Today’s song of the day was originally known to me in its Chinese cover - Faye Wong’s “Cold War.” A few years ago, I found out it was originally from Tori Amos’ debut album Little Earthquakes. The song sounds simple, but unlike Cold war, which is basically about prolonged loveless relationship, Silent All These Years actually tells a somewhat more serious story. Plus, we all know that Faye Wong was actually just emulating Tori Amos anyway.

Not much news today, and since I haven’t talked much about the films I’ve seen lately, this would be a good place to start.

Thanks to the Netflix streaming “Watch Now” option, I managed to check out the Japanese film “Who’s Camus Anyway?” It’s so hard to find that it’s not even available on Japanese DVD (If anyone can find one, great, but I looked through Yesasia and CDJapan and found nothing, but you can find the American DVD easily). Anyway, it’s a comedy-drama chronicling a week before the shoot of a student film. The ambitious 9-minute opening shot, which whips through a real Japanese college campus (I believe it’s Rikkyo University) introduces all the major characters - the promiscuous director, his conflicted assistant director, the new lead, the widowed professor, and members of the crew that love to talk about opening shots.

Inserting references to Camus, Death in Venice, Tarantino, and who knows how many more, you don’t exactly need to understand what the film is really about to “get” Who’s Camus Anyway. Confidently written and directed by Mitsuo Yanagimachi (I honestly thought a much younger director made this), anyone remotely interested in filmmaking would find the film interesting at just how tedious the whole process can be. Egos collide, romantic entanglements ensue, and someone’s eventually going to get hurt. Of course, those who aren’t interested might be wondering why art students are so in love with themselves, but as one of them, I can just say that’s the way it is.

It’s not much of a review, but call this a recommendation: Who’s Camus Anyway is well-written and directed enough to be entertaining, even when you can’t quite pick up every layer of the story.

- They’ve done it before, and now they’re doing it again. After the Weinsteins infamously gave up their rights to Chen Kaige’s stinker The Promise (sadly, rightfully so too), they decided to give up the outside-Asia/UK worldwide rights they got for Ong Bak 2 a year ago, except they’ll still hold North America rights. So good news: Weinstein no longer in charge of Western distribution of Ong Bak 2. Bad News: They’re still in charge of it in America.

- Looks like Hollywood is singing the tune “blame Canada” these days after Warner Bros. found that 70% of the camera-recorded pirated versions of their films come from Canada. Since then, Warner Bros. have canceled all advanced screenings of their films, and 20th Century Fox is contemplating delaying releases for major films in Canada. Believe it or not, since Canada has no laws banning recording films in cinemas, it’s now one of the major piracy nations in the world.

- On the other hand, Warner Bros. have secured a video-on-demand program deal in Hong Kong, which may or may not help combat piracy. Now let’s see whether they can make it accessible enough for people to actually take advantage of it.

- Speaking of Hong Kong and piracy, Hongkie Town reviews two reports of the same trial - the appeals hearing of the first person to be convicted of uploading films using Bittorrent. I’ll have to say, though, that the defense is really stretching why this guy might be innocent.

- Speaking of internet behavior, bloggers and forum posters beware - Your hyperlinks can get you in trouble with the law.

- I can’t believe I paid 35 bucks for this. I originally didn’t think that Ken Watanabe’s “Memories of Tomorrow” would actually get anywhere beyond Japan. Character dramas, especially those not produced by the big three - Toho, Shochiku, and Toei, don’t usually see their day outside the region. So I bought the English-subtitle-less Japanese DVD for my mother when I was in Japan, and I hoped that I can understand at least 50% of it with the subtitles on. Then they released it in Hong Kong, and now they’re even releasing it in America theatrically, thanks to Watanabe’s star power. I should be thankful that a film like this got international distribution, but what took them so damn long?

- I knew it was a pretty big hit, but who would’ve guessed that Gegege No Kitaro would actually be breaking box office records? That’s right, the film’s first full week take just over 1 billion yen is actually a record for distributor Shochiku.

- The first trailer for Benny Chan’s Invisible Targets is up, and wow. It’s not a very long clip, but it has a lot of crap blowing up, people jumping off stuff, and even has Nicholas Tse getting hit by a bus. It’ll probably have a crappy story with overacting everywhere, but this looks like a pretty promising action flick.

- Just when you think it’s out, they pull ‘em back in. After the so-so Terminator 3 promised to take the franchise to a brand-new level while also providing a satisfying yet grim end to the series, another private firm has bought the rights, intending to continue the franchise. Shall we file this under “bad idea”………

- Lastly, Korea Pop Wars looked at the Korean Film Council’s Korean film history book for you, and Mark lets you know whether you should read it or not.

Today’s song of the day is, of course, inspired from a movie. The movie is Edmond Pang’s Beyond Our Ken, and if you’ve seen the movie, then you know which song stands out enough for me to talk about. I don’t even remember how I found this song (end credits?), but here it is nevertheless. From the album Perle, it’s Gianna Nannini’s Amandoti.

I started playing the game The Movies again today, and I remember why I stopped in the first place - this game is addictive as hell. Maybe I just have a thing for sim games, but once i start, I couldn’t stop playing for well over an hour (an hour that i didn’t really have to spare). Good thing I stopped playing, went out and grabbed two books - Haruki Murakami’s After Dark and David Mamet’s Bambi VS. Gozilla. Otherwise, I would’ve never got myself to start today’s entry.

- Japan’s music charts continue to be weak, which might mean that Golden Week isn’t much of a shopping week. On the singles chart, Arashi’s latest gets the number 1 spot again, selling 150,000 copies. That might not sound too bad, but the number 2 singles. a solo effort from a Morning Musume member, sold only 27,000 copies. You can imagine how the rest of the charts go. This week, B’z releases their brand-new single, and they’ll probably debut at number 1 (again for the umpteenth time) on next week’s chart.

The albums chart is somewhat stronger, though not for Japanese music. Pop group mihimaru GT’s compilation album managed to debut at number 1 selling just 146,000 copies, but American pop albums from Avril Lavigne and Ne-Yo take the second and third spots with their albums, selling 118, 000 copies and 58,800 copies, respectively. Wait a minute, how the hell did Kat-tun fall to 13th place already? Ouch. There are no major album releases this week (at least none that is making a huge dent on the charts), so it’ll be kind of boring next week.

- Under kind of exciting news, Kenta Fukusaku announced that his latest film will be more like the hardcore masculine action movie his father Kinji Fukusaku used to make and a “real fight movie.” If it’s going to be anything like Kinji’s Yakuza Papers series, I can already tell it’s going to be quite good. Just look at who he has for his star.

- The Japanese string puppet film “Strings,” which is kind of like Team America: World Police except not, opened two weekends ago in Japan (the first half of Golden Week) in one theater. According to Eiga Consultant, in the opening 3 days, it attracted 2738 people and 4.65 million yen. For one screen, that’s really really good. However, it seems like the gender ratio of the audience is 2 males for 8 females, and most of the audience seems to be 20-30s females. Perhaps it’s not the gimmick that’s attracting people, but rather the presence of two of the Smap members in the voice cast.

- Korean films may still have a market in Asia, as plastic surgery comedy (I guess a new genre has just been invented!) 200 Pound Beauty hits it big in Singapore.

- In Hong Kong, Spiderman isn’t wasting his 120 screens, as the first hit of the summer makes another HK$1.9 million on Tuesday to an 8-day total of HK$32.28 million. I might go watch this tomorrow.

- Even though a lot of people are buying season pass to the Hong Kong Disneyland, it looks like it’s still struggling since its opening in fall 2005.

- Twitch introduces Funukedomo, Kanashimino Ai Wo Misero, one of the Japanese films going to Cannes’ Critics’ Week. It looks like a messy and twisted little family drama that might turn a couple of heads….or it might be another pretentious digital film that show maybe not everyone that can hold a digital camera can make a movie. I think it’s more likely to go the first route, though.

- Holy crap, it’s the trailer for Wilson Yip/Donnie Yen’s Flash Point. Dig it. (Thanks to Beat TG on the Lovehkfilm Forum for the link)

- India is trying to simultaneous release strategy, where a film opens in theater is also available in other formats almost instantly. “Life in a Metro,” starring Shilpa Shetty, who not only attracted attention from her win at the British Big Brother this past winter, but also from her PDA with Richard Gere two weeks ago, will open in several countries at the same time and also be made available on the internet for at least US$9.99 for a low-resolution version for only 72 hours.

- Darcy Paquet over at Koreanfilm.org updated his site with his thoughts on 2007 Korean cinema so far. It just made me more excited about Sai Yaichi’s Soo.

- Hong Kong’s Mandarin Films (When’s the last time they actually made profitable movie again?) has signed on to be a distributor for Tsui Hark’s latest film “Missing,” about a man diving into an ancient ruins underwater to retrieve his engagement ring. It’s a romantic thriller, folks.

- Anyone in Japan be sure to watch the Foreigner Otaku Champion on the night of May 10th Japan time! This ought to be interesting, to say the lease. More details from Japan Probe.

I was very pleasantly surprised by Karena Lam’s first album since she hit it big as an actress in Hong Kong. I’ve never heard of her Taiwanese pop songs, so I fully expected Starlight of 11:30pm to simply cash in on her popularity as an actress. Instead, it was a refreshing change of pace with a breezy acoustic style. Today’s song of the day is my favorite song from the album, it’s “I’m Not Afraid.”

I usually start with Japan box office on Tuesdays, but since Box Office Mojo was quick in getting the rankings up yesterday, and I honestly don’t want to write about how huge Spiderman 3 is anymore. So, I’ll start with a bit of self-promotion today.

The 5 reviews I wrote for Yesasia are now up, and they’re as follows:

Stephanie Sun - Against the Light
Mika Nakashima - Yes
The Legend of Eight Samurais
Sugar and Spice ~ Fumi Zekka
Hula Girl

- Speaking of reviews, I forgot to mention Japan Times’ reviews for last weekend. There wasn’t really anything notable, except the Japanese film Ahiru to Kamo No Coin Locker, which is getting a limited release in Sendai and Miyagi this weekend.

- Under more reviews, Lovehkfilm also has a review for the Francis Ng/Marco Mak-directed Hong Kong flop Dancing Lion, which collapsed under the weight of Love is Not All Around (shudder) and Spiderman 3 (shit, I mentioned it again).

- We’re not done with reviews yet - Twitch also has an advanced review of 28 Weeks Later, the sequel to Danny Boyle’s 28 Weeks Later, which I enjoyed quite a bit.

- The controversial Summer Palace by Suzhou River’s Lou Ye, which was banned by the Chinese government, just picked up the Golden Durian award at the Barcelona Asian Film Festival. Er..I hope they know that a Durian may be the foulest-smelling fruit in existence (it’s also very delicious, but it stinks very much). Hey, next year, they’re focusing on Hong Kong films. Good for them.

- That was fast. According to Green Cine, some bloggers and columnists alike are already starting to compile best of 2007 lists when we’re not even halfway through the year yet. That London Times list is just unnecessary, in my opinion.

- Twitch has a full trailer for the new Singapore comedy “Men In White,” which looks like it tried a little too hard to be funny. The concept seems interesting though - five ghosts that can’t seem to scare anybody.

- Casual Hong Kong film buffs and some fans like me may be lamenting the Mainland Chinese influence into Hong Kong films, including increasing usage of Mandarin, but what some don’t know is that Hong Kong films were once only in Mandarin. I didn’t read through the entire thing, but here’s a detailed review of 1950s Hong Kong Mandarin cinema.

- On the other hand, digital cinema now has such a huge presence in world cinema that Seoul is launching a digital media-only Asian film festival in July. This might be interesting in the long run.

- The first Finnish martial arts period film Jade Warriors is coming to DVD with English subtitles. I myself am not really interested in this, but I’m sure a lot of you out there dig it.

Today’s song is a rare solo effort from Keisuke Kawata, the lead singer of Japanese pop icon Southern All Stars. Since 1978, these guys have released over 50 singles and 13 albums. It’s also a rare pick, because the single hasn’t even been released yet. The theme song for the drama Proposal Daisakusen (also known as Operation Love), it’s “Ashita Harerukana” (Will Tomorrow be Sunny?).

Why? Like many of Southern All Stars’ songs that’s been picked for Hong Kong pop hits, this one is riped for a Chinese cover. Even without his band, Kawata still manages to pen a listener-friendly yet memorable pop song without feeling outdated at all.

Here it is used in the drama, where Kawata actually makes an appearance. No word whether he’s actually in the drama or not, though.

Been gone for a bit, now I’m back, hopefully sticking to a regular posting schedule again.

- Obviously, the big story is the domination of Spiderman 3 pretty much all over the world. In North America alone, the second sequel to the popular franchise made US$151 million. I’ll break down the individual Asian box office results (at least the ones I have) later, but after 5 days of release, it has already shattered all types of box office records (though the Box Office Mojo article suggests that’s due to the super expanded release.) AND well on the way to recuperating its US$250 million budget (plus at least 150 million for advertising and print, minus 50% for exhibitors, actors’ back end salaries, etc.), or dare I say - make a healthy profit.

- And when Box Office Mojo meant super expanded release, they mean Sony pretty much took up a majority of the screens available in the countries they invaded. Case in point - the film made another HK$5.78 million from 127 screens on Sunday in Hong Kong, bringing the 6-day total to an amazing HK$28.6 million already. This sucker is on the way to an at least HK$50 million take, which will be the biggest performer in Hong Kong since Initial D back in 2005. But don’t expect it to surpass the HK$60 million box office take set by Kung Fu Hustle.

With 127 screens taken up already, there’s not much room for anything else - Love is Not All Around (which Ming Pao columns are treating like it’s the second coming) continues to succeed with HK$240,000 on 31 screens for a 18-day total of HK$11.41 million, Paul Verhoeven’s Black Book continues to perform strongly on its 2 screens with HK$40,000 on Sunday, and well….everything else is just kinda embarrassing.

(US$1=HK$7.8)

- The same thing happened in South Korea, where Spidey took up 816 screens and attracted 2.56 million viewers (just a tad under The Host). And just like Hong Kong, everything else got left in the dust.

- In Japan, on the other hand, Spiderman still made a boatload of money, but since people in Japan got the entire week off, the box office was quite strong. After 6 days, Spidey managed to make 3.18 billion yen and recording 2.57 million viewers already. But most films on the top 10, such as Gegege no Kitaro and Conan, actually managed to record increasing box office for the latter half of Golden Week (Gegege actually recorded the biggest increase). Last weekend’s other big opener Babel lost about 20% of its audience, but still scored a strong 218 million yen and has already passed the 1 billion yen mark.

In fact, remember last weekend, when Gegege no Kitaro opened, and Shochiku proclaimed that it’ll make 3 billion because The Great Yokai War made 2 billion? Turns out they were right! Eiga Consultant realized that the opening weekend for Gegege was actually 175% of The Great Yokai War, which means it’s now on the way to make at least 3.5 billion yen. Wow, they got it right for once.

(US$1=120 yen)

- Since many in Japan travel during Golden Week, TV ratings also went further down for a bit. Last week’s ratings winner Proposal Daisakusen takes a huge dive because of its Monday time slot, losing 21% of its audience for a 13.4 rating. However, ratings for other dramas also stabilized a little bit - ratings disaster Sexy Voice and Robo steadies with a 7.0 rating, Bambino falls a little bit for its third episode with a 13.7 rating, sequel Kui-Tan 2 drops to its lowest rating with 11.8, and ratings disappointment Joudan Janai goes up a little bit again with 14.4, up from 13. 2 last week, when it was the beginning of Golden Week.

- Anyone that doesn’t feel like shelling out a lot of money for a book on Korean history can now just get the official version. According to Twitch, the Korean Film Council now has an English version of a book of Korean film history on their website.

- Johnnie To is no longer under the control of Dennis Law. Milky Way Image, which is under Law, can no longer afford To’s movies, so To decided to just buy his way out, taking two subsidiaries, which includes his own Milkyway Image, and his production team with him. Once the split is approved, Law’s company will no longer be Milkyway, but Brilliant Arts (which is just plain ironic, considering Law’s quality of work).

- I still haven’t seen War of Flowers (or Tezza: The High Rollers), and they’re already making a sequel. Even though the sequel won’t be made by the director of the original, they were creative enough to bring on Jang Joon-Hwan, the man who made the cult favorite Save the Green Planet (file this under “like, but don’t love” category for me), to do it instead. Like I just wrote, I haven’t seen the original, but is a director who made something as crazy as Save the Green Planet really up for a high-profile sequel for a blockbuster film?

- The Thailand film censorship issue continues, this time with Variety Asia writing about Thai filmmakers’ petitions for a new Film Act that allows freedom of expression.

This type of irregular schedule of posting will probably continue until next Monday, but I’ll try to deliver as much as I can each time i post.

- I read a column on Ming Pao yesterday (that I’m not going to translate) and contributes to Spiderman 3’s current success in Asia to a weak market. Well, how can you have any type of market when Spiderman 3 is taking up 102 screens in Hong Kong? The usual Hollywood blockbusters opens on 50 screens at most. That’s probably why Spiderman managed a huge HK$2.35 million on Thursday’s opening day (technically it’s opening day for all films, but the only major release this week opened on Tuesday), which is a lot less than the record-breaking HK$7 million it made on Tuesday’s public holiday (the previous holder for opening day was Kung Fu Hustle with over HK$4.5 million), but still very huge. After 3 days, Spiderman 3 has already made HK$12.68 million, and expect it to pass the HK$25 million mark by the end of the weekend.

The films from 3rd place all the way down to the 10th all made under HK$50,000 on Thursday. That’s so sad I’m not even going to analyze it.

- Reporting this a little late here, but ratings for Japanese dramas was dealt with another blow last week as ratings continue to plummet overall. Sunday prime time drama Joudan janai drops further to a 13.2 rating, while second place Proposal Daisakusen drops only by 2.2 % in its second week for a 17.1 rating, which makes it now the number 1 drama this season. Kenichi Matsuyama’s Sexy Voice and Robo drops to a desparate 6.9 rating its third week. In fact, Proposal Daisakusen is the only drama that cracked the 15.0 rating, and no drama this season has cracked the 20 rating line, a line that 3 dramas crossed last season. Sad state of affairs, indeed.

- After the complaints received because of Hong Kong broadcaster TVB’s uncensored broadcast of the classic film An Autumn’s Tale, TVB is looking to get in trouble again, this time because of a protester’s foul mouth during a live broadcast.

- Korea Pop Wars has a story on how the Korean distributor of John Cameron Mitchell’s sexually explicit film Shortbus found a way to get around the Korean film board to get a general release.

- Anyone in Los Angeles heads up: The Visual Communications Film Festival is happening now, and it includes a screening of John Woo’s Hard Boiled, the Japanese film What the Snow Brings, and Korean blockbuster King and the Clown, among many more.

- Jason Gray has a few more tidbits, including the first photos of Yoji Yamada’s latest film, and Asian film- destroy…er, I mean remaker Roy Lee’s decision to scrap a remake of Battle Royale.

- Why, oh, why do they bother? First it’s Sin City, then it’s 300, and now, the latest Frank Miller graphic novel (a glorified way to say comics) ready for adaptation is “Ronin,” about mutants, thugs, and a ronin duking it out in modern New York for a sword, or something like that. And the directors’ pedigree continues to slip too - first it’s Robert Rodridguez, then Zack Synder (in all fairness, I surprisingly liked Dawn of the Dead), and now it’s the director of “Stomp the Yard.”

- Speaking of “why do they bother,” the trailer for Rush Hour 3 is up, and it just looks like a sillier version of Kiss of the Dragon with an annoying-as-usual Chris Tucker. Even Jackie Chan once said he was baffled at the success of Rush Hour.

- Hong Kong gets film development council to figure out what to do with the US$38 million film fund - good. Council then establishes four other committees to figure out more stuff in more detail - bad. This fund is in serious danger of being held up by bureaucracy.

- At least the man has the good sense to finally announce that he’s retiring in next 5 years. I wonder if that’s just action films, or all filmmaking, period.

- Continuing on “why do they bother” news, Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh will be in auteur of crap Rob Cohen’s latest film “The Mummy 3.” Apparently they signed on a young actor named Luke Ford in order to have him carry the franchise. Just read the plot description for yourself.

- In more screen development news, the big discovery in 2007 for Japanese music is the song “Sen No Kaze ni natte” sung by tenor Misafumi Akikawa, based on the poem, “Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep.” The supposed history of how this song came about is that a Japanese author read the anonymous poem at Ground Zero in New York, translated it into Japanese, and wrote a song out of it. The song was sung at the annual Kohaku Singing Contest on New Year’s Eve this past year, and the single has now sold 920,000 copies to date. Anyway, I’m mentioning this song because Japan’s fascination with the song–>screen process is kicking in again, with a mini-series based on the song to be shown on TV in August.

- Want to know who are the most powerful people in Korean cinema? Look no further than this report.

- Twitch also has a trailer for Lee Chang-Dong’s first film since Oasis - Secret Sunshine.

- Be proud, Asia. Even though we’re not well-represented at Cannes this year, we still have three spots at Director’s Fortnight.

That’s it for now. When will I be back? I have no idea. Just keep reading, m’kay? Thanks.

With the pending issue solved, looks like I do have some time for a bit of news.

- As reported yesterday, Babel opened at 3rd place over the weekend in Japan. The numbers are out, and despite the 3rd place opening, the grosses are actually quite high. While Eiga Consultant reports the opening is only 94% of The Departed (1.6 billion yen total) and 55% of Letters From Iwo Jima (5.5 billion yen total), it’s probably more fair to compare to Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s previous outing 21 Grams. Babel opened with roughly 272 million yen on 353 screens, while 21 Grams opened back in June 2004 with 49 million yen on 158 screens, which is only 18% of Babel’s opening. I don’t know about you, but that’s pretty good to me.

- Spiderman 3, meanwhile, opens big everywhere in Asia, breaking records wherever it’s going. In fact, in Hong Kong (where opening day May 1st was a holiday), it made an amazing HK$7.39 million on an equally amazing 122 screens. Man, this movie IS going to be huge, isn’t it?

- The largest Japanese girl pop group of all time Morning Musume is also now the best-selling Japanese girl pop group of all time. They’ve hit a slump lately with sales, but the fact that they’ve managed to hit this mark must mean that they were HUGE way back when (obviously, I’m not a fan).

- The blame game continues between China and the United States over piracy. Now a Chinese organization is saying that piracy in China is because Hollywood isn’t doing enough to spread legal versions of films in the country. Hmm, what about its stringent censorship laws?

- Twitch warns that the Hong Kong region 3 DVD of a recently-released Japanese animated film may not be worth buying after all.