It’s the 10th anniversary of Chinese Film Media Awards! Coming Monday, Chinese Film Media Awards will officially announce the list of nominees together with details of their 10th anniversary celebrations and fringe activities. From an early sneak at the list of nominees, the judges seem to be very supportive of works from Hong Kong and Taiwan. From the categories of Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor and Actress, films from both Hong Kong and Taiwan took up 16 out of the 27 nominations. Films from mainland China took up only 40 percent of the nominations.
Sean Li started as a model, and was first spotted in the gay film director Scud’s “City Without Baseball,” in which he had a guest role as a bar waiter. “Permanent Residence” was his next work with Scud, and he was promoted to play as a gay male protagonist who is a devoted lover that has a curious interest with death. In the movie, Sean had a lot naked scenes, his delicate performances and lean physique attracted a lot of attention from fans and critics. A heterosexual in real life, Sean Li explained, “I feel that the character in the movie is someone that is very different from me, therefore I will only focus on playing the role well. My family and my girlfriend have only been very supportive.”
Here’s why we think Sean is being nominated: As a new actor, Sean Li has displayed his acute ability to command his performance and his mature interpretation of the character. His acting is balanced and not over dramatic. Although the role seems monotonous on the surface, the character needed him to dig in and express the complicated and ever changing emotions. All these are very demanding on a new actor but Sean had excelled.
Click through to know more about “Permanent Residence”.
Gush Comics follows the recent trend of extending comics into anime by giving its popular masterpiece “The Tyrant Falls in Love” (恋する暴君) the anime treatment. The author Hinako Takanaga has been cautious and conscientious since her debut in the yaoi manga world more than ten years ago. Ever since she has published “The Tyrant Falls in Love” and the prequel series “Challenger”, Takanaga’s popularity has exploded. Fans were definitely surprised to read the amazing news of this plan to have a direct-to-video anime for their beloved manga.
Synopsis: Tetsuhiro Morinaga is a university student with a long-standing crush on Souichi Tatsumi, an older student who he is collaborating with on his research project. Souichi Tatsumi, is violent, demanding and difficult to work with. In “Challengers”, Morinaga confesses his love to Souichi, who is shocked and repulsed. Morinaga contemplates transferring schools, but Souichi, who is otherwise-friendless and emotionally dependent on Morinaga, insists that Morinaga stay and that they continue as friends without mentioning the incident again, leaving Morinaga convinced that his feelings will never be reciprocated. But a twist of fate caused both of them to kick start a sexual relationship, and from then on, Souichi embarks on a journey of a painful yet sweet self-discovery.
Using theatre or film to portray a homosexual love story are ways to let the public be more receptive to the gay culture and re-examine it. TV series is entirely different, there is no exact division with respect to the audience beliefs, and you are broadcasting to a huge audience base. One has to tread very carefully when one is bringing up such non-mainstream culture. Such social stigma for Korean TV series is being slowly removed. Gays and transexuals have long been an avoided character on broadcast TV and movies, especially the three major broadcasting companies. Since a few years ago, movies have started to have gay characters, even those that have leading characters undergoing sex change. But Spring 2010 has proven to be a small step forward for TV broadcasts as gays start to become the protagonists of TV drama series. Film and TV writers agreed in unison that with such opportunities, audience can start to expect more dramatic and rich love stories.
Telecasting since March 20th, SBS TV series “Life is Beautiful” tells the story of a family of four generations. The eldest son Taixie Yang(by Changyi Song) is a doctor who is both handsome and skillful. He is a gentleman, sensible, courteous, attentive, and also as amiable as his his father. He is just a prime bachelor for grabs. However, he is already 27 years old and yet single. That’s because he has his eyes set on a photographer Qingxiu (by Sang-woo Lee). After marrying and having a child, Qingxiu realized that he has lost his self. He decided to end his marriage, and fell in love with Taixie. Will their love persist the test of time?
The TV series illustrated the love between the two protagonist right from get go and challenged the society’s prejudice against homosexuality. This actually attracted the attention of many viewers. In the series, Taixie and Qingxiu have to be consistently be mindful of their surroundings when they are out dating. An intense debate definitely begins on the Internet message boards every time the series screens something suggestive happening between Taixie and Qingxiu, with many believing that such acts goes against their ethics. Fortunately, on the other hand, other audience have indicated that this TV series have caused them to reconsider homosexual relationships.
