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August 8, 2008: News from Abroad

By APA Staff

Tony Jaa flirts with disaster, Tan Dun strikes the right chords, and Tran Anh Hung takes on Haruki Murakami. All this and more in the latest edition of News from Abroad.

Tan Dun at the Olympics

China's avant-garde luminary Tan Dun asked himself "What makes a champion?" He would know, having won an Oscar for the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon score. Coming back to win more hearts, Tan has composed a medley of triumphant melodies to be played before, during, and after this summer's Beijing Olympics. Moreover, an album of 30 some odd tracks from this year's Olympics is scheduled to be released worldwide. One of Tan's most integral components comes from a set of two-tone bells, which produce a dual-pitch sound. Coupled with more modern Chinese sounds, a spine-chillingly orchestral masterpiece accompanies the equally amazing feats that will come with Olympian athleticism. Tan also received help from fellow composer Wang Hesheng. It won't be long into the games before television audiences familiarize themselves with Tan's creations, especially with a Chinese pentatonic scale featured as the main television jingle. --Timothy Natividad

Tony Jaa vanishes...and then comes bak

Action star-turned-director Tony Jaa is filling the tabloids with enough fodder for a E! Entertainment special. First the superstar mysteriously disappears into the jungle in June while directing his first movie, Ong Bak 2, stating he was off to "pursue his artistic quest." Or in other words, meditate at a forest monastery. Then he returns a month later and breaks down on a talk show while refuting claims he overspent the film's budget. Family members attribute his disappearance to stress from working on the film for nearly three years. During his absence, Ong Bak director Prachya Pinkaew stepped in to edit the footage Jaa shot and will possibly shoot the rest of the film, which is about 80 percent complete. Barring any more bizarre disappearances, Ong-bak 2 is slated for release in Thailand on Dec 5.  --William Hong

Murakami's Norwegian Wood to be translated to film

Haruki Murakami, one of the most world's widely read Japanese authors, will soon have one of his most popular novels translated into another kind of language: film. French-Vietnamese director, Tran Anh Hung, a Venice Golden Lion winner and Oscar nominee, announced his plans to adapt Murakami's Norwegian Wood into a Japanese-language film. The story, set during the socially and politically tumultuous 1960s, recounts the emotional and sexual journey of a young Tokyo college student. Published in 1987, the novel has found immense popularity among both Japanese and international audiences, and has since been translated into roughly 40 languages. Tran's translation is slated for release in 2010. --Justin Jimenez

Wang Leehom accuses Race of plagiarism

Taiwanese singer-songwriter Wang Leehom sued Indian film company Tips Films, for plagiarizing his music and is seeking NT$10 million (US$320,000) in damages, according to his agent. Sony BMG Music Entertainment Ltd., Wang's agency, claims the lead song of the Hindi film Race, "Zara Zara Touch Me," is an exact copy of Wang's "Deep in the Bamboo Grove" (Zhu Lin Shen Chu). In an official statement, Sony BMG argues: "Its rhythm and tempo are similar. The similarity is nearly 100 percent." Since the film was released in India, the United States, Britain, Australia, and Malaysia, its original soundtrack has also been playing in those regions. "Deep in the Bamboo Grove" is included in the "The Sun and Moon in My Heart" album, Wang's 2004 bestselling album which drew attention for mixing authentic Chinese traditional music with contemporary hip-hop.  --Cathryn Chen

Google Launches Free Music in China

Visit the website. Skip pass the advertisements. And download music from tens of thousands of Chinese artists. That's how Google plans to run Top100.cn, their newest weapon against the war on piracy. Bartering free downloads of licensed songs for advertising revenue will give China's current Internet search market, Baidu.com, a challenge. Baidu.com has already contended several lawsuits alleging copyright violations and unlicensed music downloads. Certainly, Top100.cn is helping the music industry baby-step closer to lowering the estimate that 99 percent of distributed music files in China are pirated. --Timothy Natividad

The Yamato Past its Time

Leiji Matsumoto, who played one of the biggest roles in making the sci-fi anime Space Battleship Yamato (aka Star Blazers in the U.S.) what it is today -- and what it is that fans love -- will not be playing his part in a revival movie of the franchise, set for a 2009 release. Starting out in 1974 as a TV-series and eventually triggering four features, the series has been in copyright litigation limbo for years. Thanks to a legal agreement, Yoshinobu Nishizaki -- technically the founder of the series, though many see Leiji as founder since he abandoned many of Yoshinobu's original concepts -- attained the rights to make the movie. He says he wants to outperform Hayao Miyazaki's recent film, but looking at his past films (which can't really compare), many fans are skeptical of this new take. --Ian Shaikh

 
The Return of the Tielman Brothers

They throw Les Paul's like baseballs, pluck strings with their teeth as if taking bites of apples, perform on top of a standing bass, electrify crowds, and can dine at restaurants with senior discounts. The Tielman brothers, Andy, Reggy, Ponthon, and Loulou started their career in 1957 when they first left for Europe. Half a century later, they flirt with world stardom, as both The Rolling Stones and Youtube have helped them breach into popularity. The brothers were born from a Dutch-Indonesian father and a German-Arab mother on the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia. The act included myriad instruments, ranging from banjoes to a standup bass and even sometimes their little sister Jane. This July, brother Andy had a homecoming of success, as the band returned to Indonesia for the first time to perform. The result is a wave of audience members, un-strapped flying guitars, and undoubtedly a few more Youtube videos. Andy returned to Indonesia for the Jakarta Rock Parade, a music festival encompassing 100 bands in three days. Sadly, Andy was left to perform the show alone, as his only remaining sibling Reggy is 75 and too old to perform. But nonetheless, like a real-life Aesop's fable, Andy can now teach his 12 year-old daughter that patience is a virtue. --Timothy Natividad

Pro-Tibet film gets rare Beijing showing

With the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics finally premiering this week, a pro-Tibet independence group gathered in a hotel near Tiananmen Square on Wednesday to show their documentary to a group of western reporters. The film, Leaving Fear Behind, was made in an attempt to voice the opinion of those Tibetans who see the Olympics as an opportunity for political discussion. According to Dechen Pemba, a British Tibetan woman deported from China last month, a second screening was interrupted by the police. The film features a group of anonymous Tibetans being interviewed about their culture and their relations with the Chinese government. One Tibetan proclaimed that he would sacrifice his life for this message to be seen by the Dalai Lama.  --Cathryn Chen

Pretty Ruins

Tokyo Genso (nom de plum: Tokyo Fantasy) recently created some perspective-giving, photo-shopped artwork depicting how Tokyo will/would look like if it were in ruins -- like, say, after an eco apocalypse. Imagine an overgrown Mayan city (or ruins of any ancient civilization), except translated into the daily urban setting. The images have a Miyazaki-esque animation style -- which isn't surprising, given the environmentally friendly attitude of both artists -- with lush greens, blues, and startling attention to detail. Like Miyazaki, too, they seem both beautiful and foreboding. His pictures of Shibuya Center show a familiar landmark gradually losing its familiarity as nature occupies more and more of what was previously humankind's domain. These juxtapositions and illustrations of natural chaos make it quite the post-modern eye-candy. Check out a few of the pictures at Pink Tentacle. His blog is here (if you read Japanese).  --Ian Shaikh

Worldwide anime sales decline

(￣□￣;)!! That's the expression worn by anime executives nowadays. Why? A six percent decline in worldwide anime sales, the first decline since the Association of Japanese Animation began compiling surveys in 2002. Analysts attribute a decline in TV broadcasting hours and shows produced to a sixteen percent decline in revenue from 2006 to 2007, with 2008's forecast not looking too sunny. Sales are mostly down across the board, ranging from video and theatrical releases, merchandising, royalties, and overseas sales. The only exceptions are web broadcasting and music publishing, probably because everyone bought Aya Hirano's latest album. In response to the sagging sales, companies are cutting back on releases. I bet there's another factor, too. It did it to the music industry, and now anime. The culprit? The Internet. Its tools? YouTube and file sharing programs. --William Hong

Online Property Damage

Downloading anime and film for private use is relatively legal in Japan. What isn't legal are unauthorized uploaders of copyrighted material (more common than one might think), and there have been a lot of arrests for that recently. Since security researchers found a flaw in the programming of one of Japan's top share programs (known for providing anonymity for its customers), frequent users have been getting 18-month incarcerations -- most recently a 21 year-old college student. This is also an issue happening globally with programs such as BitTorrent and Azureus, where artistic (and copyright holder) properties of all forms are freely uploaded to hundreds of downloaders. Polls have rolled in an out saying that some 30% of us have used or do use such programs. But polls, of course, are unreliable -- especially polls on illegal activities. --Ian Shaikh

Date Posted: 8/8/2008