The Golden Rock - October 31st, 2007 Edition

- Let's first go over the Japanese box office numbers. Takashi Miike's Crows Zero was quite a hit, making 397 million yen over the first two days from 259 screens, which was way more than enough to knock Hero off the top spot after holding it for 7 weeks. The drama adaptation is no slouch, though - it only lost under 18% of its business and is still on 475 screens. This is probably Fuji's way of trying to push it to the 1- billion yen mark.

The other newcomers all found spots in the top 10, with Jigyaku No Uta (also known as Happily N'ever After) starring Miki Nakatani and Hiroshi Abe opening somewhat disappointingly at 8th place on 147 screens. Even more disappointing is Neil Jordan's The Brave One starring Jodie Foster, which found only a 5th place opening after opening it on 294 screens and a big Hollywood-size premiere in Japan.

- The blog is now leaving the Oricon charts reporting to Tokyograph's weekly reports because it seems like people don't quite care about analysis of Japanese music charts. I care about numbers, but I deliver what people want, and I skip what people don't. So, Bump of Chicken has two singles on the top 10, and a Morning Musume compilation album can only muster a 6th place debut.

- It's reviews time! All from Variety this time are Russell Edwards' review of the Tokyo International Film Festival opener Midnight Eagle, which is supposed to open day-and-date in Japan and North America, though it sounds kind of crappy. There's also Robert Koehler's review of Ryo Nakajima's This World Of Ours, which is revealing plot details I've never heard of. Lastly, Derek Elley has a review of the Korean blockbuster May 18.

- Twitch has more about Danny Pang's latest film In Love With the Dead. After reading the convoluted plot description, I honestly wonder if it'll be able to top brother Oxide Pang's The Detective.

By the way, I couldn't get the trailer to work, but good luck to you.

- Just like The Forbidden Kingdom, Jet Li would like to tell you that The Mummy 3 may not be a very good movie.

- I know i should not judge a book based on its title, but why would anyone give $40 million for a film with a title like Laundry Warriors? I think it was the "We will deliver a stylized, partly anime feel, with the techniques of '300,' but a look that is brighter" line that inspired their confidence. Their confidence, not mine.

Anyway, they'll be shooting this thing in New Zealand.

- NHK will be airing a special of actress Takako Matsu's singing career. For Hong Kong Japanese entertainment fans, Takako is known as half of the golden duo (with Kimura Takuya) that started the Japanese drama fever in the late 90s with the drama Love Generation. Perhaps that's why I can't really buy the idea of her being a singer.

- Kaiju Shakedown writes about Japanese director Masato Harada's two latest movies. One of them happens to be that suicide song movie from earlier in the year that had advertisements in Japanese toilets.

- After the live-action franchise has proven to be a hit (though not very good in quality), Capcom and Sony will be working on a CG 3D feature animated film based on the Biohazard franchise set to be released in the second half of next year. For those not in the know, Biohazard is better known as Resident Evil outside Japan.

- Last but not least, director Senkichi Taniguchi, who directed several screenplays written by Akira Kurosawa, has passed away at 95.

The Golden Rock - October 28th, 2007 Edition

With The Hong Kong Film blog wondering whether Hong Kong box office source mov3.com has closed down for good, this blogger has found a new box office source in now.com.hk. Starting tomorrow, the Hong Kong box office report should get back to normal.

- The American Film Market starts this coming week, and both Korean and Japanese film companies have quite a few films in store for buyers there (probably ignoring the Tokyo Film Market in the process).

Korea's Cineclick has Volcano High director Kim Tae-Kyun's latest, about a North Korean ex-soccer player who crosses over to China and tries to get his family to join him. It will also be bringing a promo reel for Kim Jee-woon's highly anticipated The Good, The Bad, and the Weird.

Meanwhile, Japan's Fuji TV is taking Shaolin Girl (the Stephen Chow-approved "sequel" to Shaolin Soccer) and Koki Mitani's The Magic Hour, the follow-up to the ensemble hit The Uchoten Hotel.

- It's not going to the American Film Market, but CJ Entertainment is trying to penetrate Hollywood by co-investing in the Warner Bros. film August Rush. Considering that it's to be released next month, there's surprisingly little out there about it in terms of buzz. There's a website up, though.

- It's reviews time! Lovehkfilm's Kozo closes out October with a review of the much-hyped "TVB Tigers" reunion film Brothers and a review of Kon Ichikawa's shot-by-shot remake of his own film The Inugamis. Meanwhile, yours truly have a review of the Japanese documentary The Naked Emperor's Army Marches On and a review of the Japanese hosts comedy Waters.

- There's a pretty big possibility that I'll be watching the Kohaku in Japan again this year, which is why I care about this news: After two years of actress Yukie Nakama hosting as head of the red team, this year may see young actress Masami Nagasawa taking on hosting duties. The problem is that Nakama was chosen because she starred in NHK dramas, while Nagasawa hasn't been doing anything for NHK. This signals a possible desperate move by NHK to bring in more viewers for the struggling new years show.

- Speaking of Japanese TV, the Daily Yomiuri's Teleview reports on Beat Takeshi as an educator on this week's Japanese TV, and a pretty positive on this season's hit drama Galileo.

- If you are Japanese, and you're asking what the hell is a Galileo, who the hell is Masami Nagasawa, and the only thing you get from this entry is Kohaku, then this new TV station is for you.

- Posters for Johnnie To/Wai Ka-Fai's latest Mad Detective, starring Lau Ching-Wan and premiered in Venice, has started appearing in Hong Kong theaters. There's no official release date yet, but the poster shows that it's already been rated category-III (no one under 18 may be admitted). It seems like after the success of Election, SPL, and Lust, Caution, Hong Kong filmmakers are finding the guts to make some hardcore films again.

- Japanese pop singer Bonnie Pink, who has traveled to Sweden to record so much that she calls it her second home, announced that her latest album will be released in Sweden in February next year.

- The Hong Kong government will start a public consultation soon about the fate of public broadcaster RTHK after an independent committee suggested earlier that a new independent broadcaster be established. In addition, the broadcaster has also undergone a year of both private and public scandals.

The Golden Rock - October 2nd, 2007 Edition.

- Grady Hendrix has picked up on the Jackie Chan blog posts controversy. It kind of started when he wrote in his own blog telling audiences to not have much expectation for his latest Hollywood film The Forbidden Kingdom. Then the press picked up an "old post" where he even admit that he doesn't care much for the Rush Hour films (I don't blame him for that at all). However, Jackie also admitted that he only did them for money, which begs the question: Why is he just settling for lots of money instead of trying to make better movies?

A blog post I found at EastSouthWestNorth pretty much takes the argument back to Chan as well: Why blame Hollywood when he's the one that took all those jobs? And why blame audiences when no one really liked The Tuxedo?

Speaking of Jackie Chan still being in shitty movies, he has reportedly signed up to play Mr. Miyagi in the Will Smith-directed remake of The Karate Kid. Who will play the titular Karate kid? Smith's own son. Say it ain't so, Jackie! (thanks to Steven for the link)

- In Japan, the daily NHK drama Dondo Bare ended with a solid rating of 23.2% rating for its finale (that's actually the highest-rated finale of the season) after scoring the lowest-rated premiere in the history of NHK's morning dramas.

Following it is Chiritotechin, which did not premiere to the worst ratings in NHK morning drama history. Instead, it scored an average of 16.5% rating, which is only the third worst morning drama rating in history.

- Under "the death of Hong Kong cinemas" news today, The Queens Theater had its last show this past Sunday, which means Hong Kong has lost yet another single-screen theater from the old golden days.

Of course, when a theater goes away, there's always a multiplex to replace it. Get ready for The Grand Theater and its 12 screens with 1600 seats (that's a sad 133 seats per theater on average).

- I'm actually a big fan of the film Rendan, actor Naoto Takenaka's directorial effort from a few years ago, which is why I'm somewhat excited that he's making a new film, this time a zombie comedy. However, I'm not as excited as I should be because it's a zombie comedy.

- Variety Asia has a small story on emerging Hong Kong studio Sundream, which would be a lot more likable if it wasn't for that damn logo (not to mention that blue background).

The Golden Rock - September 30th, 2007 Edition

- I guess I should start off and tell you that there's a new review/observation post at the spin-off about Maiko Haaaan!!! and Beauty and the 7 Beasts. I can give you a preview and say that Beauty and the 7 Beasts is the worse HK mainstream movie I've seen this year...and I saw Contract Lover.

- It's reviews time! Twitch has a review of India's best foreign film Academy Award contender Eklavya, and Japan Times' Mark Schilling has a review of the Japanese indie film Baum Kuchen, which is currently playing at one Tokyo theater for one show a night.

- Stephen Chow's A Hope has finally locked a release date of January 31st, 2008, although I'm not sure if that opening date also applies to Hong Kong. As for the alien, Chow reportedly told Oriental Daily that the design is a homage to Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind, not a rip-off. You can probably only use the word "homage" for films more than 20 years old.

- While Stephen Chow takes three years to make his follow-up to Kung Fu Hustle, Takashi Miike is already releasing his third theatrical release of the year. More information from Twitch and Ryuganji.

- Under "Korean actress casting" news today, Gianna Jun (the artist formerly known as Jeon "My Sassy Girl" Ji-Hyun) is done with her first non-Korean film Blood the Last Vampire and back in Korea for the mid-budget comedy drama The Guy Who Was Once Superman. Meanwhile, Cannes best actress winner Jeon Do-Yeon has already decided on her next film, A Fine Day by director Lee Yoon-Ki (who last made the quiet gem Ad-Lib Night.) Guess which one I'm looking forward to more.

- Satoshi Kon's Paprika picked up the Theatrical Film Award at the 12th annual Animation Kobe Award.

- Also, Wayne Wang's A Thousand Years of Good Prayer picked up the prizes for best film and best actor at the San Sebastian Film Festival. If you remember, Wang admitted that a Chinese investor pulled out of the film because the director refused to take out a line that was critical of the Chinese communist government.

- With it crashing and burning in Chinese theaters, the distributor for Jiang Wen's The Sun Also Rises is trying hard to boost business for the weeklong public holiday period.

The Golden Rock - August 30th, 2007 Edition

Call me lazy, call me tired, or just call it plain Thursday syndrome, but there's again not all that much news out there.

- Everyone is trying to break into that China market, and the only way is co-produce them with China, and the only way to do that is to get Chinese government approval. The first successful Australian production to pull this off will be Roger Spottiswoode's The Children of Huang Shi, co-starring Chow Yun-Fat and Michelle Yeoh. In traditional ethnographic gaze, the film will be about a British journalist who team up with an Austrlian nurse to rescue Chinese children oppressed by the Japanese during World War II.

- The Hong Kong Asian Film Festival (smaller than the Hong Kong International Film Festival and a different organizer) will feature some pretty huge films this year, including Ang Lee's Lust Caution (which is opening the festival), Lee Chang-Dong's Secret Sunshine, Jiang Wen's The Sun Also Rises, and Jia Zhangke's Useless.

- Speaking of Ang Lee's Lust, Caution, Lee said that while his film did get the most restrictive rating the American censors could give (NC-17 - no one under 17 may be admitted), he hopes to use it to change perceptions about the rating itself. While I would like to see Lee pull that off, I doubt it would be an Asian espionage triller that will do it. An NC-17 itself means that it won't reach beyond the urban areas because newspapers won't even advertise them, and theaterowners are too conservative to show them.

On the other hand, category-III films (no one under 18 may be admitted) are able to get wide advertising and theater bookings here in Hong Kong. And yet, society is somewhat more conservative. What's the deal here?

- This all sounds a little complicated (it's easy to get broadband TV here in Hong Kong, but how do you do it in the states, where all kinds of infrastructure problems can prevent it), but there is now a new way to get Asian programming into your American homes, thanks to (for once) American Chinese video content distributor Tai Seng.

- Jason Gray continues to try to spread word-of-mouth for the Pia festival winning film This World of Ours. I just requested for a copy of the film with the director Ryo Nakajima, so I'll be checking it out and hopefully help him spread word. Why? Because I believe in good karma, especially for an aspiring director like myself.

- About freaking time. NHK chairman actually asks at a committee meeting to reduce license fee by 10%. That way, corrupted producers will have less money to pocket.

- Remember that "Sing this song and you'll die" movie with the creative advertising? Densen Uta opened this past weekend in Japan on 106 screens and managed to make only 31.21 million yen, outside of the top 10. That opening is only 74% of the opening for the last teen girl-infected horror film Ghost Train.

The Golden Rock - August 20th, 2007 Edition.

If you haven't noticed the link section by now, I now officially announce the opening of The Golden Gate Meets The Lion Rock. As I wrote in the first post, this spin-off blog is a result of a realization that the daily The Golden Rock entries are getting way too long. I will move all movie reviews and general Hong Kong observations into that blog, so expect reviews of some of the films I've seen here in Hong Kong and probably better pictures. Either way, it'll be fun.

- If these stats are right, it was a pretty busy Sunday at the Hong Kong box office. Pixar's Ratatouille pulled a surprising victory over Jackie Chan's Rush Hour 3, making HK$1.07 million on 33 screens, passing the HK$20 million mark after 18 days. While Rush Hour 3 won Thursday, its weekend bump wasn't enough, making only HK$1 million on Sunday for a 4-day weekend total of just HK$3.52 million. Then again, a few people at the screening I went to (out of a meager 15 or so) seemed to have enjoy it. Maybe they were high. The other opening film of the weekend, Walt Disney China's The Magic Gourd, rebounded from its weak Thursday opening for a Sunday gross of HK$310,000 from 16 screens for a 4-day total of HK$840,000, ensuring that the film will indeed pass the HK$1 million mark. I walked by one of the theaters showing it on Sunday, and the monitor showed that the film was actually at at least 80-85% capacity, so I'm not surprised it did so well that day.

As for returning films, The Simpsons Movie leads the pack with HK$700,000 on 36 screens for an 11-day total of HK$8.07 million. It should pass the HK$10 million mark this coming week, especially for a cartoon that I've never seen shown on HK television (is it on HK television? Let me know). The Bourne Ultimatum managed to retain some word-of-mouth and rebounded on Sunday with HK$550,000 on 30 screens for a HK$6.88 million 11-day total. Another action film getting word-of-mouth but still being pushed out is Wilson Yip's Flash Point (which I will review on the spin-off). Screens are dwindling down, and a lot of exhibitors are only showing this three times or less a day, but it still made HK$460,000 on 28 screens for a 11-day total of HK$7.35 million.

- Holy shit, this D-War thing is getting crazy. After its third weekend, the dragon-in-LA blockbuster has now accumulated 7.45 million admissions and is now the 7th biggest film of all time in Korea. the "historical" film May 18 ain't doing so bad, either, with over 6 million admissions already. With Korean films taking the top 4 spots this weekend, does that mean local films are making a comeback, or just a weakening Hollywood lineup?

- We won't have any numbers for Japan until tomorrow, but admission rankings shows Harry Potter overtaking Ocean's 13 to become number 1 again. Under "disappointing openings" today, Fumihiko Sori's Vexville opens at 9th place.

- In a brief roundup of drama ratings, Papa To Musume No Nanakakan wrapped up on Sunday with a 14.5 rating after scoring a season-low 11.9 rating last week. In the end, the Freaky Friday-clone scored an OK-average of 13.9, making it the 4th highest-rated drama of the season if things hold up. Meanwhile, the highest-rated drama of the season title was between First Kiss and Hana Zagari no Kimitachi he, but both are suffering from season-low ratings. Actually, everything is suffering from falling ratings, but Hana happened to have started high enough to stay on top.

Lastly, Sushi Ouji, the drama that had such high expectations that a movie was greenlit before the drama even began airing, has fallen to a 5.9 rating in its 4th week after premiering it with an 8.8. Who do they exactly expect to see the movie now?

- Wow. Sonny Chiba's directorial debut is set to be released this Friday, and I had no idea. Oyaji stars Sonny Chiba as a loving father who dies in a family that ends up tearing his family apart. However, he suddenly returns the life, and I guess kicks a lot of ass with a shovel. It'll only play in one Tokyo theater for one show a night, but it actually looks pretty good. Hell, I'll buy an advance ticket just for that lighter.

And yes, I realize from the trailer that Chiba is only co-directing it, but I would guess that applies to scenes he's not in, so that makes it a pretty big deal.

- Vietnamese-French director Tran Ahn Hung (Cyclo) is working on a new film, and it actually features a pretty major Panasian cast. I know Josh Harnett isn't anything exciting, but it also features Shawn Yu (an actor I'm coming to like more and more), Lee Byung-Heon, and Japanese drama king Kimura Takuya. The story doesn't sound that good, but I can't help but hope for the best.

- And they wonder why Hong Kong people can't accept Mainland Chinese movies. The chairman of China Film Group was reported saying that China needs more films that promote nationalism and are "ethically inspiring." The quote that pissed me off the most? "'The reality of this country's economic reforms is that the country, the race, is prospering...There can't be anyone who makes fun of it. People who do either have ulterior motives or they're mentally challenged'" He really sounds like an American right-winger when he says that; maybe he should move to the American South and let the people who know what they're doing (i.e. the filmmakers) do their jobs.

- Hell, even Jet Li is pissed at the way movies work in China. After attempting to make movies with positive messages that still fail to get into China, Li is speaking out about his annoyances.

- In a related note, Zhang Ziyi will star in a movie called Laundry Warriors.

- The US trailer for Johnnie To's Exiled is up from Magnolia Pictures, and they sure make it look better than your usual Hong Kong action film trailer. Still, what's up with all the shots of the girl in her underwear? Those are all from the same scene.

- The India film industry not-so-politely ask you all to stop calling their film industry Bollywood. And I politely ask them to stop remaking movies and just add sing-and-dance scenes into it.

- They're so in love! While Wilson Yip's next film is a co-directing effort that puts Donnie Yen as a horror-action hero, they're already working on their film after that. What's scary is that Yen will play Wisely, a legendary modern literary character that one can compare as the Sherlock Holmes of Hong Kong - but with supernatural aspects. In case you don't know, the last Wisely movie was Wesley's Mysterious Files. Now I know what kind of expectations to put on this.

- There's a review for one of this year's major Japanese drama adaptation films Unfair: The Movie. Caution, it does contain some spoilers, including one major plot twist.

- Chinese audiences are in love with contrived reality, as the reality gimmick show Wife Swap is a hit. And yet they're not allowed to watch Chow Yun-Fat play a Singaporean.

- This remains unconfirmed, but Pang Ho-Cheung, whose award-nominated Exodus is coming out next month, will be producing with Chapman To on a new film after the critical success of Isabella, the first film under their production company. This new film will make up 8 stories of different genres (all to be directed by Pang?) and its initial cast list include Chapman To himself, Edison Chen, Shawn Yue, Isabella Leung, and Gillian Chung.

Source: Oriental Daily.

The Golden Rock - August 14th, 2007 Edition

- The Japanese box office numbers are out, showing that Ocean's Thirteen opened fairly well with 496 million yen, and Transformers dropping 36.5% in its second week, which again is somewhat surprising considering how well it has done with word-of-mouth elsewhere. Of course, its drop to third place is also because Harry Potter dropped only by 7% to keep its second-place spot.

However, the biggest drop in the top 10 goes to the latest Naruto movie, which lost 47% of its audience, while the smallest drop belongs to - and I'm almost kind of sad to say this - Monkey Magic, which lost only 3% of its audience to make 2.98 billion yen total, inching ever closer for Fuji TV to break even.

- According to Mark Russell's Korea Pop Wars, turns out D-War is actually close to getting 5.71 million admissions and has already passed the break-even point at the standards of the reported budget.

- My new favorite weekly feature these days is the Teleview column on the Daily Yomiuri website. This week, writer Wm. Penn writes about what's on Japanese TV this week and a possible ratings crisis on stations' hands.

- And yet, Japan are still rolling out one drama adaptation film after another. The latest is the hit Kimura Takuya drama Hero, and a trailer is floating around online. Honestly, it's not doing much for me, but that's because I've never seen Hero.....Oriental 188 Mall, here I come.

- My bad. I totally forgot to acknowledge that Grady Hendrix's informative Asian cinema blog Kaiju Shakedown is back, and in a much more complicated link. The link section shall be updated. Anyway, Grady reports today that Hong Kong video distributor Mei Ah's remastered version of Patrick Tam Ka-Ming's Nomad is actually not the director's cut, and that the "corrected" version will be out in 2008.

- After a Tokyo multiplex found success with weekly showing of Korean star Bae Yong-Joon's dramas, a smaller independent theater is doing the same with Korean star So Ji Sub's Choa Choa (is that the real name? Or just the Japanese name?). If this is a success as well, then looks like the Korean wave isn't so dead after all in Japan.

- The Japanese song "Sen No Kaze Ni Natte," based on an English poem found at the World Trade Center in New York, has finally sold one million copies after becoming a huge hit the first half of the year.

- I don't know if this can be considered a compliment to someone that's already been in the business for 20 years - Director Peter Chan Ho-Sun said his biggest surprise from making the period action film The Warlords is Jet Li's dramatic acting ability. Actually, that moment came for me while watching Fearless.

- I'm going to make a small private confession - I consider my most creative time in terms of scriptwriting to be right after I got dumped by my second girlfriend. During that period, I actually wrote 3 or 4 short film scripts, none of which I ended up making. I mention this because Kazuaki Kiriya, better known perhaps as ex-Mr. Utada Hikaru, seems to be going through a similar thing. Not only is he currently shooting a Japanese film, it's actually confirmed that he also have his Hollywood debut lined up.

- In casting news today, Koyuki, whose most famous role is in The Last Samurai, has signed up to for Blood: The Last Vampire alongside Jeon Ji-Hyun (to be credited as Gianna Jun). These international Pan-Asian co-production in English just don't seem to turn out very well (Dragon Squad, anyone?), so I don't expect much.

Meanwhile, the television remake of Akira Kurosawa's High And Low has signed up high-profile young actor Satoshi Tsumabuki as the kidnapper.

- The United States government's bullying continues, as they have asked the World Trade Organization to put together a panel to settle their complaint against China over piracy of their films. Just what exactly are they expecting the Chinese government to do, ask for a couple of bucks from every Chinese citizen to pay off the MPA?

Oh, they want to work bilaterally, so that means they want to actually go into China and take down every single pirate vendors themselves.

- One place America doesn't need to go to is Shenzhen, where crackdown on pirate vendors have caused the number of vendors to go from 1,000 to 50 in the last few years. Is that enough result for you, America?

The Golden Rock - July 31st, 2007 Edition

- That's more like it - Michael Bay's Transformers managed a huge surge in box office in Hong Kong on Sunday, making HK$4.3 million from 76 screens for a 4-day total of HK$14.05 million. Harry Potter is still very strong, with HK1.32 million on 53 screens for a 19-day total of HK$44.51 million. This one might overtake Spiderman 3 as the highest grossing of the year so far. Note that both these films had their ticket prices inflated by HK$10 (about 10-20%) due to length, which means their gross doesn't equate to the usual attendance number.

Thanks to word-of-mouth (and no thanks to multiplexes putting in on small screens), Invisible Target hangs on for its second week, making a moderate HK$690,000 on 33 screens for a 11-day total of HK$9.5 million. Hopefully it'll stick around for another week so I can watch it next week. Jay Chou's Secrets had a strong preview weekend, making HK$80,000 on 6 screens with three shows each, and a weekend total of HK$150,000. This signals that Secrets has a pretty strong opening weekend coming up. Secrets also opened in China this weekend, but only scored an 8th place opening on an unknown number of screens and showings. Lastly, the weekend's only limited release Hula Girl makes a sad HK$20,000 on 3 screens for a HK$60,000 4-day total. This is going to be gone by the weekend.

- In Japanese box office numbers, Harry Potter is reported to have dropped 66%, which is not true since Warner Bros. accounted the early weekend preview numbers into its opening week gross. If you count only the 3-day total from last weekend, the film actually lost only about 43% in business, which is pretty good for a film on 919 screens. Meanwhile, Ratatouille didn't do too bad either, scoring the highest per-screen average on the top 10, while all the films on the top 10 suffered only moderate drops. Meanwhile, Summer Day With Coo is a victim of the case where it beat Maiko Haaaan in the number of admissions, but lost out to it when it comes to dollars and cents because kids tickets cost less.

- It seems like while the success of Hollywood films continue, other foreign films aren't doing too well in Japan this year. However, I can think of at least 3 Hong Kong films that opened in Japan, not two - Election, Dragon Tiger Gate, and Confession of Pain. On the other hand, that decline of Korean flicks is definitely pretty painful.

- As reported yesterday, May 18 took the weekend at the box office in Korea, but only at 1.3 million admissions, not the 1.4 figure that was previously reported. The Thai horror film Alone dropped to 8th place already, but not before taking over 450,000 admissions down with it, and it seems like Ratatouille performed a little weaker than I thought it would.

- With news stacking up this year about the lack of originality in Chinese pop music (and MTV as well), an angry blogger in China has decided to devote an entire blog exposing pop songs that allegedly are copying others. The blog is here (just click on the song titles to hear the song samples), but it got the Kelly Chan song "No Reservations" wrong. It didn't copy Britney Spears' "Boys", but rather Destiny Child's "Lose My Breath". Hell, maybe it copied both songs. Plus, Britney Spears copied herself with Slave 4 U anyway.

- The top box office winner in Thailand right now, and we only report that kind of thing when it's a standout, is a little crossdressing comedy named Kung Fu Tootsie. You read right. Twitch has more information here.

- Kenichi Matsuyama, the rising young star of Death Note, has signed on to star in the latest film to be directed by Korean-Japanese director Yoichi Sai (who also made Blood and Bones) and written by Ping Pong and Maiko Haaaan scribe Kankuro Kudo. This could be a good follow-up to the upcoming Death Note spinoff L.

- Be careful - if you are caught pirating films in Japan, be prepared to be treated like a Yakuza member.

- The Hong Kong film blog (in Chinese) has updated its release date sidebar - new release dates include Flashpoint for August 9th, Soi Cheang's Shamo for September 6th, and Triangle for November 1st.

- Under "that director can do that?!" news today, Taiwanese actress Shu Qi has signed up for her third Hou Hsiao-Hsien film, this time set to be a kung-fu film. How the hell is he going to pull off his legendary 10-minute-plus long takes?

- On that note, under "how the hell are they going to pull that off?!" news today, Universal has acquired the rights to remake the Japanese period actioner Shinobi, except writer/director Max Makowski (who last directed Francis Ng in One Last Dance) is planning to move the story to Hong Kong and turning the two ninja clans into rival "multinational security forces" (whatever the hell that is). Why didn't Universal just say it's based on Romeo and Juliet and saved themselves a couple of bucks?

- Japanese musical group Pistol Valve managed to put their U.S. debut album onto the billboard charts. Specifically, it made number 15th on the internet album chart. Good for them.

- Get ready for yet another Panasian co-production. But this is a rare one, because it's from Singapore. Other than that, even the title suggests that it'll be the same old stuff.

- Following the steps of Wilson Chen and Choi Ji-Woo, Korean actor/singer Ryu Si-Won will join the cast of the upcoming Japanese drama Joshi Deka alongside Yukie Nakama. Apparently, he'll even be speaking completely in Japan, which is not a surprise since he sings in Japanese anyway.

- Ken Watanabe's daughter Anna Watanabe is making her acting debut in the previously-mentioned TV remake of Akira Kurosawa's High and Low. Are there any pictures of her NOT in excessive makeup?

- The Tokyo International Film Festival has a couple of changes, including the addition of a world cinema section and a section dedicated to the portrayal of Tokyo that shows it as more than just another overcrowded city.

The Golden Rock - July 25th, 2007 Edition

- Starting with those Oricon charts, both the singles and album charts saw very good sales this past week. On the singles side, Ayumi Hamasaki's latest (which features a short film co-starring Hong Kong actor Shawn Yu in the more expensive version) scored a huge debut, selling 110,000 copies for an easy first place finish. This is Hamasaki's 9th consecutive year of having a number 1 single, which ties the record set by Akina Nakamori throughout the 1980s. Actually, in the rest of the top 10, there's only one single that's not new on the chart, and that is Erika (as in Sawajiri)'s debut single, which sold another 18,800 copies in its third week. A little unlucky on the charts this week are Porno Graffiti and Orange Range, whose latest both hit chart-topping numbers (90,000 and 64,000 copies, respectively), but ended up at 2nd and 3rd place instead. In fact, looking at the daily charts, next week's predicted winner Morning Musume isn't even likely to sell more than 80,000 copies of their latest, although Ai Otsuka is following close behind to fight for that top spot.

- In the equally busy albums chart, another Johnny's Jimusho group KinKi Kids wins the top spot, selling 301,000 copies of their latest album. Far far behind is American band Sum 41 (holy shit, they're still around?), who sold 62,000 copies of their latest album a week ahead of the American release. Amazingly, hip-rock band (that's a made-up genre by yours truly) Greeeen's debut album continues to hang on at 3rd place, while Namie Amuro's latest (which, in a shameless plug, I reviewed recently) also remains consistent at 4th place. According to the daily charts, the two Orange Range compilations is expected to win the upcoming week, with Canadian-Japanese band Monkey Majik's latest album right behind them.

- I don't mean to trash the Japanese blockbuster film Monkey Magic so consistently, but bad news just keeps coming in one after another, so I can't help but report it. According to this blog post linked by Eiga Consultant, Monkey Magic suffered a huge loss not only due to the arrival of Harry Potter, but also because the film has earned horrible word-of-mouth, with comments like "childish" and "unnecessary" being thrown around on the internet. Also, the excessive television appearances by star Shingo Katori has led audiences to be fed up with his attempt to promote the film. With a budget of 3 billion yen (mostly spent on advertising and CGI), no wonder Fuji TV needs a 5.9 billion yen gross.

By the way, I'm going on this by my barely-intermediate Japanese knowledge, so feel free to correct me.

- Speaking of mis-reporting, there are reasons why I don't look at Mainland Chinese websites for movie news. First, I don't read simplified Chinese (at least not good enough to translate), and second, I have a personal vendetta against one particular English site (coughcrienglishcough). Now a case of misreporting rumors has been added to that list of reason. According to Hong Kong's Ming Pao's entertainment columnist, who is possibly screenwriter Chan Hing-Ka, a rumor from a Mainland China website reported that Ken Watanabe and Hideaki Takizawa has joined the cast of Derek Yee's The Shinjuku Incident. The rumor was spread quickly, prompting Yee to come out and denied it. Excerpt from the Chinese article translated here:

娛樂圈這一行很敏感，演員如看到報道指某部電影打算找某位演員主演，後來自己又被邀請，很易聯想到自己是「執二攤」，即有其他演員在自己之前推掉角色，所以才輪到自己。

經理人公司特別在乎這方面的報道，別以為日本經理人公司不會留意中、港、台新聞，他們是很清楚的，只要一有相關報道出來，他們會立即四出查證。

The entertainment industry is a very sensitive one. If an actor reads a report about a film casting another actor, only to see him/herself also invited afterwards, then they might see themselves as "scraps." That means he/she only got invited to join a film because another actor turned it down.

Managers/agents show special care into these kind of reports. Don't think that Japanese agencies don't look at Chinese/Hong Kong/Taiwanese news; they are actually quite clear on it, and once such report comes out, they would immediately verify it.

試過有一位本地導演太早公布了與某日本演員合作的事，報道一出，其經理人公司當日就有電話打來查詢，那時互聯網還沒有現在般流行。

Once, a local director reported collaborating with a Japanese actor too early. Once the report came out, the actor's agency called to verify on the same, and the internet wasn't even as popular at the time as it is today.

某些傳媒在未經查證之下，會把網上的傳聞照搬過來，其實有時只需打一、兩個電話就可以求證，偏偏就不去做，假消息愈傳愈開，給當事人造成的困擾和傷害也愈來愈大。

Some media would post certain rumors without verification. Sometimes, a call or two can verify the news, but they don't do it anyway. As the fake news spread gradually farther, it would concurrently cause more and more harm to those involved.

Of course, this isn't the only fake report spreading around these days. After reports of Stephen Chow signing on to play Kato in the Green Hornet, Chow's management came out the next day to deny it, even though the original post only says the film's writer would LIKE to Chow for the role.

Don't worry, The Golden Rock always strive to report the most accurate and verified news on Asian entertainment with the most bias a hypocrite like me can give out. Why do you think it takes me 2 hours a day to write an entry? Nevertheless, corrections to any possibly misreported stories are welcomed.

- Shinji Aoyama's latest Sad Vacation is going to Venice. However, it will not be in competition, but in the Orizzonti sidebar section instead.

- Those in Hong Kong take note: Taiwanese superstar Jay Chou's directorial debut Secrets is having sneak previews this coming weekend. Just get your tickets early, they're getting snapped up fast. Oh, and Jay Chou will be at two of those shows on Sunday, which seem to be sold out by now anyway (that would be the seating charts filled with red you see in the post).

- Joel Schumacher, who has been blamed for single-handedly screwing up the Batman franchise once upon a time, is in talks to direct the remake of Johnnie To's action flick Breaking News. I enjoyed Tigerland and Phone Booth (another thriller set in limited space and time compression), so this might turn out OK.

- Malaysian major bookstore chains, in protest of grocery superstore slashing book prices, boycotted the latest Harry Potter book. Of course, the bookstores have ended the ban because the "customers are the ones would suffer." 1) Can't they just go to the grocery superstores to buy the book at a lower price anyway? and 2) Am I the only who find an irony in huge bookstore chains protesting cheaper book prices when these chains were once responsible for putting mom-and-pop bookstores out of business with their lower prices?

- The nominees for the Seoul Television Festival is out, and one drama's nomination seems a little absurd to me. The Japanese comic adaptation-Taiwanese drama Hanazakarino Kimitachihe, which is seeing its own Japanese adaption on TV right now, was apparently nominated because the judges thought the drama's style was fresh, which is weird considering it's an adaption of established work. Then again, I'm just picky against idol dramas.

- Speaking of bad TV dramas, Japan's own foreigners' rights crusader Arudou Debito is up in arms about a clip from the popular drama Hana Yori Dango 2, in which the only African American presence in the show happen to come in the form of only criminals. While I'm not as angry as he is (American dramas do the same to minorities - remember the first episode of Heroes?), this only goes to show that bad TV is universal. And this was the top-rated/top satisfaction/most illegally-downloaded drama of that season, people.

- This is the perfect follow-up. NHK is planning a three-part drama special about an international romance that blossoms between a Korean man and a Japanese woman. Um...they already did this a few years ago, guys. I know, I saw it. It wasn't that good.

- Before everyone else, namely Hollywood, blames China for selling all this pirated movies, China would like to let you know that the technology came from everyone else! Yes, we knew that China is not exactly the most technologically innovative country in the world.

- From the Japanese trailer blog comes a trailer for the film Grow (Guro), about a high school boy who runs into three ghostly mentors before his death and learns to...well, grow.

- If anyone out there thought those "Hong Kong handover commemoration films" were a good idea, get ready for "2008 Chinese Olympic commemoration films!" According to this blog post, the first one up is "The Romance of the Pheonix," starring Aaron Kwok and directed by Clifton Ko. I'll probably be watching this anyway just because I'm a completist.

- Right on time for the 60th anniversary of its independence, there will be a 6-day long showcase of Indian culture in LA come mid-August. The focus is said to be on Indian cinema, which means I'm sure there will be some awesome dancing involved.

- Variety's Derek Elley has a review of Takeshii Miike's latest theatrical release from a few months ago - the video game adaptation Ryu Ga Gotoku, better known in the states as just Yakuza.

- Lastly, but certainly not last, German actor Ulrich Muehe, who starred as a conflicted agent for the East Germany secret police in the brilliant The Lives of Others, has passed away at the age of 54.

The Golden Rock - July 17th, 2007 Edition

OK, just a relatively short entry today, and perhaps a break for the rest of the week due to familial obligations.

- Box Office Mojo has no box office figures for Japan up yet, but the audience ranking for the 14th and 15th (I emphasize this because it was a three-day weekend. More later) shows the Pokemon movie at number one, and super-duper-ultra-wide release Monkey Magic/Saiyuki (which Jason Gray pointed out it's actually the widest Japanese live-action release ever. The widest animation release has got to be a Ghibli movie, just not the last two) managed only number two.

Here's where it gets messy - Variety reports that the film made about 795 million yen over three days, despite the typhoon (understandable - typhoon means bad weather, bad weather means people don't want to go out.....or go somewhere indoors like a movie theater) and the earthquake in Niigata? Not to undermine Niigata, been there once, real pretty, but real rural too. So people can possibly be so upset about a devastating earthquake in Niigata to stop themselves from watching a movie about a monkey and a female monk fighting some cgi monsters? I don't mean to show any lack of sympathy for the victims - I was in Japan during the last Niigata earthquake, and it wasn't fun even from Tokyo - but I agree with Jason that writing as if Monkey Magic had fought mother nature and won seems....ridiculous.

Meanwhile, the story of the weekend ought to be the Pokemon movie, because it managed to make 780 million yen in TWO days. Of course, there's this whole thing about getting something on the Nintendo DS in the movie theater, but it managed to open at 190% of the last movie's opening, and may very well get pretty close to the highest Pokemon film gross of 7.24 billion yen, set by the first film. However, I think it has more to do with the fact that it's the 10th anniversary movie anyway. Take that, SMAP monkey king.

- In Korea box office, Harry Potter dominated to no one's surprise. Transformers is getting very close to breaking the record for highest number of admissions for a foreign film (yay, fighting robots!), and Black House continues to hang on for Korean films at 4th place with 1.2 million admissions.

- Sorry, Japanese TV ratings take too long to go over, so I'll keep things really short. The Monday night 9pm Fuji TV drama (typically the hottest time slot for dramas) First Kiss scored a huge premiere with 19.7 rating (we'll talk about its crash and burn next week). The apparently very annoying Hana Sakari No Kimi Tachi He earned more viewers with an 16.8 rating, Yama Onna Kabe Onna, which someone asked me to track, fell just a little bit to a 13.5 rating in its second week, and TV Asahi's bar hostess drama Jotei scored a so-so 12.4 rating. As always, read up on information on dramas at Tokyograph.

- Director Jiang Wen's The Sun Also Rises disappeared just before it was supposed to premiere at Cannes. Turns out it got rejected, because "parts of the film were mangled in post-production," which might be the Chinese excuse for a messy third-act that people hated. Anyway, the film will now finally premiere this fall in Venice and China.

- Japanese public broadcaster NHK charges every household in Japan for watching, no matter how much time you spend watching it. After a wave of people finally fed with their recent corruption scandals, a bunch of people stopped paying. Now NHK has decided to cut fees by 20% and get rid of those annoying door-to-door guys that came to my dorm room to collect. As a side note: I apologize to NHK again for just cancelling my bank account before leaving Japan without notifying them. Thank you for not taking me to court, you greedy assholes.

That's it for the week (probably). I'll be back on time for the weekend, and I'll keep tracking world out there.

The Golden Rock - July 7th, 2007 Edition

- This week, Japan Times reviews the Ryuichi Hiroki(who also made Vibrator) film Koisuru Nichiyoubi - Koi Shita (Thanks to Ryuganji for the link this week, because it wasn't found from the Japan Times film review listing for some reason). Made under a project for the satellite channel BS-i, the film is currently playing at a Shibuya theatre. However, it actually opened last month at another theater in Shinjuku already, and only saw 1025 admissions/1.37 million yen. Since the theater has a capacity of 330, that means the shows aren't even half-full on average. However, unlike other television-financed blockbusters, the experimental project is meant to show off new talents with commercial genres.

- Meanwhile, the Daily Yomiuri have reviews of Andrew Lau/Alan Mak's Confession of Pain (which opens this weekend in Japan with a better trailer, despite some inaccurate subtitles. Japan Times also reviews it, though reviewer Kaori Shoji incorrectly identifies Andrew Lau as the sole director.), Pedro Almodovar's Volver, and of course - the new Harry Potter movie, which seems to be drawing the most negative reviews of the series. They also give a very enthusiastic review for the new drama "Papa To Musume No Nanakakan," which seems more like a idea stolen from Walt Disney's 1976 film Freaky Friday (it was even remade a few years ago, so the TBS guys have no excuse)

- I found a very interesting Chinese blog on Hong Kong cinema that covers everything from films to theaters to ticket inflation. Recently, the blogger looked at why Simply Actors (starring Jim Chim and Charlene Choi) did so much business its opening week, except for the fact that it opened on a public holiday. Turns out the promotional campaign includes three different types of HK$10 off coupons that are good for different days of the opening week, which may mean lower box office gross, but also means more incentive for people to go to the theater. It's even cheaper than buying a VCD, for crying out loud.

- In DVD news, the Japanese comic adaptation film Nana 2, which flopped pretty horribly at the box office last winter, is coming to an English-subtitled Hong Kong region 3 DVD on July 12th. Also, the DVD for Han Jae-Rim's The Show Must Go On is coming to Korean region 3 DVD on July 19th.

- Prepare to see Yoji Yakusho everywhere when you head off to the Japan International Contents Festival this fall, because the actor has been chosen as the face of the festival.

- Alexi Tan's Blood Brothers, also produced by John Woo and Terence Chang, is slates to have its world premiere as the closing film at the Venice Film Festival in September. But what is this whole thing about it being a remake of Woo's Bullet in the Head?

- In the first half of 2007, Korean cinema took up only a 47.3% share of the total theatrical market at home, which is its lowest since 2001. In comparison, Korean films took a 60% market share in 2006. I've said before, plenty of countries outside the United States would kill for that kind of numbers. Yes, even the 47.3 % one.

- Considering that it's over on Monday, this news is a little late, but this year's Taipei International Film Festival seems to have the largest Chinese cinema lineup in all of Asia. It even has Hou Hsiao-Hsien sitting on top!

Tomorrow, Podcast and more and more news.

The Golden Rock - June 25th, 2007 Edition

- In Hong Kong on Sunday, The Fantastic Four sequel ruled the box office for the second week in a row, making HK$1.07 million on 47 screens, bringing its 11-day total to HK$15.47 million, and already surpassing the gross of the first film. Patrick Leung/Chan Hing-Ka's Simply Actors remained strong over the weekend, making HK$880,000 on 34 screens on Sunday for a 6-day total of HK$4.78 million. Milkyway Production's Eye in the Sky rebounds with HK$530,000 on 29 screens for a current total of HK$1.96 million. Will it go away quickly like Mr. Cinema and Kidnap, or will it have a bit of legs?

Speaking of which, Mr. Cinema managed another HK$190,000 on 21 screens (many of whom are already limiting it to 2-3 shows a day) for a 11-day total of HK$2.59 million, while Kidnap, which is mostly on one-show-a-day basis already, made another HK$100,000 on 18 screens for the 11-day total of only HK$2.01 million, despite positive response from audiences. Another adult-oriented film, David Fincher's Zodiac, made HK$250,000 on 11 screens for a 4-day total of HK$820,000. For a 158-minute serial killer film with no stars, I don't expect this to pass the HK$2-million mark. The weekend's third opener, the Hollywood comedy Wild Hogs, made only HK$90,000 on just 7 screen for a HK$270,000 4-day total.

- In South Korea, Ocean's 13 wins in Seoul for a second week in a row, despite seeing 4 other movies on the top 10 with higher screen counts. However, the horror film Black House won the nationwide attendance count. Go over to Korea Pop Wars and check out the rest of the top 10.

- In Japanese audience rankings, Pirates of the Caribbean and Maiko Haaaan retain their top two spots this past weekend. Meanwhile, the period comedy The Haunted Samurai, starring Satoshi Tsumabuki, enters at number 3 (more on that later). Unsurprisingly, everything else falls by a spot.

Eiga Consultant looks at the end of Satoshi Tsumabuki's box office streak with The Haunted Samurai. At 3rd place, it made only 120 million yen, which is 27% of Dororo (with Kou Shibasaki, 3.4 billion yen total), 31% of Tears for You (with Masami Nagasawa, 3.1 billion yen total), and 65% of Snowy Love Fallin' in Spring (with Yuko Takeuchi, 1.27 billion yen total). Is this another proof that Japanese films these day can't be completely reliant on only one star?

- A bulk of this season's Japanese dramas wrapped up this past week (Here for all Spring 2007 drama information). Only Liar Game managed to end on a high note, scoring a season-high 13.6 rating for its 3-hour finale (about 8.83 million viewers), and ending with a 11.4 season average (about 7.5 million viewers). For a drama on an experimental time slot (11 pm Saturday night), Fuji is smiling happy. On the other hand, Sexy Voice and Robo ends weakly with only a 6.4 (4.15 million viewers) season-low rating, ending with a season average of 7.6 (4.93 million viewers). Another drama that ended with season-low rating is Fufudo, with saw a near-season high last week, only to end with a season low 12.4 rating (8.05 million) and a season average of 13.6 (8.83 million).

Of course, no drama comes close to Kadoku no Kake, which saw a freefall in viewership since week 7, starting from a 11.2 rating (7.27 million) for its premiere all the way down to a 4.5 (2.92 million)for its last episode, and a sad sad 7.0 rating (4.54 million)for its season average. Sequel Kui-Tan 2 ends its season with a solid 14.0 rating (9.09 million) for its finale, but ends weaker than the 17.4 average of the first series with only a 13.7 average (8.89 million). Still, it's good enough to be the season's third-highest rated drama. Lastly, the Yuji Oda disappointment Joudan Janai! ends on a somewhat positive note, with the final episode's rating rising to a tepid 12.7 (8.24 million) for a season average of 13.4 (8.7 million). Will Yuji Oda recover from this? Only time will tell.

Meanwhile, Operation Love (Proposal Daisakusen) drops a little bit for its second-to-last episode with a 17.2 rating (11.16 million), though it's expected to rise for its last episode Monday night Japan time. Also wrapping up this coming week is Bambino, which has seen a consistent increase in ratings since week 7. But this season's clear winner is Proposal Daisakusen.

- Meanwhile, Tokyograph already has a set of introductions for the busy summer drama season. Nothing has caught my eye yet, though. Will it be a repeat of Spring 2007?

- The major industry papers in Hollywood have their reviews of Live Free or Die Hard (Die Hard 4.0 is my preferred title), and it's mostly positive. Hollywood Reporter's Kirk Honeycutt praises it for using real movie magic and stunkwork over cgi. Meanwhile, Variety's Todd McCarthy calls it a virtual action cartoon...in a good way.

- Filmbrain takes a look at Yoichi Sai's Blood And Bones, which I liked for Takeshi Kitano's hard-ass performance as the utterly unlikable main character. However, I do agree with the notion that the film got a little episodic, just stringing episodes of Kim Shunpei's reign of terror.

- The blog for Benny Chan's Invisible Target has launched, but it's in Chinese. Apparently (I haven't looked at the videos other than the trailer yet) it has a lot of making-of video, one of which includes Jackie Chan's visit to the set.

- The Shanghai International Film Festival has wrapped up, with German film According to Plan taking the top prize (meaning it's headed straight for release in China without the import quota blocking its way) and best actress (shared amongst 4 of them). The Go Master won the best director prize for Tian Zhuangzhuang and best cinematography for Wang Yu. The complete list, as well as a wrap-up of the end of the festival, from Variety Asia.

Also at the Shanghai Film Festival, 7 potential filmmakers were given the chance to pitch their projects to major investors and filmmakers, which apparently intimidated some of them (I can't even pitch my scripts to my own family, let along a sea of major industry people).

- According to a producer on Kill Bill, Quentin Tarantino might add additional installments to the series, and the ideas just don't seem interesting enough to warrant another film, let alone two of them. Because, let's face it:

SPOILERS

You can't really continue a franchise named Kill Bill when Bill is dead.


END SPOILERS

- TV Asahi is remaking the Kurosawa film "Tengoku to Jigoku" (which, as the resident Bayside Shakedown expert, I have to point out was also referenced in Bayside Shakedown the Movie) as a mini-series for the fall. Yasuo Tsuruhashi, who last made a hit out of the film Love Never to end, is directing.

- After one lawsuit goes away for Rain, another one comes, as a promoter in Hawaii is taking him to court after he can't seem to accept the excuse that Rain had to cancel his concert there because he was getting sued. Since when the hell do people use "flimsy" in lawsuits anyway?

- I like the new American TV drama Heroes quite a bit. The season finale had its problems (mostly I'm guessing is of budgetary concerns), but it's promising quite a bit, including an entire character subplot taking place in feudal Japan. Japanese pop star Eriko Tamura (who was a pop star long ago in Japan...though she still looks very young) is joining the cast (I'm hoping as audience favorite Hiro's love interest), but David Anders is playing Takezo Kensei....?!!!! Apparently the creators have a good explanation, but it better be a damn good one.

Man, this entry took forever to do. But we'll be back tomorrow to do it all again.

The Golden Rock - June 6th, 2007 Edition

There's not much news today, so let's do a short overdue review:



Took a bit of time to check out Kinji Fukasaku's classic gangster film Battle Without Honor or Humanity. The 99-minute epic (which easily packs a story double its length) opens right after World War II, where Japan is a recovering nation out of control. We're introduced to at least 5 characters who would play important roles in the narrative later on. If you're not taking notes, then just follow one guy: Hirono (played by Bunta Sugawara), whose rise in the syndicates is probably the closest thing to a central plot. As the film rolls along, we are treated to subplots about internal yakuza feuds, assassinations, betrayals - all done in a pseudo-documentary style that tells so much story that even a narrator is needed. And don't worry if you don't remember the names, you'll know who dies from the matter-of-fact on-screen texts.

Needless to say, Battle Without Honor or Humanity can be brutal, but if you can manage to follow Hirono's storyline, you'll be treated to an engaging, powerful, and even somewhat affecting story of a man trying live by the code, only to realize his world is changing even before he entered it. The style is revolutionary (almost always shot with a handheld camera at canted angles), and the action is refreshingly real, even though the handheld camera seems to be foreshadowing the current way of shooting action scenes far too closely. If you're a fan of triad films (I honestly believe the Young and Dangerous series from Hong Kong learned a thing or two from here) or gritty gangster flicks, then this is the one to watch. What a classic.

- Before doing the regular news stuff, another outward shout to Tokyograph, who mentioned The Golden Rock in their blog. They've been providing translated Japanese entertainment news that's certainly far more trustworthy than this blogger's own translations (trust me, my Japanese isn't that good), and will remain a very important source of news for all interested in Japanese entertainment. My e-hat is off to you, Tokyograph.

- Time for a look at the Oricon music charts this week. The singles chart is livening up a little bit, as L'Arc~en~Ciel's latest single sells 112,000 copies to debut at number 1. Aiko follows not too close behind with her latest, selling 70,000 copies at number 2. Chihiro Onitsuka's comeback single everyhome debuts only at number 9 with 18,800 copies sold. Even more depressing is Aya Ueto's latest, selling only 8900 copies for a 17th place debut. Next week, expect Kat-Tun to rule the charts.

As reported by the Japan Times, the solo "group" ZARD's albums are seeing a sales surge following the accidental death of lead singer Izumi Sakai last week. While Mariya Takeuchi's latest album rules the album chart for the second week in a row by selling 76,000 copies, ZARD's last album, the compilation Golden Best ~ 15th Anniversary, jumped all the way back up to 3rd place with 41,000 copies sold. Their 1999 compilation also jumped back up to 18th place with 8,400 copies sold. Don't be surprised if their record company decides to release more compilations in the future. Meanwhile, American pop artist Rihanna fails to duplicate the recent success of other American albums with her latest album, debuting only at 8th place with 24,700 copies sold. Looking at the daily rankings, don't be surprised if the ZARD compilation shows up on the top 10 again next week.

- Korea Pop Wars is providing us with a mini-version of the box office charts this week, so let's do some analysis ourselves. This week, seems like Pirates took a 63% drop in Seoul admissions, while Secret Sunshine saw a significant increase in Seoul, probably thanks to Jeon Do-Yeon's win at Cannes. I was also surprised to see Confessions of Pain debuting at third place, even though it seemed to have done not as well outside of Seoul. Anyway, seems like Pirates is following somewhat close behind Spiderman, and both films will probably pass the 5 million mark.

- The first English review for Takeshi Kitano's Kantoku Banzai (Glory to the Filmmaker) is out, and with a 3.4 stars out of 5.....I guess it's good, right?

- Twitch has a link to two more fragmented trailers to Wong Kar-Wai's My Blueberry Nights. In line with the episodic structure of the film, the first trailer, released just before Cannes, showed the Jude Law subplot, while the second trailer is about Rachel Weisz's subplot, and the third trailer is on Natalie Portman's. It still looks pretty, but I'm not so sure about Portman's country accent myself. By the way, you have to click on the French yellow button under that poster of Wild Hogs to get to the trailers.

- Japanese TV just seems to get in trouble all the time - this time it's TBS employees trying to put microphones on participants of an amateur golf tournament just to pick up what the new golf teen sensation Ryo Ishikawa is saying. TBS has since apologized for making the request, which was obviously denied.

- After a bit of rescheduling and whatnot, the New York Asian Film Festival finally announces its lineup, and it's looking real good (so good that I wish I can fly to New York for it).

Looking even better is Japan Society's own film festival Japan Cuts, which has quite a lineup this year as well, some of which is part of the New York Asian Film Festival.

- I first picked it up here, which somewhat wrongly translated the article. John Cameron Mitchell's controversial film Shortbus is finally making its way to Japan, but not without a few modifications. According to the director, he personally supervised the placing of mosiac at 100 different places for the Japanese theatrical release due to the watchdog Eirin, who is basically the MPAA of Japan. Still, it's not exactly the kiss of death, because unlike America, about 100 films are rated R-18 each year, including American Beauty. In fact, this news might even attract more people to see Shortbus in its limited run. Then again, Eirin is kind of weird, because even a violent war film like Letters of Iwo Jima got away with a general rating, while Flags of Our Fathers was a PG-12.

- Because of the size, there are essentially only two free TV stations in Hong Kong - TVB and ATV. They each run a main channel with Chinese programming and another channel mainly for English and foreign television shows. TVB pretty much takes up about 80% of viewership, which in American standards would make them NBC, CBS, ABC, and maybe even FOX combined, while ATV is like the CW with maybe the crappy side of FOX. This means ATV is only struggling to stay alive so TVB doesn't get sued for monopoly. Lucky for ATV, they just got themselves a new investor. However, and this is from Hong Kong's Oriental Daily rather than Variety Asia, the Cha family is known for their support of the Mainland Chinese communist government. With that in mind, there was an internal memo issued that promised ATV's staff that despite the new investor's political affiliations, freedom of speech and unbiased new reporting will continue to be upheld. And I say I'll believe it when I see it.

- Good news for Orange Range fans (I am not one of them, by the way) - the Okinawan version of Limp Biskit is putting out two new albums this summer. Bad news for Orange Range fans - they are both compilation albums - one is a singles collection, and the other is a compilation of "fan favorites."

- Election and Triad Election is heading to LA this weekend, so do go check it out. Me, I missed out on its one-week San Francisco engagement because they played it in a kind of inconvenient location, considering where I live, and they only showed Triad Election without the first film.

The Golden Rock - May 31st/June 1st, 2007 Edition

Took the three hours to watch Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End yesterday. Surprisingly, the 165-minute length went by fairly quickly, maybe because everyone was double-crossing each other the first hour and a half. Unlike Dead Man's Chest, which sprinkled bits of action moments throughout to keep the audience pumped(including the Krakin beast thing that I have a personal affinity for, though it didn't appear much in At World's End), At World's End is really one big setup for a somewhat underwhelming final battle that feels much like the second half of a huge 5-and-a-half hour film. This one really tests the audiences to see whether they actually care about the plot or not by stuffing as much into the journey between point A to point B as they can. It's still very entertaining with the silly sense of humor and penchant for excess still around, but Verbinski and his writing team of Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio take the whole thing so seriously that Verbinski actually went as far as trying to channel Sergio Leone in a pre-showdown scene, Western music and extreme close-ups and all.

As expected, Johnny Depp steals the show as Jack Sparrow, even though he doesn't appear until about 30 minutes in. While the Elizabeth Swann and William Turner plot line's resolution was better than I expected, they are still the usual straight characters that were obviously misconceived when the writers wrote the original characters, not knowing that Depp's performance would be so over-the-top. Chow Yun-Fat was great to see on the big screen, but that's only because of the man's reputation in my mind; he really doesn't get much to do. The special effects are.....special, especially the Davy Jones character design. The credits showed at least 5 different special effects firms worked on the film, and it shows how much work they put in to make everything look real nice. Essentially, with all the money and audience love it's gotten (which I honestly admit I'm a little baffled by, though I think a large percentage of the audience go purely for Johnny Depp and/or the special effects without even caring about the mythology and the plot), this movie is critic-proof. So go catch up with the second movie on DVD (trust me, you'll need to), sit yourself in a movie theater with a good setup (I watched it in digital projection myself), and just enjoy the hell out of it. Word of warning, though: This movie is the most violent of the three, with people getting stabbed and shot in the head (though no blood). So don't let the Disney label fool you into thinking it's a kids film.


Note: Do stick around for past the credits. The post-credit scene this time actually matters, unlike the one in the second film (I had predicted the post-credit scene in the first movie mattered in the resurrection of Barbossa - it didn't), because it wraps up a pretty important plot line. While I admire the team's effort to make people watch the credits to recognize all the people's hard work, it's already been 160 minutes by the time the credits start. Just show what you need to show and let people go home.

- In Hong Kong, Pirates already seems to be slowing down a little bit. On Thursday opening day, Pirates made only HK$1 million on 88 screens for an 8-day total of only HK$25.85 million. One can argue that reduced running time means less shows, but I blame it on the ticket increase (theaterowners added HK$15 to the ticket price because of the length) and people just kind of balked at a 3-hour long movie. I don't see this going past $HK40 million, which King Kong managed to do under the same condition.

In opening films, Hong Kong romantic comedy Single Blog (which actually claims in its trailer that 99% is not created, but rather situations taken from Hong Kong people's blogs...someone should ask for royalties) made HK$220,000 on 25 screens, which is bad, but could have been a lot worse. Premonition starring Sandra Bullock makes HK$100,000 on 15 screens, Disney's Bridge to Terabithia makes only HK$60,000 on 19 screens, and the weekend is just looking pretty yawn-y.

- Borat opened on 31 screens in Japan this past weekend, and it did pretty well in at least one of them. A theater in Shibuya is reporting that the film got off to an extremely good start, with hip people from their 20s to their 50s attending, and that people are taking advantage of the Monday discount....except the theater gives no official numbers, and no one knows how it did in the other 30 theaters. According to Box Office Mojo, it only made 7.3 million yen, for a not very good per-screen average of 237,000 yen (US$1=121 yen). But considering that it's playing in small art house theaters that sit only about 150 people (at most 200), the houses are definitely getting filled....just not as filled as some might suggest.

- When my friend told me about the ridiculousness of this, I thought he was behind about 2 months, because I thought Norika Fujiwara's wedding already happened. Turns out they held a Western wedding reception, and for some reason, Nippon TV thought it was important enough to broadcast it live. Then viewers thought it was important enough to tune in. In the Kansai area, where Fujiwara is from, the ratings for the wedding actually reached 40%. It didn't do too shabby in Kanto, either; it reached 24%.

- In Europe, authorities report that they seized 23.2 million copies of entertainment goods such as DVDs, CDs, and software. And they're blaming China, reporting that 93% of what they seized came from there.

- Taiwanese music channel Channel V is signed on to broadcast on the Hong Kong pay network Now TV. The thing is, Channel V was already in Hong Kong when Star TV was still playing in Hong Kong before joining Now TV, so how is this news? I know, I'm wasting your time too.

- There's a sales poster up for Johnnie To's romance Linger. Is that what passes for a poster of a Johnnie To movie nowadays? And that title, "Butterfly Fly?" This might be the first time I'm actually avoiding a Johnnie To movie.

- Japan Times has a feature on Japanese cinema's newest hero Naomi Kawase, who won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival with her drama "The Mourning Forest." They also have a feature about the making of the film as well, including her frustrations of working with foreign investors.

- Seems like the New York Asian Film Festival is running into some troubles after sponsor Midway Games decided to pull out of the festival. Now things are being rescheduled, but the festival is still on. I won't be able to attend (due to the fact that i'm on the opposite end of the country), but I wish them mucho luck.

- Australian screenwriter/director Tony Ayres' autobiographical film The Home Song Stories, starring Joan Chen and her daughter Irene, won a A$15,000 prize for its screenplay.

- Sai Yoichi, the Korean-Japanese director who made the brutally powerful Blood and Bones, made his Korean directorial debut with Soo, a violent revenge action thriller that sounds really promising. It's coming to DVD on June 15th.

But then today Twitch's Todd posted a fairly negative review that now has me wondering whether it'd be any good. I've read positive reviews of the film as well, so perhaps it'll be one of those love-it-or-hate-it films that I might end up liking.

- The Galaxy Award, held by the Japan Council Better Radio and Television (there should be a council like that everywhere), was recently given out. I've never heard of this award, but since it's in its 44th year, it must mean something. Notable winners include drama "Dr. Koto's Clinic 2" and actress Ryoko Shinohara for her several roles (including her lead role in drama Haken no Hinkaku).

- For anyone that wants to know more about the Japanese pop music world, Japundit has a really long feature on the infamous Japanese talent management firm Johnny's Entertainment. Sounds a bit like Hong Kong's EEG too.

That's it for today, more over the weekend.

The Golden Rock - May 27th, 2007 Edition

Cannes finally comes to a close, meaning that those who don't really care can now rest easy. Of course, if all goes well, we'll doing it all over again for Venice and Toronto later this year.

On the general awards front, the Romanian film "4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days" won the Palme D'or, Julian Schnabel won best director for "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," Gus Van Sant won the special 60th Anniversary Award for "Paranoid Park," Fatih Akin won the best screenplay award for "The Edge of Heaven," and Konstantin Lavronenko won best actor for the Russian film "The Banishment."

On the Asian films front, Naomi Kawase's "The Mourning Forest," which screened on the last full day of screening in competition, won the Grand Prix (which is like a glorified 2nd place award). Variety and Hollywood Reporter critics usually don't work on weekends (even during Cannes, apparently), so there are no reviews from them yet. However, we do have a review from Screen International's Lee Marshall, who calls the film one of great emotional impact with a vision that is equal to Terrence Malick. Meanwhile, Mike D'Angelo has a short review on ScreenGrab, and he didn't like it as much (it's a short review, just scroll down. Thanks to Green Cine for the link).

Also, Jeon Do-Yeon won the best actress award for Lee Dong-Chang's "Secret Sunshine," which ups the awards count for Asian films in competition to two this year. Then again, the competition seems pretty heavy this year, so Asia should be glad that it represented itself quite well.

- Moving on, Danny Boyle's Sunshine, which has unfortunately not been doing very well anywhere it's playing so far (it has open in most major territories in the world and has only made US$27 million). Now, Fox has moved up the North American release to July 20th from its second release date in September. This might be a good move, since it's only going against John Travolta in drag (courtesy of The Movie Blog) and the new Adam Sandler comedy, which just got the R kiss of death from the MPAA.

- Everybody is finishing up their trilogies in recent years, from Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's "Death Trilogy" to Gus Van Sant's.....other "Death Trilogy" (apparently death at the hands of stranger is what he calls it) to Park Chan-Wook's "Revenge Trilogy. Apparently, even Takeshi Kitano has been doing a trilogy from "Takeshis'" to "Kantoku Banzai!". Now he's planning to finish up this "self-exploratory trilogy" with a movie about the life of an artist from success to ruin that will feature his own paintings. Parallel to Kitano's own directorial career is still unknown, depending on the reviews for "Kantoku Banzai!".

- Japanese studio Toei and America's Colombia Music are teaming up to make a series of short films for TV, DVD, and internet that will hopefully somehow lift sales by crossing CDs with DVDs. Their first film is called Metal Samurai. Good idea? Bad idea?

- Argentina and China are working on a deal to build a studio complex in Argentina. In addition, there are talks under way that would allow Chinese and Argentinean co-productions and other cinematic goodies.

- There's a pretty ho-hum poster out for Feng Xiaogang's The Assembly. Am I the only one that's no really excited about this?

- There's a law in China that bans all materials that deal with the supernatural. Films and books that deal with the supernatural are often banned, though there are ways around it, as evident in the recent thriller The Matrimony. The latest victim of this ban is the popular Japanese comic/animated series/films Death Note. Authorities in China finally got off their asses and seized over 2400 copies of the comic and 360 copies of what is probably the animated series or the films on compact discs. Thanks to the popularity of the comic, kids are also buying up the mock version of the Death Notebook (In Japanese, the word for notebook is "no-to," or just "note." So Death Note actually means Death Notebook), freaking out other kids by writing their names in it. Now that's just plain mean.

- Since we were on the subject of law, Japan has finally passed a legislation in its parliament that bans the video recording of film in movie theaters. The fines are pretty heavy too, so think twice before bringing in that camera for the Death Note spinoff movie; keeping up your otaku cred isn't worth that much.

- Oh, there's also a teaser poster for Kim Ji-Woon's The Good, the Bad, and the Weird, currently in production. What the hell is that thing Song Kang-Ho is wearing?

- Since this is the summer of the sequels, Professor David Bordwell wrote about a virtual roundtable he had that discussed the possible merits of sequels in his blog.

Off to finish the second part of Clint Eastwood's Iwo Jima saga. Yup, that means a feature tomorrow, right on time for Memorial Day.

An Outward Shout

In light of Ryuganji's, EastSouthWestNorth, and Lovehkfilm's recent shout-outs to this blog, It's probably a good time for me to acknowledge some, if not all, of the links I have on my right here as well.

Film Philia seems to be a new site, and updates about once a week-2 weeks with news and trailer links that are short and to the point.

Like him or not (he hate Lord of the Rings, but loves Michael Mann and Babel), Hollywood Elsewhere is an enormous informative column/blog about the movie business. Jeffrey Wells is indeed a bit opinionated for some people's taste, but he's a columnist, not a reporter. So what else can you expect?

I don't think I have to profess my love for Lovehkfilm anymore, or I'd just seem like huge suck-up. Plus, they have a really talented reviewer that seem to really like the Hong Kong defunct rap group LMF....

Ryuganji doesn't update his site often enough, but his page's feed to all news Japanese films may just make this blog's existence a waste of internet space. Good thing I know a thing or two about Hong Kong cinema too.

TV in Japan is just kick-ass. Even if there's no context to the clips sometimes (Japanese TV is not especially weird; it's just as sensational as any other mainstream TV industry, but in another culture), it never ceases to provide hilarious clips that I somehow never caught when I was there. The reason I don't mention it in my post is because the whole thing is about entertainment, and they update it as frequently as I do anyway.

A Pity I'm an Aquarius is an interesting photography blog, even if it doesn't have much film stuff in it. Plus she was one of the first people to link to The Golden Rock, and I'm more than happy to return the favor.

Asian Cinema - While on the Road is by Brian of brns.com. As a programmer for the New York Asian Film Festival, he gets to watch a lot of Asian films that I wouldn't be able to get my hands on.

I don't do much celebrity gossips on this site. I leave it to Daily Dumpling to fulfill all of your Asian celebrity news instead.

Professor David Bordwell and Kristen Thompson's blog is always informative for an aspiring filmmaker and those interested in film as an art form. As a film studies major who almost went into film research for grad school, it's always an enormously rewarding reading experience for me, especially those entries about shot lengths.

There are not enough words (at least in my limited Japanese vocabulary) to describe how thankful I am for a blog like Eiga Consultant. I didn't think anyone cares about box office statistics as much as I do until I found this blog. It's been very very useful for this site, for what I wanted to do with this blog, and for satisfying my own curiosity with having to know the box office statistics of everywhere I've lived before.

And Hoga News was the how I found Eiga Consultant in the first place. Providing translations of Japanese film news and box office statistics, Hoga News was also the first major site that linked to the Golden Rock, and I am eternally grateful for that.

Old school Hong Kong martial arts movies aren't my cup of tea (I just didn't get to grow up with it, and I have no time to catch up with it now), but head over to Hong Kong and Kung Fu DVD News and Reviews if they are your cup of tea.

Jason Gray provides an interesting inside look at Japanese cinema - both mainstream and the lesser known stuff like Pink films - that you can't find in the news.

r@sardonicsmile just has a really cool pop culture blog that seems to share similar sensibility as I. Too bad she doesn't update very often.

Fellow Lovehkfilm reviewer Sanjuro shows so much knowledge in comic and early contemporary cinema cultures in Ronin On Empty that I honestly feel a little behind on everything. No, I haven't seen any of the Rocky movies, but he has, and even reviews all of them! Like the previous link, I wish it'd be updated a little more often, but it understandably isn't because of his schedule.

Web of Significance is a blog that's about a bit of everything, and it's always informative. Of course, I'm especially attracted to the movies stuff, but it's all good anyway.

Just added is Hongkie Town, a blog I've been following for over a year now about the adventures of a foreigner living in Hong Kong. It doesn't have much movie stuff (a review here and there), but it's still immensely rewarding with fun stories from Hong Kong and abroad, music stuff, and political observations.

Also added is EastSouthWestNorth, a blog that mostly cover Hong Kong, China, and Taiwan political news with translations and links. Extremely useful for anyone interested in seeing how the media work in these three places. Even crazy enough to link to this blog twice within a week. Extremely honored, I am.

And I just realized that I never put Korea Pop Wars on the blog list, even though I use it every week to look at the Korean box office. Shame on me. That glaring error has now been corrected.

Thank you all for the knowledge I have picked up from your sites, and if you happen to read this as well, thank you for your support as well.