Reviews

[Stephen Cremin]

I've been away in California, hooking up with some of the people who are 
launching Asian film sites this year.  So its been interesting to follow the 
recent thread on the list about reviews, especially Steven Spinali's 
predictions of where this is all leading.  And actually I do think Abe's 
suggestion of a search engine is ultimately the way to go.  But a "smart" 
search engine that is combined with a bilingual database of Japanese film 
that can be initiated from any number of Asian film sites.  I really don't 
think that the IMDb is the way to go, if only because it isn't bilingual.

My vision is that one would want to search for a person or film in English, 
romaji (with or without long vowels), kanji or hiragana.  You'd want fuzzy 
logic in operation, so that "Aano*" would find "Asano Atsuko", "Asano 
Tadanobu", "Sano Shiro", "Aa Nomugi Toge", etc.  But the first layer of any 
search for a person should be the hot-linked filmography and bio-data from 
the database.  Under films you'd ideally like a hotlinked cast & staff list 
in addition to multilingual synopses and a list of hotlinks to 
quality-controlled reviews, etc.  These reviews would have to be registered 
with the search engine, found by a "spider", or more likely some combination 
of the two.  Ideally one would want the ability to search for, say, all web 
reviews of 1950s musicals in colour scripted by Suzaki Katsuya.  Try asking 
Yahoo for that.

The MAJOR decision here is whether the search engine would have its own 
original "critical" content or whether it would act purely as infrastructure 
for other sites to build on.  And if it does have original content then I 
believe that this must be paid for.  Beyond encouraging quality, if someone 
on the list wants to spend thirty hours a week writing synopses and reviews 
for the site they should get a living wage out of it, or at least the 
possibility of future riches.  (I don't know how the money was divided when 
Amazon bought out the IMDb for however many millions, but one hopes it was 
divided fairly among contributors ... while recognising the commercial value 
of the site is in its household name.)  A "mutual" with the company's 
commercial value shared "fairly" among contributors seems the obvious 
business model here.

Steve Spinali suggests a downloadable database to the user's hard drive, but 
then why not a quarterly CD-ROM subscription given the low costs involved in 
CD production and distribution?  The added advantage is that you could use 
the capacity to store the info in hyperlinked portable document format (PDF) 
so that any computer can display/print the kanji too at the appropriate 
resolution ... while creating a payment structure for contributors.  
Alternatively, one could hook up with Asian film distributors 
internationally to license the database piggy-backing on the spare capacity 
of Japanese DVD releases.  And it does look like DVD is taking off in a big 
way.  (Latest international statistics are in the current issue of "Wired", 
but do note that DVD software was only launched in Korea in September ... 
with "Swiri", "The Spy" and "Whispering Corridors" rumoured to have an 
English subtitle track.  Former is theatrically released in Japan in 
December.)

I've almost completed a major overhaul of my databases on Japanese film - 
making them fully bilingual beyond the few thousand people and films in The 
Asian Film Library reference books.  But also now completing the first draft 
of a bilingual reference book on contemporary Korean cinema which comes from 
my databases.  And obviously much of this material is best suited on the 
internet.  Anyway, I've been asked not to make any decisions on my own 
company's direction for a couple of months while another internet launch 
decides whether it wants to license my databases.

Stephen Cremin
The Asian Film Library

PS: Any gossip on what IMDb, Carlton, etc, are up to on their own plans is 
greatly appreciated!
PPS: "Seven Samurai" is coming out in the UK on DVD which will presumably be 
a better transfer than the HK release.
PPPS: Going back to the thread of Murakami Haruki on film, there are 
actually four that I'm aware of.  Yamakawa Naoto actually adapted two of 
Murakami's short stories: "Attack on a Bakery" AND "A Girl, She is 100%" 
starring Muroi Shigeru.
PPPPS: I'm intrigued, Mr Spinali.  How about posting one of your reviews on 
the list?  Sorry to be so cheeky!

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