Tokyo Oct 08 - TIFF / CJIFF opening reception:

This is what I did Sunday night - the opening reception for the 'China Japan International Friendship Film Festival'  -

It was way out in Tokyo Bay,  so by the time I got there it had already started -

a bunch of Chinese film people on stage being introduced and giving some sort of generic welcome messages... the whole thing was done in Japanese and Chinese only... no english! :-P

btw - I only saw one other white person at the whole event...



Look who's here!  Vicki Zhao Wei!  I wanted to shout out 'you were great in Painted Skin!'


Ganbei!    The kid next to Zhao Wei was in Red Cliff also.. and the guy next to him (who likes to drink a lot) is the cinematographer I believe.   No John Woo or Tony Leung, (that was Saturday, doh!)

They obviously spent a lot of money on this.  it was free to enter (they didn't even check if i was registerd for the film festival), and it was in a pricey hotel...  and then there was the buffet:

Having worked in Japan for two years, i've been to a lot of these types of receptions... university related ones are usually a lot cheaper than this...  this one was big.... very pricey!


Had some traditional chinese music....

LOTS of Japanese Oji-san pushing up to the front w/ their outdated cameras trying to get pics of the girls in Qipao...  very humorous.  :-P

They had some Japanese filmmakers and actors go on stage and do the same kind of welcome mesage + introduction type thing... I  only took pictures of these three:

The girl in purple is named Misaki Yuu (美崎ゆう)... apparently she is half-Japanese and half-Chinese... and 100% tall....


Her Japanese and her Chinese are both better than mine. :-P


Famous Japanese director Yamada Yoji was there too,  (i'm not sure who the woman was, but also apparently a famous film person). 

I couldn't resist the temptation to take a photo of at least one of the Japanese women there in beautiful Kimono:

Actually I'll admit it... her Kimono wasn't the most beautiful in the room... but she was cool cause she kept her digital camera and cell phone in the belt. :-P