'Creation of the Gods' wins big

Director Wuershan's latest project won big at the 36th China Golden Rooster Awards, held during the 2023 China Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Film Festival over the weekend in Xiamen, Fujian province.

Among the winners announced on Saturday, his epic film Creation of the Gods I: Kingdom of Storms captured three awards: Best Feature Film, Best Cinematography and Best Supporting Actor.

Wuershan said the movie, the first installment of a trilogy adapted from a novel written during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), had taken him and his team 10 years to develop, and they recruited around 10,000 crew members for the project.

Expressing his gratitude to all those who dedicated themselves to the epic, the ethnic Mongolian director said they will continue to work hard to finish the sequels.

Legendary Hong Kong actor Tony Leung Chiu-wai, who was nominated for the first time for a Golden Rooster, won Best Leading Actor for playing a patriotic agent in the espionage thriller Hidden Blade, a star-studded tale set during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-45).

Leung said he enjoys being an actor because it has enriched his life, and he believes he would have never been able to understand the lives and cultures of various people in China if he had not portrayed so many roles in his career.

"Each character also teaches me new things and life lessons," he added.

Hidden Blade received awards for Best Director and Best Film Editing. Unlike most of the other winners' celebrations, director Cheng Er accepted his Golden Rooster calmly.

Off the Stage, a film about a Yueju Opera star's efforts to reunite with her estranged children later in life, earned He Saifei the Best Leading Actress award. She said that she had dreamed of winning the award for many years and shared an interesting anecdote — she once had a five-hour phone call with the director as she struggled with whether she should accept the role, as the character's personality was the opposite of her own.

The Wandering Earth II, the sequel to China's highest-grossing sci-fi film of all time, received the Special Jury and Best Sound Recording awards. Director Guo Fan revealed that the next sequel and the final installment would be released on the first day of the Chinese New Year in 2027.

Veteran actor Li Xuejian won the Best Supporting Actor award for his portrayal of Ji Chang, a kindhearted tribal lord, in Creation of the Gods I: Kingdom of Storms. He suggested dividing the honor among all five nominees, emphasizing that movies are a collective process. Li previously won the Golden Rooster's Best Leading Actor award in 1991.

Huang Miyi won Best Supporting Actress for her role in Ripples of Life, a black comedy about how a film failed to be shot due to a disagreement between the director and the scriptwriter.

Huang recalled that the film had faced a real major challenge that partly inspired the plot: the script for Ripples of Life was rejected just a couple of weeks before shooting. She expressed her appreciation for her fellow creators who bravely completed the movie, despite the difficulties in producing it.

Chang An, a 168-minute epic chronicling the lifelong friendship of Tang Dynasty (618-907) poets Li Bai and Gao Shi, won the award for Best Animated Film. Song Yiyi, the producer, hoped that through this film, more audiences can come to understand the lives and stories of two of the most renowned poets in China's literary history.

As one of the most creative winners at the award ceremony, Bai Zhiqiang, who won Best Children's Film for his directorial debut, Like Father and Son, took out a long scroll of paper to deliver his speech. He expressed his gratitude to those who financially supported the movie despite budget constraints.

The Best Directorial Debut award went to Liu Xiaoshi for his Chinese test pilot-themed movie Born to Fly, and French director Jean-Jacques Annaud received the Best Foreign Language Film award for Notre-Dame on Fire.

The Hundred Flowers Film Festival took place from Nov 1 to 4. A total of 179 films were submitted to compete for the Golden Roosters.