The Golden Rock - September 18th, 2007 Edition

Usually, I would start today with a box office report for Japan, but the public holiday yesterday meant that we only have admissions ranking today. So we shall start from there:

- The top 3 films from last weekend - Hero, Evangelion, and Life: Tears in Heaven - continue to hold their spots. Two newcomers that managed to break into the top 10 are the family film Miss Potter (a bit of a surprise for me, but maybe not to others) and Takashi Miike's Sukiyaki Western Django, which opened at a disappointing 7th place. Numbers should come tomorrow.

- According to a senior Chinese film official, Ang Lee's Mainland Chinese version of his latest Lust, Caution, which is reportedly half an hour shorter than the final product and cut by Lee himself, should pass the censorship process. However, the official hasn't seen the movie; he just believes Lee's shorter cut will be satisfactory.

- Here is a radio capture of the Lust, Caution theme song sung by Jacky Cheung (courtesy of EastSouthWestNorth)

- On the other hand, Chinese director Jiang Wen, whose previous film Devils on the Doorstep caused him to be banned from directing for 5 years, simply refuses to talk about the censorship process to avoid getting in trouble. His latest film, on the other hand, DID pass the censorship process and will open in China without any problems. It will also open in Hong Kong 6 days after Lust, Caution, hence the connection.

- Meanwhile, the Associated Press has a very positive review of The Sun Also Rises.

- Of course, since we ARE talking about Chinese censors, here are two more examples: Some creative ways by the censors to get Hollywood to cut their movies, including cutting the torture scene in Casino Royale and even 10 seconds of the Taiwanese flag flying in the background of a scene in The Pursuit of Happyness. And we also have why Bae Yong-Joon's latest drama Four Guardian Gods of the King won't be showing on Chinese screens any time soon. (links courtesy of EastSouthWestNorth)

- Hong Kong 20-somethings love playing their PSPs and Nintendo DS on the go. As sad as this sound, they would literally sit down with their girlfriend while one of them play and the other watches. And a lot of the times, these people are actually playing pirated Nintendo DS games (I don't think legit games have a screen that says "game master" before the game loads). So why the hell are the Japanese only going after the Koreans?

- It's reviews time! Variety's Derek Elley has a way-too-kind review of Alexi Tan's Blood Brothers, and Variety's Alissa Simon has a review of the epic film Mongol, starring Japanese indie fave Tadanobu Asano and Chinese thespian Honglei Sun, who was also in Blood Brothers. Yes, it makes perfect sense why I'd put these reviews up on the same day!

- Apparently it was being marketed at this year's Filmart in Hong Kong, but it still seemed to have come out of nowhere. It's Oxide Pang's C+ Detective, starring the buffest Hong Kong best actor winner ever Aaron Kwok. A trailer is up now, and it opens next week in Hong Kong, which means I'll probably go watch it (then again, I did miss Naraka 19...). By the way, C pronounced in English and "plus" in Chinese sounds like "private." Private detective. Get it?

- This is my favorite report of the day - Jackie Chan apparently wrote on his blog warning fans to not raise their expectations for his latest film Forbidden Kingdom. My favorite quote - ""I believe the world is anticipating the movie, but I'm not too involved." In addition, Jet Li has posted a similar advisory on his own blog, telling fans not to raise their expectations for the Jet-Jackie fight scene.

- Apparently there's a new made-for-TV from Canada called The Devil's Diary that's about a teenager who picks up and "ancient book" that would grant her any wish, including death. Obviously, Asian entertainment buffs are not hesitating one bit in calling it a rip-off of Japanese comic Death Note, about a notebook that would kill anyone whose name ends up on it.

It doesn't premiere until next week, so feel free to just watch a promo and assume everything you can from it.

- It's not confirmed, but director Alan Mak (A War Named Desire, Rave Fever, and the co-director of the Infernal Affairs trilogy) says that he is in talks to sign Sammi Cheng for his latest film co-starring Eason Chan.