Most Japanese girl pictures are boring. Most Chinese girl pictures are inept. How do you save two countries with one photoshoot? Have a Japanese photographer shoot a Chinese girl. Don't ask me why, but it works.One of my favorite photo books (not that I've ever laid hands on the actual book) is "La Petite Amante", a Japanese-made showcase of Taiwanese acress Annie Yi, aka Yi Neng Jing, aka in Japan as Shizuka Inoh. The title seems to be a reference to the book/movie "L'Amant", aka The Lover, which is about a French girl coming of age in colonial Vietnam.
It's a concept-photobook, with Annie in the role of indolent tourist in, naturally, Vietnam. She loiters at a soft drink stand, rides in a cyclo, plays with makeup in her hotel room. Sounds a little tacky, and she was already 30 when the book was shot (it was released in Jan. 2000), but it's a winner -- it's just got that I-don't-know-what, as the French say. The secret, I suppose, besides the fact that she's cute, is that she's not just posing, she's acting. And though it's not a very skin-oriented book, it ends up being a lot sexier than your average Japanese swimsuit-idol production. Or maybe I'm just a sucker for wistful, lonely girls with a bit of an attitude.Photos are here, though not all of them from this book.
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