Veteran Hong Kong director Tsui Hark’s (徐克) murder mystery Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (通天神探狄仁傑) was the biggest winner at the 30th Hong Kong Film Awards on Sunday.
The Tang Dynasty drama featuring famous Chinese detective Di Renjie scooped six awards, including best director, best actress, best art direction, best sound design, best visual effects and best costume and make-up design.
“The whole team has worked really hard and put in a lot of effort to make this a spectacular production,” Tsui said after receiving the award. “This award is to be shared with everyone involved.”
Photo: AFP
The moviemaker’s latest hit was nominated for the top Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival last year.
Carina Lau (劉嘉玲), crowned best actress for her role as the powerful Chinese empress Wu Zetian (武則天) in Tsui’s drama, said: “After being nominated so many times and not winning, I didn’t think it would really happen to me.”
She beat fellow contenders Miriam Yeung (楊千嬅), Fiona Sit (薛凱琪), Tang Wei (湯唯), and Josie Ho (何超儀), daughter of Macau casino magnate Stanley Ho (何鴻燊).
Gallants (打擂臺), a rollicking homage to Hong Kong kung fu movies in the 1970s, was the dark horse of the night and the second biggest winner, scooping awards for best film, best supporting actor, best supporting actress and best original film score.
Long-time actor-director-singer Teddy Robin (關維鵬) bagged the honors for best supporting actor for his role in the comedy.
“Over the past 30 years, I’ve had a lot of nominations, but not wins. This time round, it’s finally my turn,” he told reporters.
“This is an affirmation that I am a good actor too,” he added.
Best actor went to singer-cum-actor Nicholas Tse (謝霆鋒) for his role in the gritty action-packed cop drama The Stool Pigeon (線人), beating early favorite and veteran actor Chow Yun-fat (周潤發) as the great Chinese thinker Confucius.
Prolific filmmaker Pang Ho-cheung (彭浩翔) and Heiward Mak (麥曦茵) won the award for best screenplay for the light-hearted romantic film Love in a Puff (志明與春嬌), a movie about a cosmetics saleswoman who develops a romance with a fellow smoker.
Oscar-winning director of photography Peter Pau (鮑德熹) bagged the honors for best cinematography for his work in Confucius (孔子: 決戰春秋), a biopic that follows the life of the legendary Chinese philosopher, tracing his journey around small kingdoms in China preaching his beliefs.
“I was deeply influenced by Chow Yun-fat during this movie,” Pau said while receiving the award on stage. “He embodies the very values Confucius teaches and is a very dedicated actor.”
Rising star Hanjin Tan (陳奐仁) was named best new performer for his role in the biopic Bruce Lee, My Brother (李小龍), which tells the story of martial arts legend Bruce Lee (李小龍) in his youth, while Felix Chong (莊文強) took home best new director.
Best Asian film went to the Japanese thriller Confessions.
The award for best film editing went to Cheung Ka-fai (張嘉輝), who worked on Ip Man 2 (葉問2), a sequel to the 2008 film on the life of the legendary kung-fu master starring Donnie Yen (甄子丹).
Together with Taiwan’s Golden Horse Awards, the Hong Kong Film Awards ceremony is one of the Chinese film industry’s most prestigious events, as the southern Chinese city remains a rich source of film talent.
Its stars still enjoy huge popularity across Asia. There have been increasing collaborations between Hong Kong and Chinese filmmakers in recent years targeting the large market of moviegoers in China.
Many people noticed the flood of pro-China propaganda across a number of venues in recent weeks that looks like a coordinated assault on US Taiwan policy. It does look like an effort intended to influence the US before the meeting between US President Donald Trump and Chinese dictator Xi Jinping (習近平) over the weekend. Jennifer Kavanagh’s piece in the New York Times in September appears to be the opening strike of the current campaign. She followed up last week in the Lowy Interpreter, blaming the US for causing the PRC to escalate in the Philippines and Taiwan, saying that as
Taiwan can often feel woefully behind on global trends, from fashion to food, and influences can sometimes feel like the last on the metaphorical bandwagon. In the West, suddenly every burger is being smashed and honey has become “hot” and we’re all drinking orange wine. But it took a good while for a smash burger in Taipei to come across my radar. For the uninitiated, a smash burger is, well, a normal burger patty but smashed flat. Originally, I didn’t understand. Surely the best part of a burger is the thick patty with all the juiciness of the beef, the
This year’s Miss Universe in Thailand has been marred by ugly drama, with allegations of an insult to a beauty queen’s intellect, a walkout by pageant contestants and a tearful tantrum by the host. More than 120 women from across the world have gathered in Thailand, vying to be crowned Miss Universe in a contest considered one of the “big four” of global beauty pageants. But the runup has been dominated by the off-stage antics of the coiffed contestants and their Thai hosts, escalating into a feminist firestorm drawing the attention of Mexico’s president. On Tuesday, Mexican delegate Fatima Bosch staged a
Would you eat lab-grown chocolate? I requested a sample from California Cultured, a Sacramento-based company. Its chocolate, not yet commercially available, is made with techniques that have previously been used to synthesize other bioactive products like certain plant-derived pharmaceuticals for commercial sale. A few days later, it arrives. The morsel, barely bigger than a coffee bean, is supposed to be the flavor equivalent of a 70 percent to 80 percent dark chocolate. I tear open its sealed packet and a chocolatey aroma escapes — so far, so good. I pop it in my mouth. Slightly waxy and distinctly bitter, it boasts those bright,
RSS