Golden Rooster nods for American Dreams

Golden Rooster nods for American Dreams

BEIJING - Chinese movie idol Huang Xiaoming won a Best Actor prize - his first - at the Golden Rooster Awards last Saturday for Hong Kong director Peter Chan's American Dreams In China.

The rags-to-riches hit, about three university friends building a business empire by teaching English, was the biggest winner at the mainland movie industry's top festival, said NetEase news portal. It also picked up Best Film and Best Director for Chan.

Chan, who beat directors such as Feng Xiaogang (famine epic Back To 1942) and Wong Kar Wai (action saga The Grandmaster), said he felt ashamed to have won.

In particular, "Xiaogang has made such a big movie, which is so profound, while my movie is fast food", Chan said. "But it was made at the right time, so everything is right."

His movie tied with patriotic drama The Story Of Zhou Enlai for Best Film. Likewise, Huang tied with Zhang Guoli (Back To 1942) for Best Actor.

Huang, who won for his role as the naive country boy of the three friends, said he had been "dreaming about this day" since he was admitted to the Beijing Film Academy.

"Actually, I'm really quite stupid, but I try very hard," he said. "My dream was to say on stage a line from a Stephen Chow movie: 'Actually, I'm an actor.'"

Song Jia won Best Actress for her role as novelist Xiao Hong in biopic Falling Flowers.

Best Supporting Actor went to Wang Qingxiang, who played a retiring martial arts master in The Grandmaster.

Wang Luodan won Best Supporting Actress for her role as a television reporter in director Chen Kaige's social drama Caught In The Web.

Best Directorial Debut went to Vicki Zhao for her romantic hit, So Young. She said people should "take advantage of youth and do more crazy things", and to demonstrate what she meant, she pulled the show's hostess, Jingwei, towards her and kissed her on the mouth.


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