China's leading
film festival, the 15th Golden Rooster and A
Hundred Flowers Film Festival, opened in Hangzhou of?east
China's
Zhejiang Province yesterday.
However, there wasn't a celebrity in sight.
The organizers apparently failed to invite megastars such as Jet
Li, Stephen Chow and Jackie Chan who have been nominated for
awards. Instead, the festival team decided on an ethnic song and
dance show for the opening.
Lackluster opening aside, this year's festival will see actors
and filmmakers from Hong Kong and Taiwan joining their mainland
counterparts to compete for the eight Hundred Flowers awards for
the first time, while more than 65 movies from China and around the
world will vie for 15 honors in the Golden Rooster awards to be
presented tomorrow and Saturday.
In the Hundred Flowers awards, mainland's Zhang Yimou and Feng
Xiaogang, Hong Kong comedian and director Stephen Chow and Hong
Kong action movie director Stanley Tong Kwai-lai have been
nominated for Best Director. Hong Kong's Jackie Chan, Stephen Chow,
Andy Lau, Tony Leung and kungfu actor Jet Li will vie for Best
Actor, while the mainland's Zhang Ziyi and Taiwan's singer-actress
Rene Liu are up for the Best Actress award. Liu will be one to
watch having already bagged five Best Actress awards at Asian film
festivals in the last decade.
The Golden Rooster Awards, sponsored by the Association of
Chinese Filmmakers, were established in 1981, the Year of the
Rooster on the Chinese lunar calendar. Award recipients, selected
by a jury of filmmakers, artists and critics, receive a statuette
in the shape of a golden rooster, as the name suggests.
The Hundred Flowers Awards, started in 1962 by Popular
Cinema magazine, were suspended in the late 1960s and 70s but
resumed in 1980. It's the only major mainland movie event where
winners are selected by the audience, the moviegoers. The two award
ceremonies were unified into one national film festival in
1992.
"The nomination lists for the Hundred Flowers Awards were
compiled from votes by 1.16 million moviegoers across the country,
who voted by post, the Internet or text message," said Kang
Jianmin, vice chairman of the Association of Chinese Filmmakers at
a press conference. He said that 99 film fans selected at random
from a pool of 1.16 million will sit as jury to decide on the
winner in a live broadcast on Saturday.
Whilst the festival is touted as the country's most prestigious,
it is not without its kinks. In 2005, a decision was made to change
the event to a bi-annual one as opposed to annual.?
As a result, two films that were released in 2004 -- House
Of Flying Daggers by Zhang Yimou, and A World Without
Thieves by Feng Xiaogang – have been nominated for an award.
If either wins, critics say this would make the festival look old
and outdated.
But Kang explained that any film that was released between April
2004 and April 2006, and that made at least five million yuan
(US$633,000) at the box office or captured TV ratings of at least
30 million audiences, are eligible for nomination.
Another point of contention is the fact that previous juries for
the Hundred Flowers awards sent in their votes by post. Critics
don't quite like the idea of 99 people actually meeting and
discussing the issue.
Kang said that the problem with the previous method of voting
was that fans simply voted their favorite actors, whether or not
they had watched the movie. He said: "This is against the awards'
original intentions. A Hundred Flowers Award is a movie award, not
a popularity award or a box office award!"
The average age of the 99 voters selected is 37. Kang gave a
less-than-convincing explanation by saying: "Young people only love
to watch movies; they have no interest in voting."
More than 16 events have been planned for the four-day film
festival before the final awards ceremonies on Saturday, including
film exhibitions, a trade fair, an annual academic forum on
mainland films and the launch of "Star Avenue", the Chinese
equivalent to Hollywood's Walk of Fame, next to the Qiantang River.
"Star Avenue" reportedly cost the Hangzhou government and
private investors, including the Hualian Group, 1.6 billion yuan
(US$202 million) to make.
(China.org.cn, Shenzhen Daily by Zhang Rui October 26,
2006)
