The Assembly, a warfare film by Chinese director Feng Xiaogang became the biggest winner at the 29th Full Blossom biennial awards given by the audiences in China's northeast seaport of Dalian on Saturday evening.
The movie won the Best Feature Film after beating the strongest opponent The Knot, and helped Feng, Zhang Hanyu and Deng Chao got the Best Director, Best Leading Actor and Best Supporting Actor awards respectively.
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The Assembly star Zhang Hanyu (L) and The Knot actress Li Bingbing pose with their awards for Best Leading Actor and Best Leading Actress at the 29th Full Blossom biennial awards in Dalian on Sept. 13, 2008. [Xinhua]
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The awards were voted by a 101-member jury representing 2.6 million audiences who decided the nomination list at the closing ceremony of the 17th China Golden Rooster and Full Blossom Festival.
The Assembly features a Chinese military company commander who devoted his entire life during the civil war in the 1940s to redeeming the honor of fellow soldiers, who are declared missing in action.
The film has raked in 270 million yuan (about 40 million U.S. dollars) of box office, becoming the third bankable Chinese film, following John Woo's Red Cliff and Zhang Yimou's Curse of the Golden Flower.
In a survey published by the China Film Association last December, 86 percent of Chinese audiences gave a high rating to The Assembly.
In the most suspensive competition of the Best Director award, Feng Xiaogang defeated Ning Hao and Yin Li, becoming the Best Director winner with The Assembly.
Zhang Hanyu, a rising cinematic tough guy, picked up Best Leading Actor for his role in the film, defeating strong opponents including kung fu star Jet Li and rising star Chen Kun.
Zhang, who had played only minor supporting roles in Feng's previous films, was obscure in China until The Assembly.
The Knot, a movie about love separated by the Taiwan Strait but lasted 60 years, won the Best Feature Film at the 12th Huabiao Awards, the governmental film prize in 2007, the Best Feature Film at the 26th Golden Rooster awards given by scholars in 2007, but failed to fulfill a myth undertake the three main domestic film awards.
The movie and Invisible Wings got the Outstanding Feature Films, inferior to the Best Feature Film award.
Taiwan heart-throb singer Jay Chou got a cold shoulder after the organizer China Film Association announced that the producer of Zhang Yimou's Curse of the Golden Flower decided to quit the competition of the outstanding movies but keep the right of Jay to vie for the Best Supporting Actor, the only nomination the movie landed, on Wednesday when the film festival opened, which became the first-ever embarrassment of 64-year-old Full Blossom awards encountered.
Li Bingbing was awarded the Best Leading Actress with The Knots after defeating Hsu Vivian with the same movie, which also gave Taiwan film veteran Ah Lei Gua the Best Supporting Actress award.
The Best New Artist award was given to armless girl Lei Qingyao with her outstanding performance in Invisible Wings.
Ninety-year-old Chen Qiang, a veteran supporting actor and 89-year-old Yuan Naichen, a veteran director of dubbed films, won the Lifetime Achievement Award.
