Golden Horse Gets a "Blind Massage"
Sunday, November 23, 2014 at 1:13PM It's your annual report of the Oscars of the Chinese world, the 51st annual Golden Horse Awards. Unfortunately this year had little crossover in terms of what made it into US theaters. There's generally at least a few winners/nominees that opened in the US. This year only one as far as I can tell - the Oscar submission The Golden Era though the Gong Li vehicle Coming Home will be distributed by Sony Pictures Classics supposedly at some point.
It was a big night for Lou Ye's Blind Massage, a rough night for acclaimed festival hit Black Coal Thin Ice and just your regular Saturday night for Ann Hui who took home her third (third!) Best Director prize for the Oscar submission The Golden Era. It wasn't a good year for the internationally recognizable acting contenders: Tang Wei (The Golden Era) and Gong Li (Coming Home) lost to the woman with the lowest profile and Chang Chen (Brotherhood of Blades) lost Best Actor. As far am I'm aware
Full list of winners is after the jump...
Best Picture Blind Massage
Best Director Ann Hui, The Golden Era
Best New Director Chen Jian-bin, A Fool
Best Actress Chen Shiang-Chyi, Exit
Best Actor Chen Jian-bin, A Fool
Best Supporting Actress Wan qian, Paradise in Service
Best Supporting Actor Chen Jian-bin, Paradise in Service
Best New Performer Zhang Lei Blind Massage
Incredibly Chen JIan-bin won BOTH male acting prizes + New Director. What a year for him! Zhang Ziyi & Aaron Kwok, behind him, presented
Best Documentary Cotton
Best Short The Hammer and the Sickle Are Sleeping (Geng Jun)
Best Original Screenplay Meeting Dr. Sun by Yee Chih-Yen
Best Adapted Screenplay Blind Massage by Ma Yingli
Taiwanese Filmmaker of the Year Jimmy Huang
Audience Choice Kano
Fipresci Prize Kano
Lifetime Achievement Tian Feng
Best Cinematography Blind Massage, Zeng Jian
Best Visual Effects The Midnight After
Best Art Direction Black Coal Thin Ice, Liu Qiang
Best Makeup & Costume Design Brotherhood of Blades, Liang Tingting
Best Action Choreography As the Lights Go Out, Jack Wong
Best Original Music Coming Home Qigang Chen
Best Original Song The Road We Pass from The Continent
Best Film Editing Blind Massage Kong Jinlei & Jolin Zhu
And check out Ann Hui's BEAUTIFUL CORSAGE
Reader Comments (8)
Question: What are the parameters for these awards? Chinese language only, Chinese backing only? And why is there a Taiwanese director award? Just curious.
That photos of Tang Wei and Gong Li just scream......"I'll cut you bitch if you get close enough."
Henry - ha. Tang Wei was definitely not pleased about losing. Not sure why Taiwan gets there own filmmmaker award but these awards are supposed to feature all the chinese language countries and there are so many derivations thereof. Singapore won for the first time a couple of years ago so sometimes the winners aren't even in Mandarin or Cantonese or Taiwanese.
Thanks. Isn't there also an Asian film awards that includes these countries as well as Japan and India (and a few others)? Which is considered the most prestigious?
from my understanding THE GOLDEN HORSE is the most prestigious of them. ASIAN FILM AWARDS are a fairly new awards body.
The Golden Horse awards mainly focus on language, any CHINESE speaking film can be submitted, or filmmakers with Chinese origin sometimes also included, so usually it is much more appreciated since it covers mainland China, HK and Taiwan three main Chinese film bases altogether.
I am dying over Tang Wei's and Gong Li's runner-up faces.
But Golden Horse is from Taiwan (full name is Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival), so having a Taiwanese director award makes sense. It is kind of like how BAFTA comes from Britain, but honors any English language film (you know, before it joins the line of Oscar predictors.)
In a sense, it is more prestigious than the HK or China counterpart, precisely because it is more inclusive. Though I am not sure if a Hong Kong artist would necessary want to win a Golden Horse more than a Hong Kong film award, for example. Maybe they would as they would be beating more people.
The Best Actress presentation (with no English subtitles):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yIaKSEjEJk