April 19th, 2009
The Golden Rock Hong Kong Film Awards Live Blog
8:50pm - Sorry for being late. Derek Kwok has already picked up the first award of the night. This is for Best New Director. A surprise, but he was the one I was rooting for anyway.
8:55pm - Cj7’s Xu Jiao picks up the Best New Actor Award with a very fake speech, followed by the first modern remake of the first Hong Kong film Stealing a Roast Duck (made in 1909), with Chapman To, Chin Kar Lok, and Lawrence Chou, done as a parody of Infernal Affairs. Mildly amusing.
8:58pm - I just realized this ceremony is at the Cultural Center Grand Theater, where I just spent the last 3 weeks watching movies at during the Hong Kong Film Festival.
Meanwhile, Fiona Sit and Jaycee Chan are on the stage, slightly embarrassed a day after Jackie Chan’s statement.
9:00 pm - It’s Best Cinematography time, and it goes to Arthur Wong for Painted Skin. I have a feeling that half the reason is that he wins pretty much every time he’s nominated. Even Eric Tsang cracks a joke, asking Wong whether he’s bored of going on stage every year.
9:02pm - The show is obviously edited and shown on tape delay. Probably for TVB to fit in commercials and put subtitles on the Mandarin speeches.
9:04pm - It’s pretty obvious that the show is on delay when Fiona and Jaycee are still on stage after 3 minutes of commercial. They’re passing out Best Editing now. I’m pulling for Ip Man or Sparrow
9:06 pm - And the winner is Connected. I guess that car chase scene is pretty hard to edit.
9:08 pm - Time for the Professional Achievement Award. Sammo Hung goes onstage as presenter, and the audience goes wild. The winner is voice actor/dubbing man Ting Yu.
9:13pm - Ting Yu goes onstage and is about to break into tears.
9:15pm - Stage hand awkward rushes on to the stage and drags Ting and Sammo Hung onto the stage so we can get to another Steal a Roast Duck “remake”. This time it’s in the style of a horror movie, a la The Eye. No idea who directs these things though.
9:17pm - Better that we don’t know who directs them. That was just flat-out stupid.
9:21pm -The second part of the 7-people hosting team is out, featuring Lam Chi-Chung, Tin Kai Man, Wong Cho Nam, and Michelle Loo. They make some jokes before welcoming Julian Cheung and Michael Tse (who will be starring in his own film, a spinoff of a TVB drama where his supporting character became the most popular one, in August. ) to present the Best Supporting Actress Award.
9:25pm - And the winner is Chan Lai-Wun from The Way We Are. Most certainly a pleasant surprise.
9:27pm - Tin Kai Man forgets his rehearsed joke, which leads to a lame acting exercise. This proves that 3 hosts is more than enough for an award show. The chaotic conversation is turning into a bad Hong Kong radio show.
9:29pm - Curious editing there, cutting to a crying woman while the 5 hosts go on about their jokes on ridiculous acting directions.
9:31 pm - Time for the Best Screenplay Award. I’m supporting The Way We Are for every possible award it’s nominated for, but I know it won’t win. Even a Beast Stalker or Claustrophobia win would be satisfying
9:32 pm - And the winner is The Way We Are’s Lai Yau-Wah! Another pleasant surprise! Will it sweep the major awards tonight? And TVB abruptly cuts her speech off to an In Memoriam sequence featuring Justin Lo, Janice Vidal, and Ivana Wong. And all three have to sing outside in the rain, under an umbrella and on a crane.
9:34pm - And TVB shows the little respect they have for a show by cutting off the In Memoriam sequence for more commercials. This is low, even for TVB. Please just give the rights to a network that actually gives crap next year.
9:38pm - And here comes another Steal a Roast Duck remake. This time it’s in the style of The Days of Being Wild, except it’s with DJ Sammy, Stephy Tang, and Alex Fong. They just replace the coke bottles with roast ducks and a title sequence with rubber ducks on it. Mildly amusing, but quickly turns stupid.
9:41 pm - And it cuts to Tony Leung and Carina Lau pretending to be mildly amused.
9:43 pm - After some more crappy 5-people banter, Richie Ren and Miriam Yeung present the Best Supporting Actor Award. Liu Kai-Chi from Beast Stalker is where my hope lies, but who knows?
9:46pm - And the winner is Liu Kai-Chi for Beast Stalker, for what looks like his first win ever. They’re actually making all the right calls tonight! And another abrupt cut by TVB.
9:47 pm - And time for the Best Asian Film Award, presented by two Mainland actors.
9:48 pm - And the winner is The Assembly. I have no real complaints against this, though they should just separate all the China films into its own category.
9:52 pm - Correction about Liu Kai-Chi. This is his second win as Best Supporting Actor.
9:54 pm - Time for the Life Achievement Award, presented by Wong Kar-Wai. The recipient is Josephine Siao, with Stephen Chow doing narration for the introduction clip.
9:57 pm - And TVB only shows a chopped-up fragment of her entrance. Always charming, she asks WKW to hold her award because of her bad back.
9:59 pm - TVB sucks for cutting off Siao’s classy Lifetime Achievement Award speech before it’s even over.
10:00 pm - And time for the Best Sound Design Award, presented by Wu Jun and Vanness Wu. Wu Jun shows off surprising Cantonese skillz.
10:03pm - and the award goes to Red Cliff, for its first award of the night. It’s OK, you’ll be back next year, and more deservedly so anyway.
10:05pm - Switching over the TVB Entertainment News channel (part of their pay TV network), they’ve already revealed the winner for Best Actress. Thanks, TVB, you can’t even keep your information flow together.
10:08 pm - And now they’re continuing with the Best Visual Effect Awards. It’ll either go to CJ7 or Red Cliff, I think. Why the hell is Ip Man even nominated?
10:09 pm - And the winner is Red Cliff. Again, they’ll be back next year.
10:11 pm - And the so called Seven Little Fortunes (Sammo Hung, Yuen Wah, Yuen Biao, etc) reunite to give out the Best Action Design Award. Hung is nominated for two of the awards.
10:14 pm - And the winner is Sammo Hung and Leung Siu-Hung for Ip Man.
10:15pm - Wilson Yip doesn’t look very amused during the speech. I wonder why. Interestingly enough, neither man thanks Wilson Yip or Donnie Yen.
10:18 pm - Chin Kar-Lok and Eric Tsang asks Louis Fan why he didn’t win Best Supporting Actor. Ouch.
10:22pm - And time for another waste of time remake of Stealing a Roast Duck, this time with Ronald Cheng, Edmond Leung, and a bunch of annoying Gold Label pop people. This time a parody of A Better Tomorrow. This may be the stupidest use of a roast duck ever committed to video.
10:24pm - Surprisingly, John Woo laughs uproariously. What the hell?
10:27 pm - Raymond Wong and Xiong Dai-Lin go on stage to present Best Costume Design. Of course, Xiong Dai-Lin first kisses Raymond Wong’s ass, then mentions liking Wilson Yip’s Dragon Tiger Gate, also produced by Wong’s company. She’ll get very far with Mandarin Films.
10:29 pm - And Red Cliff ’s Tim Yip takes the award. His brother is surprisingly short next to Xiong Dai-Lin.
10:30 pm - The two stick around for Best Art Direction. Empress and the Warrior should win most Overblown Art Direction.
10:31 pm - And the winner is Tim Yip for Red Cliff again. Can we see that height difference again?
10:35 pm - Kay Tse and Denise Ho make their first appearance as hosts, introducing Jackie Cheung and Sandy Lam’s performances of classic Cantopop songs. I expect a majority of them to be covers.
10:44 pm - 10 minutes in, this performance is officially getting overlong, even though Sandy Lam is as good a singer as ever. But why the hell is she singing the theme song to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon? Did anyone in Hong Kong even know there was a theme song to the movie?
10:45 pm - And TVB mercifully cuts it off for more commercial. TVB still sucks for cutting the show up to pieces though.
10:50 pm - Simon Yam somehow wins an HKFA for Best Wardrobe. Even he’s wondering what the hell is going on.
10:53 pm - Tse Kwan-Ho and some other woman, and I apologize for not knowing who she is, come out to present Best Original Song.
10:56 pm - And the award goes to Painted Skin. Sung by someone who wasn’t even in the movie.
10:58 pm - And time for Best Original Score, which feature three Japanese composers, including one for Ip Man. What does that do for Chinese pride?
10:59 pm - And the award goes to Taro Iwashiro for Red Cliff. And Alan, the Chinese pop singer who has a career based in Japan, actually came to Hong Kong for the ceremony. A night of pleasant surprises.
11:06pm - Andrew Lau and President of the Hong Kong Director’s Guild Gordon Chan goes onstage to present the award for Best Actress. Chan recounts the 2003 HKFA, which happened during SARS.
11:08 pm - I wonder if there’s running joke with the clip people to only show the crying scenes of the nominees.
Anyway, the award goes to Bau Hei-Jing, for The Way We Are! And now we see that Ann Hui is actually sitting next to Wong Jing, the uncredited producer of the film.
11:15 pm - Dodo Cheng and Alfred Cheung present the award for Best Director in a Her Fatal Ways reunion.
11:18 pm - And the award goes to Ann Hui for The Way We Are. I look forward to her returning next year for Night and Fog.
11:23pm - Tons of commercials later, time for hosts Sandra Ng and Eric Tsang to present the Best Actor Award.
11:27 pm - Moment of the truth. The award goes to Nick Cheung for Beast Stalker! No complaints, a well-deserved award.
11:29 pm - Cheung gives a classy speech. “I saw Obama become president, and I thought ‘oh, I have a chance!’”
11:31pm - Time for Best Film. Will it be The Way We Are? Beast Stalker? A movie that doesn’t deserve winning? My money is on The Way We Are, which has won every major award it’s been nominated for tonight.
11:33pm - But before that, there’s some onstage banter. Why doesn’t TVB cut these?
11:35 pm - And the winner is IP MAN?!!! What the hell were they thinking?!
11:36 pm - And Raymond Wong makes it about himself, and Wilson Yip doesn’t even crack a smile on stage. He reveals that screenwriter Edmond Wong is his son.
11:38 pm - A great list of winners, except the award committee leaves their most confounding award to the most important one. Too bad about TVB’s horrible tape delay broadcast too.
Anyway, another year over. Congratulations to The Way We Are for winning the most awards. We’ll see John Woo and Ann Hui back next year anyway. Thanks for reading, even if you didn’t participate during it. See you again next year.
April 19th, 2009 at 9:02 pm
This live blog is dedicated to the memory of Variety Asia.
April 19th, 2009 at 11:31 pm
Haha, Nick Cheung fucked up. Props for doing the live blog, by the way.
April 20th, 2009 at 12:48 am
“Cj7’s Xu Jiao picks up the Best New Actor Award with a very fake speech.”
Can we get details on this? (Sorry, didn’t watch the ceremony — took the opportunity to go watch “Departures” this evening instead!)
April 20th, 2009 at 4:56 am
IP MAN? You’ve got to be kidding me.
April 20th, 2009 at 6:37 am
It sounds like a clusterf*** reading this live blog now! As awkward and clumsy an event as the Oscars, perhaps?
I liked Ip Man but…really? Best picture?
Painted Skin wining for cinematography is a joke too; it looked like it was shot on video and converted to film.
That was the least of that film’s problems.
Thanks for the post!
April 20th, 2009 at 9:45 am
I just saw it. I can’t believe TVB cut that speech Liu Kai-Chi made. I think he dedicated it to his late son and he was giving a huge heartfelt speech. Then TVB just cuts it for no reason.
They’ll leave the awkward banter in but cut that out and Siao Fong Fong’s speech? Insane.
April 20th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
Sparrow should have won for soundtrack…maybe cinematography as well. Red Cliff soundtrack was pretty epic but come on…Sparrow shouldve won that. Xu Jiao’s crying speech was really fake. Not sure who told her to do that. I would have preferred her do a more natural speech, like a normal kid would do, like when Wu Jing Tao won a few years back for After This Our Exile. Sure, he stumbled on his speech but this was just screamed of “fakeness”. Ip Man for best film? I liked Ip Man but Best Film should’ve been Ann Hui’s. Id take To’s Sparrow over Ip Man for Best film as well. Well, atleast Painted Skin didnt win it. Best Director was a good choice. It was either her or Johnnie To - or maybe John. Nick deservedly won best actor - though if he wasnt it the comp I would have given it to Donnie. I thought Liu was good for supporting actor. The guy is in tons of movies but doesnt get much recognition or credit so good for him. Ip Man deservedly won Best Action and Assembly deservedly won Best Asian film.
April 20th, 2009 at 6:36 pm
it was tasteless of tvb to cut josephine siao’s speech right when she got to her family. they also apparently cut out the best actress winner’s speech when she thanked ATV.
Adn the editing was horrible, my youtube videos have better transition.
I dunno about you guys complaining about Ip Man, at least it was what it was–entertaining all the way. Red Cliff is an overblown pretentous mess. Don’t get met started on CJ7 (Chow dying for 5 minutes and then coming back to life is audience manipulation to the fullest), Painted Skin SUCKS (its a joke they even tried to get that crap nominated for an oscar). So that only leaves The Way We Are as the one film that can say they shoulda took best picture.
but really, how many people in HK do you think watched The Way We Are? 11? 15?
ip man may be commercial. but it was the right choice.
April 20th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
Cutting The Way We Are’s Lai Yau-Wah speech for the In Memoriam performance… and then cutting that for commercial was REALLY low. They are singing on a crane under umbrellas in the rain about the dearly departed and they only showed about 30 secs!!!
And I think John Woo should have won for Best Actor for his performance after watching the duck remake of A Better Tomorrow. I think he really wanted that Best Directing award. Better luck next year.
Simon Yam won Best Wardrobe because he wore a tie with a spider on it?!?!
Director Wilson Yip looked like someone ran over his dog… all night long. Seriously, IP MAN for Best Film?!?!?! That sort of discredits the entire evening.
April 21st, 2009 at 1:19 am
I wonder if those parodies will show up on Youtube.
April 21st, 2009 at 1:32 am
Looks like those parodies ARE on youtube. They’re pretty unremarkable, but Ronald Cheng channeling a cracked out Chow Yun-Fat + ABT theme song + John Woo and his wife laughing hysterically at the end made it worthwhile.
April 21st, 2009 at 3:12 am
[…] Chow Sing-Chi’s son in Chow’s sci-fi blockbuster CJ7. Unfortunately, according to the Golden Rock’s liveblog she gave a horribly fake acceptance speech that included fake crying. Carina Lau & Tony Leung […]
April 21st, 2009 at 4:47 am
did anyone see wong jing’s interview with tvb general manager stephen chan on his dinner-chatshow (’be my guest’ i think it was)?
they were talking about how wong jing’s films are exploitative, lack artistic merit etc..with wong saying he only gives the audience what they want, ‘i could make a film that win awards if i want to but it doesn’t give the just [financial] rewards’. stephen chan laughed it off and even mentioned at the end of the intervew ‘haha we’ll hope to see you pick that award then’..
i think that was last year, the year before or something. now to read that he was uncredited producer of the ‘the way we are’?
LMAO, legend.
btw he’s actually a very funny guy and that interview does give a lot of insight about hong kong cinema (especially about stephen chow).
April 21st, 2009 at 6:59 am
Hey LMF, just like last year, reading your play-by-play commentary is better than watching the awards show itself. The way you were calling the winners tells me that you should go to the races or buy lottery tickets because you sure got a knack for picking them!
April 21st, 2009 at 6:45 pm
Agreed on all points about TVB’s horrible editing. Rumor is that quite a few of the cuts were to remove references to Jackie Chan’s statements and mentions of competitor ATV. Actually, Stephen Chan, the general manager of TVB, has apologized, and said that he never ordered anyone to make cuts for such reason. So either he’s lying, or some lowly editor didn’t want to take the blame for anything and did the cuts on his/her own. Gordon Chan said that their contract with TVB ends this year, and they may shop for a new broadcaster next year. But with a 28 point rating (quite high for a film award show), TVB will probably fight quite hard for it.
It’s especially unfortunate, because I feel that this is probably the first time in a long time that they made mostly the right calls, and it would’ve gone down as one of the better years, had Ip Man not won best picture or had TVB not presented the show the way it did (and it had exclusive broadcasting rights).
That Ronald Cheng shooting roast duck juice thing was just gross, though maybe less so than Siu Fei’s atrocious overacting.
And also agreed on Sparrow and its score. It’s one of the few Hong Kong film scores with a personality, unlike those overblown score usually heard in Hong Kong music. And too bad about it losing cinematography, too. That long take in the beginning is amazing.
April 21st, 2009 at 6:54 pm
And also, I don’t remember Xu Jiao’s speech specifically, but it just felt rehearsed, and well…..acted. You can tell she already knew she would win and just said what she was told to say.
April 22nd, 2009 at 12:14 am
posted this on the other blog but…
im ecstatic ip man won, i never understand why critics hate on popcorn movies so much, Im not a film maker but id think popcorn movies arent as easy to make as most ppl prolly believe, why else does america put out so much crap during the summers (really only iron man was superb imo), ip man was such a fun, kick butt time at the movies that i dont think itll be replicated anytime soon. and yah the way we are was good but the majority (who arent movie critics) will find it boring and they wouldnt be wrong either…