70 years on

On May 22, 1962, the first Hundred Flowers Award was held in Beijing by the China Film Association. Voted on by the public, it aimed to promote diversified development in the country’s film sector.

In 1981, the Golden Rooster Award was initiated, and the jury panel included filmmakers, film experts and historians.

An item from Nov 20, 1991, in China Daily showed Li Xuejian winning the best actor awards at the Hundred Flowers and the Golden Rooster for his portrayal of the lead role in the film Jiao Yulu.

In 1992, the two awards were combined into the China Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Festival.

Since 2005, the Hundred Flowers Award has been held biennially, on alternate years with the Golden Rooster. The two are the most prestigious film awards in China.

In the latest Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Film Festival last year, Wu Jing was crowned best actor for his performance in Wolf Warrior

2, while Chen Jin won best actress for her role in Hold Your Hands. Wolf Warrior 2 has become the highest-grossing film in China, raking in more than 3.4 billion yuan ($492 million).

The Chinese film sector has developed rapidly in recent years.

As the world’s secondlargest film market, China last year produced more than 1,000 movies; 902 feature-length dramas, 51 animated films, 57 documentaries and 61 sciencecentered educational films, according to the China Film Administration, the top regulator for the sector.

Last year, domestic feature films grossed nearly 38 billion yuan, a year-on-year rise of nearly 26 percent and accounting for some 62 percent of the nation’s box-office revenue, with the latter rate marking the highest since the Chinese film industry started to take off in the early 2000s.