Japanese films outpaced Hollywood films in Japan in 2013 with Hayao Miyazaki's animated feature "The Wind Rises" gaining the No. 1 spot, taking in 12.02 billion yen at the box office, according to the Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan.
The association said on its website that movie theaters took in 194.2 billion yen in 2013, of which Japanese films accounted for 60.6%. It was the 6th consecutive year that domestic films have outearned foreign films. After "The Wind Rises," the next highest Japanese film was "One Piece Film Z" (6.87 billion yen).
The highest-grossing Hollywood films were Pixar's “Monsters University,” which netted 8.96 billion yen, the musical "Les Miserables" with 5.89 billion yen and "TED" (4.23 billion yen).
The rest of the top 10 Hollywood films are:
- "Wreck-It Ralph" (3 billion yen)
- "Skyfall" (2.75 billion yen)
- "Iron Man 3" (2.57 billion yen)
- "Despicable Me 2" (2.5 billion yen)
- "The Lone Ranger" (2.09 billion yen)
- "A Good Day to Die Hard" (2.6 billion yen)
- "Fast & Furious Euro Mission" (2.2 billion yen)
The Motion Picture Producers Association said a total of 1,117 films were released in 2013.
© Japan Today
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BertieWooster
Excellent!
It was very beautiful.
siniestro
I am admiring that the japanese are supporting their own products so much. Like the cars too. They do are quality products though.
Goodwill_Hunting
Doesn't the Japanese title 風立ちぬ mean the "wind doesn't rise"?
Chenchan
Nope.
lucabrasi
@Goodwill
No. The ぬ here isn't negative, it's an old-fashioned grammatical particle indicating a completed action and makes the title sound poetic. A literal translation would be "The Wind hath Risen".
Modern Japanese would be 風が立った。
timtak
As Lucabrasi (hi) says, it is like Gone with the Wind "風邪と共に去りぬ" - where the nu also also indicates a past wind.
lucabrasi
@timtak
Indeed. But not that kind of 風邪. ; )
Raymond Chuang
@lucabrasi, Thanks for the explanation. The characters are from common usage before the Pacific War; people forget after World War II, Japanese educators made MASSIVE changes to the usage of characters in Japanese itself, including simplifying many kanji characters. This is why unless you're a university graduate in Japan, you might not be able to read books printed before 1945, because it uses many kanji no longer in common use today.
But getting back on topic, I am definitely looking forward to seeing The Wind Rises in late February on its US release; it should be noted the movie is a fantasy based partially on the life of a real person, so forget about allusions to historical accuracy despite references to a number of historical events.
ka_chan
Guess the reference is like the kanji for school 学校 which would have been unacceptable since the proper kanji used to be 學校. In the US, the movie is scheduled for release 2/21 in both dubbed and subtitled by Disney's Touchstone Pictures.
nath
I liked it, though having a gaijin speaking awful gaijin Japanese was a little odd.
sidesmile
I saw it. It's rubbish.
nath
Miyazaki is talented and all, but the fact that this was number one tells you something about the sad state of the Japanese film industry. Why is it that this country can rarely make live action films worth watching? In light of that, I'm shocked that domestic films took 60% of the sales share. Something seems wrong...and it is. Just look at how many of the top films are animated ones for kiddies. In Japan, movies are seen as being for kids...and it means that the domestic film industry is not producing higher quality, more serious fare. Kinda sad.