Kaori Manabe, left, and Maomi Yuki flank Jun Hu.

Kaori Manabe silent on election ruckus

Wednesday 05th August, 09:46 AM JST

TOKYO —

Celebrity Kaori Manabe, 28, and model-singer Maomi Yuki, 29, showed a bit of leg on Tuesday when they wore tantalizingly high-cut blue and pink Chinese dresses to promote the DVD release of “Red Cliff Part II,” which goes on sale in Japan on Wednesday for 3,990 yen.

The ladies flanked Jun Hu, 41, a Chinese actor who plays Zhao Yun - a military general during the civil wars of the late Han Dynasty – in the film. The trio flew in for the event in Akasaka in a helicopter being used to promote the release. Hu said he was happy to be surrounded by such beautiful women, but Manabe said she is scared of heights and was a bit uneasy during the flight. She added: “Hu kept telling me to relax though and that helped. And he was a gentleman again when he let us ladies go in first at the elevator.”

Manabe refused to comment however on the election campaign whirlwind she found herself in last week. Manabe took issue with the use of her photo and her name in large font on election posters for Minoru Kiuchi, 44, a politician running in the Lower House election later this month as an independent in Shizuoka.

Manabe said on her blog last week that she had met Kiuchi just once about a year ago, when the photo of them together was taken. She wrote that she did not understand why her picture was being used in the posters and that she did not support any particular party or candidate. Kiuchi’s campaign team said that Manabe’s office had approved the posters, but that they will no longer use them.

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12 Comments

kidoave at 07:40 AM JST - 5th August

Sexy?
ebisen at 09:32 AM JST - 5th August

DVD - whoever still buys those anymore?
Brainiac at 09:36 AM JST - 5th August

It's too bad that Manabe doesn't have a political opinion. It would be nice to see a Japanese celebrity showing an interest in politics.

Ebisen - I buy lots of DVDs. I have thousands in my collection. The quality is far better than anything you could download and you get all the extra features such as "The making of..." and interviews with cast, etc.
ebisen at 11:37 AM JST - 5th August

brainiac - the difference between DVD and Blu-Ray is the biggest ever experienced in a format change (much bigger than between VHS and DVD). The price difference is negligible though so I wonder why there even are new releases as this in DVD formats? (I do have about 200 blu-rays in my collection myself :) )
salaryman at 01:27 PM JST - 5th August

"..sexy Chinese gear"

It's called a QiPao.
pawatan at 04:20 PM JST - 5th August

brainiac - the difference between DVD and Blu-Ray is the biggest ever experienced in a format change (much bigger than between VHS and DVD).

It is not. VHS->DVD is a huge format change, DVD->Blu-Ray is nice, but not that huge, especially with upconverting DVD players doing a nice job (such as the PS3's).

I like Blu-Ray and have a good setup to take advantage of it, but it's not the sea change that DVDs brought. The ratio of movies on Blu-Ray vs DVD is still quite disproportionate, too.

Anybody know if Red Cliff I/II have English subs? If I recall the Japanese versions of I didn't have English as an option.
saru_au at 06:24 PM JST - 5th August

i didn't think it was possible, but the 2nd movie was worse than the 1st
blvtzpk at 06:56 PM JST - 5th August

"..sexy Chinese gear"

It's called a QiPao.

No matter the name, 'me likey.'
presto345 at 09:12 PM JST - 5th August

Anybody know if Red Cliff I/II have English subs? If I recall the Japanese versions of I didn't have English as an option.
The758 at 06:45 AM JST - 6th August

" ...And he was a gentleman again when he let us ladies go in first at the elevator ..."

Japanese men are clueless in this sense
chuckers at 08:38 AM JST - 6th August

According to the DVD details on amazon.co.jp (Japanese version) there are Japanese subititles but no English subtitles. It is also dubbed in Japanese or Chinese.

You can get English subtitled version from Amazon in the US but I am not 100% sure they would ship them overseas. The disks appear to be all region so that shouldn't be a problem.

And we don't really need celebrities voicing political opinions. The next thing you know, they start running for governorships and appear on TV even more!
Mittsu at 03:13 PM JST - 6th August

Typical politicio using a good looking woman to promote his campaign rather than policies and record. Blu Ray ixs almost undistinguishable from normal DVD. Downloads suck and most are anyway illegal.