Lotr is in full steam over here in Japan!! I went and saw it on the 9th of March, a week after it had opened and the theatre was PACKED!! The line went for miles and me and my friends got there 30mins before it started!! Ended up in the 2nd row with a sore neck.

I made sure I went to a subtitled showing, don't know if I am ready to watch the whole thing in Japanese.

The merchandising at the end of the film made the $24australian ticket more than worth it! I got LOTR chocolates, chips AND a great CD rom with interviews (in english no less) AND a colour booklet with interviews and pics (in japanese) for only $20.

They were also advertising tickets for TTT which will open here in March 2003, talk about keen. You can purchase a platnium ticket for under $20 at the moment, if I were sure that I'd be in Japan next year, I'd buy mine now.