Chinese actress Tang Wei trumped her Korean peers to win the best actress award at the Paeksang Arts Awards, held on May 26 in Seoul.

The controversial actress is the first Chinese person to grab a prize at the awards, which are held annually to recognize outstanding achievements in the Korean entertainment industry.

Chinese actress Tang Wei poses for photos before the Paeksang Arts Award at the Kyeonghee universty in Seoul, South Korea on May 26, 2011. [Xinhua]

Sina.com.cn said it was a big surprise for Tang to beat indigenous popular starlet Soo Ae and veteran actress Jeong-hie Yun to the prize. Tang received the award for her performance in Late Autumn, co-starring Korean actor Hyun Bin.

Tang rose to prominence in 2007 in Ang Lee’s sexually explicit film Lust, Caution. She left China under something of a cloud after coming under fire for her controversial performance. She returned to domestic film industry in 2010 playing a saleswoman in the low-cost Hong Kong movie Crossing Hennessy. She also joined the cast of the blockbuster Founding of a Party where she was to play Mao Zedong’s first lover. But her scenes were dropped for reasons that remain unclear.