GOLDEN HORSES, ROOSTERS, BELLS AND GEISHAS

Chinese awards rained from the skies over the weekend with Taiwan's Golden Horses, China's Golden Roosters and Taiwan's television industry awards, the Golden Bells all taking place at once. And in the case of the Golden Roosters this means that they want to upstage Taiwan's Golden Horses (and they've opened themselves up to nominees from Taiwan, Macau and Hong Kong for the first time ever). However, the Golden Horses ain't sweating it.

From the biggest to the smallest...

Winners of the Golden Horses were handed a generic bronze award onstage while stagehands frantically glued the winner's nameplate onto the actual trophy backstage, and that's the most interesting thing you'll hear about a celebrity-heavy but totally boring ceremony this year. Stephen Chow's KUNG FU HUSTLE won Best Director, Best Film, Best Supporting Actress, Best Visual Effects and Best Make-Up and Costume Design. Benny Chan's Aaron Kwok vehicle, DIVERGENCE, served to block Johnnie To's ELECTION from all the slots it was expected to win, with Aaron taking Best Actor, and DIVERGENCE taking Best Editing and Best Cinematography. ELECTION got Best Screenplay and Best Sound Editing which is an awards ceremony's way of saying, "Here, kid. Shut up and go play in the corner." Tsui Hark's SEVEN SWORDS won Best Action Choreography and with Xiong Xin-xin, Lau Kar-leung and Donnie Yen in the cast it would have been weird if it didn't, while Shu Qi won Best Actress (presented by Johnnie To and Tony Leung Kar-fai who should have had a better evening). The biggest dis of the night was to Tsai Ming Liang's WAYWARD CLOUD which was the highest-grossing local film in Taiwan this year, was nominated for three of the big awards, and didn't win one.
Go here for a full list of award winners and presenters.

China's Golden Roosters don't have near the oomph as Taiwan's Golden Horses, but that doesn't stop them from trying. They gave Jackie Chan the Best Actor award for NEW POLICE STORY (and he even attended!) and Zhang Ziyi was named one of the 100 Most Outstanding Film Actors (she didn't!) and four foreign films took home prizes: two Roosters for Russia's COUNT DOWN, one for the Russian movie STATE COUNSELOR, two for America's THE ARYAN COUPLE, and one for Korea's MARATHON. As for the domestic movies, there was more prize-sharing with the top awards being split between two movies, with only KEKEXILI being a film anyone outside of China might have heard of (ON MT. TAIHANG, anyone?).

Taiwan's Golden Bells go to the best TV programming and, while in the past it was variety shows that scooped up the prizes, this year it was dramatic serials hoovering up trophies. And although prizes did go to shows like "One Foot, One Step: Discovering New Formosa" the ceremony sounds more fun than the Golden Roosters as shows like "Love's Lone Flower" about a couple of lesbians in 1940's Taiwan was nominated for several awards (although lead actresses, Angelica Lee and Hong Kong's "Where is she now?" gal, Anita Yuen, weren't allowed nominations since they didn't apply for work visas), and Wu Bai (from Tsui Hark's TIME AND TIDE) rocked out with a medley of Taiwanese songs.