Singer Lao Lang attended the "2007 Internet Awards" on January 17, 2008.

2007 has been another exciting year here in China. A fair amount of events from grand festivals to hot online topics are still living vividly in our memories.

A gala celebration was hosted on Thursday night by China's leading web portal sina.com. The 2007 Internet Awards Gala looks back at society's most talked about events from the previous year.

The star studded presentation even included stars from outside of show business. Over one hundred influential figures including fairy tale writer Zheng Yuanjie and Yang Wenjun the president of the Mongolia Mengniu Dairy Group were also invited to grace the red carpet.

Over 40 award categories were announced: the most popular writers, bloggers, podcasts, and artists from 2007's entertainment circles were all unveiled; just about completely covering the most interesting topics, people and news events in the nation.

Chinese veteran director Feng Xiaogang picked up the award for "Director of the Year" for his epic war film "The Assembly" or "Ji Jie Hao." Hong Kong director Peter Chan's new martial arts epic "The Warlords" or "Tou Ming Zhuang" won the "Film of the Year" honors. Both have effortlessly entered into the 200 million yuan ranks at the box office.

As Post-80's Literature is now making new waves in the Chinese literary arena, the "New Prominent Writer of the Year" honors went to 25-year-old Guo Jingming. After the gala, he introduced his upcoming work to the media.

"My latest novel "Tiny Times" has just been serialized and it will be published at the end of this year. This novel is quite different from my last work "The River of Sorrow" in 2007. It is the first time for me to write about my college life. I hope it can instill unique feelings in my readers."

The "TV Drama Actor of the Year" award went to Wang Baoqiang, for his portrayal of Xu Sanduo, a devoted soldier in "Soldier Sorties" or "Shi Bing Tu Ji." Wang also took on the role of a warrior in Feng Xiaogang 's "The Assembly."
Wang Baoqiang is proud of the series as well as the movie.

"Soldier Sorties recounts the experience of a naive and awkward village boy who later became a veteran after many hardships. But he'd never been through a battle. This drama laid a good foundation for me. In "The Assembly," I played a sniper and able fighter. So the two parts are connected. I' m very honored to play these differing roles of soldiers. I 'm so glad that audiences like these roles."

Chinese mainland actress Li Bingbing scooped up the "Breakthrough Artist of the Year" award. Last August, she won the Best Actress honors for her starring role in "The Knot" or "Yun Shui Yao" at the 12th Huabiao Film Awards. These awards are regarded as the top prize in China's Film industry.

In the newly released movie "Flying Butterfly," or "Hu Die Fei," she played a strong-willed character in the film, who had a fierce fight with her beloved.

"I'm very grateful to Sina.com for honoring me with this precisely defined prize. I think I made some breakthroughs in my performances during the past year, for example in "Flying Butterfly." In the past ten years, I'd never played such a difficult and challenging role, it was full of struggle. At present, I'm satisfied with the audience's response to the movie. I believe audiences can see a more mature Li Bingbing in this movie."

All the awards were selected through the online voting of millions of sina netizens combined with a final appraisal of experts.

The polling started in November last year. Sina.com initiated an eight-week online video chat program to coincide with the voting that featured a particular theme each week, ranging from the showbiz industry to urban planning to the capital market. Dozens of entertainment stars, scholars, and giants of industry as well as ordinary people were invited to the chat room to look back on the hot events and achievements from the past few years and look forward to the new developments for 2008.

Taiwan singer Elva Hsiao attended the "2007 Internet Awards" on January 17, 2008.

Actress Zhang Li attended the "2007 Internet Awards" on January 17, 2008.

Hong Kong director Peter Chan attended the "2007 Internet Awards" on January 17, 2008.

Veteran director Feng Xiaogang attended the "2007 Internet Awards" on January 17, 2008.

(CRI January 18, 2008)