Louis Vuitton Hawaii International FIlm Festival 2008

We made our Los Angeles debut at the LA Asian Pacific Film Festival and we were red carpet ready!



Sally Nemeth, our Associate Producer and I gam it up at the Festival's opening night at the Directors Guild of America Theater in West Hollywood. The opening film was Jessica Yu's charming comedy PING PONG PLAYA www.pingpongplaya.com


A couple of days later it was our turn to debut at the big DGA theater and the house was filled with friends, fans and devoted crew members.



Sally and I are standing by the LONG STORY SHORT poster designed by Teresa Woo Murray of Woobabie Design woobabie@sbcglobal.net

The DGA theater required the film to be shown in HD. So we upconverted, and wow! Us, in High Definition. The audience laughed, they cried, they loved it! Afterwards at the reception, I got to spend time with many old friends and colleagues.



Here's me and actor James Hong www.jameshong.com who played my father in the job that got me my SAG card! Thanks Dad.

And James, who is that hunky guy? Why it's James Kyson Lee from NBC's Heroes! Introduce me!



We look so serious! What could we have been talking about!




Alvin Ing, the man who holds the record for the most productions of Flower Drum Song and still counting! After the audience Q&A, he grabbed the mike and reminded all of the upcoming 50th Anniversary Celebration of Flower Drum Song this fall at East West Players in Los Angeles. Thanks Alvin!

And now it's time to drink!



Our heroic editor, Douglas Cheek. We spent more hours together than most married couples.



Sally Nemeth and one of our camermen, Dean Chamberlain, who is better known as a musician. www. myspace.com/deanhchamberlain



Here I am talking to Angela Lee, producer of ZOMBIE STRIPPERS and her dad, the illustrious C.Y. Lee, who wrote the original novel FLOWER DRUM SONG and who does the cha-cha with me in the movie.



You may know her as Jill in HOME IMPROVEMENT, but to us she's one of our executive producers, Patricia Richardson, who gave great advice and bailed us out in the eleventh hour more than once.

BUT our big surprise was at closing night of the festival. The organizers called to make sure I was going to be there, they said they were taking a photo with all the filmmakers. But when I arrived, no group photo. Huh?



But I did get photographed with Jimmy Tsai, the co-writer and star of PING PONG PLAYA. Yo! C-Dub in da house!



One of the Festival's sponsors, the Screen Actors Guild was represented by Sumi Haru and Jack Ong.

But enough of the non group photos, obviously I was lied to. Why would they do such a thing?

BECAUSE THEY WANTED ME THERE TO ACCEPT THE JURY'S HONORABLE MENTION FOR BEST DOCUMENTARY AND ....THE AUDIENCE AWARD!!!! WE WON!!!! TWICE!!!



You won't believe how many people I had to crawl over to get to the stage! I was truly stunned. And honored.

Now, we're on to the Asian American International Film Festival www.asiancinevision.com in NYC July 9-19, 2008. Come see us!