chinese report.

Variety Asia also has an English report.

- The Cannes 2007 lineup has been announced. As predicted, Wong Kar-Wai's English-language debut My Blueberry Nights will be opening the festival, assuming that Wong is actually done with post-production. Representing Asia in competition will be South Korea's Kim Ki-Duk with "Breath," South Korea's Lee Chang-Dong's "Secret Sunshine," and Japan's Naomi Kawase with "Mogari No Mor." Except for Wong, no Hong Kong films will be screened in or out of competition, despite predictions that Tsui Hark-Ringo Lam-Johnnie To actioner Triangle might make it. Nevertheless, the lineup looks pretty solid.

- Look at what Hong Kong celebrities are doing with their Nintendo DS - some publicity photos have caught these celebrities playing their DS's with an add-on that's designed to enable the DS to play pirated games.

- Variety has an early review of Spiderman 3, and it's not a very positive one. On the other hand, Hollywood Reporter seemed to have loved it. Sounds like it's gonna be fun, but a bit of a mess as well.

- Hong Kong films are going through a bit of a slump in Japan. From the weak box office of Battle of Wits to the recently-released Rob-B-Hood, the latest casualty is the number 8 highest Hong Kong grosser last year Dragon Tiger Gate. On about 40 screens nationwide, the film grossed only 5.9 million yen. That's 11% of Seven Swords and 23% of Rob-B-Hood's openings. Even The Queen managed a 5.59 million yen opening on one screen. Ouch.

- I don't like Tokyo's nationalist governor Shintaro Ishihara, and I don't look forward to his new film "I Go to My Death For You" (he's the producer and writer), about Kamikaze pilots during World War II. It looks like Kazuyuki Izutsu, the director of the acclaimed film "Pacchigi!!" and its upcoming sequel, doesn't like it either. In his protest of the recent trend of nationalist Japanese film that seem to glorify war, he warned at a press conference that films like Ishihara's might create "warlike people." Of course, star Yosuke Kubozuka has some strong words for Izutsu too.

- Grady Hendrix explains why the controversy surrounding Oldboy and the Virginia Tech shooter is very misguided. It would be nice if the press that reports it have actually seen the film and realizes that Oldboy is a film that's about the futility of revenge rather than a film that glorifies it.

The Golden Rock song of the day - 4/22/07

Today's song of the day can be found on albums by two artists, depending on your preference. Personally, I liked Queen, but I'm sure there are a lot of David Bowie fans out there as well. Yup, it doesn't need much introduction anymore - it's Queen and David Bowie's "Under Pressure."

Why? It has one of the most recognizable opening chords in the history of pop music, which ended up inspiring one of the most embarrassing rap songs ever done. With that much history behind it, it's amazing why I haven't picked it yet.



And you know I was going to pull this out. It's Ice Ice Baby.....baby.

Leftovers

Today I get rid of all the news I've been holding since Friday, but there are a couple of surprises along the way too.

- I don't like Tokyo's nationalist governor Shintaro Ishihara, and I don't look forward to his new film "I Go to My Death For You" (he's the producer and writer), about Kamikaze pilots during World War II. It looks like Kazuyuki Izutsu, the director of the acclaimed film "Pacchigi!!" and its upcoming sequel, doesn't like it either. In his protest of the recent trend of nationalist Japanese film that seem to glorify war, he warned at a press conference that films like Ishihara's might create "warlike people." Of course, star Yosuke Kubozuka has some strong words for Izutsu too.

- I posted a link to Twitch's report of Ryuhei Kitamura's latest Lovedeath a while ago. Now a second trailer that looks even sillier (and more violent) is out. Too bad it only got a PG-12 rating (Battle Royale got R-15), which usually shouldn't be an indicator of how good a film is, but it only seems like an appropriate indicator for this film.

Just in case you missed it like I did, trailer 2 is actually under trailer 1 on the website.

- While Sony's PS 3 continues to underperform pretty much everywhere, its PS 2 actually ruled the console sales chart in North America last month. Too bad that PS2's price is only 21.5% of PS3's.

- Speaking of ratings, Herman Yau's latest horror film Gong Tau got the category III in Hong Kong. Considering it has no big stars and a cult director at the helm, that pretty much seals the deal in terms of box office.

- There was a hearing in the Hong Kong legislative body about just how the newly-established film council and the $38.5 million film fund will work. Too bad many of those on the government side don't really watch movies, and the fund is limited to only commercial films with a certain number of Hong Kong workers.

- An English review of the possible hit film (look here for context) Tokyo Tower is finally up thanks to the Daily Yomiuri. Looks like it might actually be good, despite an overload of this story in Japanese pop culture right now.

- Grady Hendrix explains why the controversy surrounding Oldboy and the Virginia Tech shooter is very misguided. It would be nice if the press that reports it have actually seen the film and realizes that Oldboy is a film that's about the futility of revenge rather than a film that glorifies it.

- In Grady Hendrix-related news, Asian Cinema - While on the Road reports at the end of a recent entry that Grady and Kaiju Shakedown is on the way back. Yes!

The Golden Rock song of the day - 4/21/07

Today's song of the day comes from Juno Mak, the once-hated pop star that was criticized of being only in the business because of his family connection and for singing crappy Karaoke-friendly pop songs, much like Edison Chen when he first joined the business. Since his contract was up with Universal (where he sang said crappy Karaoke-friendly pop song), he remained in the business because of his family connection. His brother, the publisher of Hong Kong fashion magazine Milk, formed his own record company, and of course Juno would become the first one to join.

However, he actually used his money to do good - his music since then has gradually improved, starting with first Silly Thing album Proto. I haven't heard his latest album, the three-year effort Chapel of Dawn, yet, but I know that his 2005 EP Otherside was among one of the best of 2005. That's where today's song of the day comes from, it's "Androgyny."

Why? Because it's the best track out of that EP. It's a trippy and atmospheric piece that uses vocals to create the mood set by the title. Hell, it showed that this Juno guy might have some talent.

Ups and downs

- Hong Kong films are going through a bit of a slump in Japan. From the weak box office of Battle of Wits to the recently-released Rob-B-Hood, the latest casualty is the number 8 highest Hong Kong grosser last year Dragon Tiger Gate. On about 40 screens nationwide, the film grossed only 5.9 million yen. That's 11% of Seven Swords and 23% of Rob-B-Hood's openings. Even The Queen managed a 5.59 million yen opening on one screen. Ouch.

- In good news for Hong Kong films, Johnnie To's Triad Election (better known worldwide as Election 2), opening next Wednesday, got a really good review from Entertainment Weekly. Too bad it's also a really short review.

- Earlier in the week I mentioned the Singapore Film Festival and the possibility that the Singaporean gay film "Solos" may be banned from the festival. In a compromise, the film will not be screened publicly at the festival, but will still be eligible for the awards because it will be screened privately for the jury instead.

- "The Good, The Bad, and the Weird," the highly-anticipated new film by director Kim Ji-Woon (A Bittersweet Life, A Tale of Two Sisters) starring three of Korea's biggest actors, is going to start shooting on Wednesday. Yay.

- This weekend at Japan Times, they have three new reviews - one for personal favorite (but also equally hated in other places) Babel, one for the limited-release Japanese comedy Tsukue no Nakami (it's so limited that it's only playing once a day at one theater), and for the equally limited-release Australian film 2:37.

Also, they have two interviews to go with the reviews - one with Babel star Rinko Kikuchi, and the other with Murali K. Thalluri, the director of 2:37 who won Un Certain Regard last year at Cannes.

- Speaking of Rinko Kikuchi, Hoga News also has more news about her first Japanese film since she shot to stardom with Babel, a strange little comedy about bugs.

Still keeping it short. More news coming up tomorrow, and a short review of Derek Yee's Protege as well.

The Golden Rock song of the day - 4/20/07

Today's song of the day is again inspired by a movie (when is it isn't?). From the excellent Japanese sports film Ping Pong, this is the film's theme song by the broken up techno group Supercar. I first heard this song in the trailer for Ping Pong, only to find out the film is a much more cerebral experience than its energetic theme song would suggest. From the film's awesome soundtrack and the album Highvision, it's Supercar's "Yumegiwa Last Boy."

Why? Because it was a very rare instance where a film's theme song hooked me as much as this song did. Because Supercar was one of the coolest techno group to come out of Japan. Just close your eye and get into it.



Here is the trailer, where it all began.

Happy Happy Friday

Friday is upon us, which mean it's a smaller edition of the daily news because I'll be spreading them over the weekend.

- Let's start, as usual, with the Thursday opening day numbers in Hong Kong. I should have seen it coming, but Gold Label's latest film Love is Not All Around, which promises to continue the mean streak left by the ending of director Yip Lim Sum's previous effort Marriage with a Fool, shot to the top of the box office after preview screenings last weekend. On 34 screens, Love is not All Around made HK$770,000 for a total of already HK$1.35 million after previews. Look for this to do pretty well this weekend, and sadly for Gold Label to keep making more films.

As for other openers, Hollywood stinkers Epic Movie and Shooter both make HK$200,000 on 26 and 29 screens, respectively. Meanwhile, the Edward Norton/Naomi Watts art film The Painted Veil, co-starring Anthony Wong and shot in China, makes HK$60,000 on 5 screens on its first day, making it the best limited opener this weekend. But look for Spider Lilies, which expanded by one more screen, to rule the limited-release box office this weekend. On Thursday, it made HK$100,000 on 10 screens. However, I do expect Love is Not All Around to take away business because of a similar target audience.

- Continuing from yesterday's report of the Cannes line-up, Variety Asia also recognizes the absence of Asian films in this year's festival, despite an Asian filmmaker being chosen to open the festival.

- Meanwhile, Jason Gray has not only more on the sole Japanese selection in competition this year, but also the Udine Far East Film Festival, which got a hilarious mention in Edmond Pang's AV.

- Before its appearance at Cannes, there's already a review up for one of the two South Korean films in competition - Kim Ki-Duk's Breath.

- Speaking of review, Variety also has an early review of Spiderman 3, and it pretty much echoes the review I posted up yesterday. On the other hand, Hollywood Reporter seemed to have loved it. Sounds like it's gonna be fun, but a bit of a mess as well.

- Since we're already talking about reviews, Hot Fuzz, the much-anticipated (at least on my list) follow-up by Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright to Shaun of the Dead opens today in the States. I could be a big fan and go opening day, but I prefer to go next week to avoid the human traffic. Anyway, the reviews are mostly positive, with an over-80% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I consider that a good thing, yes.

It doesn't seem like much, but tomorrow I still have plenty of news, including plenty of reviews and film news. It's all an effort to make this blog more readable from day to day.

The Golden Rock song of the day - 4/19/07

Today's Song of the Day is inspired by one of my favorite films from 2006 Babel and its soundtrack, not because I'm in a disco phase. When I heard this song, the whole movie suddenly picked up for me, and I knew then I was watching something great. From Earth, Wind, & Fire, it's "September."

Why? It's hip, and it's groovy, man. What else do you need?

I can't find the MTV, so here are two live versions instead.





And here it is used in the film.

Babel
Uploaded by Koleguilla

Twists and turns

- The biggest news out there, as I started teasing yesterday, is Tony Leung Chiu-Wai signing back onto John Woo's troubled production of Battle on Red Cliff. As mentioned, Oriental Daily first broke the news without official confirmation. Ming Pao waited until this morning Hong Kong time to do it. Excerpt as follows:

昨晚《赤壁》監製透過網上承認此消息，他說﹕「經與梁朝偉先生聯絡後，梁朝偉先生基於與吳宇森導演20多年的友誼，又見到周潤發離開了《赤壁》劇組，《赤壁》又是一部令人期待的作品，必須要拍下去，所以當吳宇森邀請他重返劇組時，他一口答應，替吳宇森解決燃眉之急。」

Last night, "Red Cliff" producer admitted to the news via the internet: "After communication with Mr. Leung Chiu-Wai, based on his 20-year friendship with John Woo, Chow Yun-Fat's departure, and the need to continue shooting the much-anticipated film, he decided to rejoin the film after John Woo invited him, helping John Woo due to the pressing need.

張家振表示，因偉仔已經熟讀劇本（去年初第一稿出時，已經給了偉仔）不會有發哥最介意的劇本問題（究竟發哥最介意的劇本問題是什麼，張家振未有回答）

Terence Chang said, since Tony have already read the script thoroughly (The first draft was given to him early last year), Chow's problem with the script will not occur (But Chang has not responded to the question of what specific script problem Chow had).

Original Chinese report.

Variety Asia also has an English report.

- The other big story is the geniuses at New York Times finding what drove Virginia Tech student Cho Seung-Hui to kill 32 of his peers. Apparently, a package he sent to NBC just before he killed 30 students in a school building contained a picture of him holding a hammer that looks like he's trying to imitate an image from Park Chan-Wook's Oldboy. You know, it's obvious because he's a Korean, so of course violent Korean films would drive this poor disturbed bastard to murder.

OK, so how long before the American press starts blaming John Woo movies for the murders too?


Oh, wait, they're not Korean, so Cho cannot possibly be influenced by those movies. Personally, I think anyone that blames movies for real-life crimes are just looking for false scapegoats so they can avoid dealing with real problems with society, like why he was mentally disturbed in the first place, and why he wasn't properly treated by the authorities.

Plus, if Cho knew how fucking silly he looks with that hammer, maybe he would've woken up, but that's just me.

In related media news, not only has there been reports of South Koreans coming out and apologizing for Cho's rampage (what the hell for? They're just feeding into this racial scapegoating the media is doing. The man has been in America so long he's more Americanized than I am, for crying out loud), the Korean media has also taken a "it's America's fault" approach as well. (Thanks to Japan Probe for the link)

- Back to more relevant news to this blog, the Cannes 2007 lineup has been announced. As predicted, Wong Kar-Wai's English-language debut My Blueberry Nights will be opening the festival, assuming that Wong is actually done with post-production. Representing Asia in competition will be South Korea's Kim Ki-Duk with "Breath," South Korea's Lee Chang-Dong's "Secret Sunshine," and Japan's Naomi Kawase with "Mogari No Mor." Except for Wong, no Hong Kong films will be screened in or out of competition, despite predictions that Tsui Hark-Ringo Lam-Johnnie To actioner Triangle might make it. Nevertheless, the lineup looks pretty solid.

- Speaking of Korean films, Asian Cinema - While on the Road has reviews of a few Korean gangster films that are sure to corrupt another Korean-American youth's mind (that was sarcasm, by the way).

- With the Hong Kong Entertainment Expo being a huge success, who can resist holding another film market in Hong Kong? That's right, another film market event is going to Hong Kong, this time it's Amazia, and it will open in November 2008. Yay.

- However, I don't think the Amazia folks would be very happy to find what Hong Kong celebrities are doing with their Nintendo DS - some publicity photos have caught these celebrities playing their DS's with an add-on that's designed to enable the DS to play pirated games.

- I've never pushed box office news this far down an entry before, but I don't want seem like I'm beating a dead horse. Eiga Consultant analyzes just exactly how bad Sunshine has done in Japan. According to his figures, it only grossed 52% of The Promise in its opening week in Japan. 52%?! I'm pretty damn sure Sunshine is better than The Promise based on this photograph alone.

- Ryuganji apparently has this report as well, but I saw it on Twitch first, so I gotta be fair. Anyway, Takeshi Miike is working on another new film, and apparently it's a manga adaptation. I don't care much for Miike, so you can find out more for yourself here as well.

- The troubled Bangkok Film Festival is making progress on its comeback, and this year they're promising more Asian films. Good for them.

- I consider myself a fairly big fan of Japanese films. Sure, I've missed out on a lot of classics (I.have.not.seen.Seven.Samurai.), but I'm still a fan. So who'd know when Japanese people what 10 films they would recommend to foreigners, they would not only recommend a non-Japanese film (Letters From Iwo Jima), but they would actually recommended 57 films instead (the Tora-san series contains 48 films. I assume the Japanese people want us to watch them all)?

- Japanese new artist Ayaka has become the first female artist in over 4 years to sell more than 1 million copies of her album. Good for her too.

- I discovered Kon Ichikawa's work when I took a Japanese cinema class last year. I discovered Shunji Iwai's genius when I followed up my first viewing of Swallowtail with Love Letter. Too bad Iwai hasn't done a new narrative film since Hana and Alice, but at least he made a documentary about Ichikawa, and it's coming on DVD.

- Aside from making his war film The Assembly, Chinese director Feng Xiaogang is making a short film for China's anti-piracy campaign. It even features one of the best metaphors for pirated films I've ever read.

- Jeffrey Wells has a link the the first legit review of Spiderman 3, and the verdict isn't good.