Every Monday/Tuesday I’m going to bring you the newest box office charts from the past weekend.
[Weekend of October 10 ~ October 11]
| Rank |
Last Week |
Movie | Week | |
| new | 01 | — | Kaiji (JP) - Amami Yuuki… |
1 |
| new | 02 | — | Fast & Furious (USA) | 1 |
| new | 03 | — | My Sister’s Keeper (USA) | 1 |
| new | 04 | — | The Hovering Blade (JP) - Sakai Miki… |
1 |
| new | 05 | — | Villon’s Wife (JP) - Matsu Takako, Kobayashi Asako, Hirosue Ryoko… |
1 |
 |
06 | 01 | 20th Century Boys 3: Redemption (JP) - Tokiwa Takako, Taira Airi… |
7 |
|
07 | 02 | Kamui (JP) - Koyuki, Ohgo Suzuka, Tsuchiya Anna |
4 |
|
08 | 03 | Ballad: Namonaki Koi no Uta (JP) - Aragaki Yui… |
6 |
| new | 09 | — | Listen to My Heart (JP) - Tokiwa Takako, Nakajima Tomoko… |
1 |
| new | 10 | — | Astro Boy (USA) | 1 |
(Fujiwara Tatsuya (l.) and Amami Yuuki in "Kaiji")
Wow, what an extended weekend (national holiday on Monday) in Japan. 20 new movies, 7 of them made it into the top 10 right away, 5 of them even into the top 5. The biggest winner was Kaiji, a collaboration of Toho and NTV that made over 360 million Yen (over 4 million USD) on its first weekend. The 2 billion they are aiming for might be reached sooner than expected. On 2nd place we have Fast & Furios which is being released under the odd yet funny title "Wild Speed MAX" in Japan. It’s expected to become much more successful than the previous "Tokyo Drift", especially with such a nice start. Cameron Diaz’ new movie "My Sister’s Keeper" had a nice start too and should be able to reach the 1 billion, too. Astro Boy had kind of a bad first weekend despite all the hype prior to the release. It seems like that it’s going to follow the footsteps of the other recent Hollywood productions based on Japanese anime/manga that failed at the Japanese box office rankings, such as "Speed Racer" and "Dragon Ball".
On a side note, Tokiwa Takako is twice in this week’s ranking, in a side role and in a starring role… Yay! ^_^
