The Golden Rock - September 19th, 2007 Edition

- Looking at the Oricon charts, it was a pretty busy week for the singles market. KinKi Kids' latest takes the top spot with an impressive first-week sales of 190,500. On the other hand, Koda Kumi's latest sold 65,000 copies, which would've earned it a number one spot any other week. Ken Hirai's latest's debut is a little soft, selling just over 20,000 for 6th place. Also, at 7th place is the latest electropop group Perfume, and it's also their first single to debut on the top 10. Next week, expect Ayumi Hamasaki's latest (that was fast) to take the top spot yet again.

Things were slower at the albums chart. As expected, Johnny's Entertainment's V6 took the top spot with their latest album, selling 76,000 copies in the first week. The Cro-Magnons, whose lead and guitarist were part of the legendary The Blue Hearts, saw their latest album sell 32,000 copies for a 7th place debut. Somewhat disappointing is the debut of model-turn-pop-star Leah Dizon, whose debut album sold only 27,000 copies for a 9th debut. Looks like the Japanese public knows there's a difference between being able to model and being able to release a competent album. Next week, expect a busy albums chart, but nothing will sell very spectacularly.

- This news is too big not to be at the top. Chow Yun-Fat is looking at a possible collaboration with Hong Kong director extraordinaire Johnnie To on an action movie that might begin to shoot as early as next month. To, who always seems to be juggling several movies at once, has cleared his schedule for this film and is working on the script with frequent collaborator Wai Ka-Fai.

- With just a little more than a month to go, the Tokyo International Film Festival has finally released its full line-up. As announced beforehand, the action film Midnight Eagle will open, and the French period drama Silk will close. the busy Takashi Miike's latest Crows will also have a special screening at the festival.

- The hit comic/animated series Detective Conan will come back for another live-action TV special. Shun Oguri, who was in the first TV special, will reprise his role, and it will be shown on TV in November.

- A television network in Japan decided to cancel the broadcast of the last episode of the animated series School Days after a 16-year-old girl killed her police officer father with an ax in Kyoto recently. The final episode apparently features high school girls acting violently, which I'm sure never happen in real life.

- Under "Doesn't he have anything better to do" news today, Francis Ng is reportedly publishing an English novel about a Tibetan monk. However, he admitted that his writing is not good, and that he would find a ghostwriter. But shouldn't writing well be a basic criteria for publishing a novel?

- Variety's Dennis Harvey gives us a short review of Hollywood Chinese, a documentary about Chinese people in Hollywood (mostly the lack thereof).

- Quite frankly, I wasn't all that thrilled about a lot of the news today (although I'm sure you would be if you're a fan of anything I mentioned here today), so I should give myself some motivation by devoting this entire paragraph to the news that the Shiina Ringo-led Tokyo Jihen will be providing the ending theme song to the film Myoro No Hako. I care because this is the first time the Jihen will be providing a song for a film. Also, I'm sure Shiina Ringo will subsequently sing about 20 covers on it on different albums and concerts.

- According to Apple Daily (NOT one of the more trustworthy newspapers in Hong Kong), netizens have been trashing Pang Ho-Cheung's Exodus quite brutally. One netizen wrote this in reference of the film's message: "When a movie becomes so bad, some people might believe it's art. But it doesn't mean there's no such thing as a bad art film." Another person wrote: "The more incoherent it is, the more it means it's an exceptional film." Ouch.....?