Site Features
- Asian Film Awards
- Site Recommendations

- Reader Poll Results

- The Sponsor Page
- The FAQ Page
 
support this site by shopping at
Click to visit YesAsia.com
Asian Blu-ray discs at YesAsia.com
 
 
 
 
 
         
 
15th Annual LoveHKFilm Awards
 
 

Like the previous two years, this year's edition of the LoveHKFilm.com Awards was decided upon by a jury of dedicated filmgoers, some involved in the Hong Kong film industry and some not. Seven individuals took part this year and they're the exact same people as last year. We'd get more people to participate, but nobody wants to.

Winners were annouced on April 15th, 2010 right after a screening of Wong Jing's Future X-Cops. Soon after, there was death.

A full list of jury members can be found below.

 
 
 
  KJ

Best Picture
Winner:
- KJ
Nominees:
- Accident
-
McDull Kung Fu Ding Ding Dong
- Night and Fog
- Red Cliff II
- Written By

 
     
  John Woo

Best Director
Winner:
- John Woo (Red Cliff II)
Nominees:
- Soi Cheang Pou-Soi (Accident)
- Cheung King-Wai (KJ)
- Ann Hui On-Wah (Night and Fog)

- Herman Yau Lai-To (Split Second Murders)

 
    top
  Louis Koo

Best Actor
Winner:
- Louis Koo Tin-Lok (Accident)
Nominees:
- Wang Xueqi (Bodyguards and Assassins)
-
Ekin Cheng Yee-Kin (Claustrophobia)
- Lau Ching-Wan (Overheard)
- Lau Ching-Wan (Written By)

 
     
  Zhou Xun

Best Actress
Winner:

- Zhou Xun (Equation of Love and Death)

Nominees:
- Kara Hui Ying-Hung (At the End of Daybreak)
- Karena Lam Ka-Yan (Claustrophobia)
- Kitty Zhang Yuqi (Jump)
- Zhang Jingchu (Night and Fog)

 
     
  Nicholas Tse

Best Supporting Actor
Winner:
- Nicholas Tse Ting-Fung (Bodyguards and Assassins)
Nominees:
- Stanley Fung Shui-Fan (Accident)

- Alex Fong Chung-Sun (Overheard)
- Francis Ng Chun-Yu (Turning Point)

 
    top
  Vicki Zhao

Best Supporting Actress
Winner:
-Vicki Zhao Wei(Red Cliff II)
Nominees:
- Michelle Ye (The First 7th Night)
- Denise Ho Wan-Si (Look For a Star)
- Jacqueline Law Wai-Geun (
Night and Fog)

 
     
  Night and Fog

Best Screenplay
Winner:
- Cheung King-Wai, Alex Law Kai-Yu (
Night and Fog)
Nominees:
- Szeto Kam-Yuen, Nicholl Tang, Milkyway Creative Team (Accident)
- Ivy Ho (Claustrophobia)
- Cao Baoping (Equation of Love and Death)

- Wai Ka-Fai, Au Kin-Yee (Written By)

 
     
  Michelle Wai

Best New Artist
Winner:
- Michelle Wai (Happily Ever After)
Nominees:
-
Ng Meng-Hui (At the End of Daybreak)
- Li Yuchun (Bodyguards and Assassins)
- Kay Tse (Love Connected)
- Coleman Tam Chun-Yat (Murderer)

 
    top
  Bodyguards and Assassins

Best Action
Winner:
- Stephen Tung Wai, Lee Tat-Chiu (Bodyguards and Assassins)
Nominees:

- Corey Yuen Kwai, Dion Lam Dik-On (Red Cliff II)
-Ma Yuk-Sing(The Storm Warriors)

 
     
 
All the Rest
 
  Give Love

Worst Film
Give Love
As opposed to the laughable Fit Lover, this year's worst film Give Love was just flat out bad. Neither romantic nor funny, Give Love wasted a proven star like Gigi Leung and a used-to-be-promising one like Wilson Chen. Worst of all, it wasted everyone's time.

Runner Up: Fit Lover

 
     
  Split Second Murders

Most Underrated Film
Split Second Murders
Dismissed in favor of the similar and inferior Seven 2 One, Herman Yau's Split Second Murders was unexpected, creative and darkly funny.
Probably a tough sell for international audiences, it's nonetheless worthwhile for its deft direction, strong local focus and sharp, unassuming wit.

 
    top
  Shinjuku Incident

Most Overrated Film
Shinjuku Incident
It's worthy of its positive reviews, but a Best Picture nominee at the Hong Kong Film Awards? Derek Yee's Shinjuku Incident bit off a bit more than it could chew, trying to be both an immigrant drama and crime thriller, and not really succeeding at either. Still a decent movie, its inflated accolades make it a shoo-in for this year's Most Overrated Film.

 
     
  Permanent Residence

Most Bizarre Film
Permanent Residence
If self-absorption equaled quality, then Permanent Residence would be the gold standard of all cinema. Scud's glamorized biography is so over-the-top meta that it defies description. Creative and daring, it's also funny for all the wrong reasons.

Runners Up:
Murderer, Plastic City

 
     
  Storm Warriors

Most Disappointing Film
The Storm Warriors
Too late and too little. Eleven years in the making, and after all that anticipation, The Storm Warriors turned out to be a visually dazzling and mind-numbingly boring time at the movies.
Even the CGI-jonesing Hong Kong audience weren't that enchanted. Maybe it was a different set of Pang Brothers at the helm. Like Jim and Manfred.

 
    top
  Split Second Murders

Funniest Performer
Cast (Split Second Murders)
Individually, nobody in Split Second Murders could qualify for a Funniest Performer award, but collectively the cast of old and young popstars managed to earn dry, dark laughs in this offbeat, low budget flick.
They probably couldn't have done it without Herman Yau, whose ability to do more with less is unparalleled.

 
   
  Trick or Cheat

Most Annoying
Cast (Trick or Cheat)
Last year's winner of this award was Siu Fei, and he keeps his streak of annoying performances alive as a cast member of the excrutiating "comedy" Trick or Cheat. Some of the actors here are really not that bad, but unfortunately this award assigns guilt by association.

Runner Up: I Love U Boyz (Love Connected)

 
     
  Mengke Bateer

Most Awesome
Mengke Bateer (Bodyguards and Assassins)
Ex-Toronto Raptor Mengke Bateer steals the Most Awesome award from Hu Jun of Red Cliff II. How? Bateer played a Shaolin monk who skies into the air and dunks melons onto bad guys perched in second floor windows. Holy crap! Not even Donnie can do that.

Runner Up: Hu Jun (Red Cliff II)

 
    top
  Tsui Tin-Yau

Most Underrated Performer
Tsui Tin-Yau (At the End of Daybreak)
Kara Hui's turn as a defiant mother got all the accolades, but it's Tsui Tin-Yau's cowardly, immature Tuck that drives At the End of Daybreak to its powerful and inevitable end. Tsui seldom receives much acting cred, and it's high time that he got some.

Runner Up: Janice Man (Basic Love)

 
     
  Michael Wong

Best Overacting
Michael Wong Mun-Tak (Overheard)
A strong candidate for Worst Overacting, Michael Wong nonetheless walks away with the Best Overacting Award because he added such a fantastic and hilarious dimension to the corruption thriller Overheard. Wong's impression of an Italian shows that he would never be mistaken for one, but he gets points for trying.
"I have my own car!!!!!" 'Nuff said.

 
   
  Aaron Kwok

Worst Overacting
Aaron Kwok Fu-Sing (Murderer)
Kwok must have been aiming for a celestial acting award - awarded to only the greatest actors in the universe -
when rehearsing this extremely over the top performance. That could be one explanation for why he was so wired. Another reason: too much coffee.

Runner Up: Michael Wong Mun-Tak (Overheard)

 
    top
  Elanne Kong

Taking Up Space
Elanne Kong Yeuk-Lam (Rebellion)
We like Elanne Kong, but not in Rebellion. Her character was out of place and the actress out of her depth, and the film ground to a halt every time she appeared. One wonders if she wasn't written in simply for marketing purposes.


Runner Up: Leon Jay Williams (Jump)

 
     
  Murderer

Career Suicide
Christine To (Murderer)
The winner of this award doesn't just make a career error, they compound it with even more poor judgement. In screenwriter Christine To's case, it was the extravagant promotion for Murderer (some of it obnoxiously self-given) that earned To widespread scorn.
The netizens were exceptionally vicious. Aren't they always.

 
   
  Lady Cop and Papa Crook

The Hand of China Award
Lady Cop and Papa Crook
A sixth month delay proved what everyone knew all along: Lady Cop and Papa Crook was either going to make sense or please Mainland censors - and never both. The theatrical release made good with the big boys up north, but it was tonally inconsistent and also shafted one of the main actors. Truthfully, it probably was never going to be very good.
Sorry, Sammi.

 
    top
  Split Second Murders

The Best Use of Chopsticks Award
Split Second Murders
Herman Yau's oddball black comedy features a heated domestic dispute where Andy Hui and Stephanie Cheng spar, and Kay Tse intervenes by shoving a pair of very long chopsticks into Hui's shoulders. Realistic? Probably not. Unexpected? Definitely. If only this had happened in Sex and Chopsticks II.

 
     
  Love Connected

The Best Trailer for a Bad Movie Award
Love Connected
The movie is seven shades of bad, but the teaser - which features Chelsea Tong and Sammy riffing on Barbie Hsu and Louis Koo from Connected -
gets the laughs. Sadly, the content from the teaser does not appear in the film, nor does it even show up on the DVD. You can probably find it on YouTube though.

 
   
  The Unbelievable The Unwatchable Award
The Unbelievable

Three out of seven people on this panel saw The Unbelievable, and it was reportedly so bad that everyone else was dissuaded from even checking it out on video. Easily the most distasteful and unpleasant film out of Hong Kong this year. No, Wong Jing had nothing to do with this film.
 
    top
  Jump

The Eraser Award
Jump
Long delayed and unfairly maligned, this paper-thin Stephen Chow-produced dance film at least delivered the commercial comedy goods.
Most notably, the film succeeded rather handily at completely erasing a single cast member, who was deemed "subversive" for his participation in some photo scandal a couple of years ago. His name was Ed or something.

 
     
  Murderer

THE IT ALL GOES TO HELL AWARD
Murderer
A perfect storm of bad filmmaking and marketing, nothing in 2009 could compare with what happened with Murderer. Early press trumpeted the film's unprecedented quality, from script to acting to direction, but the final product was so unbelievably out there that people went simply to see how bad it was.
Long story short: they found out.

 
   
  Daniel Wu The Team Player Award
Daniel Wu (Shinjuku Incident)
In Shinjuku Incident, Daniel Wu plays a dopey country hick who messes up a pachinko scam, gets his face slashed, sees something dear to him roasted in hot coals, and surfaces years later as a grotesque visual kei-inspired glam rocker. Meanwhile, Jackie Chan gets Fan Bing-Bing, leadership of a triad, and some semblance of honor. Daniel, thanks for taking one for the team.
 
    top
  Sniper

Subtitle of the Year
"You want to challenge the HK Police? I'm waiting for you!" (said by Edison Chen in Sniper)
Delivered defiantly by super-cool sniper Edison Chen, the above line is amusing simply because Chen was once sitting in front of some other cameras addressing another criminal case, and back then he didn't act quite so badass. Still, they got the bad guys both times. Life does imitate art. Or something.

 
   
  Fit Lover The Andy Lau Product Placement Award
Fit Lover
Serial pitchman Andy Lau had nothing to do with Fit Lover, but he would have enjoyed the film's over-the-top shilling of the Honda Fit - most especially the climax, where two Fits touch bumpers and then roll around on some CGI grass like they're making out. That someone even thought of that is awesome.
 
     
  Wang Xueqi and Kara Hui The Official LoveHKFilm Apology
Kara Hui Ying-Hung and Wang Xueqi
Wang Xueqi and Kara Hui took the top acting awards at the Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards and the Asian Film Awards, and they'll probably win in three days time at the Hong Kong Film Awards - and yet here they lost to Louis Koo(!!) and Zhou Xun, who won for a 16 month-old performance in Equation of Love and Death. Kara and Xueqi, you were both great. And, uh, sorry.
 
    top
   

The Next 10 Best Films of 2009
Accident
Red Cliff II
McDull Kung Fu Ding Ding Dong
Night and Fog
Written By
Claustrophobia

Equation of Love and Death
Split Second Murders
Bodyguards and Assassins
Citizen King

 
     
    The Next 10 Worst Films of 2009
All's Well End's Well 2009
Fit Lover
Murderer
Plastic City
Love At Seventh Sight
Kungfu Cyborg: Metallic Attraction
Trick or Cheat
The Treasure Hunter
On His Majesty's Secret Service
Permanent Residence
 
 
 
The LoveHKFilm Awards Jury
 

Ross Chen (a.k.a. Kozo)
Webmaster, LoveHKFilm.com

Shelley Cheung
Minion of Kozo
Editing Monkey, YesAsia.com

Paul Fox (a.k.a. Canton Kid)
College Lecturer, Media Studies
HKU Space

Kevin Ma
Blogger, The Golden Rock
New Minion, YesAsia.com

Sean Tierney
PhD and Hong Kong Film Scholar

Yang Won-Min
Botanist

Tim Youngs
Film Festival Consultant

 
 
top
     
  |   back to top   |   back to awards archive   |   back to features   |   back to home   |  
 
 
LoveHKFilm.com Copyright ©2002-2017 Ross Chen