Actress/model Anne (23, 177cm) and actor Ozawa Yukiyoshi (34, 183cm) are both tall by Japanese standards. But media attention on their romance is just as much about the stature of their parents. Ozawa is the son of world famous conductor Ozawa Seiji (73) and former model Irie Miki (64). He was born in San Francisco but educated in Japan and holds Japanese citizenship. He’s built a solid acting career over the last decade. One of his earliest roles in the late ’90s was in the TV drama “Saigo no Samurai.” There’s no connection, but that is the Japanese translation of “Last Samurai,” the Hollywood movie that earned an Oscar nomination for Watanabe Ken (49)…who just happens to be Anne’s father. She went out of her way to hide the fact when she began modeling for the magazine “Non-no” at the age of 15. But by the time she made her acting debut in 2007, in the Kurosawa Akira tribute drama “Tengoku to Jigoku” (Heaven and Hell), her family background was no longer a secret. It was also on the set of that TV Asahi drama that she first met Ozawa. Recently the two have been seen together regularly at the Tokyo bar-restaurant run by Ozawa’s family, according to this week’s issue of women’s magazine “Josei Seven”.
• Korean actress Bae Doo Na (29) was late for a movie PR event in Tokyo yesterday. Her excuse? Her flight from New York was delayed by a volcanic eruption in Russia’s Kuril Islands. Bae finally arrived about three hours into the screening and post production press conference for Koreeda Hirokazu’s “Kuuki Ningyou” (Air Doll). The movie, shown recently in the Un Certain Regard category at Cannes, is an adaptation of Goda Yoshiie’s manga about an inflatable doll (Bae) that becomes sentient.