Japan box office hit

    FORMER graphic designer Makoto Shinkai eschewed the traditional apprenticeship in a Japanese anime studio and taught himself how to animate digitally.

    His recent success of “Your Name” catapulted him to stardom in Japan. “Your Name” has become the first anime movie not from Hayao Miyazaki to make more than US$100 million and has spent the last nine weekends at the top of the country’s box office. The film brought in more than US$160 million, becoming the fifth-highest grossing Japanese film of all time.

    China Film Week

    KRIS WU was honored as best actor at China Film Week, an event that’s allied with the ongoing Tokyo International Film Festival.

    The 25-year-old pop star was given the Gold Crane Award for his performance in “Sweet Sixteen.” Jiang Qinqin has been crowned best actress for her role in “A Fool.” Filmmaker Guan Hu won the best director award for “Mr. Six.”

    Powder could be ashes

    A POWDERY substance a man sprinkled into the orchestra pit at New York’s Metropolitan Opera may have been an opera lover’s ashes, police said Saturday.

    The freakish incident during an afternoon performance of Rossini’s “Guillaume Tell” forced Met officials to cancel the rest of the show as well as an evening performance of a second opera. John Miller, the New York Police Department’s deputy commissioner in charge of intelligence and counterterrorism, said several audience members said a man told them he was there to sprinkle the ashes of a friend, his mentor in the opera.

    Stuntman sues

    Tom Sizemore

    A STUNTMAN who was injured when he was run over while filming an upcoming television series is suing actor Tom Sizemore and the production.

    Steve de Castro sued Sizemore and Paramount Pictures on Friday, claiming the July incident in which he was pinned beneath a sport utility vehicle driven by Sizemore left him with significant injuries. The lawsuit claims the “Black Hawk Down” actor was intoxicated at a remote desert airport in northern Los Angeles County during filming of the upcoming USA Network action show “Shooter.”

    (SD-Agencies)