Golden Horse Awards: Ethan's Little Buddy, Nicholas Absent Shirt

The Golden Horse Awards were held last night. They're often thought of as the Chinese Oscars because the tradition goes back the furthest and honors a wide pool of Chinese language films from multiple countries (China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, etcetera). Though neither Monga, Taiwan's submission for Oscar's Foreign Language Film competition, nor Aftershock (China's submission), were nominated for Best Picture they both had multiple nominations .

Monga, a popular youth crime drama we've mentioned before, won Best Actor for 28 year old Ethan Ruan (left), who amusingly brought a cardboard cutout of his  co-star who was not nominated. And yes he brought the cutout with him onstage when he won. He said...

Woo! Sorry, I brought my buddy along. [mimicing his co-star] 'Hi everyone. I'm Mark Chao'

...to big laughs from the crowd.

Here's the Best Actor presentation. The clips begin at 2:25 after Li BingBing and Tony Leung Ka Fai (yes, the other Tony Leung) are done with their banter. Oh, awards-show banter... you are truly the universal language.



In case you're wondering about that gayish clip in the reel, that's the Cannes prize winner Spring Fever which is from China but was banned there so it's major release was in Taiwan. It won three awards. You can see the film instantly on Netflix.

But back to Monga... look how surprised Ethan is by his win! Sweet.

Leading Actor Nominees from left to right: Ni Dahong (Judge), Hao Qin
(Spring Fever), Xueqi Wang (Bodyguards and Assassins) and Ethan Ruan.

In his acceptance speech he says that he joined the business with the hopes that he'd win this prize in 20 years time. He didn't have to wait that long. His movie career has barely begun.

Complete list of 2010 Golden Horse Winners

<--- PICTURE When Love Comes 

[Please note: When Love Comes, which had 13 nominations (!) was released after the Oscar submission deadline for Best Foreign Film. It's possible we'll see When Love Comes as Taiwan's Oscar submission in 2011.]

OUTSTANDING TAIWANESE FILM The Fourth Portrait

DIRECTOR Chung Mong-Hong, The Fourth Portrait 

OUTSTANDING TAIWANESE FILMMAKER Lee Lieh, Monga

[Please note: I'm not sure why Taiwan gets extra special treatment but they really cleaned up in the awards since When Love Comes, The Fourth Portrait and Monga are all from Taiwan.]

NEW DIRECTOR Ho Wi Ding, Pinoy Sunday 

ACTOR Ethan Ruan, Monga 

ACTRESS Lu Li-Ping, City Monkey 

SUPPORTING ACTOR Pen-Fon Wu, Seven Days in Heaven

SUPPORTING ACTRESS Lei Hao, The Fourth Portrait 

SCREENPLAY Liu Jie & Gao Shan, Judge 

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY Essay Liu, Seven Days in Heaven

ART DIRECTION Peng Weimin, When Love Comes

CINEMATOGRAPHY Chang Chan, When Love Comes

EDITING Robin Weng, Jian Zeng, Florence Bresson, Spring Fever

MAKE-UP & COSTUME DESIGN Dora Ng, Bodyguards and Assassins

[Note: How strange is it that these categories are combined?]

VISUAL EFFECTS Yong-Gi Lee, Xiang Yu Nan, Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame

[Note: As an outsider I'm kind of surprised that the Chinese Oscar submission Aftershock did not win this battle since it's such a mammoth hit overseas.]

FILM SCORE Peyman Yazdanian, Spring Fever

ORIGINAL SONG Summer Lei "Taipei Exhcanges," from Taipei Exchanges

SOUND EFFECTS Duu Chih Tu, Monga

ACTION CHOREOGRAPHY Sammo Hung, Ip Man 2

NEW PERFORMER Chien Na-Lee, Juliets

DOCUMENTARY Hip-Hop Storm

SHORT FILM Magabahai 

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT Hsu Li-Kong

SPECIAL CONTRIBUTION Sun Yueh

Red Carpet Lineup
Some memorable outfits. You have to go there if you're talking awards shows. It's the law.

To your left is 30 year old star actor Nicholas Tse (nominated for supporting actor for Gods and Assassins) who came to the awards show without a shirt underneath his suit. To your right are the evening's hosts, who know from fashion statements, and didn't let the audience forget he wasn't wearing one.

Left: Lu Li-Ping (City Monkey) who won Best Actress. Apparently the local fashion police were not pleased with her outfit, comparing it unfavorably to seafood (?). I guess I can see the undulating clam motif?; Right: Jingchu Zhang who was nominated for the disaster drama Aftershock.

From left to right:  acclaimed actress Kara Hui (a winner last year at multiple ceremonies for At the End of Daybreak); Sandee Chan (those half gloves always remind me of Lady Gaga now) is a musician and performer who was nominated for composing the score for Monga. TFE reader Tony (who helped me immensely with this posts - thanks!) tells me her score is brilliant; and Chiling Lin who some people called "Best Dressed" for the evening (she's wearingValentino). If she looks familiar to you that's because she was recently the plot-turning obsessively tea-making wife of Tony Leung Chiu Wai in last year's lengthy action epic Red Cliff.

That's all for now. Even if you don't know the films do you like the awards show reportage from far away lands? If you speak Chinese and are more familiar, do you think the deserving players won?
*

Flashback: Maggie Cheung and... Sigourney Weaver?

A very happy birthday to the incomparable and elusive Maggie Cheung who turns 46 today. We haven't seen her mysterious mojo onscreen in about six years -- since Clean and 2046 hit and she announced that unfortunate retirement -- but she did do a cameo earlier this year in the Chinese film Hot Summer Days (pictured left), an all star ensemble romance about a heatwave.

Here in this ancient clip from the Golden Horse Awards, you can see Maggie winning one of her four Golden Horse Best Actress awards for Comrades a Love Story (1996) aka Tian Mi Mi... good flick - rent it. And who is presenting this award but Sigourney Weaver herself! It's an Ang Lee connection since Sigweavie was doing The Ice Storm round about that time. They switch to English about a minute into the clip.



Leslie Cheung (RIP) is also in the clip. *sniffle*
*

Down in Fraggle Link

the classics
The Film Doctor '10 things I learned about Breakfast at Tiffany's...'
Birth of a Notion well, well. Batman's Boy Wonder just turned 65. Who knew?
Okinawa thinks Olivia de Havilland's Melanie is a badass in Gone With the Wind.


of the moment
popbytes True story of my Lady Gaga moment in the supermarket today. Plus news on Madonna's second feature W.E.
The Big Picture Inception backlash coming in 3...2...1...
AV Club strangest news of week: Rob Lowe may be buying Miramax to become 'the next Harvey Weinstein.'
Film Business Asia The Golden Horse Awards have added a "new director" prize for the next generation of Asian filmmakers.
Empire Captain America Chris Evans talks about his costume for Captain America

"I think everyone that’s going to see it is going to say, 'Okay, well done. Well done. I think they got the costume right. The casting they completely ruined, but the costume they nailed!'"

You gotta love self deprecating celebrities.

Movie Dearest I love reading about bizarre off cinema projects from cinema faces. Seems that god fearing Esmeralda from Edward Scissorhands (aka actress O-Lan Jones) is directing an complex possibly travelling opera.
I Need My Fix Lindsay Lohan sentenced to jail time. Incidentally in case you were worried. That porn biopic is going to wait for her release. That's loyalty!
Topless Robot True Story: Watching The Twilight Saga: Eclipse can kill you. Oh my god how depressing. Can you imagine if that's the last movie you were ever able to see?
Pop Hangover's Celebrity Headswap. These images are disturbing BUT for the first time ever a Twilight image made me want to see a Twilight movie. Kristen Stewart androgynized? Way sexier.
Collider Tree of Life gets an MPAA rating but distribution still looks shaky to me.

You Bent My Wookie has a lengthy interview up with the director of the upcoming Fraggle Rock movie. Seems the Weinsteins are giving him trouble. Quelle surprise. I have no special affection for Fraggle Rock (not that familiar) but I do love puppets and his heart seems to be in the right place

...time and again, I will run into people – and I’m talking about anyone from a fan boy sitting at a coffee shop to someone in the industry – everyone seems to long for an analog performance, a live performance, a real performance.

I loved Avatar, and I love what Andy Serkis does with motion capture as Gollum. There’s magic there, too. But I know that people have a hunger for tactile characters right now. I think the pendulum is swinging in a direction where people want to know they’re watching something real on camera, something that they can reach out and touch.

Though I would love desperately for this to be true, as I too miss tangible things and I love in camera effects and such, but I'm pessimistic that it actually is. CGI has conquered.