August 11th... a very exciting and fun evening! My flight arrived at 6:30AM...about 12 hours before Vivian would arrive at The Grand Cinema for the opening ceremony of the Summer International Film Festival.. it seemed like a lot of time before the event, but I had no time to take a quick nap during the day...plus I was afraid that if I did take a nap that I would have woken up too late for the event. I got to the cinema at 4:30PM to meet up with a friend to see if anything was happening at that time.. the MC was rehearsing his speech and workers were starting to prepare for the arrival of the guests. There was a short red carpet in front of the theatre...we were guessing Viv and the other stars would be walking the red carpet when they arrived, but the problem was we didn't know which direction they would be coming from, since there was more than one way to get to the cinema. Other fans started arriving after 5PM. The director Ann Hui arrived rather early. Viv was supposed to arrive at 6PM, but she and the other stars arrived at about 6:30. Since there were lots of people crowding around the red carpet, it was hard to see Viv and the cast actually 'walk' down the red carpet. There were a lot of William Chan fans at the event...I think more than the Viv fans..so when William arrived, his fans were really screaming loudly. A few of the Viv fans screamed Viv's name, but not very loudly...I guess we're just more mature than the William fans..haha. This event was kinda like a mini-reunion for the Viv overseas fans...some of us haven't seen each other since 2006...it was great to meet again after all these years!

I thought there would be a lot of other celebrities at the event, since it's the world premiere of "All About Love," but I only saw Simon Yam Tat Wah...Viv's husband Joe wasn't there..Viv said in an interview that Joe had to work that night. There will probably be more celebrities at the HK premiere for "All About Love" on August 24. Viv, Sandra Ng Kwan Yu, and the rest of the cast were doing interviews and posing for photos for the media for about 45 minutes. Then they went into the theatre and talked briefly about the movie to the audience before the movie started. All of Viv's fans were sitting in the same row.. I think there were only 2 guys in our entire row. When Viv came into the theatre, some of us waved 'hi' to her and she waved back...hehe. After the movie ended and before Viv left the venue, Viv stood in front of the white HKIFFS board so that fans/reporters could take her picture. Viv left The Grand Cinema at about 9:35PM.

Vivian's movie was showing at 7:15PM and 9:45PM...I watched the movie at both times ...well, the main reason I took a 14-hour flight to HK was for Viv's movie premiere and to see Viv at the event, so I wanted to watch the movie more than once if I'm able to. I know..sounds crazy to fly to HK and stay for only 4 days just to watch a movie..but who knows when/if Viv will make another movie?? The last time I saw Viv on the big screen at a movie theatre was in 1988 for her movie "Heart to Hearts" when it was playing in LA, but I wasn't a big fan of hers at that time, so this time could be considered as my first time watching her on the big screen. I give the movie 2 thumbs up!! ..it was a very enjoyable romantic comedy. Viv's acting was superb!..actually all the actors in the movie played their roles well. It's nice to finally see Viv in a leading role in a movie where her voice is her real voice...you can hear Viv's actual emotions and feelings from her voice. I still don't understand why there were so many movies back in the '90s where Viv's voice was dubbed by another person..it makes a big difference to not be able to hear Viv's voice in a movie. Have you ever heard Viv use profanity?...pay close attention when watching her new movie, otherwise you might miss it ...there were no subtitles for that particular word.

I didn't watch the movie trailer before seeing the movie, since I wanted to be surprised when watching the movie. I thought some of the Viv fans might scream during the intimate scenes between Viv and Sandra (I would have screamed if other fans did, just for the fun of it..hehe), but I guess they've all already seen the trailer, so it wasn't a surprise to them and they didn't scream...they probably already screamed when they saw the trailer..hehe. I watched the trailer after seeing the movie and noticed there were a couple of scenes in the trailer that weren't included in the movie...too bad... hopefully there will be a Deleted Scenes part on the movie DVD. After you see the movie, you're probably going to have the song, "You're the One," stuck in your head for a while.

During the 7:15PM showing of the movie, the audience didn't seem to laugh as loudly and frequently as the audience at the 9:45 showing...maybe because some of the audience at the 7:15 showing were part of the film crew and had already seen parts of the movie, so it wasn't as funny... but it's a good sign that the audience had more laughter at the 2nd showing, since their response would be more similar to how others would react when seeing the movie. Lots of people clapped at the end of the movie for both shows...well it was expected for the first show, since the film cast/crew were in the theatre, but it's good to see that the audience at the 9:45 show liked the movie also. Interesting thing about The Grand Cinema...the chairs in the theatre were sort of vibrating during the movie scene at a nightclub w/ loud music..I haven't experienced that before while watching a movie in a theatre..hehe. After watching the 2nd movie, I returned to my hotel...it's been a long day..I was awake for over 24 hours..luckily I didn't fall asleep during the movie.

Hmm...now that Viv and Sandra are good friends, hopefully this might someday lead to Viv acting in a Peter Chan movie..hehe..or better yet, have Viv and Leon working together in a Peter Chan movie...that would be absolutely perfect!