Alternative Film Guide

Fu zi / After This Our Exile, Patrick Tam’s first directorial effort in 17 years, won the top prize at the 26th Hong Kong Film Awards ceremony held tonight at the harborfront Hong Kong Cultural Centre, Tsim Sha Tsui.

“Thank you for the judges’ support for me,” Tam said on the stage. “… I thank all the actors and crew members and also God, who gave me such a great gift.” Tam had stopped directing movies after Sha shou hu die meng / My Heart Is That Eternal Rose in 1989. Unhappy with the way his films were turning out, Tam would spend the next 17 years working as a professor and film editor.

After This Our Exile is the story of an inveterate gambler who, after losing his home and his wife, forces his young son to become a thief. The 160-minute family drama also won trophies for director Tam, supporting actor and best new performer for Gouw Ian Iskandar, and for Tam and co-screenwriter Tian Koi Leong. The 9-year-old Iskandar had previously won the Golden Horse Award for best supporting actor.

The most nominated film of the evening, Zhang Yimou’s dysfunctional family melodrama-cum-period epic Man cheng jin dai huang jin jia / Curse of the Golden Flower, won 4 of its 14 nominations: best actress for Gong Li (above) — one of the greatest performers of the last two decades — as an empress plotting a coup against her husband while being slowly poisoned by him; best art direction (Huo Tingxiao); best costume design / makeup (Academy Award nominee Yee Chung Man); and best song, “Ju Hua Tai” composed and sung by one of the film’s stars, pop idol Jay Chou, and with lyrics by Vincent Fang Wen Shan.

Curse of the Golden Flower is the most expensive Chinese-language film to date, having reportedly cost a whopping — for local standards — HK$351 million (US$45 million).

Zhang lost the best film and best director awards, but his Chinese-made psychological family drama Qian li zou dan qi / Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles did win the award for best Asian film, beating South Korea’s mammoth hit Gwoemul / The Host, which had dominated this year’s Asian Film Awards, held in Hong Kong about three weeks ago.

The best actor winner was perhaps the biggest surprise — and the most applauded victory — of the evening. Veteran Lau Ching Wan (above, with Huo Siyan), the least-known name among the four nominees — the others were Jet Li, Chow Yun Fat, Tony Leung Chiu Wai, and Golden Horse Award winner Aaron Kwok — took home the award for his performance as a fading actor (a sort of parody of Lau’s own career) in Lawrence Lau’s little-seen Ngor yiu sing ming / My Name Is Fame.

The best supporting actress was Zhou Xun (above) for her role as the object of a prince’s affection in Feng Xiaogang’s Ye yan / The Banquet. Last November, Zhou received the Golden Horse Award for best actress for the musical Ru guo · Ai / Perhaps Love.

Peter Kam Pui-tat took the best original film score award for Isabella. Kam had previously won the best film music award at the 2006 Berlin Film Festival.

Legendary producer Run Run Shaw (right), who produced more than 150 films from the mid-1950s to the mid-1980s — and who will turn 100 next Oct. 7 — was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award.

Many of the top nominees, including Johnnie To (who was competing against himself in the best director category), Gong Li, Zhang Yimou, Jet Li, and Chow Yun Fat were absent from the ceremony, but both Tony Leungs — Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Tony Leung Ka-fai — Aaron Kwok, and Jay Chou did show up.

26th Hong Kong Film Awards - 2007 winners and nominees

26th Hong Kong Film Awards - 2007 nominations

2006 Hong Kong Film Awards winners and nominees

2005 Hong Kong Film Awards winners and nominees

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