3rd Annual Asian Film Awards

On Monday Night I went back down to the Convention Center for the 3rd Asian Film Awards.   Long time Etchy blog readers will remember my star laden photos from last year's event. 

Warning,  this blog has an INSANE number of photos... I recommend you skim read! ;-)

This year was similar,  except I didn't have the all-access pass... so no super close up red carpet photos this time.  Doh! :-P

The red carpet was actually bigger this year,  it stretched out into the driveway out front. ;-)

(so the fans can see too!)

In the pre-event reception area

this was the 'VIP' area... there was a clump of Japanese artists in there in the middle...

They had a 2nd photo op area upstairs (like last year).  This is a Japanese director and actress i think. 

Meanwhile I bumped into a few friends and stopped for a photo op myself. :-P

And then inside I saw these two photogenic types... 

Finally after a LONG delay,  the show was opened with the standard politician speech...  it served as the opening for the entire month long Entertainment Expo... so they invited the ambassador up on stage w/ the politicians... you may recognize him on the left:

He's an actor apparently... :-P

Opening musical guest for the awards,  Mr. Justin Lo!

I hope someday i can perform in front of a giant tv screen showing me performing... ;-)

makes for great photos if nothing else!

ooh, reverse angle! ;-)

Seriously though,  Justin kicked ass...  I think he was even better here than he was at his Air Justin show last fall.

Speaking of familiar faces from alivenotdead.com:

Our hosts for the evening,  Terenceand Lisa!

It quickly went into standard Awards show mode where they put together a male and female presentor to name the nominees and call out the winner.  First up was Vivian Hsu:

and some guy who is not Vivian Hsu... :-P

The pic you see directly above is off the TV screen, thats why its clearer and has subtitles.  I cheated and took a few that way for clarity.

Fan Bingbing, who I saw the night before at the Shinjuku Incident premiere too:

I liked her outfit more the day before, but she's still pretty hot. ;-)

Her japanese copresenter... not nearly. :-P

Taiwan artist and AnD official artist profile holder Chen Bo Lin was there too:

Subtitles were based on the script... which was not always followed! :-P

thats Richie Ren on the right... more about him tomorrow! :-P

The 2nd performer was 'A-lan',  aka Alan Dawa Dolma (阿兰达瓦卓玛),  a Tibetan singer who is singing in Japan now.  She was really impressive too!

Gotta love the giant screen.  ;-)

I said to Dan Tran after the show: "damn, we need to get her on alivenotdead.com... like right now!" :-P

Next presenters Stephen and Zhang Jingchu

They had the unique experience of calling the winner and the winner not coming up on stage...   the winner for best supporting actress, an older Filipina actress was actually in the bathroom when they called her name so they waited like 30 seconds for her to come on stage...  finally the director came up and was like "i dunno where she is!"  and by then she came running back ,  realizing she had won and was supposed to be giving her acceptance speech. :-P

And the nominee for Biggest Height Miss Match in an Awards Ceremony is:

Nick Cheung and Gigi Leung

Looks like they won. ;-)

They gave a special award to this actress from India -

Who you may recognize as former Miss Universe and Indian superstar Priyanka Chopra...  I met her the next day,  she was actually pretty nice in person too.  ;-)

Cinematography award:

who better to award it than Chris Doyle?

For Best actress...  Presented by director John Woo:

And the winner is... my personal favorite - Miss Zhou Xun! (she wins an acting prize pretty much one major film prize for each time she does a movie nowadays (not necessarily 1 prize for each movie though!)

They brought out some Hollywood Muscle too:

Yes, that is Oscar Award winner and honorary member of CBFresh,  Mr. William Hurt on the left... 

Giving Best Actor award to

MOTOKI Masahiro,  who managed to beat out Ge You!   I eventually figured out I recognized Motoki from ' Bird People of China'... :-P

3rd Singer, was the beautiful and talented Miss Denise Ho, aka HOCC:

Her performance was actually pretty interesting,  a peking opera performer performed on the stage as she came down the stairs with the whip thing...

For the finally they did a stack... pretty cool!  ;-)

Way to go Denise! ( she wrote a blog w/ a pic of her practicing last week btw)

They did another special award for Tsui Hark's 25th anniversary of his Film Workshop Co (mentioned in this blog and this video from Wednesday night's party)

Yes that is Bridgette Lin on the left.  And his wife Nansun Shi on the right.

Another Hollywood heavy hitter: Presenting Best Director,  Oliver Stone.

Accompanied by Joan Chen...  every time I hear her voice I keep thinking about those National Geographic specials on the Forbidden City (that I must have seen like 20 times).   Its ruined her voice to my ears! :-P

The Winner is... KORE-EDA Hirokazu from Japan.

Last but not least, Best Picture...

Presenetd by the head of the jury herself.  Miss Michelle Yeoh!

Winner was another Japanese film,  Tokyo Sonata ! Congrats,  finally the Korean winning streak is over at AFA....    (in return maybe the Koreans will win the next WBC championship over the Japanese next time?)

At the end of the show I snapped a last picture of the stage...

but i think one or more of the Japanese actors coming down the isle were pretty famous,  since there were a bunch of fan girls waiting behind me.  Ultimately they turned around and left out a front entrance at the advice of their handlers...

ps - if you're interested in the dresses that were worn at the event,  I found this blog randomly while looking for info on the winners:  http://www.redcarpet-fashionawards.com/2009/03/2009-asian-film-awards.html

ok, next blog... the After Party! ;-)