China Daily Global Edition (USA)
From bravery to mystery
ACompetition is hotting up for the China Film Directors’ Guild Awards, with closely contested nominations across five categories. reports. fter his arthouse hit I Am Not Madame Bovary took home the highest prize at the China Film Directors’ Guild Awards last year, Feng Xiaogang has again become the favorite at this year’s event.
As a top honor for Chinese filmmakers, the guild’s annual awards have been running since 2005. For its latest and ninth edition, the guild released its shortlist of nominations across five categories in Beijing on March 22. Prestigious filmmaker Han Sanping won the annual achievement award.
Feng’s directorial hit Youth, a nostalgic tale centering on a Chinese military art troupe that bagged the nominations for best picture, director, actor and actress, has come out as a front-runner for the awards this year.
Also with nominations for best picture, director, actress and a comparatively lighterweight entry for best scriptwriter, director Vivian Qu’s drama Angels Wear White follows a close second. The story about two schoolgirls being sexually assaulted by a middle-aged man won Qu the award for best director at Taiwan’s Golden Horse Awards in 2017.
Following closely behind are Taiwan actress-director Sylvia Chang’s Love Education, and Zhou Ziyang’s directorial debut Old Beast, which both picked up three nominations.
Also starring Chang, Love Education is a warm yet funny look at the different attitudes of three generations toward love.
Set in Ordos in the Inner Mongolian autonomous region, Old Beast looks into the complexity of humanity through a dark story about a ruthless father who would rather squander money on his mistress than save his ailing wife. The low-budget movie emerged as a dark horse at the 54th Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival, winning two awards for best actor and best original screenplay.
For foreigners interested in learning more about Chinese cinema, the Guild’s best picture award may provide a useful guide.
Shortlisted from 27 firstround candidates selected from nearly 800 Chinese movies produced in 2017, the nominations have gone to Wolf Warrior 2, Legend of the Demon Cat, Soul of a String, Youth and Angels Wear White.
A milestone hit that raked in an unprecedented box office total of nearly 5.7 billion yuan ($902 million), Wolf Warrior 2 has stirred worldwide interest in the future market potential of Chinese cinema. The action-packed story follows a former Chinese Special Forces operative’s evacuation of Chinese citizens from a war-torn African country.
Widely recognized as one of director Chen Kaige’s best films, Legend of the Demon Cat is a fantasy epic that recreates the spectacle of Tang Dynasty (618-907) in its heyday. It interweaves storylines about royal romance and an uprising to create a supernatural mystery.
Inspired by Tibetan author Tashi Dawa’s novels Tibet, A Soul Knotted on a Leather Thong and On the Road to Lhasa, Zhang Yang’s new directorial work Soul on a String is about a hunter’s adventurous journey to redemption.
For Li Shaohong, president of the China Film Directors’ Guild, the diversity of nominations exemplifies the growing momentum of China’s film industry.
“The rapid expansion of the Chinese movie industry has been miraculous. When we held the first edition of the awards in 2005, it was hard to even pick out 20 movies to shortlist for five categories. The annual output then was low, and most of the entries were arthouse films,” she says.
“Now China is producing nearly 800 movies a year. The genres are rich. I think we can learn from the Academy Awards and add more categories, such as best animated work and best documentary,” adds Li.
Li also highlights the rise of young talent, predicting that they will reshape China’s movie industry.
“In the past, directors usually established themselves only after shooting at least two or three features. But in recent years, we have seen many young directors quickly rise to fame after their first feature. It shows that the Chinese movie industry is evolving quickly,” she says.
Zhang Yimou, one of China’s most prestigious filmmakers, will head the jury panel to decide the winners in around one month’s time.
Feng Xiaogang’s