More bad news for the troubled Sony company, it seems that the Japanese electronics manufacturer is struggling to meet its target of 100,000 units on the Japanese launch of its next generation console.

Sony will only have 80,000 PlayStation 3s for the official launch on November 11th. That’s a twenty percent cut…

The lack of PS3 is even more staggering when you consider that the previous model – the PlayStation 2 – had a million units on sale when it was launched back in March 2000.

If you were unlucky to get your hands on one by November, Sony will issue out some vouchers for potential PS3 owners guaranteeing a system early next year…

Meeting up with some of the guys from Tokyotoys ^_^

You might have noticed a lack of posts over the weekend… Thats because most of the eMagi members were heading off towards London for the largest animé expo of the year. A meet was planned amongst ourselves and the TokyoToys members and it was great fun. We left here around 6am and made it to London two hours later and had our traditional subway sandwich before departing for the ExCel centre. Read on for our exploits of the whole expo and a video…

(Read more…)

So Fearless was “Jet Li’s last martial arts film”? Yeah right.

It’s already a lie, as he’s officially signed up for a big budget kung-fu action movie alongside Hong Kong star Jackie Chan.

The pair is teaming up for an untitled family adventure that will be directed by Rob Minkoff (Stuart Little) and will feature action sequences from choreographer Yuen Woo-Ping (Matrix and Hero).

There’s not much information on the plot for John Fusco’s script at the moment, but we can speculate that the story is roughly based on the legend of the monkey king and his attempts to gain immorality.

And apparently, it’s an “action-adventure with some martial arts sequences.” Someone at Rogue (the distributors of Fearless) needs to re-label all the DVDs as Jet Li’s last-but-one martial arts epic…

Source: Variety

After losing official backing from two Hollywood studios – Fox and Universal – following money worries, Peter Jackson’s WingNut Films has announced that the film is now on hold.

Not surprising to be honest and by reading the company’s statement, it tries its best to remain upbeat about the whole situation:

“As was previously confirmed, we deeply regret that both Universal and Fox did not choose to move forward with financing the Halo film under the original terms of the agreement. At this time Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, along with their partner, Microsoft, have mutually agreed to postpone making a feature film based on the Halo video game universe until we can fulfil the promise we made to millions of Halo fans throughout the world that we would settle for no less than bringing a first class film to the big screen. We are fully supportive of Director Neill Blomkamp’s vision of the film. Neill is a tremendously gifted filmmaker and his preliminary work on Halo is truly awe-inspiring. While it will undoubtedly take a little longer for Halo to reach the big screen, we are confident that the final feature film will be well worth the wait.”

Halo the movie was suppose to be out in the cinemas in 2008. So when will the film be release? No idea…

Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond will resume filming in January 2007, just four months after he suffered a severe brain injury in a jet-powered car crash.

The 36-year-old was filming the BBC motoring show when the high-speed accident happened back in September.

Television producer Andy Wilman says, “We plan to bring Top Gear back in January and the doctor said, ‘That’s fine – I don’t see any problem with that.’

“They want him to rest his brain as much as possible until then and not think about work. If he does that doctors are confident he’ll be able to appear on the show.”

Jeremy Clarkson has also confirmed that the new series of the popular motoring show will make a return in the new year, as you can see from this interview during the MPH 06 show.

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With the various amount of videogames-to-film adaptations remaining popular with film studios (despite distinctly dodgy results such as Doom, Resident Evil and DOA: Dead Or Alive), it’s not surprising that another game is getting the movie treatment.

But amazingly, this new movie is not a sequel. The popular fighting game from Capcom, Street Fighter, is returning to the big screen. But instead of planning a follow-up to the horrify 1994 film featuring Jean-Claude Van Damme, Hyde Park Entertainment and Capcom are re-branding the film to focus on the most popular female warrior, Chun Li.

Apart from that, the companies are staying quiet on exactly what Justin Marks’ script will contain… The new Street Fighter will be out in cinemas by 2008, just in time to celebrate the game’s 20th anniversary.

Source: Variety

• Information:
• Title: (the Castle of Cagliostro or Rupan sansei: Kariosutoro no shiro)
• Certificate: (PG)
• Released by: (Optimum Releasing’s Optimum Asia)
• Run Time: (100 minutes)
• Origin: (Japan)
• Language: (Japanese)
• Vintage: (1979)

Our Iconic super-thief Lupin pulls off a trilling heist at a Monte Carlo casino, only to discover that the spoils of the heist are counterfeit. Lupin traces the fake bills to the country of Cagliostro where an evil count is generating the forged money and distributing it worldwide. With Partners in tow (including a retired gangster, a thirteenth generation ronin and a beautiful female thief) Lupin heads to Cagliostro where he also finds a promise of treasure and Clarisse, a beautiful princess in need of rescuing from the count’s dastardly clutches.(Plot courtesy of Optimum Asia’s DVD release plus some changes)

The Castle of Cagliostro was written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and based on the work of Manga guru Monkey punch, which is in turn based on the characters and themes created by French writer Maurice Leblanc. It Stars Yasuo Yamada, Kiyoshi Kobayashi, Eiko Masuyama, Makio Inoue, Goro Naya, Sumi Shimamoto and Taro Ishida as Arsene Lupin III, Daisuke Jigen, Fujiko Mine, Goemon Ishikawa XIII, Inspector Zenigata, Lady Clarisse and Count Cagliostro respectively.

The Castle of Cagliostro has been nominated for two awards and won one of them, that award was at the 1980 Mainichi Film Concours and was for Hayao Miyazaki. Lean pickings then? I believe but do not quote me on this that Japan’s former princess Nori (Now: Sayako Kuroda) had a replica of Clarisse’s dress made for her wedding in November 2005(somehow I doubt that statement).(Source: IMDB, Wikipedia)

Personally, I have never been a fan of Miyakazi’s work but being a fan of Lupin III (Manga) I had to watch this film and see if it was up to scratch and in line with what I considered as being Lupin. Sadly, I found this film to be a bit too much Miyazakii and a bit too little Monkey Punch, I loved the original manga for the very fact it is different from the generic nonsense pumped out of the world these days. Lupin the ultimate womaniser is a character that can licit a laugh from even the most serious of people in this world, unfortunately Miyazaki seems to have watered down the womaniser side and made him into more of a medieval knight saving the damsel than a gentleman thief with a passion for women.

Alright I will say that it is a funny film and does do everything to keep you entertained but as I once said in a previous film review I will never give a rating over six out of ten for a film without substance, doesn’t matter how funny or entertaining it way be it can’t be. Although some might say that it doe have substance I simply cannot agree with that as that substance takes the form of unrealistic romance which this world is already saturated by.

Ultimately, there isn’t anything wrong with this film other than the fact that it’s just not true to the original manga, which I think is a shame. Although I must admit that it’s better than some of Miyazaki’s latter works such as Spirited Away which in my eye‘s seemed too idealistic in the Disney sense of the word. The Castle of Cagliostro, Janus’ rating which is top for anything without real substance. (6/10)

Yep, the official 2.0 release of this hugely popular and powerful browser is amongst us! Well what’s new in Firefox2? Heres a small sample taken from their homepage - Mozilla.com

Built-in phishing protection: Phishing Protection warns users when they encounter suspected Web forgeries, and offers to return the user to their home page. Phishing Protection is turned on by default, and works by checking sites against either a local or online list of known phishing sites. This list is automatically downloaded and regularly updated when the Phishing Protection feature is enabled.

Inline spell checking: A new built-in spell checker enables users to quickly check the spelling of text entered into Web forms (like this one) without having to use a separate application.

And much more. Be sure to read the official Firefox page here for more details. Go download… NOW!

After losing one of its main television hit Lost to British satellite channel Sky One, Channel 4 has renewed its deal to keep American drama Desperate Housewives on the network for the next two series.

Trade magazine Broadcast claims Channel 4 outbid ITV, Sky and Flextech - which owns Living TV - to keep the popular series.

Broadcast also reports that Channel 4 is paying over £900,000 an episode to screen the hit drama. Not surprising as the same network pays around £700,000 for ‘new’ episodes of The Simpsons.

But Channel 4 refused to confirm or deny the figures. Last week it was beaten by Sky One to the rights to show castaway drama Lost.

Sky’s deal for the show, based on a plane crash on an island, was widely reported to have cost the channel £20m.

The first series of both Lost and Desperate Housewives were ratings winners for Channel 4, attracting more than four million viewers on average.

Series 3 will be shown in the new year.

Rockstar Games has released yet another trailer for the forthcoming Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories for the PSP. But unlike the previous video clips featuring 1980s fashion and characters, we see Genesis star Phil Collins!

It’s quite unusual to see Phil Collins in any game, let alone Grand Theft Auto… But I do seem to remember BBC Radio One DJ Chris Moyles making a presence in 24: The Game as a terrorist!

GTA: Vice City Stories will be on sale next week (America: October 31st, Europe: November 2nd)

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