After This Our Exile (父子), a meticulously told drama about a deadbeat father, was the big winner at the Hong Kong Film Awards, clinching best movie and best director for Patrick Tam (譚家明).
In a major upset, Lau Ching-wan (劉青雲) won best actor Sunday for the little-known movie My Name Is Fame (我要成名), beating heavyweights like Hollywood stars Jet Li (李連杰), Chow Yun-fat (周潤發) and former Cannes best actor winner Tony Leung (梁朝偉).
Gong Li (鞏俐) from Memoirs of a Geisha and Miami Vice was named best actress for playing an empress who helps stage a coup in famous Chinese director Zhang Yimou's (張藝謀) imperial epic Curse of the Golden Flower (滿城盡帶黃金甲). Gong didn't attend Sunday's ceremony.
Hong Kong director Tam made a triumphant return after a 17-year-break with After This Our Exile, the painstakingly told downfall of a hot-tempered cook, who pimps and forces his son to steal after losing his job, his home and his wife.
Tam, part of Hong Kong's new wave cinema in the 1980s, quit directing after making My Heart Is That Eternal Rose (殺手蝴蝶夢) in 1989 because he wasn't happy with his work, turning to teaching and movie editing instead.
Tam's early work was beautifully shot but thin on substance.
Making his comeback, the director strove to perfect both form and content. The director's cut of After This Our Exile is a stunning 160 minutes.
In testimony to his improved storytelling, After This Our Exile also won Tam a best screenwriter prize Sunday.
Asked about the trend of Hong Kong filmmakers working in China and the decline of the local industry, Tam said: "If you want to revive the Hong Kong cinema, the most important thing is to raise the creativity and quality of Hong Kong film industry workers. Whether you're working with Hollywood or China isn't the most important point.''
Tam's best movie and best director wins Sunday were impressive because he beat respected Hong Kong counterpart Johnnie To (杜琪峰), who was nominated twice in both categories for the gangster movies Election 2 (黑社會：以和為貴) and Exiled (放逐). But perhaps the biggest surprise of the night was Lau's best actor win. He won for playing a faded movie star who finds new life by mentoring a budding actress in My Name Is Fame, a film that generated little attention amid the new trend of Chinese epics.
Although Lau was the least well-known among the best actor nominees, he's a veteran actor whose work dates back to 1984.
Lau, who raised his trophy forcefully in celebration, joked about his relative obscurity with his fellow nominees in his acceptance speech.
"I have to thank actors who are senior than me ... like brother Tony Leung, brother Aaron Kwok (郭富城). I will work hard to continue your legacy,'' Lau said, even though both actors are his contemporaries.
Kwok's loss in the best actor category was another surprise because he won the prize at Taiwan's Golden Horse Awards (金馬獎) in November for playing the father in After This Our Exile.
Ten-year-old Goum Ian Iskandar (吳景滔), who played the son in After This Our Exile, cemented his status as one of the industry's hottest child stars. After winning best supporting actor at the Golden Horse Awards, he won the same prize in Hong Kong.
Goum struggled to hold up both trophies when posing for photographers backstage. He said his mother has promised to buy him a Nintendo Wii video game console as a reward.
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