SALON

Saturday, Nov 24, 2012 4:00 PM UTC

China’s ‘Beijing Blues’ wins at Taiwan film fest

By

Topics: From the Wires,

China's 'Beijing Blues' wins at Taiwan film festTaiwanese actress Gwei Lun-Mei and Hong Kong actor Lau ChingWan hold their awards for Best Actress and Best Actor for the film "GF * BF" and "Life Without Principle" at the 49th Golden Horse Awards at the Luodong Cultural Working House in Yilan County, Taiwan, Saturday, Nov. 24, 2012. The Golden Horse awards are the Chinese-language film industry's biggest annual events. (AP Photo/Wally Santana)(Credit: AP)

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — China’s “Beijing Blues” won the best film award Saturday and Hong Kong’s Johnnie To took home the best director’s award at Taiwan’s Golden Horse Film Festival, an event considered the Chinese-language Oscars.

“Beijing Blues” portrays the lives of the urban dwellers through the work of a squad of plainclothes crime-hunters.

In receiving the award, director Gao Qun Shu was visibly shocked, and he thanked the “globe” for giving an inexperienced director like him such honor and recognition.

To won best director for “Life Without Principle” about ordinary citizens in Hong Kong who are caught in the fallout of the global financial meltdown.

The film also won veteran Hong Kong actor Lau Ching Wan the best actor’s award for his portrayal of a triad thug seeking to recover money lost in a loan shark scheme.

Lau said he was happy to receive the award “even though you don’t act in order to win an award.”

Taiwan’s Gwei Lun-mei won the best actress award for portraying a woman involved in a romantic triangle in “GF-BF” or “Girlfriend-Boyfriend.”

She burst into tears on receiving the award after beating out hot contenders including Hao Lei and Bai Bai He, both of China.

China’s Liang Jing won the best supporting actress award for playing a toothy midwife harpy in “Design of Death.”

Best supporting actor went to Hong Kong’s Ronald Cheng for his role in “Vulgaria” about the financial capital’s struggling film industry.

Controversial Chinese director Lou Ye did not receive the widely expected award for directing box-office hit “Mystery.” But at the ceremony, Lou received a rare mention for eventually directing a movie that was screened in Chinese theatres.

“Mystery” — about a woman’s radical revenge after uncovering her husband’s infidelity — is seen as marking Lou’s entry into the commercial mainstream after years on the social and artistic edge.

Lou’s films have long focused on sensitive subjects like sex, violence and politics, and have repeatedly been censored by China’s cultural authorities.

A special award for outstanding movie worker was presented to Huang Yu-siang, a 25-year-old blind Taiwanese pianist in real life, for his first movie shot in Taiwan’s “Touch of The Light,” about young artists pursuing their dreams.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations