Chinese films shine at Taiwan’s Golden Horse awards

FILMS from mainland China dominated this year’s Golden Horse Film Awards in Taiwan with two social dramas scooping up top honours last Saturday.

Chinese director Zhang Dalei’s black-and-white film, The Summer is Gone ( right), was the biggest dark horse of the night, winning the coveted best picture award.

“What should I say? I really wasn’t expecting this,” Zhang said.

Kong Weiyi, 10, was awarded best new performer for his role in the film, which follows a boy growing up in a small town in western China during the 1980s and 1990s.

China’s Feng Xiaogang took the best director title for I Am Not Madame Bovary which stars top actress Fan Bingbing playing a peasant who sues her swindler exhusband.

The film scooped the best picture prize at Spain’s San Sebastian film festival in September, with Fan winning the best actress gong.

But Fan lost the Golden Horse best actress title to fellow Chinese stars Zhou Dongyu and Ma Sichun, who shared the honour for their performances as friends who fall for the same man in Soul Mate.

China’s Fan Wei was another surprise winner as he saw off betterknown Hong Kong rivals Tony Leung Kai-fai and Jacky Cheung as well as Taiwan’s Kai Ko to win best actor for his role as a slick farm manager in Mr No Problem.

Critically-acclaimed immigrant drama The Road to Mandalay suffered the biggest upset of the night.

It only took home one award – for outstanding Taiwanese filmmaker of the year – despite being tipped to win in major categories. some five hours of makeup just to play Benjamin Button, an older man who gets younger as the years go by.

Johnny Depp in Black Mass (2015) No stranger to adopting a new look for his film roles, in Black Mass, Depp plays violent Boston mobster Whitey Bugler.

He was almost unrecognisable. His prosthetics included meticulous hair plugs, false eyebrows, stained teeth and extensive face makeup.

Jared Leto in Chapter 27 (2008) Leto had to gain over 30kg by eating unhealthy snacks for this role. His weight gain brought serious health issues, even landing him in a wheelchair.

Taiwan’s Elaine Jin won her second best supporting actress statuette after 22 years for playing a depressed mother in Hong Kong director Wong Chun’s family drama Mad World.

Wong claimed the best new director award for his debut feature film, which was shot on a shoestring budget.

Best supporting actor went to Taiwanese singer-actor Lin Po-hung for his role in At Cafe 6.

Nearly 50 films were nominated for the 53rd edition of the Golden Horse awards.

Although the Golden Horse is styled on the US Academy Awards, the winners are decided by a jury, along the lines of the Cannes film festival. – AFP

John Hurt in The Elephant Man (1980) This black-and-white biopic centres on Joseph Merrick, a severely deformed man living in 19th century London. It was rumoured that Hurt’s prosthetic costume was modelled from actual casts of Merrick’s body.

The makeup took seven to eight hours to apply each day, and almost two hours to remove.

Gary Oldman in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) The makeup team transformed Oldman into various monsters so convincingly that the movie won an Oscar for best makeup.

Oldman even hired a singing coach to help him lower his voice so he could give Dracula a more sinister quality.