All articles by Mark Schilling – Page 13
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News
Japan to get Kurosawa museum
The Akira Kurosawa Foundation, headed by Kurosawa's son Hisao, plans to build a museum in Imari, Saga Prefecture to honour Kurosawa, with Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Martin Scorsese agreeing to serve as honorary directors. The directorial trio are lending their names to help the foundation raise $12.5 m (Y1.5b) ...
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Sony's SCE invests $124m in struggling Square
Sony Computer Entertainment has purchased an 18.6% stake in Square Co., a leading game maker in recovery after the box office disaster of its first film, Final Fantasy. The unit of Sony Corp. in charge of the bestselling PlayStation 2 console, SCE will become Square's second-largest shareholder. Square founder Masafumi ...
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Fantasy over for Japan's Square film business
Following the US flop of its first feature, the CGI animation Final Fantasy, game maker Square Co. has announced its exit from the film business. The company expects to record a $83m (Y10 billion) net loss for the current fiscal year, ending in March. Expecting big box office from Final ...
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Spirited breaks Japan's all-time admissions record
Spirited Away, the Hayao Miyazaki animation that has led the Japanese box office since its release on July 20, has set a new all-time admissions record for the territory, with 16,878,000 tickets sold as of September 26. The previous record was held by Titanic with 16,831,000 admissions after 62 weeks ...
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Miyazaki beats own Japanese box office record
Spirited Away, the Hayao Miyazaki animated feature that outperformed the Hollywood competition this summer, has broken the all-time box office record for a Japanese film, set in 1997 by Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke. In just 56 days since its July 20 release, the fantasy about a young girl's adventures in a ...
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Studio Ghibli's new film to be directed by rival
Studio Ghibli, whose Spirited Away is breaking Japanese box office records, has embarked on a new feature, based on Howl's Moving Castle, a children's fantasy novel by British author Diane Wynne. But in a first for the studio, the director is not Hayao Miyazaki or Isao Takahata, the two ...
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Spirited Away on target for Japanese record
After only 25 days on release, the Hayao Miyazaki smash Spirited Away has already passed the Y10 billion ($82m) mark -- the fastest to do so of any Japanese film in history.By August 13, the blockbuster animation about a young girl's search for her parents in a strange world of ...
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Reviews
Spirited Away
Dir: HayaoMiyazaki. Japan. 2001. 125 mins. Though aimed,says director Hayao Miyazaki, "at ten-year-old girls," his new film Spirited Away (Sen toChihiro no Kamikakushi)is a masterwork, the latest and best in a long line from Japan's premieranimator. Expected to earn Y20bn ($162m) and break the Japanese box officerecord for a domestic ...
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Miyazaki smashes own box office record in Japan
Toho's summer release of Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (Spirited Away) has smashed the four-day opening record set by the Japanese all-time box office champion, 1997's Princess Mononoke. Spirited Away, an animated feature by Hayao Miyazaki, who also directed Mononoke, grossed $15.8m (Y1.95bn) over the weekend and Monday, some 83% ...
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Kei Kumai to direct Kurosawa script
A film based on one of the last scripts to have been written by Akira Kurosawa, Umi Wa Miteita (I Saw The Sea), is to be made by Kei Kumai and premiered at the 2002 Venice Film Festival on the anniversary of Kurosawa's death: September 6, 1998.The script is based ...
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News
Toho announces production of Seoul
Toho has announced the production of Seoul, a Japan-Korea co-production with all-Korean locations and a budget of one billion yen ($8.1 million) -- nearly double the budgets of the Korean mega-hits Shiri and JSA. The film, which starts production on July 20, stars Japanese TV heartthrob Tomoya Nagase and Korean ...
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News
Japanese Pia film festival prize goes to The Mall
The winner of Grand Prize at the 23rd Pia Festival was Yuki Tanada's Mall, a 76-minute video film about a woman who after witnessing a suicide passes out every time she gets her period. Kazuki Kobayashi's Pellet was awarded the Second Grand Prize, while three films shared the Jury Prize: ...
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Japan's Gaga goes live on Tokyo NASDAQ
Leading Japanese independent distributor Gaga Communications officially listed on the NASDAQ Japan market on Friday, June 29. Opening at $8.25 (Y1,030), the share price rose to a high of $8.53 (Y1,064) and fell to a low of $7.89 (Y985) before closing at $7.95 (Y992). A total of 62,950 shares were ...
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News
Japanese networks team to launch VOD service
Three of Japan's five television networks - Fuji TV, TBS and TV Asahi - have agreed to form a groundbreaking joint venture to provide film and other content via broadband. In addition to feature films for a VOD service, content will include TV dramas, animation, sports and news. Programmes will ...
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News
Japan's SKY Perfect loses chairman, president
SKY Perfect Communications, which runs dominant but loss-making Japanese satellite broadcaster SKY PerfecTV, has confirmed that its chairman Koya Mita and president Hajime Unoki will resign.Though the company has not officially decided on successors, press reports have named Yasushi Hosoda, president of Sony Pictures Entertainment Japan, as Unoki's replacement. According ...
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Shochiku veteran unveils 13-title indie slate
Former Shochiku production head Kazuyoshi Okuyama is preparing a slate of 13 films, including several financed by foreign partners.In addition to his Team Okuyama production company, the veteran producer is developing the slate with QFront Movie, a new film company he has launched with the backing of the Tokyu Group, ...
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Reviews
Pulse
Dir: Kiyoshi Kurosawa. Japan. 118 minsKiyoushi Kurosawa's follow up to films like Cure and Charisma is his most commercial film and one that makes the current spate of teen-targeted shockers from Japan seem about as scary as the latest urban legend told around the school-lunch table. Watching Pulse is like ...
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JSA hits top spot in Japan
Joint Security Area (JSA), the highest grossing Korean film of 2000, debuted at number one on the Japanese box office chart following its release on May 26. Distributed jointly by Cine Quanon and Amuse Pictures, which also handled the 1999 Korean megahit Shiri, JSA enjoyed the widest release of any ...
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Digital costs push Wowow into loss
Wowow, a leading satellite broadcaster on satellite and cable TV which dedicates half its schedule to films, swung from profit to loss in 2000.It announced a $27.6m Y3.34bn) group net loss and a $26.9 (Y3.26bn) consolidated pre-tax loss for fiscal 2000, which ended on March 31. Company officials blamed the ...
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Friend becomes all-time Korean BO champion
Kwak Kyung-taek's Friend continues to rewrite the Korean film industry record books. It notched seven million admissions on its 52nd day of release (May 21) making it the most popular- Korean film of all time. The film, is currently playing on 38 screens in Seoul and 128 nationwide. Based on ...