By Mark Schilling
The Japanese box office top ten for 2004, as compiled by Pia magazine, had the expected Harry Potter and Lords of the Ring installment -- but the year just past was also a good one for Japanese films -- and one Hollywood film set in Japan. That last film, of course, was The Last Samurai -- and it headed the list, with 13.7 billion ($131.7 million) on 537 screens. By comparison, Harry Potter and Prisoner of Azkaban finished with Y13.5 billion ($129.8 billion), Finding Nemo, with Y11.0 billion ($105.8 million) and Lords of the Rings -- The Return of the King, with the same. Not shabby, but these films did relatively better in most other major foreign markets, indicating that Hollywood's dominance of the Japanese box office is eroding, if not ending.
The Last Samurai's success was due to, not only Cruise's star power (and his tireless wooing of the Japanese public in his local PR appearances for the film), but also to the decision by director Edward Zwick and his partners to give starring roles to Japanese talent, particularly Ken Watanabe, and leave a large chunk of the dialogue in Japanese. It will be interesting to see if Memoirs of a Geisha, which has taken an opposite tack (starring roles to Chinese actors, all English dialog), does as well in what should be its largest non-US market.
The highest grossing Japanese film, in the number five slot with Y8.4 billion ($80.8 million), was Isao Yukisada's Crying Out Love In the Centre of the World, a drama about a thirtysomething man's remembrance of -- and search for -- his lost teenage love that drove the ongoing boom for so-called "junai" (pure love) films and TV dramas. The only other Japanese movie to make the top ten: the latest Pokemon installment, Pocket Monsters Advanced Generation, which took Y4.3 billion ($41.4 million).
The top ten was rounded out by Spiderman 2 (Y6.5 billion or $62.5 million), Day After Tomorrow (Y5.2 billion or $50.0 million), Troy (Y4.2 billion or $40.4 million) and I, Robot (Y3.75 billion or $36.1 million).
Meanwhile, among so-called "mini-theatre" films in limited release the leader was Fahrenheit 911 with Y1.7 billion ($16.4 million) on 178 screens, for a screen average of $92,135. The film's comparable US figures were $119 million on 2,011 screens, for an average of $59,271. In other words, Michael Moore and his film were proportionally more popular in Japan where, after all, there are no red states. Alsoin the mini-theatre top five were The Passion of the Christ (Y1.34 billion or $12.9 million), Deep Blue (Y1.1 billion or $10.6 million) and Hirokazu Kore-eda's Nobody Knows (Y910 million or $8.75 million).
