THE CLI-FI REPORT

Now in its 49th year, the Golden Horse Film Festival is
an annual fixture on Taipei’s cultural calendar, and in a televised
show that is often
called the ''Oscars of Asia'', Mainland Communist China’s ‘Beijing
Blues’ entry won the gong for
best Chinese-language film on Saturday night. Hong Kong, China's
partly free but mostly a sub-autonomous region of the communist
dictatorship across the border, saw director Johnnie To get the nod
for best director.

A humble director Gao Qunshu said on stage in Chinese, in accepting
the award, that he wanted to thank the "entire world" for giving such
a relatively-inexperienced director such recognition.
Johnnie To's "Life Without Any Principles" tackled the plight of Hong
Kongers caught up with gangster thugs in the fallout from the global
financial meltdown. His film saw Hong Kong actor Lau Ching Wan get the
best actor award for playing a tough, thickskinned gangster.

On stage, Lau said what was probably the most interesting thing said
on stage all night when he very elegantly said
in Chinese that while he was of course very happy to get the award, he
"didn't go into acting in order to win awards."

While the Golden Horse film fest is sponsored by and run by Taiwan, a
sovereign and independent island nation off the coast
of China, the televised show seemed like it was taking place in
Beijing or Hong,Kong, since many of the awards went to
Hong Kong and Beijing film people and even one of the evening's TV
hosts was popular actor from Beijing. Taiwan seem liked it
hardly existed during the awards show, with Hong Kong superstars like
Jacky Chan and Andy Lau getting most of the attention.

One small nod to Taiwan saw 20-something Gwei Lun-mei get the best
actress award for he role in the Taiwanese movie
''Girlfriend/Boyfriend." Actresses Hao Lei and Bai Bai He, both from
China, were left sitting in the aisle and had to endure
watching a Taiwanese woman getting the gong that they were hoping for.
More awards for China and Hong Kong included Liang Jing as best
supporting actress in "Design of Death," and best supporting actor for
Hong Kong’s Ronald Cheng in ''Vulgaria," a moving Chinese-language
film about Hong Kong's once-glorious film industry now falling on hard
times.

In yet another nod by the Golden Horse party to the film industry in
communist China, director Lou Ye, who did not pick a Golden Horse for
his box-office hit "Mystery," nevertheless got a shout out on stage
for his edgy and often-censored work.

For directors, producers, actors and fans of Chinese-language cinema,
Taiwan's festival gets better every year. You might wonder why it's
called the Golden Horse Film Festival and why the "Oscar" handed out
to winners is in the shape and color of a golden horse. There's a good
story here.

Turns out that when the film festival first got its start, long ago
when Taiwan and China were mortal enemies, the tiny "frontline
islands" of Jinmen and Matsu along China's coast were part of Taiwan's
territory and served as military islands to defend the island nation
halfway between Japan and communist China.

The first character of the
word ''Jinmen'' in Mandarin characters means "gold" and the first
character of the word "Matsu" means "horse." So the Taiwan government,
which funds the annual film awards, decided to call the event the
Jin-Ma Awards Show, or Golden Horse, to send a message to China that
those two islands were defending Taiwan's sovereignty.
It's ironic that now China picked up most of the awards at the show
this year, even with over 1,800
missiles aimed at Taiwan, said one
Taiwanese observer in Taipei.

The stage banner for the show spelled out "Golden Horse Drama Awards"
in English in
a strange artistic college that made it look to viewers in Taiwan that the
words read "Golden Hore Drama Awards" since the "s" in "horse" was
almost invisible.

The four-hour show basically went over like a lead balloon, and left
most of Taiwan yearning for a better deal
in next year's ceremony.