Thursday, May 17, 2007

Asian Excellence Awards

Merianne Roth and Quentin Tarantino
Chow Yun-Fat (below) gave an emotional acceptance speech as he was presented the Lifetime Achievement Award at the sixth AZN Asian Excellence Awards in Los Angeles.
The Asian entertainment world united to recognize diversity and cultural achievements during the star-studded event.
A special preview of the award ceremony will be televised Monday, May 24 on AZN and E! networks and the full show airs May 28 on AZN.
My wife Merianne and I were special guests and were ecstatic about meeting film legend Quentin Tarantino. He was the nicest guy and walked around all night talking with all of us non-stars. He hung out at the VIP party and the post party chatting with folks, even when the other stars had flown the coop.
We also talked with Lou Diamond Phillips, who’ll be coming to back to Fort Worth for “A Few Good Men” at Casa Manana Theater June 5-10. Sadly Phillips said he won’t be able to make the Lone Star Film Festival and FWSCI Film Series next November due to scheduling conflicts.
And, being a little ballsy, I asked Tarantino to come to our film series/festival and bring Robert Rodriguez along. He demurred, but wished us good luck.
So on to the films nominated in the Outstanding Film category for Asian Excellence Awards. They include Babel, Curse of the Golden Flower, Letters From Iwo Jima and The Namesake. Outstanding Film Actor nominees included Jet Li, Kal Penn and Ken Watanabe. Outstanding Film Actress nominees included Maggie Cheung, Gong Li, Rinko Kikuchi and Tabu.
Not all awards were presented last night, I’m not sure why. Maybe they were trying to keep the mystery for the broadcast. But on E! online, they spill the beans. Letters from Iwo Jima took top film and Rinko Kikuchi won best actress, according to E!
Masi Oka, Japanese star of the hit TV show Heroes, won Outstanding TV Actor in tough category featuring Lost’s Naveen Andrews and Daniel Dae Kim and Law & Order: SVU’s B.D. Wong.
Outstanding TV Actress winner Parminder Nagra from ER, beat out Kully Hu from In Case of Emergency, Yunjin Kim from Lost and Sandra Oh from Grey’s Academy.
Cool event making me more excited about the upcoming Lone Star Film Festival and FWSCI Film Series in Fort Worth Nov. 8-11. Not only will we be recognizing Asian cultures, but European, Latino and African.