All articles by Mark Schilling – Page 14
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News
Amuse, Toshiba link for Japanese film distribution
Amuse Pictures and Toshiba plan to launch a new joint business for managing contents rights in the Japanese market, from theatrical distribution to TV program and package sales, including DVD and video.The partners aim to combine Amuse's strength in distribution with Toshiba's in DVD and Internet technologies to better exploit ...
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News
Buena Vista increases stake in Japanese product
Buena Vista International has bought worldwide distribution rights from Toei to Hotaru, a romantic drama starring Japanese screen legend Ken Takakura. This marks the first time that a US major has made this kind of deal for a straight dramatic feature from Japan.Toei will open the film domestically this summer, ...
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News
Namco plans major studio and theme park for Tokyo
Game maker Namco has announced ambitious plans to build a "movie village", in cooperation with film subsidiary Nikkatsu, government bodies and local businesses. The project will include a major film and television studio as well as a film school, a film museum and movie theatres for the general public. The ...
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News
Japan awaits 350 screen release for Korean film
Tokyo-based distributor Cine Quanon, in co-operation with Korean film producer CJ Entertainment, plans to release the hit Korean thriller Joint Security Area on as many as 350 screens, a new high for an Asian film in Japan. Set to open nationwide on May 19, Joint Security Area is expected to ...
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Reviews
Battle Royale
Screened at Rotterdam (main programme). Dir: Kinji Fukasaku. Japan. 2000. 113mins.With its story of teenagers killing each other in a government-sponsored murder game, Battle Royale generated an unprecedented brouhaha following its December release in Japan, with members of parliament and even the minister of education decrying its ultra-violence as a ...
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News
Fukasaku to flesh out Battle Royale
Japanese director Kinji Fukasaku is preparing a director's cut of his controversial gore fest, Battle Royale, which should enable its target audience of under 16-year-olds to see the film for the first time in Japan.The dark, futuristic thriller, about a group of 15-year-olds on a desert island who are picked ...
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News
Japanese DVD sales more than double
According to figures released by the Japan Video Association, DVD video sales in Japan more than doubled in 2000, to $900.7m (Y104,488m) on 30,261,000 units, accounting for 37.9% of all video software sales. Meanwhile, sales of video cassettes fell 22.5% to $1,369.9m (Y158,797m) on 33,752,000 units, for a 57.6% share. ...
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News
Wowow to list on Tokyo's Mothers market
Japanese satellite broadcaster Wowow has unveiled plans to raise about $172.4m (Y20bn) by listing shares on the Tokyo Stock Exchange's Mothers market for venture capital firms. The company plans to list by the end of March but may delay until April or beyond depending on market conditions.Wowow plans to allocate ...
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News
Japan's box office slumps despite 'plex growth
Japan had more films to watch and more screens to watch them on in 2000, but the country that pays the world's highest ticket prices for the privilege declined. According to the Motion Picture Association of Japan (Eiren), box office fell by 6.5% last year to $1.47bn (Y171bn).Despite this, the ...
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News
Dancer strikes a pose in Japan
Lars Von Trier's Dancer In the Dark not only divided the critics, with some jeering and some cheering at its Cannes premiere, but is getting a radically different reception in major world territories, bombing in some while cleaning up in others, notably Japan. Last week, its fourth on release, Dancer ...
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News
Jupiter consortium to launch CS movie channel
A consortium of Japanese companies, including Jupiter Satellite Broadcasting, Jupiter Programming, Sony Broadcast Media, Nihon Keizai Shimbun and TV Tokyo, has launched Interactive, a broadcaster that plans to operate six specialty channels, including a movie channel, on the N-SAT-110 communications satellite from March 2002. Jupiter Satellite Broadcasting will own 30% ...
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News
Japan's Toei readies SFX-laden ninja picture
Japan's Toei and Kadokawa Shoten Publishing are teaming to make Red Shadow, an effects-heavy ninja film based on a popular 1960s comic.Music video and commercial director Hiroyuki Nakano is to shoot the project for a summer 2001 release, making it Toei's big film of the season. The director's 1998 feature ...
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News
Japan's Wowow secures 2.6 million subscribers
Japanese satellite service Wowow has broken the 2.6 million subscribers barrier.The broadcaster recorded 1.7 times more new subscriptions in December than in the same month the previous year. Wowow is expected to benefited from the highly-publicised launch of digital broadcast satellite services on December 1. The company recruited 42,708 subscribers ...
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News
Japan's Star, Sky to merge
A powerhouse film broadcaster is set to emerge in Japan following the merger of Star Channel, Japan's largest all-movie cable and satellite service, and Sony and News Corp's Sky Movies.The merged company will retain the name Star Channel and source films from six Hollywood majors. The service will have a ...
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News
Suzhou River wins Tokyo's first FILMeX festival
The first Tokyo FILMeX festival, launched as an art-house alternative to the more mainstream Tokyo International Film Festival, awarded its grand prize to Lou Ye's Suzhou River.Film-makers who lent their support to the festival included jury chairman Arturo Ripstein and jury members Bela Tarr and Jafar Panahi. A special ...
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News
Sales surge for Sony's game console-cum-DVD player
Sony's game console-cum-DVD player PlayStation 2 has weathered a bumpy start to rack up domestic shipments of four million by the end of 2000, company sources have revealed.Worldwide sales of the console are expected to pass the 11 million mark by the end of March, one year after its debut. ...
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News
Japan dishes out CS licences to 18 companies
Hollywood Movies, a movie channel backed by Sony, Itochu, Tohokushinsha and News Corp, is among the 18 broadcasters that have been awarded licences to broadcast from Japan's new communications satellite (CS), which is scheduled to start operating next autumn.Japan's Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (MPT) finalised the list of successful ...
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News
Japan's Battle Royale boosted by censorship row
Proving that there's no such thing as bad publicity, Japanese splatter-fest Battle Royale is piling up ticket sales as quickly as its on-screen body count, grossing $5.45m (Y613m) on its opening weekend, despite, or perhaps because of, politicians' attempts to get the film banned.Lambasted by politicians and bureaucrats for its ...
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News
Gaga, So-net team up for Sweet And Low release
Sony Communication Network Corp (So-net) has joined Gaga Communications in the acquisition of Japanese rights to Woody Allen's Sweet And Low, marking the first time a Japanese internet service provider (ISP) has made such an investment.The deal is part of So-net's strategy to acquire content for its subscribers, which numbered ...
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News
Japan's Warner Mycal planning float for 2002
Japanese supermarket group Mycal is planning to float Warner Mycal, its joint exhibition venture with Warner Bros International Theatres, on the Tokyo stock exchange in autumn 2002, sources have revealed.Mycal aims to raise from $545m (Y60bn) to $636m (Y70bn) from the IPO, as part of a company restructuring plan to ...