Late actress Cheng Pei-pei (鄭佩佩) and cinematographer Lin Wen-chin (林文錦) are to be honored with lifetime achievement awards in this year’s Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival, the executive committee announced on Thursday.
Cheng’s children expressed their joy and gratitude for the recognition, and were quoted as saying: “All of us have always taken pride in mom and what she had achieved in her career. We feel honored that her achievements are recognized by the Golden Horse Awards.”
Lin said: “I thank the Golden Horse executive committee for its commendation and am especially grateful for the support from fellow filmmakers over the decades.”
Photo courtesy of the Golden Horse Film Festival’s executive committee
Born in 1946, Cheng began her career in the mid-1960s, making her cinematic debut in Da Ji (妲己) in 1964.
She “established her on-screen persona as a swordswoman” with her rendition of Golden Swallow in director King Hu’s (胡金銓) Come Drink with Me (大醉俠) in 1966 — a monumental work in the history of Hong Kong’s martial arts cinema — and was later known as the “queen of martial arts films” for her performances in the genre, the committee said.
Cheng briefly left the big screen for about three years when she married US-based Taiwanese businessman Yuan Wen-tung (原文通), whom she divorced in 1987.
Photo courtesy of the Golden Horse Film Festival’s executive committee
During her illustrious six-decade career, Cheng starred in more than 110 movies and 50 TV series. Her most recent film role was as the matchmaker in Disney’s 2020 live-action remake of Mulan (花木蘭).
However, to older fans in the Mandarin-speaking world, she is vividly remembered for her portrayal as Madam Wah (華夫人) in the comedy Flirting Scholar (唐伯虎點秋香) in 1993, alongside actor Stephen Chow (周星馳) and actress Gong Li (鞏俐).
Her career peaked in 2000, when she played Jade Fox (碧眼狐狸) in director Ang Lee’s (李安) Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (臥虎藏龍), which won her Best Supporting Actress at the Hong Kong Film Awards.
Off-screen, Cheng was also dedicated to preserving Taiwanese cinematic assets, highlighted by her collaboration with Shih Chun (石雋), a lifetime achievement award recipient of the Golden Horse Awards in 2012, in collecting items related to the life of director Hu, the committee said.
Meanwhile, Lin, 91, is part of the first generation of cinema professionals in Taiwan nurtured by C.M.P.C. Studios and is a significant figure in cinematography who experienced the peak of Taiwanese-language cinema and Healthy Realism, the statement said.
Lin collaborated with multiple directors and pushed Taiwanese cinematography to new heights in films directed by Ting Shan-hsi (丁善璽), such as The Everlasting Glory (英烈千秋), Eight Hundred Heroes (八百壯士) and The Battle for the Republic of China (辛亥雙十).
Devoted to the industry for almost 50 years, Lin participated in the making of nearly 200 films, not only as a cinematographer, but also as a director and head of cinematic and technical departments.
He won Best Color Cinematography at the 1967 Golden Horse Awards for his work on Orchids and My Love (我女若蘭) and was nominated twice for Best Cinematography with The Diary of Di-Di (蒂蒂日記) and The Pioneers (源).
His autobiography, published in 2020 and titled A Life Behind the Camera: The Dream of a Village Boy (掌鏡人生：一個田庄囝仔的夢), serves as a record of the Taiwanese film industry’s development from the 1950s to the 1980s.
In honor of the two, the film festival is set to screen Come Drink with Me, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hong Kong Nocturne (香江花月夜), which feature Cheng, as well as Orchids and My Love, which Lin filmed.
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