Hoga News

TIFF at transition

Ryuganji reports about the proposed change of format of Tokyo International Film Festival, and the looming question regarding its status as an international film festival.  He quotes an interesting article from Asahi.  Thanks!!

As an ordinary fan, who has no background in the art of film, I don't understand ANY of the film festivals, anyway (my "layman taste" is so remote from the artists who make selections), so I have no opinion about the TIFF quality.  But I can say this for sure - whenever Japanese government tries to mess with the industry, it usually turns the situation worse.  I hope they stay away.

Source: Ryuganji

"Kisarazu Cat's Eye" beats "Flags of Our Fathers"

I missed this one!  I have not reported about "Kisarazu Cat's Eye World Series" in the past, but noticed yesterday that early user reviews were VERY strong (92.86 points out of 100) on "Eiga Seikatsu" site, so I was just going to write about it... Really.

Now on the weekend box office ranking, this Fuminori Kaneko's youth comedy sequel debuted at No. 1, topping Clint Eastwood's "Flags of Our Fathers", also opened last weekend.  Mr. Texas reports that "Flags" made 190 million yen (slightly better than "Million Dollar Baby"), so it means "Kisarazu" made more than that.

"Kisarazu" depicts the life, love and tears of a group of ordinary young people who gather to form a local baseball team.

OK... who are involved in this movie?  Screenwriter is Kantaro Kudo ("Yaji and Kita - Midnight Pilgrim") - OK, that is strong.  It is backed up by TBS, and the director Kaneko is the popular TV drama director at TBS - aaahh, so it is another TBS media machine thing.  Leading actors/actresses include Junichi Okada ("Hana"), Sho Sakurai, Wakana Sakai, Yoshinori Okada, Ryuta Sato ("Umizaru 2") and many others, lots of familiar names, but none has a BIG superstar status on screen.  Started off as a TV drama in 2002, then feature-length version "Kisarazu Cat's Eye Japan Series" was made in 2003, and this "World Series" is supposed to be the last one.  Here and here are some still photos from the film.

TBS is REALLY on winning streak right now, after "Sinking of Japan" and "Nada So-so" this year.

Source:  Eiga Seikatsu, Cinema Topic Online, Kogyo Tsushin

<Addition 10/31>

According to Eiga.com, "Kisarazu World Series"'s opening weekend gross was 323.3 million yen with 219,000 admissions, and its final is estimated as between 2 to 3 billion yen, double of the prequal and a great hit for this scale of movie.

"Death Note the Last Name" world premiere gathered 20,000 in Hong Kong

The world premiere of Shusuke Kaneko's "Death Note the Last Name" was held in Hong Kong on 28th, with the main cast Tatsuya Fujiwara, Kenichi Matsuyama and Erika Toda greeted by 20,000 screaming fans.

The first of the two-part series "Death Note" recorded HKD 15million revenue, historical top among live-action hogas, and accordingly, the studio decided to release the second part on the same day in Hong Kong and in Japan, November 3.

The film has already got distribution in Thailand, Singapore, Taiwan, Korea and Malaysia, and is also reported to be given an offer to remake in Hollywood.  The actors, however, showed more interest in distributing the film itself in the U.S.  Director Kaneko and actors also are interested in another sequel, with one form or another.

Source:  SANSPO

TIFF closed with "Inugami Clan"

Tokyo International Film Festival closed on 29th, with the main cast and staff of closing film "Murder of the Inugami Clan" on stage, including director Kon Ichikawa (on wheel chair), Koji Ishizaka, Nanako Matsushima, Kyoko Fukada and Kikunosuke Onoe.

The Sakura Grand Prix award was given to French film "OSS117:  Cairo Nest of Spies".

Source:  SANSPO, Cinemacafe

Shinjo is heading to become a movie star?

Do you remember Tsuyoshi Shinjo?  He played in Major League Baseball teams New York Mets and San Francisco Giants in 2001-03, and then went back to Japan to become a star performer in Nippon Ham Fighters in Hokkaido.

He is known for the good look, flashy talks and flamboyant attitude, and has a wide appeal to people in all ages and genders.  (Photo here is his ad for Sea Breeze) Back when he hit a single-base in San Francisco, he surprised the opponent team's first baseman, saying "next year, I will go back to Japan to become a movie star."  Maybe he is keeping his promise, again.

Yesterday, his team Fighters won the Japan Series Championship, for the first time in 44 years (!), and Shinjo is retiring from baseball.  And it is reported that his agent is flooded with offers from TV stations and movie companies, according to SANSPO.

Nothing is officially announced at this moment, but it looks almost certain that he will appear in many TV dramas and movies soon.  And by the way, his agent K-Dash, also manages Ken Watanabe.

And by the way, again, when he signed up with New York Mets, his contract money went down to less than 1/10 from his former Japanese team, Hanshi Tigers, and some speculate that he wanted to go to US Major League so badly because Ichiro (Seattle Mariners) just did so.  This time, Ichiro already debuted in TV drama last year, so I guess he does not want to get behind in this area, either.

Source:  SANSPO

"Death Note the Last Name" preview event

The latter half of the two-part series, comic-based fantasy thriller "Death Note the Last Name" team held a preview event in Tokyo on Oct. 25, with major staff and cast appearing on stage.

The leading actor Tatsuya Fujiwara was absent for his other stage duty, and his opponent Kenichi Matsuyama, was the center of the attention.  Director Shusuke Kaneko states, "the original comic story is very complex, and was difficult to write a script.  But I think I could inject my straight forward spirit in it."

In the "Last Name", the ending is movie original, and is reported to be "quite surprising".  The first part of "Death Note" was released in June 2007, and marked 2.7 billion yen gross, ranked No. 8 in overall box office top 10 in the first half of this year in Japan.

"Death Note the Last Name" is scheduled to open on November 3, 2007 in Japan.

Source:  Cinema Topic Online

"Paprika" US release schedule

Kaiju Shakedown writes about "Paprika"'s US release.  It will be distributed by Sony Pictures Classic, and is scheduled to open in March 2007.

See Kaiju Shakedown and Coming Soon for more details.

"Nada Soso" back at the top, and "Showa boom" continues

Over the weekend, while a lot of Tokyo movie fans moved over to TIFF,  "Nada Soso" got back to the top of box office in Japan.  Cummulative attendance surpassed 1.5 million, and is estimated to reach 5 billion yen final gross.  See here for my previous article.

Among new movies on the ranking, Tetsuo Shinohara's "Riding On The Metro" ("Metro ni notte"), starring Shinichi Tsutsumi and Aya Okamoto, made it to the third position with 107 million yen.  Tsutsumi gained popularity with "Always - Sunset on Third Street" last year, and "Metro"'s opening gross is approximately half of "Always", so Mr. Texas estimates the best "Metro" can make will be 1.5 billion, and most likely lower than that.  Here is my previous article about "Metro".  I have not seen it, but the official site's retro image is similar to "Always".  Japan's "Showa boom" continues, I guess.

Ranked No. 8 is "Angel's Egg", filmization of popular love story novel, directed by Shin Togashi and starring Hayato Ichihara, Manami Konishi and Erika Sawajiri.

As always, Ryuganji has put up the entire top 10 list here.  Arigato!

Source:  Eiga.com, Movie Consultant Blog

"Paprika" at TIFF

Tokyo International Film Festival officially opened, and there are a whole bunch of event and star appearances news.  I am too lazy to go over all of them, so see TIFF website and WOWWOW site for news and pictures.  (TIFF English page does not have too much latest news, tho... )

Among them - Venice's entry "Paprika", directed by Satoshi Kon, was shown as premiere in Japan as the opening film for animecsTIFF x digitalTIFF.  At the opening ceremony, the original novelist Yasutaka Tsutsui appeared on stage along with Kon and the voice actor Toru Furuya.  Tsutsui has been a regular in hoga events this year, as the original writer of "Everyone but Japan Sinks", and animation "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time" (I used "Little Girl Who Conquered Time" title, taken from its 1970's live action version, but this seems to be the English title for this version).

Furuya, known for the voice of Amuro in "Gundam" animation, usually does the voice of young boys, but at Paprika, he did the 200kg guy for the first time.  "I have never done the role over 60kg (laughs), so I first thought I should decline this offer.  But the director asked me to speak like a innocent young boy as I usually do, so I went ahead."

Tsutsui boasted, "this novel is supposed to have a healing effect, according to Dr. Hayao Kawai (a famous psychologist).  My friend Tatsuya Egawa (a novelist) told me such a high-quality visuals should make me proud as the original writer."

Kon appologized to the audience, "we were too busy going around the overseas film festival circuits.  We are sorry that we were late in showing it in Japan."

Following the TIFF, "Paprika" is schedule to open commercially on November 25 in Japan.

Source:  Cinema Topic Online, TIFF website

Jason Gray on "Love and honor"

Jason Gray attended the opening eve screening of "Love and Honor" for Tokyo International Film Festival.  The film, the third of Yoji Yamada's "samurai trilogy" based on Shuhei Fujisawa's novels, drew much attention not only by international movie people but also by Takuya Kimura ("Kimutaku") female fans, probably not a typical group found in the festival.

Jason writes he liked Kimutaku's acting, despite his earlier doubt.  I read somewhere before that Yoji Yamada wanted to bring out the hidden power from the pop icon Kimura in his movie, much like his previous success with Rie Miyazawa in "The Twilight Samurai", the first of his trilogy and an Oscar Foreign Language Film nominee. 

Please see Jason's blog for more details.

I am glad it appearantly worked out, although I have a complaint - Kimura's management office (famous/notorious and powerful Johnny's Jimusho) puts very strong restriction on the press pictures, so his photo never is officially released on the Net.  How can I write about him without his pictures???

Source:  Jason Gray

<Addition 10/22>

See, this is what I am talking about ...  Stage photo without the biggest star???