The 14th Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Film Festival opened today in Sanya, a coastal city in south China's Hainan Province, with some big names promising to grace the red carpet this evening, including fifth-generation auteur Zhang Yimou, Hong Kong actor Donnie Yen, and actress Gua Ah-leh from Taiwan. Arnold "Terminator" Schwarzenegger, governor of California, is one of the foreign celebrities due to make appearances at the festival.

Unlike the annual Hundred Flowers Awards, which were established in 1962 by Popular Cinema magazine and where winners are chosen by the general public, the yearly Golden Rooster Awards were established in 1981 by the Association of Chinese Filmmakers (ACF). Winners are selected by a special committee of film experts. The two awards were amalgamated in 1992, and the result is possibly the most prestigious and influential film event in China.

But things have changed. Yet again.

According to the ACF, the two awards will be separated again from this year in an effort to better differentiate their focuses. The Rooster is a professional award, while the Flowers is a public jury award. Therefore, a decision was made to alternate between the two. There won't be any Flowers on offer at this year's event.

Another development is that for this year's event, for the first time, films from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan have been approved to compete for all awards except the Best Director award. Chinese-American filmmaker Dayyan Eng and Hong Kong superstar Jackie Chan are two of the beneficiaries of this change. Eng's Waiting Alone is a Best Film nominee, and Chan is vying for the Best Actor award for his role in gangster flick New Police Story, also a Best Film nominee.

Kang Jianmin, vice president of the ACF, commented that to enhance the cooperation between domestic and international filmmakers, the Golden Rooster might in future loosen its restrictions on who can compete.

Further, in order to regulate the establishment of the awards, the jury committee of the festival has decided not to "share" awards. In 2000 at the ninth Golden Rooster event, the Best Film award was shared by Final Decision, The Road Home and Roaring Across the Horizon. And Zhang Yimou and Chen Guoxing had to share the Best Director honor.

In addition to the competition section, the festival will also showcase 44 films from the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Taiwan and other parts of the world. Audiences will be asked to vote for the Best Foreign Film and Director from among the 20 foreign flicks from 17 countries.

Other events include a celebration of the centenary of Chinese film, and a filmmaking forum.

Golden Rooster competitions run until November 12 when the results will be announced. CCTV 6 will broadcast the closing ceremony live.

Best Film nominees:

Kekexili: Mountain Patrol by Lu Chuan
On The Mountain of Tai Hang by Wei Lian, Shen Dong and Chen Jian
Zhang Side by Yin Li
We Two by Ma Liwen
Waiting Alone by Dayyan Eng
New Police Story by Benny Chan

(China.org.cn by Li Xiao, November 9, 2005)