Continued hoga dominace in New Year movie line up

Japanese version of holiday film season, "New Year movie" round has officially started yesterday in Japan on Dec. 1, with a big bang of "Love and Honor" as the starter.

Mr. Texas predicts in his blog that there is no mega hit hopeful this year, unlike last year's "Harry Potter" (11 bil. yen) or the previous year's "Howl's Moving Castle" (19.5 bil. yen), but there are a bunch of 3 bil. + movies.  And by the way, all of them are J-movies (hogas), except for "Letters from Iwo Jima", which nevertheless features Japanese actors.

His medium hit predictions are:

• Ooku  (Forbidden love story period drama)
• Letters from Iwo Jima  (WWII movie, companion piece of "Flags of our Fathers")
• NANA2  (Sequel of the big hit teen movie "NANA" based on comic)
• Love and Honor  (Samurai drama)
• Murder of the Inugami Clan  (Remake of the classic thriller)

Well, people complain about Hollywood movies not being too exciting these days, with too many sequels and remakes.  And by the way, looks like it is the same thing in Japan - "Letters" is the duology, "NANA" is a sequel, "Love and Honor" the trilogy, "Inugami" the remake.  "Ooku" is a new one, but it is in a way a sequel of the TV drama by the same producer, Fuji TV.  Predictability is a good thing in the movie business, isn't it!!??

Source:  Movie Consultant Blog