The Last Samurai continued to dominate the Japanese box office in its fourth week on release, followed closely by Finding Nemo. Boosted by their strong showings in the peak New Year's season, the two films are expected to gross a collective Y20 billion ($189m).

Samurai's fifth weekend (Jan 3-4) proved the biggest for the Tom Cruise title so far across the country and the film has taken over $61m to date nationwide.

Also performing strongly on the nine-major-cities chart is Jose, The Tiger And the Fish, an off-beat romance directed by Isshin Inudo (Across The Golden Prairie) that has scored a whopping $88,636 screen average, while grabbing third-place in Pia magazine's weekly reader's survey, after The Last Samurai and Finding Nemo.