Raging Fireplace, starring and produced by Donnie Yen, was awarded finest movie and finest director for late motion maestro Benny Chan on the Hong Kong Movie Awards (HKFA) on Sunday night time. The ceremony occurred at Kowloon Bay Worldwide Commerce & Exhibition Centre, the primary time it had been held as a fully-fledged, in-person occasion since 2019.
Produced by Emperor Movement Footage, Raging Fireplace was a uncommon pandemic-era hit in Hong Kong and China final 12 months, and lauded as a welcome throwback to old style Hong Kong-style motion motion pictures. The movie took 4 awards in complete, additionally together with finest enhancing (Curran Pang) and finest motion choreography (Donnie Yen, Ku Huen Chiu, Tanigaki Kenji, Li Chung Chi).
Benny Chan, one among Hong Kong’s most acclaimed motion administrators, was recognized with most cancers whereas making the movie, resulting in Yen taking up throughout post-production. In a transferring second in the course of the HKFA ceremony, Hong Kong star Andy Lau learn out an acceptance speech from Chan’s widow.
Whereas Raging Fireplace took two of the highest awards, Anita, Edko Movies’ biopic of Canto-pop diva Anita Mui, was the largest winner total, taking 5 awards together with finest new performer for model-turned-actress Louise Wong, who performed Mui, and finest supporting actress for Fish Liew, who performed her sister.
The movie, which recreated Hong Kong from the Eighties to Mui’s loss of life in 2003, additionally gained three technical awards, together with finest visible results (Yee Kwok Leung, Garrett Okay Lam, Raymond Leung Wai Man, Hung Man Shi Sweet), finest costume & make-up design (Dora Ng, Karen Yip) and finest sound design (Tu Duu-Chih, Wu Shu-Yao).
Greatest actress went to Cya Liu for her function in Soi Cheang’s Limbo, which scooped 4 awards in complete, additionally together with finest screenplay (Au Kin Yee, Shum Kwan Sin), finest cinematography (Cheng Siu Keung) and finest artwork path (Kenneth Mak, Renee Wong). The darkish motion drama, produced by Solar Leisure Tradition, premiered at Berlin movie pageant in 2021.
Greatest actor went Patrick Tse for his function as a retired murderer in Tsz Pun Ko’s Time. Greatest supporting actor went to 17-year-old Fung Ho Yeung for Zero To Hero, which was Hong Kong’s entry for finest worldwide characteristic on the Academy Awards this 12 months.
Kin Lengthy Chan took finest new director for neo-noir crime drama Hand Rolled Cigarette, which was backed by the Hong Kong authorities’s First Function Movie Initiative.
Greatest authentic movie music was introduced to Origin Of Time, from the movie One Second Champion, whereas Ryuichi Sakamoto gained finest authentic movie rating for Ann Hui’s Love After Love.
The most effective Asian Chinese language-language Movie Award went to Taiwanese manufacturing American Woman, with director Fiona Ruan Fengyi current to choose up the award after going by way of Hong Kong’s notorious one-week resort quarantine.
Michael Hui, an actor, comic, scriptwriter and director who alongside along with his brothers dominated Hong Kong’s movie business within the Nineteen Seventies and Eighties, was introduced with the Lifetime Achievement Award. The Skilled Achievement Award went to veteran editor Tony Chow, who ran the enhancing division of Eighties manufacturing powerhouse Cinema Metropolis, and has gained a string of enhancing awards throughout his profession.
This was an uncommon version of the awards as nominees have been chosen from two years value of releases, primarily because of the pandemic, which drastically lowered the variety of Hong Kong movies which have made it to cinemas over the previous few years. The awards are often held in April however, together with this 12 months’s Hong Kong Worldwide Movie Competition, have been compelled to postpone.
Hong Kong theatres have suffered a number of waves of closures in the course of the pandemic, the newest of which lasted from January to April 2022, because of the most extreme outbreak of the virus. The native business has additionally been grappling with a brand new censorship regime, following Beijing’s imposition of the Nationwide Safety Legislation, with some filmmakers opting to go away town.
Nonetheless, there are indicators of revival for Hong Kong cinema with long-postponed comedy Chilli Snigger Story passing the $1.3m (HK$10m) mark on the native field workplace this week, and big-budget sci-fi movie Warriors Of Future scheduled for launch in August.
