Note: This blog expresses only the opinions of the blog owner, and does not represent the opinion of any organization or blog that is associated with The Golden Rock.
Since I mentioned Ketsumeishi’s latest album, how can I go without choosing one of its songs? And how can I choose a Ketsumeishi song without choosing one about summer? It’s still hot enough, and the single actually came out a year ago. From Ketsu No Police 5, it’s Ketsumeishi’s “6 Men and Women’s Summer Memories.”
Actually, the MTV is quite good, although I’m convinced it’s part of something much longer.
We apologize for skipping yesterday’s entry, but school and movie stuff reared its ugly head at the same time, and this blogger chose to write a 3-page script for school than a really long entry in a news blog not enough people read. Plus waiting almost 3 hours to not be able to get Eason Chan tickets this morning really pissed us off. But we’ll make it up in a bit.
- Let’s go over the Oricon charts really quickly. On the single chart, L’Arc~en~ciel’s latest got its number 1 debut, selling over 110,000 copies. The second and third places were close, with Exile finally winning out Utada Hikaru’s latest by only 1,700 copies in total weekly sales. Exile (which really is just two guys singing and a bunch of people dancing) sold 95,299, and Utada Hikaru sold 93, 518. See how close that was? Next week, expect me to possibly not report the number 1 debut of Arashi’s latest single.
As expected, pop rap group Ketsumeishi (imagine a hybrid of reggae, hip-hop, and pop influence blended into one) saw yet another huge debut for their 5th album on the album chart. Selling 430,000 copies (this might be a decrease from their previous album), this makes the group’s 4th number 1 album debut in a row. Hell, I’ll eventually pick up a copy too. Meanwhile, rock-pop group Porno Graffiti’s latest did an impressive 140,000 copies, but could only muster a second place when up against the Ketsumeishi boys. Hideaki Tokunaga’s cover album continues to sell well enough to drop by just one spot. Next week, expect Dragon Ash’s two compilations (I really hate this new trend of releasing one compilation as two albums) to rule the chart.
- Speaking of Help Me Eros, Twitch has a link to the trailer. However, everything in that trailer feel so Tsai Ming-Liang, including the detached eroticism, that I’m honestly not all that interested.
- Under “silly China!” news today, the expected blackout date for non-Chinese/non-communist-patriotic films is coming up, as China comes up to its October Party Congress/Party establishment anniversary date. While it was expected that Hollywood would get blocked out, even Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution is getting delayed until the end of the Party Congress.
- While Korean special effects blockbuster The Host took its special effects to Hollywood, a Hollywood film just took its special effects to Korea. OK, China/Hollywood co-production and all, but my point about the reversal remains.
- After news that Fruit Chan is making a film about a young Bruce Lee that’ll be produced by Terence Chang, another piece of news has come out reporting that Hong Kong’s favorite indie director will be directing an English remake of a Japanese horror film. According to the report, this is Chan’s attempt to no longer be labeled as an art-house director. He could’ve made a better choice, though.
Last, but definitely not least; Miyoshi Umeki, the first Asian to win an Academy Award for performance, has passed away. Our condolences to her family.
Coming up on the spin-off tomorrow: Review of Pang Ho-Cheung’s latest, and why the hell did i spend 3 hours to end up not getting any Eason Chan concert tickets.
- The China weekend box office came out, and the two recent Chinese releases have fallen prety hard. Not too hard is the stinker comedy Contract Lover, losing almost 37% of its audience. Falling much harder is Alexi Tan’s Blood Brothers, which lost damn near 50% of its audiences, but has made more than double Contract Lover’s gross. However, with a poor performance outside China, Blood Brothers is not likely to get its investments back through box office receipts alone. Then again, how many Chinese blockbusters do make money back on box office receipts?
- In North American box office, the two movies that matter had mixed results - War, starring Jet Li, lost 57.4% of its audience from the previous 3-day weekend period (I’m that specific because it was a holiday weekend in the United States). On the other hand, Johnnie To’s Exiled opened to a pretty-good US$7, 751 per-screen average over a 3-day period. OK, it was on only two screens and opened at 70th place, but still, per-screen average is what matters.
Since I mentioned Ketsumeishi’s latest album, how can I go without choosing one of its songs? And how can I choose a Ketsumeishi song without choosing one about summer? It’s still hot enough, and the single actually came out a year ago. From Ketsu No Police 5, it’s Ketsumeishi’s “6 Men and Women’s Summer Memories.”
Actually, the MTV is quite good, although I’m convinced it’s part of something much longer.
We apologize for skipping yesterday’s entry, but school and movie stuff reared its ugly head at the same time, and this blogger chose to write a 3-page script for school than a really long entry in a news blog not enough people read. Plus waiting almost 3 hours to not be able to get Eason Chan tickets this morning really pissed us off. But we’ll make it up in a bit.
- Let’s go over the Oricon charts really quickly. On the single chart, L’Arc~en~ciel’s latest got its number 1 debut, selling over 110,000 copies. The second and third places were close, with Exile finally winning out Utada Hikaru’s latest by only 1,700 copies in total weekly sales. Exile (which really is just two guys singing and a bunch of people dancing) sold 95,299, and Utada Hikaru sold 93, 518. See how close that was? Next week, expect me to possibly not report the number 1 debut of Arashi’s latest single.
As expected, pop rap group Ketsumeishi (imagine a hybrid of reggae, hip-hop, and pop influence blended into one) saw yet another huge debut for their 5th album on the album chart. Selling 430,000 copies (this might be a decrease from their previous album), this makes the group’s 4th number 1 album debut in a row. Hell, I’ll eventually pick up a copy too. Meanwhile, rock-pop group Porno Graffiti’s latest did an impressive 140,000 copies, but could only muster a second place when up against the Ketsumeishi boys. Hideaki Tokunaga’s cover album continues to sell well enough to drop by just one spot. Next week, expect Dragon Ash’s two compilations (I really hate this new trend of releasing one compilation as two albums) to rule the chart.
- Speaking of Help Me Eros, Twitch has a link to the trailer. However, everything in that trailer feel so Tsai Ming-Liang, including the detached eroticism, that I’m honestly not all that interested.
- Under “silly China!” news today, the expected blackout date for non-Chinese/non-communist-patriotic films is coming up, as China comes up to its October Party Congress/Party establishment anniversary date. While it was expected that Hollywood would get blocked out, even Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution is getting delayed until the end of the Party Congress.
- While Korean special effects blockbuster The Host took its special effects to Hollywood, a Hollywood film just took its special effects to Korea. OK, China/Hollywood co-production and all, but my point about the reversal remains.
- After news that Fruit Chan is making a film about a young Bruce Lee that’ll be produced by Terence Chang, another piece of news has come out reporting that Hong Kong’s favorite indie director will be directing an English remake of a Japanese horror film. According to the report, this is Chan’s attempt to no longer be labeled as an art-house director. He could’ve made a better choice, though.
Last, but definitely not least; Miyoshi Umeki, the first Asian to win an Academy Award for performance, has passed away. Our condolences to her family.
Coming up on the spin-off tomorrow: Review of Pang Ho-Cheung’s latest, and why the hell did i spend 3 hours to end up not getting any Eason Chan concert tickets.
- The China weekend box office came out, and the two recent Chinese releases have fallen prety hard. Not too hard is the stinker comedy Contract Lover, losing almost 37% of its audience. Falling much harder is Alexi Tan’s Blood Brothers, which lost damn near 50% of its audiences, but has made more than double Contract Lover’s gross. However, with a poor performance outside China, Blood Brothers is not likely to get its investments back through box office receipts alone. Then again, how many Chinese blockbusters do make money back on box office receipts?
- In North American box office, the two movies that matter had mixed results - War, starring Jet Li, lost 57.4% of its audience from the previous 3-day weekend period (I’m that specific because it was a holiday weekend in the United States). On the other hand, Johnnie To’s Exiled opened to a pretty-good US$7, 751 per-screen average over a 3-day period. OK, it was on only two screens and opened at 70th place, but still, per-screen average is what matters.
Today’s Song of the Day is one of the summer male pop songs that’s been stuck in my head. Just for the fact it doesn’t sound like the other Cantopop out there (Miriam/Leon Lai, I’m looking at you…). From the new song/compilation album So Far So…Close, it’s Eric Suen’s “Before Thoughts, After Love.”
- There’s not much to report in terms of box office numbers, but everyone was surprised as I was that Evangelion 1.0 opened so huge. It was apparently so huge (280 million yen on just 84 screens!) that one cinema couldn’t even accommodate the crowd after moving the film to a theater 5 times larger.
- Slightly outdated, but reviews for Shinji Aoyama’s latest Sad Vacation are coming in. Variety gave it a bit of a pan, while Twitch seemed to like it. Honestly, I’ve never seen a Shinji Aoyama thing, fearing that it’s not really my thing.
- This has absolutely nothing to do with Asian films, but rather pure interest. Wes Anderson’s latest The Darjeeling Limited had its premiere in Venice, but sadly under the shadow of star/co-writer Owen Wilson’s suicide attempt. The reviews from the two big trade papers are out, with Variety saying that it’s closer to The Royal Tennenbaums than The Life Aquatic (that would be a good thing, although I liked both very much). However, Hollywood Reporter’s Ray Bennett calls it a third rate Hope and Crosby movie with no big laughs and nothing to say.
- Sorry to those who had tickets to the last two Jacky Cheung concert: the second-to-the-last show was canceled at the very last minutes because the legendary singer got ill and he claims that he couldn’t even sing one-third of the songs, failing his basic requirement as a singer. When his cold didn’t get any better, he canceled the final show last night as well. Still, I’ll bet he sings better than those Twin girls even when he’s sick…
- Imagethief goes over point-by-point on how the report of China Film Group chairman Han Sanping said about China needing more patriotic films is not something that should happen to the Chinese film industry. This quote sums it all up: “…government involvement in any aspect of popular culture, unless it is simply cutting a check, is generally bad form. This is because politicians and bureaucrats are, by and large, crappy arbiters of taste.”
- MCL, whose Kornhill cinema is honestly not that great, is working with a property firm named Shaw (not THAT Shaw, right) to open the largest multiplex in Hong Kong. I hope they have sound separation better there then MCL Kornhill.
Today’s Song of the Day is one of the summer male pop songs that’s been stuck in my head. Just for the fact it doesn’t sound like the other Cantopop out there (Miriam/Leon Lai, I’m looking at you…). From the new song/compilation album So Far So…Close, it’s Eric Suen’s “Before Thoughts, After Love.”
- There’s not much to report in terms of box office numbers, but everyone was surprised as I was that Evangelion 1.0 opened so huge. It was apparently so huge (280 million yen on just 84 screens!) that one cinema couldn’t even accommodate the crowd after moving the film to a theater 5 times larger.
- Slightly outdated, but reviews for Shinji Aoyama’s latest Sad Vacation are coming in. Variety gave it a bit of a pan, while Twitch seemed to like it. Honestly, I’ve never seen a Shinji Aoyama thing, fearing that it’s not really my thing.
- This has absolutely nothing to do with Asian films, but rather pure interest. Wes Anderson’s latest The Darjeeling Limited had its premiere in Venice, but sadly under the shadow of star/co-writer Owen Wilson’s suicide attempt. The reviews from the two big trade papers are out, with Variety saying that it’s closer to The Royal Tennenbaums than The Life Aquatic (that would be a good thing, although I liked both very much). However, Hollywood Reporter’s Ray Bennett calls it a third rate Hope and Crosby movie with no big laughs and nothing to say.
- Sorry to those who had tickets to the last two Jacky Cheung concert: the second-to-the-last show was canceled at the very last minutes because the legendary singer got ill and he claims that he couldn’t even sing one-third of the songs, failing his basic requirement as a singer. When his cold didn’t get any better, he canceled the final show last night as well. Still, I’ll bet he sings better than those Twin girls even when he’s sick…
- Imagethief goes over point-by-point on how the report of China Film Group chairman Han Sanping said about China needing more patriotic films is not something that should happen to the Chinese film industry. This quote sums it all up: “…government involvement in any aspect of popular culture, unless it is simply cutting a check, is generally bad form. This is because politicians and bureaucrats are, by and large, crappy arbiters of taste.”
- MCL, whose Kornhill cinema is honestly not that great, is working with a property firm named Shaw (not THAT Shaw, right) to open the largest multiplex in Hong Kong. I hope they have sound separation better there then MCL Kornhill.
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