Still slightly under the weather, so report will be briefer and shorter. Still, there are some good stuff out there.

- Hong Kong Sunday numbers show 300 top at first place again, with HK$870,000 on 32 screens and a HK$11.61 million total already. The Pursuit of Happiness leads the pack for openers with a strong HK$490,000 on 16 screens, with Danny Pang’s “Forest of Death” scoring a moderate HK$380,000 on 31 screens (A Pang Bros. overload in HK? I think so). The two films have 4-day totals of HK$1.71 million and HK$1.46 million, respectively. Park Chan Wook’s I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK made HK$140,000 on 8 screens on Sunday for a HK$450,000. Who wants to bet how many of those are Rain fans?

- I always just let Mark Russell’s Korea Pop Wars take care of the Korean weekend box office. Why? Because he knows more than me, of course. Well, I know that 300’s global domination has reached Korea as well. SPARTA!!!!

- In Japan, the box office this weekend is once again strong, with Night At the Museum taking a significant tumble, but Doraemon and Unfair hanging on. The Holiday opens fairly strong, at least according to Eiga Consultant. It opens at 146% of Something’s Gotta Give (the previous Nancy Meyers film) and 241% of In Her Shoes (the previous Cameron Diaz film in Japan). It should repeat the strong word-of-mouth business it has done around Asia.

Hoga News also has a report on another opening this weekend - Katsuhiro Otomo’s Bugmaster. I know, I’m just passing on the work to everyone else!

- Japan Times has a review of Bugmaster too.

- The Host expanded by about 30 screens on its third weekend, and it also saw a gross increase of about 9% for a 24th place weekend (up from 28th last week). With its opening gross responsible for only 29% of total gross, it means word-of-mouth is keeping this movie in theaters, and also well on the way to become one of Magnolia Pictures’ top grossers. Still, a mere $1.5 million gross for a film that made about 80 in its home country isn’t that great.

- Magnolia Pictures also hold the release rights for Johnnie To’s masterpiece Exiled, which didn’t do very well for distributor Media Asia at the box office. Now they attempt to cash in some more with a Hollywood remake coming. I don’t see why a film in the style of Sergio Leone Westerns needs to pay for any type of remake rights from Hong Kong, but good for Media Asia, I guess.

- Last time I posted a link to Professor Davis Bordwell’s report from the set of Johnnie To’s portion of Triangle and a deconstruction of To’s cinematography. Now Twitch’s Todd Brown has some set photos of his own.

- Filmart, how do they love thee? Let them count the ways.

- Speaking of which, Twitch’s Todd Brown has a report on what he saw at Filmart.

- In the realm of bad film ideas, the much-talked-about Jackie Chan and Jet Li project will be a family-friendly film based on The Journey to the West, the famous Chinese fairy tale with the Monkey King as its protagonist. There are other ways people are planning to bastardize the story too, but I’m honestly over it.

- Midnight Eye has a review of Sakuran, a film I’m still looking forward to watch.

- In a last bit of self-promotion, my article on Hong Kong director Derek Yee is up and running. Thanks to the editors at Yesasia for updating the post-Protege stuff.

The Golden Rock is under the weather while trying to wrap up backed-up work. I’ll try to update again today or tomorrow, but first, enjoy today’s song of the day - Notorious B.I.G.’s Big Poppa.

Why? Because it’s Biggie Smalls, yo. Word. That’s right, throw yo hands in da air if you’s a true playa.

Today’s Song of the Day was inspired by a recent viewing of P.T. Anderson’s masterpiece Boogie Nights on IFC. Honestly, it’s not even that great of a song, and I’ve never watched The Transformers. But it’s a pretty good discovery from the time capsule. It’s Stan Bush’s “The Touch.”

Why? Because it’s a song by a guy named Stan Bush used for a movie about the porn industry. What else did you expect, that I picked it for quality?

Here’s Mark Whalberg’s bastardized version of it on Boogie Nights

Skipped a day yesterday, which was kind of good because I wouldn’t have had enough news to fill up the weekend anyway. Plus I have a lot of backed up freelance work, so today, a review and a roundup of the last day of Filmart.

Watched 300 last night (regrettably not on IMAX because tickets were gone by the time we got there), and just couldn’t get out of my head at just how much it supported Mulvey’s male gaze. Basically, Mulvey proposed that films are made in the view of a Caucasian male gaze acting as a voyeur, thus women are often shot in more glamorous way in order to appeal to the male viewer. But what Mulvey didn’t (and maybe wasn’t about to find at the time the theory was developed) realize was that the male viewers aren’t necessarily looking for a female image, but that they are also looking for a perfected version of men.

Much like women and their supposed “images of perfection” driving them to strive to match this image, 300 presents a perfected men with warrior figure and ultimate bravery that appeals to men because it’s what they strive for. Its testosterone-driven tone means to boil up the blood of male viewers (I can go into it being meant for a Caucasian audiences, considering it’s a bunch of European Whites fighting an army of various minority races, but I shan’t because it’s more divided along gender lines than race lines anyway) and get them coming out high-fiving each other as they go “hoo-ha” and screaming “Spartans!!!” And for that, it does the job. There were some impressing long takes of battle scenes, and the first battle was particular impressive. Anyone tired of the shaky-cam effect in battle scenes will be happy to see the carnage not only shot with a refreshing relative stability, but in lots of slow-motion as well.

But that’s about it - the slow-motions seems way too showy and “looking cool” just for the sake of looking cool, and even as an action film, it surprisingly breezes past the battles (perhaps due to the budget limitations, I don’t know) so that it felt like the Spartans have been fighting for a while when history shows that it only lasted three days….and actually had way more than 300 Spartan soldiers. The redundant pep speeches and the excessive amount of slow-motions (I think by some unscientific measure that 1/3 of the film’s action was probably played at slower speed), and forget about any type of historical accuracy, although considering it’s more based on the Frank Miller comic than Greek history, maybe it’s not really a complaint.

I suppose in the end it’s a pretty-looking and well-paced popcorn film, but I am honestly surprised that people think anything beyond that (It’s already on the imdb top 250. Which I suppose would make sense considering the number of geek fanboys on imdb). Even producer Gianni Nunnari said in Entertainment Weekly that he would be “surprised if even one person from the audience is watching this movie and thinking of Bush and Iraq. That would be a disaster - it would mean that people were bored.” Well, I did think about Bush and Iraq, and I was bored at points, but fortunate for Mr. Nunnari, 300 was far from a disaster.

And now, news from Filmart:

- The Hong Kong-Asian Film Financing Forum also ended with seven awards handed to Asian filmmakers, and better yet, it came with cold hard cash. Kim Jee Woon’s upcoming western film “The Good, the Bad, and the Weird,” Clara Law’s “The Messenger,” Mabel Cheung’s “Romance of the Three Kindgoms: Red Rose and Black Rose” all got $13,000 awards to go towards production (it sounds like not much, especially for bigger budget films like “The Good, the Bad, and the Weird,” but the buzz the grant comes with is worth more than the money itself). The biggest winner is probably Edmond Pang Ho Cheung, who went into the HAF with no money for his upcoming film “Now Showing,” and now he’s found enough financing to start shooting in June.

- On the other hand, while business was slow for Korean films and Filmart, Korean distributors still managed to make a few deals so they don’t go home empty. However, Korean dramas are hitting the jackpot in the market.

- Five people, including Raman Hui, who worked on the Shrek films at Dreamworks and help solidify Hong Kong’s status in the digital animation world, were awarded the “Digital Person of the Year” awards.

In other news:

- Professor Bordwell has a first-hand look at the set of Johnnie To’s portion of “Triangle” with a very insightful look at To’s special form of cinematography. This just fueled my desire to be in the Hong Kong industry even further.

- Ryuganji has a look at Asmik Ace’s upcoming films, which include some potentially interesting projects.

- In addition to the Asian Contents Market, this year’s Tokyo International Film Festival will also include a market featuring animation showcases.

- Lovehkfilm has two reviews up - one for Ann Hui’s The Postmodern Life of My Aunt by head reviewer Kozo and one for Korean nationalist commercial/critical disappointment Hanbando by Sanjuro.

Tomorrow, news translations from Hong Kong, Japan Times review, and let’s see what else we can come up with.

Today’s song of the day was going to be something else, but I was reminded of good old “Kokujin Tensai.” Unlike those guys, I wanted to put up some more “authentic” Japanese hip-hop just because some of this stuff is actually good. So today, we got Zeebra, who is known as the first Japanese rapper, from his album The New Beginning. It’s “Street Dreams.”

Why? Because the hook is addictive, the guy isn’t all about sex and bling-bling (although it does have that egotistic self-promotion stuff), and as he raps in his chorus, he’s the “number one hip-hop person.” It’s not something I’d agree with, but I can’t really afford to not agree with the father of Japanese hip-hop, can I?

There’s a bit less news than yesterday, which is good, because it’s taking longer and longer to write this thing everyday lately.

First, round-up from Hong Kong Filmart:

- A new production company has been unveiled, and it’s Big Media, backed mostly by sometimes-film producer but mostly video distributor Mei Ah. The company has announced that it will produce 100 movies in 5 years, which means I better get those screenplays written STAT! It’s too bad the films they’ve announced so far are creatively-drained pseudo-sequels like “Young Man Suddenly in Black” and “Another Better Tomorrow”

- A seminar on talent management of Asian stars crossing over into Hollywood finds a “let’s please everyone” answer of “we need to network…..and network some more.”

- The Digital Forum was also held today in light of the upcoming release of TMNT, which was produced by Hong Kong firm Imagi. The goal of increasing Asian computer animation is apparently telling Asian stories with Western storytelling. What if they can just capture audiences again with simple 2-D animation that the West has chosen to abandon?

- Professor Bordwell has also wrote a new entry, including his experience of watching Twins Mission (why oh why that one movie), getting free stuff from the Korean Film Council (man, I need to get that type of connection….even if it means some 30 years of film scholarship), meeting the incomparable Grady Hendrix and HKMDB’s Ryan Law, and also previews his visit to Johnnie To’s set of his portion of “Triangle” (can’t.breath.due.to.jealousy!!!!!!!!!!).

In other news:

- Ryuganji now has even more details about Kantoku Banzai, the latest from Takeshi Kitano (or Beat Takeshi, I guess). Apparently it’ll be a film more from his comedian side than his art side. My favorite quote? When asked whether the film will be submitted to the Cannes Film Festival, Kitano says, “Well, bits of it are are little embarrassing…”

- “Triangle,” which I thought has finished shooting, actually hasn’t because I saw the report of an opening shooting ceremony and Johnnie To joking that Ringo Lam took too long to shoot his portion on Ming Pao yesterday. Variety Asia has more details on the highly-anticipated project, including who’s gonna be distributing it in China (an HK film being approved for China, to me, is like the HK film version of watering down a movie to PG-13 in America).

- Asian Film - While on the Road has a review of two Kadokawa idol films - Sailor Suit and Machine Gun and The Young Girl who Conquered Time, starring two different idols that actually look quite alike and still do solid work in Japanese films today. It’s too bad I have seen neither, I almost bought Sailor Suit and Machine Gun on my last day in Hong Kong, but thought I already had too many DVDs to bring back. Shame.

- There’s still hope that Jet Li won’t be in Mummy 3! Official reports state that he’s still “in negotiations” to play the main villain in the Rob Cohen-directed cash-milking sequel. Even the original stars haven’t agreed to appear yet!

Of course “in negotiations” in Hollywood means he already said yes, he’s just holding out for more money.

- The problem that the Chinese government has with those idol music shows such as “Supergirl” is the entire idea behind the winners chosen is based on votes. You basically tell your viewers that you may not be able to vote on say, who leads your country or the direction your country is going, but at least you can choose who’ll become rich and famous!

Apparently, that’s not the only problem they have. They can’t seem to get over the fact that the word “super” is used for someone that’s democratically voted, as in someone that is actually liked by the people instead of telling the people who they should like, because “super” has powerful connotations.

So this season, the word “super” is out……so is the word “girl.” Now it’ll be named “Happy Boy” instead. D’oh.

Today’s song of the day comes from the Peter Chan film Perhaps Love, and while the vocals on this song is nowhere near as good as Jacky Cheung, its use in the film still makes it one of the best songs in the musical. The song is Zhou Xun’s “Out There.”

Why? Because it’s a companion piece to “The World Out There,” a song that was used in the film that was NOT created for the film (While the original song is about a guy losing a girl who went out there, the Perhaps Love song is from the perspective of the girl). It not only works as an effective companion piece either - it also fits the Zhou Xun’s character perfectly. It’s a touching examination of someone who looks to the world out there for some type of salvation, and it’s a pretty damn good song by itself.

Here’s the original song, performed by someone else (because the only version with the original singer is a badly recorded live version where you hear the audience more than the singer):

My main news source Variety Asia is flooded with Hong Kong Filmart news, and here’s a small round-up from the first day:

- On the heels of HK Filmart’s successful expansion into the Hong Kong Entertainment Expo, Japan will have its first Asia Contents Market in Osaka and Kyoto at the end of September. The market will be focused on CG, animation, and digital cinema, catering mostly to the domestic market. It will be part of the Japan International Contents Festival, which include the Tokyo Game Show and the Tokyo International Film Festival (which starting last year, have begun to focus on exhibiting more obscure films).

- HK film production company Universe, having just joined the international sellers market at Berlin, is a huge presence at the Filmart. With at least Benny Chan’s latest, Johnnie To’s “Sparrow,” and new films by the Pang Brothers, it has added two mores films to its slate at Filmart - both medium-budgeted films by lesser-known talents, which has got to be a good thing.

- In addition to Universe, Emperor Motion Pictures has also announced a myriad of projects, many of which are Chinese co-productions (gags). It has also announced the hiring of Peggy Chiao, who is widely recognized as the mother of New Taiwan Cinema, as Production Controller. Does quality control come with that title?

- Variety Asia also rounds up the first seminar at Filmart, which was about the profitability of low-to-mid budget films, in light of the Hong Kong government’s recently-announced subsidy for these low-to-mid-budget films in order to encourage new talent. For those who are interested in the future of Hong Kong films, this is a good read.

In other news:

- I mentioned Susie Au and Ming Ming here before, though not in detail. It’s shown at the Hong Kong Filmart, and Twitch has what is probably its first English review. From this quote, I thought I was going to hate it: “Rather than surpress her stylistic urges she has further developed them, using every trick in her extensive book to try and create a new language of cinema.” But as I read along, it got gradually more promising, and now I’m honestly kinda looking forward to how it turns out.

- People who have followed this blog knows how critical I can be of Chinese censorship (Then again, I’m critical of a lot of other things too), so I hope that I never have to write this blog from China, because it seems like the government is going arrest-crazy again with cyber dissidents. Educators who blog criticizing the education system gets fired, editors of online news sites get 6 years of jail time, and so on and so on. Just how many more lives will the government have to ruin and how much authority has to be abused before China turns into total fascism?

- Lovehkfilm’s Sanjuro has a look at what’s in store in the Lovehkfilm pipeline. I have a few reviews coming up myself as well, most of them being Korean films that is already on Yesasia and, except for Ad Lib Night, aren’t really anything to get excited about.

- Meanwhile, Sanney Leung, former webmaster of Hong Kong Entertainment News in Review, chimed in with his review of Edmond Pang’s Isabella - in diary form! I don’t agree totally (I felt the emotions, but maybe it just pushed a button in me or something, or because I was just really wanted to like it for Edmond Pang’s sake).

- I mentioned Justin Lin’s latest Finishing the Game a few entries ago, and now Twitch has a report on its premiere at the opening night of the San Francisco Asian Film Festival. It features an interview with Survivor winner Yul Kwon and the cast and crew. Quite a good read, particularly about Asian American issues.

- And just how many films about the Nanjing massacre has to be made? Apparently now the count is up to 4 - you got the International co-production based on the Iris Chang book, the Japanese documentary set to present the “truth” about the massacre, the documentary that premiered at Sundance, and now China has approved one more Nanjing film to be made by director Yim Ho, whose Pavilion of Women I watched for about 10 minutes before I couldn’t stood it any longer and called it quits. I bet all of these movies will balance each other out and just make no money whatsoever.

- Moving to Hollywood, we have Variety’s review of the horribly titled Disturbia, which is essentially an uncredited Rear Window update in suburbia with less talented actors and none of that Mulvey male gaze stuff that Rear Window was made famous for. I’m honestly surprised it got a good review. I still won’t go watch it though.

- I’m a fan of Kevin Smith, and if that gives me less credibility as a film scholar, then so be it. Anyway, it’s no secret that he wrote a script for a Green Hornet movie that he turned down the directing job for. Now that it’s no longer at the Weinstein company, Sony has picked it up, and it will NOT be using the Kevin Smith script. I’ve never read Smith’s comics, but knowing that Smith is the big comic fan that he is, I would think that he probably crafted a pretty solid script (although being a loyal subject of the Weinstein regime it probably helped it get greenlit too). It’s too bad it’ll never see the light of day.

- Lastly, as an off-topic kind of thing. If you want to know how young Japanese women from age 20-34 think, you should at least go to their favorite websites. You’ll thank me later.

Today’s Song of the Day comes from Corinne Bailey Rae’s debut album. While the hit single Put Your Record On is perfectly enjoyable, this track is the one that told me “this girl’s really good.” It’s opening track “Like a Star”

Why? Because its quiet soulfulness places you immediately in a dark smoky lounge where you can light up a cigarette while sipping a glass of ___________ (insert name of favorite alcohol not named beer here) on the rocks. It’s that smooth.

Here’s her trio performance with John Meyer and John Legend at the Grammys

Since I’m writing a little late and by now a lot of news from Asia (particularly film deals from HK Filmart), but I’ll leave them for tomorrow.

- Box Office Mojo’s Japanese box office numbers show their unreliability again as its results are different from the total audience ranking. Their numbers (down from their 117 yen=$1 rate to 116 yen this week) show Night at the Museum at number 1 on 525 screens, Unfair the Movie with a far larger per-screen average at number 2, and the Doraemon movie at number 3. This is because since the Doraemon movie attracts more kids, and kids pay less money for a movie ticket. So while more people showed up to see Doraemon, Unfair attracted a predominantly adult audience, thus it made more money than Doraemon. This, of course, begs the question which ranking is more accurate? Would you want more people to watch your movie, or more money to be made from your movie?

- Another Japanese drama wrapped up last night, and it’s the soon-to-be-adapted-way-too-many-times Tokyo Tower series. Considering that it hasn’t done very well in the ratings, its last episode got an 18.1% rating, up from a 14.2 last week for an overall 14.9 rating. As evident from the success of the Unfair movie, Tokyo Tower the movie should do pretty well at the box office come April.

- My girlfriend also alerted me that one of the main actors in the recently-wrapped Haken No Hinkaku is actually former Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi’s son Kotaro Koizumi.

- Just how serious is Mark Russell at Korea Pop Wars about the Korean box office? He reported it all the way from Hong Kong, where he’s attending Filmart! Good work, Mark! Seriously, I wouldn’t be updating this thing if I get to go cover Filmart.

- Those Oricon rankings are out too, and Utada Hikaru holds on to the number 1 spot for the third week in a row with the single Flavor of Life. As a fan, I’m happy that she’s found this kind of success again, but too bad it’s for a single that’s become less Utada and more J-pop (at least compared to her older works). Meanwhile, Koda Kumi is at a relatively closed second with her latest single, and Remioromen, who became huge J-pop figures after the one-two punch of March 9th and Konayuki, could only muster a third place with their latest. Hikki may have to fight for that top spot next week as NEWS joins in the Spring break fight with their new single.

On the album side, even Koda Kumi’s erokawaii couldn’t beat Mr. Children, whose latest album Home scored first place with a huge sales figure of 690,000 copies. Koda Kumi and Mika Nakashima fought out the battle of second and third place, and Koda Kumi wins the battle barely with 161,000 while Mika managed to sell 153,000 copies herself.

- The Death Note Complete Set is also number 1 on the overall DVD sales chart on its first week with 161,000 copies sold. While this is not as spectacular as Bayside Shakedown 2 (which moved 327,000 copies its first week) and Crying Out For Love in the Center of the World (which moved 174,000 copies), this is the third best-selling first-week sales for a Japanese DVD ever, and also the best sales for a Japanese DVD since Sinking of Japan came out in January.

- I really liked the Japanese film Ping Pong. So much that I bought a second-hand DVD in Tokyo that still cost me an arm and a leg. And now its director has returned for his second film after producing 2004’s Appleseed. Variety Asia reported that Shochiku has picked up his latest film, the animated “Vexille,” about an undercover American military force who enter Japan to stop them from building a dangerous weapon in the year.

Likes: Director
Doesn’t like: animated film.

What to do, what to do….

- Korea Herald has provided the first English review of the first Korean film by Choi Yang Il (or known elsewhere in the world as Yoichi Sai, the director of the violent, but excellent downer Blood and Bones) Soo. Sounds like it’ll be even more intense than Blood and Bones.

Link courtesy of Ryuganji.

- Ever imagined a futuristic war film in the streets of Hong Kong? Your dream is coming true as Singapore have teamed up with an American investor to make the sci-fi futuristic fantasy “The Battle of Hong Kong - Exodus,” about the natives of Kowloon rising up to fight Hong Kong Islanders that have enslaved them. If I were them, Hong Kong islanders would make better rebellion story. The pic will be the most expensive ever made in Singapore….but why is Singapore, not Hong Kong, making this?

- Starting tomorrow, this blog’s is gonna be flooded with news from Filmart, but why not get a personal perspective from someone who’s actually there (honestly, from the news I got today, I might actually be there myself next year. Fingers crossed). That’s why, it’s Asian Film Award winner David Bordwell, who is reporting his trip on his blog (with some very very cool starstruck moments) . He’ll be there until April doing research, so I’m sure he’ll continue to turn in great entries from my favorite city in the world.