Alternative Film Guide

44th Golden Horse Awards - 2007
The 44th Golden Horse Award nominees were announced on Oct. 27, 2007.
The 44th Golden Horse Award winners were announced on Dec. 8, 2007.
("*" denotes the winner in each category)
 

Lust, Caution has been nominated for 11 Golden Horse Awards, in addition to a nomination for director Ang Lee as [...]

During the 10th Shanghai International Film Festival, the Shanghai Film Critics Association announced their best of 2006 list. Here it is:
 
Top 10 Chinese films: Tokyo Trial, The Knot, Courthouse on the Horseback, Jia Zhang-ke’s Sanxia haoren / Still Life, The Old Summer Palace, Loach Is Fish Too, Zhang Yimou’s Curse of the Golden Flower, [...]

About 300 journalists crammed into a 200-seat room to hear director Wong Kar Wai, actor Jude Law, and singer-turned-actress Norah Jones discuss their film, My Blueberry Nights, a romantic drama that opened the 60th edition of the Cannes Film Festival.
"Sometimes the tangible distance between two persons," Wong explained, "can be quite small but the emotional [...]

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 2007 Hong Kong Film Award winners will be announced this coming Sunday, April 15.
A huge box-office hit in China, Zhang Yimou’s historical epic-cum-dysfunctional family drama Man cheng jin dai huang jin jia / Curse of the Golden Flower (top) leads the pack of nominees, with a total of 14 nods including best film, best [...]

26th Hong Kong Film Awards
The 26th Hong Kong Film Award nominations were announced on February 1, 2007.
The 26th Hong Kong Film Award winners were announced at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Tsim Sha Tsui on April 15, 2007.
Hong Kong Film Awards 2006 Winners - Article
Hong Kong Film Awards 2006 Nominations - [...]

"It’s almost strange that it’s the first ceremony," remarked French director Luc Besson at the 1st Asian Film Awards presentation held this evening at Hong Kong’s Convention and Exhibition Centre, as part of the 31st Hong Kong International Film Festival which kicked off last night.
"Good films come from everywhere," added Besson. "Artists are like mushrooms, [...]

"When I started making films, my teacher said film should show people’s dreams. This film made my dreams come true," remarked Chinese director Wang Quan’an upon accepting the Berlin Film Festival’s Golden Bear for his rural drama Tu ya de hun shi / Tuya’s Marriage, a depiction of the social and environmental costs of China’s [...]

13th Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards- 2006
The 13th Hong Kong Film Critics Society Award winners were announced on January 24, 2007.
 

Johnnie To’s Election 2, a follow-up to Hong Kong Film Critics Society 2005 winner Election, revolves around more power struggles among the denizens of Hong Kong’s organized crime underworld. To also took the best [...]

The San Diego Film Critics Society tends to go its own way when it comes to year-end film awards. For instance, last year most critics’ groups chose Brokeback Mountain as the Best Film of the year. The San Diego Film Critics opted for King Kong. Hardly a superior choice, but different nonetheless. Other more esoteric [...]

After withdrawing banned Chinese director Lou Ye’s controversial Yihe yuan / Summer Palace, Belgrade Authors’ Films Festival officials reinstated the film following widespread criticism and the resignation of Festival president Dinko Tucakovic, who told reporters he could not support censorship.
Summer Palace, a love story — with graphic sex scenes — set against the backdrop of [...]

Patrick Tam’s Fu zi / After This Our Exile won this year’s Golden Horse for Best Film of the year at the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival, which ended yesterday.
Set within a Chinese community in rural Malaysia, After This Our Exile depicts the complex relationship between a boy and his no-good father. Curiously, Patrick [...]

43rd Golden Horse Awards - 2006
The 43rd Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival was held between Nov. 10-24, 2006.
The 43rd Golden Horse Award winners were announced on Nov. 25, 2006.
Golden Horse 2006 Winners - Article
("*" denotes the winner in each category)
Note: The Go Master and I Don’t Want To Sleep Alone were withdrawn from [...]

Via The Star / Associated Press:
Fortissimo, the Hong Kong distributor of Tian Zhuangzhuang’s Wu Qingyuan / The Go Master, has withdrawn the film from Taiwan’s annual Golden Horse Film Festival. The Go Master, the story of Go game master Wu Qingyuan, has been nominated in four categories for the Golden Horse Awards, including Best [...]

AFI FEST 06 - Sunday eve:

At 7:30pm at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, the AFI FEST 2006 will come to a close with a screening of Zhang Yimou’s Curse of the Golden Flower, China’s submission for the next Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award. The martial-arts costume drama, which stars Chow Yun-Fat, Taiwanese pop singer Jay Chou, [...]

The 19th Tokyo International Film Festival came to a close this past Sunday, Oct. 29.
The winner of the festival’s top prize, the Tokyo Sakura Grand Prix (worth US$100,000) was Michel Hazanavicius’s French box-office hit and Seattle Film Festival winner OSS 117 Le Caire nid d’espions / OSS 117, Cairo Nest of Spies, a comedy-cum-spy-thriller [...]

I’ve added the list of winners at this year’s Pusan International Film Festival, perhaps the world’s most important showcase for East Asian cinema.
The festival’s top winners were Heng Yang’s Betelut (China) and Chui Mui Tan’s Love Conquers All (Malaysia, see above photo), which tied for the New Currents Award for Best New Asian Film. Chui’s [...]

The 2006 AFI Los Angeles International Film Festival (AFI FEST 2006), to be held in Hollywood between Nov. 1-12, will present the world premiere of Zhang Yimou’s Curse of the Golden Flower as its Closing Night Gala.
Written and directed by Zhang, Curse of the Golden Flower stars Chow Yun-Fat, Gong Li, and Jay Chou. [...]

China has picked Zhang Yimou’s Curse of the Golden Flower as its submission for the next Best Foreign-Language Film Academy Award. The martial-arts costume drama, which stars Chow Yun-Fat, Taiwanese pop singer Jay Chou, and Zhang’s old muse, Gong Li, portrays assorted intrigues plaguing one of China’s highly dysfunctional imperial families.
There has been some discussion [...]

More on the Venice Film Festival 2006 Winners:
In Reuters (via The Scotsman), Mike Collett-White writes that "the jury at the Venice Film Festival left critics and journalists perplexed and in some cases vexed when it awarded top prize to China’s Still Life."
…
In The [London] Independent, Clifford Coonan writes, "Significantly, Still Life won the Golden [...]

Director Lou Ye has been banned from making films in China for five years for submitting the psychological-political drama Yihe yuan / Summer Palace for this year’s Cannes Film Festival without government approval.
Summer Palace, the tale of a country girl who is exposed to subversive political ideas (i.e., democracy) at the university in Beijing, is [...]

Eiji Okuda’s Nagai Sanpo / A Long Walk, a Japanese drama about an old man (veteran Ken Ogata) who goes out for a long stroll with a mysterious little girl, and Carlos Diegues’s O Maior Amor do Mundo / The Greatest Love of All, the story of a dying Brazilian man (José Wilker) searching for [...]

Reuters reports that "the crew of China’s most expensive movie, [Wu ji /] The Promise by Oscar-nominated [sic] director Chen Kaige, has been criticized for damaging the environment in a beautiful county called Shangri-la while filming."
The Promise was shown out of competition at this year’s Berlin Film Festival. It has received mostly negative reviews [...]

25th Hong Kong Film Awards- 2005
The 25th Hong Kong Film Award winners were announced on February 9, 2006.
The 25th Hong Kong Film Award winners were announced on April 8, 2006.
("*" denotes the winner in each category)
 

Johnnie To’s well-received Election revolves around a power struggle within Hong Kong’s organized crime during their own election time.
 
Best Film [...]

12th Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards- 2005
The 12th Hong Kong Film Critics Society Award winners were announced on January 17, 2006.
2005 Hong Kong Film Critics Society Award Winners - Brief Article
 

Johnnie To’s well-received Election revolves around a power struggle within Hong Kong’s organized crime during their own election time.
 
Best Film: Hak se wui / [...]