Filmmakers from the Chinese mainland swept up the major trophies at the Taiwan Golden Horse Awards, the equivalent to the Oscars for Mandarin-language cinema. Veteran mainland director Feng Xiaogang secured his third Golden Horse win with “I Am Not Madame Bovary” and the best actress award was shared by two mainland actresses for the same movie—“Soul Mate.”
Zhou Dongyu and Ma Sichun shared the best actress award.
Movie stars from the Mandarin speaking film industry walked the red carpet on Saturday night, in front of Sun Yat-sen Memorial in Taipei. They posed for the cameras in designer dresses and greeted their shouting fans who took the opportunity to get close to their idols.
This year marks the 53rd installation of the awards ceremony, which was first held in 1962. The Golden Horse Awards are considered the most prestigious film awards in the Chinese-speaking movie industry.
This year, honors for both best male and female lead actor, best director and best feature film were all given to mainland movies.
Veteran Chinese director Feng Xiaogang picked up the best director award for his social satire “I Am Not Madame Bovary.” It stars Fan Bingbing as a woman who spends a decade fighting bureaucracy to have her divorce nullified after being swindled by her ex-husband.
“I was making this movie, I wanted to make it as if it was my first movie ever. This is a process of learning. I did not know if this was right, because many of my good friends were against my method. But today, the Golden Horse Awards gave me the answer. I was right to do so. I was right to insist. I am very grateful to the Golden Horse Awards,” Feng said.
The 58-year-old director, screenwriter and actor previously won best adapted screenplay in 2005 with “A World Without Thieves” and best lead actor in 2015 for his role in “Mr. Six.”
The two lead actresses in the romantic drama “Soul Mate” shared the best actress award. Zhou Dongyu and Ma Sichun played two best friends whose relationship is tested when they fall in love with the same man. Zhou rose to stardom after playing the lead in Zhang Yimou’s 2010 movie “Under the Hawthorn Tree,” while Ma is a newcomer.
“I am grateful for my last name. My last name is the Chinese character for ‘horse.’ So I think I have a special connection to the Golden Horse. I also think that Dongyu and I are a very good fit. We have a lot of energy. So I think we should work on more movies together, because I think we have a special spark together,” Ma said.
Chinese actor Fan Wei won best lead actor for his performance in the movie “Mr. No Problem,” in which he plays a farm manager in the rural China of the 1940s.
Chinese actor Fan Wei won best lead actor for his performance in the movie "Mr. No Problem" in which he plays a farm manager in the rural China of the 1940s.
The best feature at Saturday’s ceremony went to Zhang Dalei’s “The Summer Is Gone,” about a young boy’s summer vacation in Inner Mongolia in the early 1990s. It is set to the backdrop of shrinking jobs at state-owned companies during a time of economic reform.
Now, as the mainland’s film industry continues to rise, the film industries of Hong Kong and Taiwan have seem to hit a low ebb. One or two decades ago, the situation was exactly the opposite. Movie buffs relied on films from Hong Kong and Taiwan for entertainment.
In recent years, as the mainland annual box office has continued to hit record numbers, and the screens in mainland cinemas increase by leaps and bounds, the film industry there has been attracting a lot of money and talent. That is why we saw a dominance by mainland films in this year’s Golden Horse Awards.
