Wednesday, June 2, 2010
S. KOREA: S. Korea's Governing Party Surprised by Election
Published: June 2, 2010
SEOUL, South Korea — President Lee Myung-bak’s governing party suffered a surprising setback in local elections that had been widely viewed as a referendum on Mr. Lee’s handling of the sinking of a South Korean warship, according to election results released on Thursday.
Related
Times Topic: The Cheonan (Ship)
Candidates of Mr. Lee’s Grand National Party had hoped that outrage in South Korea over the sinking of the Cheonan, which led to the death of 46 South Korean sailors, would help them ride a conservative wave to a sweeping victory. Mr. Lee’s government has formally accused North Korea of attacking the ship with a torpedo from a submarine.
“The election results were far less than we had expected and hoped for,” Cho Hae-jin, a spokesman for the governing party, told reporters.
The party’s chairman, Chung Mong-joon, an important ally of Mr. Lee, said he was stepping down over the poor results.
Pre-election surveys showed that a majority of South Koreans blamed North Korea for the warship’s sinking, which the government characterized as the worst North Korean military provocation since the end of the Korean War. Many political analysts said that the president’s party, whose candidates had at one point faced tight races in some districts, appeared poised to sweep the most important races.
But the president’s party won only 6 of 16 crucial races to elect mayors and governors in big cities and provinces in the voting on Wednesday. Its main rival, the opposition Democratic Party, won seven races. The remaining three races were won by independents and a candidate from a small opposition party.
The mayor of Seoul, Oh Se-hoon, who is a member of Mr. Lee’s party, won re-election by a razor-thin margin. But in a hotly contested mayoral race in Incheon, a large port city west of Seoul, the opposition candidate, Song Young-gil, a vocal critic of Mr. Lee, won an unexpected victory. The ship’s sinking was an especially significant election issue there, because the ship went down in waters in Incheon’s jurisdiction.
Nationwide, about 9,900 candidates campaigned for 3,991 posts, including contests for mayor in small cities, as well as members of city councils and education chiefs. Opposition parties cast the balloting as a mid-term gauge of public support for Mr. Lee’s performance in general, his policies toward North Korea and his handling of the crisis over the sinking of the ship.
The voter turnout, 54.5 percent, was the highest for local elections in 15 years.
During the campaign, opposition politicians contended that Mr. Lee’s hard-line approach to North Korea, which ended a decade of improving ties with the reclusive and impoverished North, had helped provoke the North to lash out in an attack.
“This is the people’s verdict on Lee Myung-bak’s arrogance,” said Woo Sang-ho, a spokesman for the Democratic Party.
Chung Se-kyun, the leader of the Democratic Party, said the election results indicated that Mr. Lee should “abandon his confrontational policy on North Korea and ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula.”
A version of this article appeared in print on June 3, 2010, on page A9 of the New York edition.
SHANGHAI, CHINA: World Cup adds a kick to Expo
CHINA: China says no thanks to visit from U.S. defense chief
Thursday, June 3, 2010; A08
By Craig Whitlock
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates departed for Asia on Wednesday but had to drop a big country from his itinerary after China, still smarting over U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, gave him the cold shoulder.
Gates had been hoping for months to visit Beijing this summer, a destination that took on added importance at the Pentagon after North Korea -- which sees China as its closest ally and diplomatic protector -- was accused last month of sinking a South Korean warship with a torpedo, killing 46 sailors.
Aides to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had confidently predicted that Gates would be able to go to Beijing after meetings she held there last month.
"I think you will see one of the take-aways over the course of the next couple of weeks, that suddenly Chinese friends might have time for Secretary Gates's visit," an official told reporters as Clinton flew back to Washington.
But Beijing declined to extend an invitation. Pentagon officials said no specific reason was given. But they said they assumed China was still annoyed by the Obama administration's announcement in January that it would approve $6.4 billion in arms sales to Taiwan.
Although U.S. arms sales to Taiwan are hardly new, they are considered a long-standing policy irritant by Beijing, which considers Taiwan a breakaway province. Beijing suspended military-to-military exchanges with Washington in 2007 after the Bush administration approved a separate set of arms sales to Taiwan.
Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said Gates was frustrated by the Chinese response in both cases.
"He just doesn't believe that a relationship of this importance can exist in fits and starts," Morrell said. "It can't be derailed by bumps in the road that will inevitably come up."
China has cooled its military relationship with the Pentagon since January but has not cut ties entirely. Last month, Adm. Robert Willard, the commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, met Chinese counterparts in Beijing when he joined the delegation headed by Clinton.
The first stop on Gates's trip will be Singapore, where he will attend a regional security conference. Then he will travel to Baku, Azerbaijan, to try to fortify U.S. military supply routes to Afghanistan, many of which cross Central Asia. He will visit London to meet with leaders in the new British government, then stop in Brussels for talks with NATO allies.
JAPAN: Possible successors to Japan PM Hatoyama
Calls had built up in Hatoyama's Democratic Party for him to step down to revive the party's fortunes before an election for the upper house of parliament expected on July 11 that it must win to smooth policymaking.
Voter perceptions that Hatoyama has mishandled a row over the relocation of a U.S. airbase and lacks the ability to make tough decisions have slashed his support ratings to around 20 percent from above 70 percent when he first took office last September.
The following are possible successors and what they could mean for policy:
NAOTO KAN, 63
Finance Minister Kan, who doubles as deputy prime minister, is widely tipped as the likely successor. He has long been a senior figure in the party, having worked with Hatoyama and kingpin Ichiro Ozawa as the Democrats' top "troika".
Kan has in the past pressed the central bank to do more to fight deflation and has sounded more positive than Hatoyama about raising the 5 percent sales tax in the future to fund bulging social welfare costs.
Kan, who made his name battling bureaucrats when he was health minister, lacks deep expertise on budget and tax issues but his clout within the party could put him in a better position than others in attracting party support for smoother policy-making. But his sometimes abrasive personality could make it difficult to forge party consensus, critics say.
SEIJI MAEHARA, 48
Infrastructure and Transport Minister Maehara is a conservative security policy expert who has served as party leader and is hands-on with policies. Public approval for his stint in the cabinet has put him as number two on voters' lists of popular politicians.
Although known more for his views on diplomacy and defense than the economy, Maehara has advocated streamlining public works projects and has studied at a school for political leaders that embraces free-market economic policies.
Maehara, who had to step down as party leader in 2006 for backing what turned out to be unproved allegations against the then ruling party, may lack clout to marshal the Democrats.
KATSUYA OKADA, 56
Foreign Minister Okada, the son of a supermarket magnate and who enjoys a clean image, also once served as party leader and is more open than Hatoyama to raising the 5 percent consumption tax.
When he ran against Hatoyama for party leader last year, Okada said he wanted to discuss how to tackle fiscal reform, including an increase in the consumption tax, while Hatoyama said the debate should be abandoned for now.
Okada is known for a stubborn streak and his strong interest in environment policies, and he crafted the party's ambitious pledge for a 25 percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 from 1990 levels.
YOSHITO SENGOKU, 64
Sengoku, the national strategy minister, has stressed the need for fiscal restraint and has openly called for debate on raising the consumption tax.
Despite being a former member of the now defunct Socialist Party, he supports free-market policies, having criticized recent proposals by the banking minister that could lead to the postal system's banking service hurting business for regional lenders.
He has never held the party's top post.
KAZUHIRO HARAGUCHI, 50
Internal Affairs Minister Haraguchi, a frequent guest on TV talk shows, has indicated that he is against debating an increase in the consumption tax before reviving the economy.
Haraguchi also studied at the same political leadership school as Maehara that embraces free-market policies and is known for his calls to shift policy responsibilities away from the central government and more to regions.
He lacks clout within the party, although he could be popular with voters for his fresh image. Like Sengoku, he has never held the party's leadership post before.
YOSHIHIKO NODA, 53
The deputy finance minister favours fiscal discipline and has spoken in support of Finance Minister Kan's call to cap new bond issuance for next fiscal year's budget.
Noda, who has been mostly in charge of international finance, has also said that Greece's debt problems are a sign that Japan needs to lower its debt.
He has yet to serve as a party leader, though he has served as the head of parliamentary affairs, giving him experience in tough negotiations.
(Reporting by Chisa Fujioka and Yoko Kubota; Editing by Chris Gallagher)
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
JAPAN: Japan's "revolving door" prime ministers
(Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said on Wednesday he would resign after just eight months in office after a slide in the polls threatened his party's chances in an election expected next month.
The ruling Democratic Party will choose a new leader on Friday, but analysts say a change at the top may fail to impress voters fed up with prime ministers leaving office one after another.
Hatoyama is Japan's fourth prime minister in as many years.
The following is a chronology of Hatoyama's recent predecessors:
YOSHIRO MORI (April 2000-April 2001)
Mori, a political veteran but a policy novice, was picked by four barons in the then-ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in a backroom deal to replace Keizo Obuchi, who died of a stroke.
His limp public support vanished after a string of verbal gaffes and scandals, prompting party lawmakers to call for his resignation before an upper house election. Mori brought forward a party leadership election to pick his replacement.
JUNICHIRO KOIZUMI (April 2001-Sept 2006)
Dubbed a maverick for his outspoken ways, Koizumi appealed to the public with calls for reform and won resounding support from rank-and-file party members afraid the LDP was headed for a thrashing in an upper house election.
His rock star-like popularity helped him become Japan's third-longest serving postwar leader. Koizumi served out his term after leading the LDP to a huge win in a 2005 election he called a referendum on his pet project to privatize the postal system.
SHINZO ABE (Sept 2006-Sept 2007)
Abe was initially popular with voters for his fresh image as Japan's first prime minister born after World War Two and his tough stance on North Korea, but his ratings soon crumbled on gaffes and scandals in his cabinet.
Voter anger over lost pension records and perceptions that he was out of touch with ordinary people on economic policies led to a big defeat for the LDP in an upper house election in 2007. Abe quit abruptly two months later, citing health reasons.
YASUO FUKUDA (Sept 2007-Sept 2008)
Fukuda won support from rank-and-file LDP members who sought political stability after Abe, but he struggled to make headway on policies as opposition parties used their majority in the upper house to stall legislation.
An attempt to form a "grand coalition" with the Democratic Party -- then the main opposition party -- flopped. Resisting calls from the opposition to call a snap election, Fukuda resigned suddenly after less than a year in office.
TARO ASO (Sept 2008-Sept 2009)
A conservative and a fan of manga comic books, Aso was chosen by the LDP to boost the party's election chances but he too saw his ratings evaporate as policies stalled in parliament and the economy took a hit from the global financial crisis.
LDP lawmakers called for his resignation but with no obvious successor he clung to his job. Aso stepped down after the LDP lost a general election to Hatoyama's Democratic Party, ending more than 50 years of almost unbroken rule.
(Reporting by Chisa Fujioka, editing by Miral Fahmy and Michael Watson)
JAPAN: Breaking News
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama announces live on Japanese TV that he will step down after about eight months in office.
JAPAN: Japanese Contract Marriage in The Airport
VLADIVOSTOK, June 1, vladivostoktimes.com
Tokyo International Airport Narita starts wedding ceremonies. The first ceremony was held on June 1 in the presence of surprised passengers. But first the bride and groom roles were performed by the professional actors, as Rosbalt agency reports.
Wedding ceremonies in the biggest Japanese international airport will be held once a week on weekends or holidays. The ceremony costs 400 thousand yens (about $4.5 thousand).
The wedding story includes the fact that people from different countries who are in Narita airport by coincidence at this time will witness the ceremony.
For several years the wedding ceremonies in hotels near Narita airport have been very popular in Japan. Usually new married board the place and go travel right after the wedding ceremony.
JAPAN: Sumo Mired In Grime, And Not From the Ring
- Sumo stable master Kise leaves Ryogoku-Kokugikan hall after attending a board meeting of the Japan Sumo Association. AFP/Getty Images
June 1, 2010, 3:42 PM JST
Sumo may be struggling to attract fans to its tournaments, but it’s having no trouble getting attention from Japan’s tabloid media and police.
In the latest airing of massively oversized dirty laundry, police say a Tokyo stable master gave ringside tickets to high-ranking gangsters, according to Kyodo news.
According to police, Kyodo says, the mobsters wanted the tickets so they could be seen on TV by their underlings and associates—in prison. Among the gangsters hoping for a moment in the limelight was Kenichi Shinoda, boss of Japan’s biggest crime syndicate, the Yamaguchi Gumi, police said. As a result of the episode, 40-year-old stablemaster Kise–real name Naoto Sakamoto—was forced to resign. His 27 wrestlers will be absorbed into another stable.
The affair followed allegations just days earlier that one of sumo’s highest-ranking wrestlers, 34-year-old Kotomitsuki, may have been blackmailed over gambling on professional baseball. The weekly magazine Shukan Shincho – known for its lurid coverage of showbiz and sports — claimed May 20 that Kotomitsuki, who holds the second-highest rank of ozeki, paid gangsters 100 million yen in hush money over the gambling. After the article appeared, police moved in to question Kotomitsuki, his and several other stable masters, all of whom denied the report .
The two incidents heaped more grime onto sumo’s image, which was already well caked in the stuff after a series of unsavory incidents culminating in the forced retirement of grand champion Asashoryu in February after he reportedly punched a man outside a Tokyo nightclub. That incident attracted blanket coverage in Japan–people may less interested in buying tickets to see sumo these days, but they’re still happy to pay to read about it.
CHINA & JAPAN: China, Japan launch Asian eBay rival
Tue Jun 1, 8:21 am ET
TOKYO (AFP) – China's largest retail website Taobao and Yahoo! Japan launched a joint service Tuesday in a deal expected to create the world's biggest online marketplace by harnessing Asia's surging ranks of e-consumers.
The service is expected to dwarf US rival eBay in terms of users and products on offer, attracting 250 million customers and offering 450 million products.
"This marks the birth of the world's largest e-commerce market," Masayoshi Son, chairman of Yahoo! Japan and CEO of mobile phone carrier Softbank, told a packed hall in a Tokyo hotel.
Online stores on Taobao will be able to offer products from China to Japanese consumers at Yahoo! Japan's China Mall, the companies said.
The new services will allow Internet users in both countries to buy and sell using systems and procedures that are familiar to them in their native languages, one of the biggest hurdles to doing business in either country.
The combined number of users on the new service is expected to eclipse the 90 million active users at US online marketplace eBay, which last year sold goods valued at 60 billion dollars.
Son is banking on Asia's exploding number of Internet users which he expects will account for 50 percent of the web in five years, compared to just 19 percent a decade ago.
He added that he expects the number of American users to fall to 12 percent of the global share.
Taobao is a subsidiary of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group. Both SoftBank and US Internet company Yahoo! are shareholders in Alibaba.
Alibaba Group's Hong Kong-listed subsidiary Alibaba.com already has a joint venture with SoftBank called Alibaba.com Japan.
The cooperation with Yahoo! Japan is the latest effort by the Alibaba Group to expand in overseas markets.
Last month, its wholesale website Alibaba.com announced a new platform, AliExpress, allowing payments from users of US online payment service PayPal.
Online shopping in China has boomed in recent years, as the nation's more than 400 million Internet users -- the world's biggest online population -- become increasingly web-savvy.
Baidu, China's top search engine in terms of market share, said in January it would set up a joint venture with Japanese retail website Rakuten to launch a shopping mall targeting domestic web users in the second half of 2010.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
JAPAN: Eyewitness Kamikaze
At the end of World War II, the Japanese attempted to avoid defeat by deploying a terrible new strategy of mass suicide attacks. Japanese pilots hit more than 150 allied ships and killed more than four thousand sailors. For the young crewmen facing the almost daily onslaught of kamikaze attacks, it was an experience they would never forget. Hear the stories by the survivors themselves.
Look to the sky
A British warship suffers a direct hit from a kamikaze plane.
Under Attack
The USS Laffey comes under attack.
CHINA, JAPAN & THE KOREAS: S.Korea, Japan fail to persuade China to censure N.Korea
Sun May 30, 3:50 pm ET
By Jun Kwanwoo
SEOGWIPO, South Korea (AFP) – China resisted pressure Sunday from South Korea and Japan to censure North Korea publicly for the sinking of a warship, calling only for regional tensions over the incident to be defused.
Host President Lee Myung-Bak and Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama teamed up at the two-day summit to nudge China's Premier Wen Jiabao to declare Pyongyang responsible for the March sinking of the South Korean corvette.
But Wen gave no sign that China is ready to back United Nations Security Council action against its ally over the sinking, which cost 46 lives.
"The urgent task now is to defuse the impact of the Cheonan incident, change the tense situation and avoid clashes," Wen told a joint press conference on the southern resort island of Jeju.
"China will actively communicate with relevant parties and lead the situation to help promote peace and stability in the region, which fits our common and long-term interests best."
South Korea announced reprisals including a trade cut-off after international investigators reported on May 20 that a North Korean submarine fired a heavy torpedo to sink the Cheonan.
The North denies involvement and has responded to the reprisals with threats of war.
In Pyongyang on Sunday, 100,000 North Koreans held a rally accusing Seoul of heightening cross-border tensions over the sinking, according to the North's state broadcasting network monitored by Yonhap news agency.
Wen, whose country is the North's economic lifeline, has been cautious since arriving in South Korea Friday.
At a meeting with Lee that day he said Beijing would, before determining its position, review the results of the international investigation into the Cheonan's sinking but would not protect whoever was responsible.
Lee said in Jeju that he expected "wise co-operation" from neighbouring countries in handling the disaster.
According to his senior spokesman Lee Dong-Kwan, Lee also told the summit: "We are not afraid of war, but we do not want war either. We have no intention to go to war."
Hatoyama, whose government Friday announced new sanctions against the North, said the three leaders agreed that "this is a serious issue related to peace and stability in Northeast Asia".
South Korea, at least in public, appeared fairly satisfied with the outcome of the Jeju summit.
"The inclusion of those remarks on the Cheonan in the joint press announcement in itself has significance," Lee's spokesman said.
But Paik Haksoon, of the Sejong Institute think-tank, said Wen's comments "indicate that China is still questioning the authenticity and authority of the investigation."
"There would be no point in taking this issue to the UN Security Council without securing support from China in advance," Paik told AFP.
Numerous countries have condemned the North for the sinking, one of the worst military attacks on the South since the 1950-53 war.
The North says Seoul faked evidence to incite tensions and boost its support before local elections this week.
South Korea, the United States and Japan need the support of veto-wielding member China to sanction -- or, at least, to censure -- the North at the Security Council.
Admiral Michael Mullen, the top US military officer, said later Sunday he was concerned about a possible North Korean "follow-on" to the torpedo attack on the Cheonan.
The South's reprisals include preparations to resume cross-border loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts. The North has threatened to shell the loudspeakers if the broadcasts go ahead.
The North has cut all ties with the South, scrapped pacts aimed at averting accidental flare-ups along their disputed sea border and vowed to attack any intruding ships.
It has threatened to shut down a jointly run industrial park at Kaesong, the last reconciliation project still operating.
The South plans to send a letter to the chairman of the UN Security Council this week, an unidentified official told Yonhap news agency.
Japan's Hatoyama had promised to fully support Seoul when the case is referred to the council, his spokesman told AFP.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
CHINA: 'Karate Kid' update breaks down some Chinese walls
May 30, 2010
By John Horn, Los Angeles Times
The biggest modern movie co-production between a U.S. studio and China had access to spectacular locations under censors' watchful eye.
For years, Sony Pictures considered—and then decided against—updating "The Karate Kid," its beloved 1984 family film about a browbeaten kid (Ralph Macchio) with a single mom and the enigmatic martial arts coach (Noriyuki "Pat" Morita) who teaches the boy how to believe in himself, catch a fly with chopsticks and kick some bully butt along the way.
Sony had pretty much beaten the franchise into submission, with the third sequel, 1994's "The Next Karate Kid" featuring 19-year-old Hilary Swank, marking the series' commercial and critical tap-out (a domestic gross of just $8.9 million, a Rotten Tomatoes score of a mere 6% positive).
Even though almost every studio was rebooting long-dormant franchises with mixed results — " Superman Returns," "AVP: Alien vs. Predator," "Star Trek," among the disinterred titles — Sony didn't want to make another "Karate Kid" movie just because the title was lying fallow.
"This is a valuable property," says Doug Belgrad, president of Sony's Columbia Pictures, recalling his thinking at the time. "We better have the right idea, or it's not worth doing."
So even when Overbrook Entertainment, the production company for Sony's biggest star, Will Smith, pitched Sony on a "Karate Kid" remake featuring Smith's 11-year-old, martial-arts-obsessed son (and his costar in "The Pursuit of Happyness"), Jaden, in the Macchio role, the studio demurred. Finally, just as Beijing was about to host 2008's Summer Olympics, Overbrook altered its pitch: What if the new version were set in China?
With more than 1.3 billion residents, China is both the world's most populous nation and one of Hollywood's biggest challenges, with borders to entry almost as tall as the Great Wall. China can be one of the biggest-grossing countries outside of the United States for certain films, even though DVD piracy is rampant and there aren't a lot of theaters; "Avatar" grossed the local currency equivalent of $195 million, the most of any nation beyond American borders.
Paramount's "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" and Sony's "2012" (in which Chinese ark builders help save the planet) were also huge hits in the country, and business is booming for Chinese movies too, such as John Woo's historical epic "Red Cliff." Total Chinese box-office returns surged more than 40% to more than $900 million in 2009.
If Sony made "Karate Kid" with a Chinese partner, it could be a part of that Asian gold rush, but the deal would come with some foreseeable obstacles, including possible government censorship.
Belgrad didn't think long before giving his answer. "That was enough to say yes," says Belgrad, who had long been fascinated by the country and had developed a "Sinbad" movie that would be set there. "It's a fascinating place."
The "Karate Kid" decision not only launched the biggest modern movie co-production between an American studio and China, but also opened up the film to government-mandated creative controls that ultimately yielded two slightly different movies, as Chinese censors asked that several scenes, including sequences of bullying and a kiss between two young characters, be trimmed. The geographic move also launched an internal debate about changing the film's name to "The Kung Fu Kid," as karate is a Japanese fighting style.
Although the production, which puts action star Jackie Chan in the Morita role and opens in domestic theaters on June 11 (arriving in China several weeks later), was granted vital access to an array of spectacular Chinese locations — the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, Wudang Mountain — the filmmakers also had to negotiate sometimes byzantine permitting rules and parley with residents who weren't used to having a movie crew descend on their streets.
Try to film a movie in Brentwood, and the locals will grudgingly get out of the way. Do the same outside of Beijing and the rules are different.
"The people run the country," says James Lassiter, who is Overbrook's president and serves as a "Karate Kid" producer. "So if people didn't want you shooting in their neighborhood, there's no authority that can tell them they have to. That's why it's called the People's Republic of China."
The filmmakers, who hired a number of Chinese crew members, say the production inconveniences were minor and the creative conversations with partner China Film Group Corp. easily resolved. As part of Sony's deal with China Film, the government-run movie company invested about $5 million in the film's approximate $40-million budget, retaining "Karate Kid's" distribution rights in China and some ancillary rights in a few Asian territories.
The film's director, Harald Zwart ("Agent Cody Banks," "The Pink Panther 2"), says that he never felt there was government pressure to steer the movie in a certain political direction, even though "Karate Kid" depicted working-class communities around Beijing as a little bit ramshackle.
"There was never any question of don't show this and don't show that," Zwart says, adding that the creative conversations with China Film were "very cooperative" with a lot of "back and forth."
Zwart personally made the edits for the Chinese version, clipping the chaste smooch between Smith's Dre Parker and his girlfriend, Mei Ying (Wenwen Han).
"I am not going to be an expert on what works in China," Zwart says. "But I think the Chinese version is a beautiful movie."
For all the growth in China's movie business, the country only allows 20 non-Chinese movies into the country's theaters every year, and the government dictates the distribution terms, which return only about 13% of a film's ticket sales to its makers (the revenue share is closer to a 50-50 split in North American theaters).
To get around those draconian limits, some studios have tried making local-language productions, movies in Cantonese and Mandarin, rather than simply relying on exporting their movies from the United States. Disney has launched a Chinese "High School Musical," while 20th Century Fox made the successful Chinese romantic comedy "Hot Summer Days." Neither project will likely travel outside of Asia, as their modest budgets don't require them to be global releases.
At the same time, China is reaching out to American producers, and China Film's Han San Ping has traveled to Hollywood to develop business.
"On every front, China is trying to globalize and internationalize itself," says China expert Orville Schell, who has written extensively about the region, including the book "Virtual Tibet: Searching for Shangri-La From the Himalayas to Hollywood."
He says U.S. movie studios, like global pop culture consumers, increasingly are drawn to the region.
"It's a go-to spot that has a lot of cachet," Schell says.
The "Karate Kid" deal follows a different model, where an American studio and a Chinese, government-run movie arm collaborate on a production.
"The access was key," Belgrad says. "We had an unprecedented amount of production value by shooting there."
While the financial and location benefits can be material, so too can questions of interference. The American makers of 2006's "The Painted Veil," which filmed all over China, said their Chinese production and finance partners asked that several of the film's sequences about the Chinese Revolution and the country's cholera victims be redacted.
By setting "The Karate Kid" in modern-day China, the filmmakers were able to magnify the original film's fish-out-of-water plot (in the first film, Macchio plays a New Jersey teen who relocates with his single mother to Los Angeles). In the new story, Smith's Dre and his mother ( Taraji P. Henson) leave Detroit for Beijing when she changes jobs. Soon after arriving, Dre is confronted by a band of local bullies led by a thug named Cheng (Zhenwei Wang).
Lassister says that while China Film was worried about the film's depiction of bullying, they were able to reach a common ground.
"We talked about the necessity of the fighting, and the level of the violence," he says. "I understand their point of view. But we portray both good and bad Chinese; it's not that they are all bad."
Determined to fight back, Dre enlists Mr. Han (Chan), a mysterious maintenance man who teaches Dre the Chinese martial art of kung fu. (There's really no karate in the film, and Sony wrestled with changing the title to "Kung Fu Kid," but the original film's producer, Jerry Weintraub, nixed the idea.) In following the trajectory of the first film, Dre in the new "Karate Kid" spends more and more time with Mr. Han, who ultimately becomes the boy's surrogate father. Jaden Smith trained for four months before production commenced to perfect his fighting, studying under Wu Gang, Chan's stunt coordinator.
"It's great, and it's fun — but it's very hard work," Smith told The Times earlier this year.
Sony privately says "The Karate Kid" is among the studio's highest-testing movies ever, and it looks ready to open strongly opposite another movie filled with a lot of fighting, 20th Century Fox's "The A-Team," both here and abroad.
Equally important, the production has shown Sony and Overbrook that filming in China can be a rewarding experience, even factoring in some of the obstacles. But don't look for an American studio to propose making a film about the Dalai Lama or 1989's Tiananmen Square protests in China — the country may love light, entertaining fare such as "The Karate Kid," but it is far less interested in examining the more complicated aspects of its own history.
"If you're going to get into something political," Schell says, "China is not your destination of choice."
But Overbrook and Sony are ready to go back. Says Lassiter:
"It was a fantastic experience. And it helps with our overall objective to become a global film production company."
Times staff writer Susan King contributed to this report.
Related
Jaden Smith shows acting chops in ‘Karate Kid’ remake
Original 'Karate Kid' screenwriter says fans wonder 'Why are you remaking this classic?'
Friday, May 28, 2010
CHINA: Photo of the Week: “The Master at His Desk”
While traveling in southwest China, Emyr Pugh shot this picture of a master calligrapher in the village of Tunjiao, the grand prize winner in the World in Focus Photo Contest. Master Weng—a retired literature teacher—was preparing to write a traditional blessing.
"His desk was pushed up against a large window overlooking the main street of Tunjiao," Pugh says. "A wall across the street reflected light into his studio."
Using a collapsed tripod as a monopod, Pugh moved about to shoot from different angles. He says his work as a translator and interpreter in Inner Mongolia has opened doors to him.
"Communication is part of what I hope to achieve with photography. Being able to communicate one-on-one gives me the chance to photograph many people I couldn't approach otherwise."
Pugh won a ten-day safari for on in Tanzania, courtesy National Geographic Expeditions.
Click here to see a photo gallery of all the winning images.
JAPAN: Day of the Kamikaze
Trace the origins of kamikaze battle, and relive two days of horror in 1945, when the Japanese launched "Operation Heaven" against the allied fleet in the Pacific. This award-winning documentary details the biggest and bloodiest suicide attack in history, with unforgettable footage and eyewitness accounts.
Attack on USS Bunker Hill
The USS Bunker Hill experiences an entirely new kind of war. Without warning, two suicide bombers dive straight into the carrier, causing chaos and death.
Battle of Okinawa
On April 6th, 1945, waves of kamikaze planes attack at Okinawa.
Day of the Kamikaze
Veterans called it, "enemy attrition at the lowest possible cost, without regard to human life." Entire squadrons of Japanese kamikaze pilots flew straight to their death - taking their enemies with them.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
CHINA: China's Forbidden City
In the heart of Beijing lies the largest palace in the world, The Forbidden City. For five hundred years, it served as the home of the almighty Emperors of China along with their wives, concubines, and entourages of tens of thousands of eunuchs and civil servants. But the Forbidden City is more than an imperial residence; it is the center of the universe, a unique complex of structures revealing a hierarchy of power both imperial and divine.
The Center of the World, Part 1
Explore the origins of the Forbidden City, the savage and self-appointed emperor of the Ming Dynasty who ordered its construction, and the architect whose cosmic vision brought ritualistic significance to every detail. The greatest palace ever built was constructed with miraculous speed but harbored fatal flaws and became marked by a devastating fire that foreshadowed the city's ultimate fate-and that of the Ming Dynasty.
Forbidden City: The Creation
An Emperor’s grand vision leads to the creation of the Forbidden City.
Still So Many Secrets
Craftsman still use traditional methods to maintain the Forbidden City. Many of these methods are still closely guarded secrets.
JAPAN: Frank Lloyd Wright's Japan
By LUCY BIRMINGHAM
For Frank Lloyd Wright, Japan was a muse and possibly a savior.
The architect's love of ukiyo-e woodblock prints is well-known. But his 1917-22 residence in Japan, where commissions such as the Imperial Hotel helped revive his flagging career, is not so widely documented. Nor is his huge influence upon generations of Japanese architects.
So a tour of Wright's Japan—the place where he regained a foothold on the way to becoming "the greatest American architect of all time" (according to an American Institute of Architects survey)—offers fascinating insight into this eccentric genius.
Wright's 1890s Prairie Style homes sparked the first revolution in architecture since the Renaissance, and marked the architect's first golden age. He would go on to design several iconic American buildings—from the 1936 Fallingwater house in Pennsylvania to the spiraling Guggenheim Museum in New York City in 1959. But at the time he arrived in Japan in 1917, the then-50-year-old was a former wunderkind, dragged down by a scandalous affair and tragedy.
His obsession with Japanese prints began before that, in the 1890s. An art form that dates back to the mid-1600s, ukiyo-e or "pictures of the floating world" include images of fashionable courtesans, Kabuki stars, landscapes and everyday life with architectural exteriors and interiors of the day. Wright's collection ultimately became the key to his financial survival—he used the prints as a struggling heir might use the family jewels, to settle his debts in difficult times; he always bought more when he was flush. After his death in 1959, they helped provide the $750,000 his Taliesin Foundation owed the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. But while he called them his "king's ransom," the prints were more important for the inspiration their beauty—and geometry—provided.
"I remember when I first met Japanese prints, I'll never forget it," Wright once said in a filmed interview. "Japanese art had a great influence on my feeling and thinking."
Wright's first encounter with Japanese architecture was probably the country's pavilion at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. A wooden copy of the Byodo-in Temple in Uji on the outskirts of Kyoto, it was built by carpenters from Okura & Co., which 20 years later would finance and build Wright's Imperial Hotel. Baron Kihachiro Okura, head of the firm, became one of the architect's staunchest supporters, despite mounting criticism as construction costs for the hotel climbed to an extraordinary $3 million.
"The reason why everyone says Wright was so influenced by Japan—and scholars have been arguing this for nearly a century—is because so many aspects of his philosophy of 'organic architecture' are also characteristics of Japanese traditional architecture," says filmmaker and Wright scholar Karen Severns.
Wright favored natural, local materials, warm earth tones, human scale and integration of interior and exterior, all of which fit with Japanese tradition. He "borrowed landscape," using windows or doorways like picture frames—a concept the Japanese call shakkei. Even his fascination with geometric shapes is in keeping with the rectangular straw tatami mat, the base of Japan's traditional architecture.
But his open plans, where space flows from room to room, are completely outside Japanese tradition.
"Wright fused East and West. And he loved the element of surprise," says Ms. Severns. "You'd go down a corridor with a low ceiling and then come out into an open expanse and, 'Oh, wow!' you'd say. That's something you don't often get in a Japanese building. He had this mastery of space."
Among Wright's 14 designs for Japan, six were built. Of those, Jiyu Gakuen Myonichikan, a 1921 building in Tokyo, and the Tazaemon Yamamura House (1918-24) near Kobe remain standing. His Imperial Hotel was demolished in 1967, but the main lobby exterior and interior was transported to Meiji Mura, an architecture theme park near Nagoya, and the Old Imperial Bar in the current Imperial Hotel retains some of the architect's original design.
Many more structures throughout Japan were designed by Wright's apprentices and followers, both Japanese and foreign. In central Tokyo alone are 26 buildings directly related to Wright, though most are not open to the public.
Ms. Severns and her partner Koichi Mori offer tailor-made Frank Lloyd Wright tours in Japan through their company KiSMet Productions.
I took a two-day tour that began at the intriguing Jiyu Gakuen Myonichikan—"myonichikan" meaning "house of tomorrow" and Jiyu Gakuen ("School of Free Spirit") being a progressive school for girls founded by Motoko and Yoshikazu Hani. The Hanis met Wright through Arata Endo, chief draftsman for the Imperial Hotel, who shared credit on the school design with Wright—a first for the American. Endo became his devoted collaborator and, after Wright left in 1922, his lifeline to Japan.
Designed on a strict budget, Jiyu Gakuen features Wright's trademark low-rise symmetry, clean, minimalist lines and simple, elegant adornment. Walk through the main entrance down a low-ceilinged corridor dimly lit with natural light and step up a brief flight of stairs into the split-level dining room, a breathtaking expanse of open space. Windows flooding the rooms with light are decorated with geometric shapes. Wright and Endo's chair and table designs, sized for children, sit in the room, and their sculptural pendant lights hang from the remarkable "ship's-hull ceiling."
The porous volcanic oya stone used in the fireplace was a favorite material for Wright, figuring in all his Japan structures, but it was a controversial choice—and as feared, it is crumbling with time. The school was registered as an Important Cultural Property in 1997—after a long battle—and then restored over three years.
In the tiny shopping district of Ginza there are structures designed by three of Wright's many followers. Our first stop was the Sapporo Beer Co.'s Lion Beer Hall—a virtual temple to beer—where we bravely nibbled a lunch of German-inspired sausages, washed down with generous mugs of yes, Sapporo beer.
Designed by Eizo Sugawara in 1934 with elements of Gothic, Art Deco and Wright homage, it miraculously survived devastating earthquakes and World War II bombings. Orb chandeliers, emerald green tiles, a Gothic ceiling and colorful glass mosaics—including the 30,000-piece wheat-harvest scene with its bare-breasted peasants above the bar—made our visit akin to a Wrightian communion.
"Most everything is original, even the floors," says Ms. Severns. "In Japan, this is something to be treasured."
A few blocks away, ready for more blessed sightings, we viewed the Christian Literature Society and the American Bible Society, two connected buildings designed in 1926 by Czech architect Antonin Raymond (1888-1976). The boxy '30s-style concrete modernist structures are remarkable mainly because they haven't been torn down and replaced—the real estate beneath them is some of the most valuable on the planet. Some small gems remain within—Raymond's office, for instance—but it's the story of the architect and his artist wife, Noemi, that's most intriguing.
"The Raymonds helped pioneer modern architecture and interior design in Japan," explains Ms. Severns.
The couple came to Japan with Wright to work on the Imperial Hotel, but left the project after one year. Raymond went on to create a highly successful practice in Tokyo, Raymond Architectural Design Office, which continues to operate. He moved toward the modernist style, slowly paring away Wright-style beautification and ornamentation.
Just five minutes away by foot, the Miharabashi Center Building was designed in 1952 by another Wright apprentice, Kameki Tsuchiura (1897-1996). Sadly, this crumbling modernist survivor appears destined for the wrecking ball. Designed like an ocean liner (a favorite architectural conceit of the '30s—and of Wright) with a hull-like underground arcade, it straddles a major Ginza roadway. The aboveground sections are topped like the bow and stern of a ship with delightful Wrightian details.
At the Imperial Hotel, a 10-minute walk away, we quickly settled into comfy leather chairs and basked in the 1920s Art Deco mood of the Wright-designed Old Imperial Bar. It was once known as the gentlemen's bar, and fine malt whiskeys and cigars are still the fashionable choice.
Wright elements from the 1923 hotel, such as a section of mural with flecks of gold leaf and terra-cotta tile grillwork with lighting that casts a soft yellow light behind the bar, quietly illuminate the hotel's glorious past.
More of this past has thankfully been preserved at Meiji Mura, about an hour outside Nagoya (three hours from Tokyo). The hotel's exterior does not disappoint. It is Wright's classic symmetry, embellished with original "scratch tile" (a relief tile Wright created with local tilemakers) and oya stone carved into magnificent Mayan-like forms. The reflecting pool, however serene, still ripples with the memories of the Great Kanto Earthquake that struck Tokyo at 11:58 a.m. on Sept. 1, 1923, as guests gathered for the hotel's grand opening. The quake destroyed most of the city, but the hotel withstood the shock, and then survived the fires that followed thanks to the water in the pool. All inside survived and the hotel became a refuge. Wright was celebrated for his magnificent earthquake-conscious design.
Onward to our last stop, two hours by train from Nagoya: Yamamura House (now the Yodoko Guest House) at the foot of the Rokko mountain range in Ashiya near Kobe. Endo again shared credit with Wright for the design. With breathtaking views, and representing the best of Wright's distinctive charm and sustainable "organic architecture," it was saved as an Important Cultural Property in 1974.
While Wright's legacy has continued to influence generations of Japanese architects (Kengo Kuma is one recent example), he also inspired those who lived in his homes.
American Stephanie Tansey resided in the Yamamura House from 1956 to 1967, starting when she was 6. Growing up in the house "helped make me who I am today," she wrote by email from Beijing. Ms. Tansey has worked for years with the Earth Charter Initiative, which seeks to build peaceful and sustainable communities.
"Living [there] enabled me to know what 'real' is," she explained. "I learned what it means to live in sustainable harmony with nature."
—Lucy Birmingham is a writer based in Tokyo.Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page W16
Trip Planner
Tours
Wright scholars Karen Severns and Koichi Mori of KiSMet Productions offers guided tours of buildings and homes designed by Wright, his apprentices and followers in Japan.
Email: kjs30@gol.comWhere to stay
Lakeside Iruka inn, right across the lake from the architectural theme park Meiji Mura, is Japanese in design but with Western amenities and luxurious baths. Double rooms are 10,800 yen ($116) a person, breakfast and dinner included.
118 Aza Kirokuyashiki, Inuyama, Aichi
Tel.: 81-568-67-3811
Web: www.kyosai-aichi.or.jp/lake/index.html (Japanese only)Wright's Imperial Hotel may be gone from Tokyo, but its successor does have a Frank Lloyd Wright Suite, opened in April 2005 in collaboration with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. It is full of genuine Wright details, from the Art Deco furniture to the light fixtures to the oya-stone relief. It's for serious Wright fans with 400,000 yen ($4,300) to spend.
Tel.: 81-3-3504-1111
Web: www.imperialhotel.co.jpWhere to eat
The Old Imperial Bar at the Imperial is also full of Wright touches, and while it seems built for a single-malt Scotch whisky—such as the $19-a-glass Macallan 12 Year Old or $294-a-glass Macallan 30 Year Old—and a Cuban cigar (a Cohiba Siglo II is about $25), you can tuck into appetizers and sandwiches there as well. Open 11 a.m. to midnight.
Tel.: 81-3-3539-8088
Web: www.imperialhotel.co.jpThe Lion Beer Hall, designed by Wright follower Eizo Sugawara, offers a cornucopia of Sapporo beers on tap at prices ranging from just under $7 to a bit over $11 a glass (steins also available). At the Lion Restaurant upstairs there's a variety of German-style dishes, including an "assorted sausage plate" that for about $26 gives you six varieties of wurst and a heaping of sauerkraut.
7-9-20 Ginza, Chuo-ku
Tel.: 81-3-3571-2590
THE KOREAS: Succession Issues Driving North Korea, Experts Say
May 27, 2010
SEOUL, South Korea — Over the years, South Korean officials and analysts have grown accustomed to the North Koreans’ habit of stirring up trouble, whether through missile launchings or nuclear tests. And when faced with international censure, the North lashes out with threats of retaliation and even war. Typically, it is an attention-getting tactic, the South Koreans say, used to win diplomatic and economic concessions.
But this time the motivation may be different.
Experts on North Korea say that its latest act of belligerence — the sinking of a South Korean ship in March, one of the worst military provocations since the end of the Korean War in 1953 — reflects a new force at play: the efforts of the North’s leader, Kim Jong-il, to establish his 27-year-old son as a legitimate heir to carry on the family dynasty.
“His succession to power is the factor that links all other factors when we try to explain why the North is doing what it does these days,” said Choi Jin-wook, a senior analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification, the Seoul government’s top research organization on North Korea. “Without it, no explanation is complete or convincing.”
On the surface, the North’s ever-intensifying policy of confrontation can appear self-defeating. But, officials and analysts here say, it is all part of Mr. Kim’s effort to groom Kim Jong-un, the youngest of his three known sons, as his successor. According to this line of thinking, the sinking of the South Korean ship was intended to create an atmosphere of crisis that would serve Mr. Kim’s purposes, both by rallying public support and winning the crucial backing of the military.
“Kim Jong-il needs to create a warlike atmosphere at home to push through with the succession of power to his son,” said Cheon Seong-whun, another senior analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification. “To do that, he needs tensions and an external enemy.”
Mr. Kim himself was carefully groomed for years to succeed his father, Kim Il-sung, who died in 1994. In the years he was consolidating his power base, Kim Jong-il was credited with masterminding a 1968 commando attack on the South Korean presidential palace in Seoul and the 1976 ax killings of two American military officers at the border, said Baek Seung-joo, a North Korea specialist at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses.
Also in 1968, North Korea captured an American naval intelligence ship, the Pueblo, holding 82 hostages for nearly a year, while its commandos attacked remote South Korean villages and clashed with the South Korean military for two months.
But this latest succession has been thrust upon the Kims prematurely, after Kim Jong-il’s reported stroke in 2008 and subsequent health problems, which have been said to include kidney disease. Although Mr. Kim, 68, was healthy enough to visit China this month, questions persist over how long he can remain in power.
The next step for Kim Jong-un is to make his official public debut, but that has been complicated by his lack of major achievements, analysts said.
“Planning and ordering a successful naval attack in a disputed sea border with the South boosts Kim Jong-un’s credentials as a ruthless leader who can command the military,” Mr. Baek said. “Pulling off a daring provocation to win military charisma was the rite of passage Kim Jong-il himself went through as he was consolidating power as his father’s heir.”
Of course, the succession issue is not the only problem facing Kim Jong-il. His trademark policy of building a “strong and prosperous nation” was called into question when his navy lost a humiliating skirmish against the South last November. His government’s recent attempt to arrest inflation and eliminate black markets through a drastic revaluation of the North Korean currency set off more inflation and a wave of popular discontent that extended beyond the capital, Pyongyang.
Meanwhile, South Korea refused to offer economic incentives until the North gave up its nuclear weapons program.
With the succession issue and the rising internal and external pressures, it is not surprising that Mr. Kim would ratchet up confrontation with the South and its allies, Mr. Cheon, the analyst, said. North Korea’s propaganda machine uses international condemnation to strengthen internal solidarity, whip up a war fever and justify Mr. Kim’s near-absolute grip on power, he said.
North Korea is now telling its people that the United States and South Korea fabricated the sinking of the South’s ship as a version of the “Gulf of Tonkin incident,” a battle that Washington vastly overstated to justify expanding the Vietnam War. Huge outdoor rallies are being mobilized in the North, according to North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity, a Web site run by defectors from the North, which cited sources inside North Korea.
Last week, using a radio network that reaches every North Korean home, Gen. O Kuk-ryol, a top officer, delivered Mr. Kim’s order to the military and reserve forces to be ready for combat, said the defectors’ Web site.
But Mr. Kim’s most concerted efforts seem to be directed at the military, the critical power base for his son. Despite United Nations sanctions that ban exports of luxury goods to the North, Mr. Kim is believed to have smuggled in fancy foreign cars for loyal generals, and in April 100 senior officers received promotions.
The government has also elevated to hero status six crewmen of the minisubmarine that sank the South Korean ship, said Ha Tae-keung, who runs Open Radio for North Korea, a Web site based in Seoul that collects news from informants inside the North.
Mr. Ha said that Mr. Kim’s tactics seemed to be succeeding.
“I think the son is firmly in place,” he said. “He was in charge in Pyongyang when his father and his top aides were all in China.”
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
JAPAN: Dream Window: Reflections on the Japanese Garden
Take a breathtaking, mind-cleansing stroll through the most aesthetically beautiful gardens in the world. Discover how these visual wonderlands have served as retreats for people looking to rediscover the natural world, and themselves, for over a thousand years.
Click here for upcoming air times on the Smithsonian Channel HD…
JAPAN: A Japanese director's world debut
May 26, 2010
By DAN GRUNEBAUM
TOKYO — Haruki Murakami’s books top bestseller lists worldwide, and the filmmaker Takeshi Kitano is a regular hit at Cannes. But contemporary Japanese theater remains by and large terra incognita.
Abroad, Japanese theater directors are mainly known in the form of Amon Miyamoto’s Broadway hits and Yukio Ninagawa’s kabuki Shakespeare productions. Performances of new Japanese theater are rare, leaving a gaping hole in the world’s understanding of the country’s performing arts scene.
That is beginning to change with the translation into English and other languages of recent works by the theater company Chelfitsch and the playwright and director Shu Matsui. Festival/Tokyo, Japan’s leading performing arts showcase, regards Mr. Matsui as one of the country’s most important young directors, and translated his disturbing, surrealistic “Ano Hito no Sekai” (That Man’s World) for its fall 2009 season.
Via his Sample company’s eye-catching, multilevel staging, the play follows the story of a directionless loner in rural Japan who searches for meaning in anarchic, bestial ceremonies. But the larger theme is the intolerance lurking behind the polite facade of Japanese society.
“The story is about people whose prejudices prevent them from interacting,” the soft-spoken Mr. Matsui said in a recent interview in the trendy Shibuya district. “I wanted foreigners to see the play because it deals with bigotry. Living in homogeneous Japan there aren’t many chances to confront one’s prejudices, so they remain hidden.”
Key to “Ano Hito no Sekai” was the way that the characters acted mechanically and didn’t even attempt to scale walls of mutual noncomprehension. This grew out of Mr. Matsui’s view of Japan as a zombie nation, something that led Festival/Tokyo to describe him as portraying “the emptiness of modern Japan.”
“I’m not quite sure how they arrived at that catch-copy,” Mr. Matsui said, laughing. “For me, it’s not so much a question of ‘emptiness.’ I prefer the image of a zombie. Why? Because zombies represent the future of mankind: they have no soul, no interior, no emotions. They wander about with no purpose, they respond to stimuli — for example if there is an escalator at a shopping center they’ll go up and down — but that’s all they do. Their form to me somehow represents what humans are heading toward.”
For his latest work at the Tokyo Performing Arts Market this spring, Mr. Matsui was asked by a local theater in the western Japanese island of Kyushu to create a play based on Takiji Kobayashi’s landmark Japanese Marxist novel “Kanikosen” (The Crab Ship), about exploited crab cannery workers. The 1929 book has enjoyed a resurgence of popularity in Japan amid the financial crisis and hardships facing the nation’s young.
The result was “Hakobune” (Ark), which depicts dead-end, part-time workers performing meaningless tasks at an anonymous factory. They suffer under the hand of an overseer, but midway roles are suddenly reversed and he becomes an underling. Relentlessly cheery J-pop music and ubiquitous cellphones inject notes of everyday Japanese reality into an absurdist plot in which even death is a matter of little import.
It wasn’t long ago that Mr. Matsui himself labored on a conveyor belt as a struggling actor. Reflecting his experience, the workers of “Hakobune” are the passive Japanese freeta — those unable to land full-time jobs — of the moment rather than the Marxist rebels of “Kanikosen.”
“‘Kanikosen’ has a revolutionary flavor that I thought wouldn’t resonate,” he said. “People don’t join organized labor these days and before it gets to that point they lose their jobs to outsourcing anyway, so I depicted a softer workplace — even if the workers are still throwaway.”
The irony of Mr. Matsui’s reference to Noah’s Ark in the title is that his characters are not in fact irreplaceable bearers of their species’ gene pool, but disposable ciphers.
“Rather than the people, it’s the objects on stage that are the main players,” he explained. “The characters are like holographs, like something you might see at Disneyland’s haunted mansion. They serve only to explain the situation — like artifacts of a mistaken history.”
The son of a lawyer and radio announcer, Mr. Matsui spent an unremarkable childhood and only ended up in theater when he followed a girl he had a crush on into his high school drama club. There he was bitten by the theater bug, and spent his 20s as a professional actor and odd-job worker before his 2004 breakout “Tsuka” (Passage) was given the New Face Award by the Japan Playwrights Association.
“I’d been an actor for 13 years, but didn’t start to think about writing my own plays until I was past 30,” said Mr. Matsui, who is 37. “I wanted to create a world that I found compelling, and to see if it compelled others. I wondered if others shared my anxieties. It surprised me when people related to my work, especially since the first one about a family that is taken over by outsiders was pretty disturbing.”
Bestiality and rape appear in Mr. Matsui’s work, but the violence serves a cautionary purpose. He cites the intense interest among his generation in the “otaku murderer,” Tsutomu Miyazaki, who between 1988 and 1989 mutilated and killed four young girls, molesting and cannibalizing their corpses.
“He said before his execution that he was told to do so by someone in his head, and that it was not his fault,” Mr. Matsui recalled. “Ever since then I’ve been fascinated by his comments. His thinking is different from thinking up until now. He has no interior life, no feelings. We want him to express remorse and show his feelings — we think this is part of being human — but maybe that’s not the case, and maybe we are all heading in his direction.”
For his next project, which will have its debut in the autumn, Mr. Matsui has been commissioned to create a new piece for Yukio Ninagawa’s Saitama Gold Theatre, which consists entirely of elderly amateur actors. He said it would inevitably deal directly with the issue of Japan’s aging society.
“Images of the elderly in Japan tend to split into extremely negative depictions of the senile and terminally ill or idealistic depictions of sprightly old folks,” he said. “We’re now beginning to face the problem of our aging society, so I want to confront these extremes. I want to offer an everyday tragedy that treats old age as just another period of life in a way that is emotionally liberating — not as heaven or hell, which I think is weird and unhealthy.”
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
THE KOREAS: Will Korean Tensions Impact Cruises?
May 25, 2010
What's the conflict?
(5 p.m. EDT) -- Following a lengthy history of conflict, South Korea announced Monday that it will sever trade with North Korea after a North Korean attack sank a South Korean warship, killing 46 sailors. A report by MSNBC says that the U.S. has offered its support to South Korea and will take part in two military exercises with South Korean soldiers off the Korean Peninsula. Read on to find out how your sailing might be affected.
Which ports and ships could be affected?
- Cheju City, South Korea -- Costa Romantica (June 24), Seabourn Pride (June 28)
- Jeju Island, South Korea -- Legend of the Seas (June 3
- Mokpo, South Korea -- Seabourn Pride (June 29)
- Pusan, Korea -- Legend of the Seas (May 29)
- Seoul (Inchon), Korea -- Seabourn Pride (June 16)
- Yeosu, Korea -- Seabourn Pride (June 18)
What's the impact?
Spokespersons for Royal Caribbean, Costa and Seabourn tell us there is no impact to itineraries at this time.
What should I do?
We'll keep you posted as we find out more. In the meantime, you can try contacting your travel agent or cruise line directly. Contact information for most lines can be found on our Contacting Your Cruise Line page.
--by Ashley Kosciolek, Copy Editor
RUSSIA: Stalin blocked attempts to kill Hitler: general
This picture shows an undated file picture of the German ''Fuehrer'' Adolf Hitler. Credit: Reuters/Stringer
Tue May 25, 2010 3:30pm EDT
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Soviet dictator Josef Stalin blocked two attempts to kill Adolf Hitler during World War Two, fearing that his replacement as Nazi leader would make peace with the Western Allies, a top Russian general said Tuesday.
A plan to attack Hitler's bunker in 1943 and a 1944 plot involving an assassin who had gained the trust of the Nazi leadership were both canceled on Stalin's orders, General Anatoly Kulikov told a historical conference in Moscow.
"A plan to assassinate Hitler in his bunker was developed, but Stalin suddenly canceled it in 1943 over fears that after Hitler's death his associates would conclude a separate peace treaty with Britain and the United States," Russia's RIA news agency quoted Kulikov as saying.
In 1944 the Soviets again plotted to kill Hitler after a potential assassin managed to gain the trust of the Nazi leadership.
"A detailed assassination plan was prepared, but Stalin canceled it again," Kulikov was quoted as saying.
Hitler killed himself on April 30, 1945, as Soviet forces closed on Berlin, effectively ending the war in Europe and setting the stage for the Cold War stand-off between Russia and the West.
An estimated 27 million Soviet citizens died in the 1941-1945 war with Nazi Germany.
Kulikov was Russia's Interior Minister from 1995 to 1998 under President Boris Yeltsin. He said that the Club of Military Leaders, which he heads, would include details of the assassination attempts in a forthcoming book on World War Two.
(Writing by Conor Humphries; Editing by Ralph Boulton)
RUSSIA: Powerful blast hits Russia’s southern republic
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Published 25 May, 2010, 23:06
A powerful explosion has rocked the capital of the southern Russian republic of Kabardino-Balkaria.
Police say an explosive device went off on the roadside, shattering windows in nearby buildings. No casualties have been reported as of yet.According to a source in Kabardino-Balkaia law enforcement, the blast was directed against a police car which was passing the site.
“The explosion was directed toward a shopping mall,” the source was quoted as saying by Interfax. “The car with policemen was not affected.”
The site of the explosion has been cordoned off by police as they search for other explosive devices.
The Russian police and security services have been cracking down on militants in Russia's troubled North Caucasus region, which has been plagued by terrorist attacks over the last few years.
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