Hoga News

Long time no see, and I am planning to restart this blog...

2008-07-16T17:34:24-07:00

If anybody still has this link in RSS reader, here is my entry after more than a year. I am planning to restart my blog and other Japanese-movie-related activities.

I am currently working to get financial and human power support to this activity, and looks like it is on its way. So although I am still quite busy in my day job, I will try to update this blog little by little. Hope things will get through so we will have more activities around this blog.

Ken Watanabe's interview on Hoga Central

2007-06-13T14:50:50-07:00

Ken Watanabe's "Memories of Tomorrow" is currently shown in the U.S. on a limited basis, and I got an irresistible interview transcript of Ken, so I wrote an article on Hoga Central.

Ken Watanabe interview on Hoga Central

He talks about his love of this film, and how he perceive the serious illness like Alzheimer desease through his own experience.

Please enjoy!

Ken Watanabe's "Memories of Tomorrow" shown in the US

2007-05-30T14:58:42-07:00

Oops, this news did not make it in time for NY showing, but anyway, I just picked up a Japanese community paper with Ken Watanabe's interview regarding his film "Memories of Tomorrow". Ken plays the main role, a middle-aged businessman suffers from Alzeheimer desease, but more importantly, he is the executive producer and the man who actually started the project.

See page 9 of U.S. Frontline below:
U.S. Frontline May 4th week issue

The film was in NY from May 18-24, then will be shown in Los Angeles (Laemmle's Music Hall 3) June 8-14, then in San Francisco (location not decided) sometime in July.

Martin Scorsese's "Silence" - who would play the Japanese role?

2007-05-28T22:54:33-07:00

As many of you may know, Martin Scorsese just announced in Cannes that he will work on a new film "Silence" based on a novel of Japanese author Shusaku Endo. The story is about a priest who was persecuted in 17th century Japan, where Christianity was banned strictly.

There is an important Japanese peasant role in this film, and there seem to have been much discussion about who would play this role. I have some opinion about it, but it is TOO personal (as it relates to some of my favorite actors), so I posted my opinion on my PRIVATE blog. My first choice would be Teruyuki Kagawa. See below for more details.

Michi's random private blog

By the way, congrats to Naomi Kawase, who won the Grand Prix at Cannes! I haven't seen her film - and usually Cannes quality film is not totally comprehensive to a layman like me - but anyway, I am particularly happy that a Japanese female director was honored in such a prestigeous stage!!

"Paprika" and "Hula Girls" in the US

2007-05-19T13:36:35-07:00

So I changed the gear and now starting my "slow personal blog" mode. Sorry for not being able to have lots of update like before, but I will just go with the flow for now and write whenever/whatever I feel like.

Last week on SF Chronicle, there was a huge line-up of summer movies, and found out that two of my recent favorite Japanese flims, "Paprika" and "Hula Girls" will be shown in the U.S. I don't remember exactly the opening date - maybe Paprika in June and Hula in July or something like that.

I wrote a lot of thing about Hula Girls on "Hoga Central" main site, so please refer to it. As for "Paprika", I watched it recently and am planning to write an article with an interview with Director Kon, so please stay tuned. "Paprika" remided me a little bit of "Patlabor", one of the very few Japanese animation film that I like - with a unique mix of its sharp/cool graphics, mature humor with a bit of satire, clever use of modern technology in the story, and a huge robot destroying the town (the regular kind of fun that you expect from animation). Beautiful, beautiful graphics!!

Good thing lately is that once it has a US distribution, I can rent it from Netflix eventually, even though I miss the theatrical showing. Looking forward to it!!

Thank you for all your comments, and here is my thought

2007-05-15T22:13:27-07:00

Hi, everyone. I was so surprised to see SO MANY people left comments to my previous entry about the fate of this blog, and I would like to thank you all for the warm considerations. Your comments made me re-think.

In fact, the biggest burden on me was to look for the news everyday and write about it everyday. So I guess I will just stop that part, until I have that kind of time and energy again. I definitely will keep this blog and the main site (Hoga Central) intact. I will continue to write English articles on Keio newsletter from time to time. Sometimes I get interview materials from my friend Izumi Hasegawa, and I may write articles with them from time to time. I will post links to those materials on this blog, so at least I can keep it maintained from time to time.

And when I feel like writing, I will just come back here and write. This blog won't be a news site anymore, but will go back to rather regular "blog" style. In the meantime, Ryuganji (as you can see on the right pillar no this blog) has a great Japanese movie blog, and Jason Gray also writes great insight about Japanese films. Please check them out!

And I hope someday I will have that time and energy to re-start "Hoga News"...

Thank you again for all the encouragement!! Arigato gozaimasu!!

I will stop updating Hoga News

2007-04-23T20:00:40-07:00

I have not been able to update this blog and Hoga Central main site too much these days. That is because I have become too busy in my real life, but as all of you know and I know, "busy" is another way of saying "this stuff has become lower in my priority". And that is really true in my case.

Unlike many other folks who write English blogs about Japanese films, I am not working in the film industry, or professionally writing about it, and I have no intention of going into it. Japanese film industry is too small to accommodate a half-outsider like me - after all, Japanese total box office (including both foreign and Japanese films) in 2006 was merely 200 bil. yen ($2bil. or so), and even including DVD sales, 2-3 digits smaller than telecom industry that I work as a professional. And I cannot afford to devote so much time to study about the industry until I become movie professional. I am sure I cannot make any money there.

So the reason that I started doing this activity 2 years ago, in addition to my personal interest, was because I thought movie/TV contents creation/distribution will be an exciting area to study in the near future, from net/digital industry point of view, which is a part of my coverage area in consulting work. That exactly happened in the U.S. and many other international markets, with the explosion of YouTube, iTunes video distribution, and many other new forms of degital video contents on the net. And even the traditional media creators have started to feel both threat and excitement in this new digital contents era. Except for Japan.

Over in Japan, media people still see YouTube as a criminal act. Nobody is seriously interested in net distribution of media contents, and user generated video contents are far and sparce. Not just industry people, but even among fans, nobody shares my interest in Japan. Nothing interesting is going on.

As a result, still very few people are interested in what's going on in Japanese movies in English speaking world. There is no excitement. So eventually I have lost steam.

Through the Hoga sites activities in the past 2 years, I have gotten to know many nice people who are interest in Japanese/Asian movies, and I even got to meet actors and directors. I really appreciate your support and encouraging words, and without you, I even could not have continued until now.

I will continue to write in some publications, such as Keio newsletter, but am planning to shift my focus more on technology and US matters, instead of movies and Japan matters.

I hope something exciting happens in the future to spark my excitement. Or maybe someday my work load become so light and I become bored. Until that time, Arigato and Sayonara for now!!

"Tokyo Tower..." opened at the top last weekend

2007-04-20T10:44:41-07:00

Last weekend's box office ranking was Joe Odagiri's "Tokyo Tower - Mom, Me and Sometimes Dad". In the opening day report, Shochiku said that its final result is expected to surpass "Love and Honor", but according to Mr. Texas, the number does not add up.

The weekend gross was 194 million yen, 90% of Odagiri's "SHINOBI" and 65% of "Love and Honor". The press loves to pit Joe Odagiri, up and coming movie star, against King of J-drama Takuya Kimura, and said Odagiri will prevail in this movie, but it does not look that way.

The film is based on million-seller novel, but it is already made into a special one-time drama and a TV drama series, so Mr. Texas thinks people don't watch the same story 3 times, even though the success formula of "TV drama - to - movie" is still working in many, such as "Unfair".

Source: Movie Consultant Blog

Rinko Kikuchi's new film will open on 6/23

2007-04-20T10:29:27-07:00

Academy nominee Rinko Kikuchi worked on this Satoshi Miki's comedy "The Insects Unlisted in The Encyclopedia" right after the Oscar presentation, and it is announced that the film will open in Japan on June 23.

Miki is known for his so-called "datsuryoku-kei (low tention)" comedy films such as "In the Pool" and "Kame wa Igai to Hayaku Oyogu (literally "turtles swim faster than you expect"). In this new film, a magazine reporter played by Yusuke Isetani ("What the Snow Brings", "Memories of Matsuko") and his partner Suzuki Matsuo go traveling in search of "quasi-dead", in order to write an article on the world after death. They meet a mysterious woman played by Rinko on the way.

See some still photos here. They REALLY look low tention to me..

Source: CinemaCafe

"SUNSHINE" starring Hiroyuki Sanada opens in Japan

2007-04-14T14:32:06-07:00

Danny Boyle's new SFX-human drama "SUNSHINE", which already opened in UK and some other territories last week, is opening in Japan this weekend. With the appearance of Japanese actor Hiroyuki Sanada, media is running a big campaign featuring him, who plays the captain of the mission to save the sun, which is on the verge of dying.

There are lots of media coverage, and I cannot show all of them. Here is an example from Pia:

Cinema Pia Interview

Please see Misty's Hiroyuki Sanada News for more coverages. The film is scheduled to open in the U.S. in fall 2007.