Hollywood in decline?
By Mark Schilling
Who's afraid of big, bad Hollywood? Not the Japanese film industry any more.
"Hollywood films are in decline," Kazuo Kuroi, the fiesty president of Kadokawa
Pictures recently told Screen International. "They have less and less to say to Japanese
audiences today." Kuroi is putting his company's money where his mouth is: Together
with corporate partners Kadokawa recently launched a Y3.6 billion ($33 million) film
fund for underwriting a slate of nearly 30 films, including several that aim to go
head-to-head with Hollywood's best. One, The Big Goblin War, is a revival of a popular
1960s and 1970s genre of films about goblins and other spooks from Japanese folklore.
Think Harry Potter with a Japanese accent.
Another indication of Hollywood's loosening hold on its biggest overseas market:
Leading Japanese distributors like Shochiku and Gaga and even the local subsidiaries of
Hollywood majors are booking more films from Japan and other points East, less
middling Hollywood fare. "We used to buy American films in order of size, starting from
the top in terms of budget and working our way down," commented Shochiku
acquisitions manager Kaz Moriguchi. "Now we're looking more for films with something
unique, no matter where they come from." In other words, so long Steven Seagal, hello
Kim Kyu Hyun, whose Korean thriller Tube is a recent addition to the Shochiku line-up.
Does this mean that the Japan film industry will soon rejoin Korea's in grabbing back a
majority share of its market from the Hollywood grip? Probably not -- Japanese
moviegoers may have pushed the local weeper Crying Out for Love In the Centre of the
World toward the $100 million mark, but they bought even more tickets to Harry Potter 3,
which claimed nearly a fifth of the country's 2,800 screens.
