Zhang Hanyu and Ba Dema pose for pictures with their trophy during the 24th Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Film Festival in Jilin Province. (Photo : China News)
The honor and recognition were worth than a hundred flowers.
Director Tsui Hark, actors Zhang Hanyu and Ba Dema and the film “Wolf Totem” each received an award at the 24th Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Film Festival, which ran from Sept. 16-19 in Jilin in Jilin Province.
Vietnamese-born Hark, 65, won Best Director for his 2014 action adventure movie, “The Taking of Tiger Mountain.”
“The most important thing is to always look ahead, the prize is just encouragement in a time period not bring permanent halo. We need many more goals to conquer. This award is an honor, but we need more care, more effort to conquer other challenges, make better films,” said Hark during his acceptance speech, reported the Associated Press.
One of film’s lead male actors Zhang Hanyu accepted the Best Actor award.
Chen Jianbin (“A Fool”), Andy Lau (“Lost and Love”) and Sun Weimin (“Yi Hao Mu Biao”) lost to him.
Hanyu, not yet a senior citizen at 50, received the same award at the 29th Hundred Flowers Awards in 2008 for his portrayal of a military commander in Feng Xiaogang’s 2007 war film, “Assembly,” which gave Xiaogang the Best Director award in the same festival.
Septuagenarian Ba Dema seemed to prove that aging only improves one’s acting chops as she took home the Best Actress award for her role in Ba Yin’s “Nuo Ri Ji Ma.”
Set in Inner Mongolia during World War II, Ba, 75, played a goatherd who helped save the lives of two soldiers.
She beat Lu Zhong (“Red Amnesia”), 74; Tang Wei (“The Golden Era”), 35; Xu Fan (“When a Peking Family Meets Aupair”), 48; and Zhao Wei (“Dearest”), 39.
Wei was proclaimed Best Director for her 2013 drama, “So Young,” at the 23rd edition of the film festival held from Sept. 26-29, 2014 in Lanzhou in Gansu Province.
Hong Kong actress-director-producer Ann Hui’s 70-million-yuan drama, “Huangjin Shidai” aka “The Golden Era,” was shown at the 71st Venice International Film Festival on Sept. 6, 2014 as the Italian festival’s closing film.
Seventy-one-year-old French director Jean-Jacques Annaud’s Chinese-French co-production drama, “Wolf Totem,” was declared Best Film.
Jilin-based actress Chen Hongchi served as the festival’s ambassador. Singer Jike Junyi, a member of the Yi ethnic group and the third place winner in “The Voice of China” in 2012, interpreted the festival’s theme song.
The first Golden Rooster Awards were given in 1981. The first People's Hundred Flower Award or Hundred Flowers Awards were conferred in 1962.
