A rather short entry today:

- It’s Oricon charts time! This week, the Korean boy band TVXQ managed to become the first foreign male artist to score a number one song on the singles chart by selling 40,000 copies of their latest single. The girl group Perfume is not far behind at 3rd place, and I wonder if them being human clocks have anything to do with it. Meanwhile, The Bank Band owned the albums chart, while Kobukuro’s latest album has already passed the million mark (I should probably buy a copy somewhere to see what the big deal is).

Oricon information from Tokyograph

- The Hong Kong Film blog presents the 6 lowest-grossing films of 2007 in Hong Kong. Lovehkfilm even reviewed two of them:

6. The Tokyo Trial: HK$8,420
5. Fear Factors: HK$7,740
4. Lethal Angels: HK$3,630
3. Sweet Revenge: HK$3,255
2. Fight For Love: HK$1,620
1. Bar Paradise: roughly HK$540

In perspective: HK$7.8=US$1

In perspective, part 2: Hong Kong’s lowest-grossing foreign film in 2007 was My Wife is A Gangster 3, but it still grossed HK$15,000.

- This past weekend, Japan Times reviewed the new indie film Don’t Laugh At My Romance (Trailer here), starring L himself Kenichi Matsuyama. Opening at one theater in Tokyo, the film saw full houses almost at every single show during opening weekend, making 4.03 million yen at that theater alone, with the male-female audience ratio at 1:9 during the day and a large number of audience in their 30s and couples showing up. Its nationwide expansion will now likely be quickened.

- The Blue Ribbon Awards winners have been announced, with the dark comedy Kisaragi taking best film, though Masayuki Suo did end up taking home best director for I Just Didn’t Do It, which also won best actor.

Full list of winners.

- Asian cable network Star TV will be starting a second movie channel devoted Chinese-language films from the 1970s-1990s. However, my two paid movie channels in Hong Kong censor movies (as in they take out all profanity, gore, and nudity), and I suspect that Star Movies do the same, which is why I didn’t subscribe.

- The Hollywood Reporter’s Stephen Farber reviews Kenneth Bi’s The Drummer at Sundance, calling the film “a true guilty pleasure that will tickle audiences around the world”…as in unintentional laughter?

- Chinese anti-piracy authorities and the Motion Picture Association are teaming up for the second anti-piracy video contest, which gives students a chance to produce one-minute shorts that encourage people to protect intellectual property. Don’t know if something like that really helps, though.

- Plus, once word of this admission by the Motion Pictures Association of America gets out, why the hell do college students want to keep staying away from piracy? They’re already falsely accused of it, might as well really do it.