Jin Yaqin, an 84-year-old Chinese actress, clinched the Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role at the 18th Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF). She was cast in the Chinese film You and Me, which features a friendship between a girl and an elderly landlady.
Directed by Ma Liwen, You and Me is a 2 million yuan (US$246,609) low-budget production. Jin is a retired theatrical actress. Due to health problems, she did not appear at the awards ceremony in Tokyo.
"I know Jin is a veteran dramatic actress but I never imagined she could snatch Asia's top film honor in her film debut at the age of 84. All the judges were touched by her performance," said Chinese director Zhang Yimou, chairman of the jury panel, adding that the panel's decision was unanimous.
Loach is Fish Too, directed by Chinese director Yang Yazhou, received the award for Best Artistic Contribution. The film is a potent look at a struggling divorcee (Ni Ping) with twin daughters who comes to Beijing to earn money. Along the way, she meets a boss of migrant workers who shares her name, Loach. Once in the big city, the man is a foreman where she works. The pair's fate seems intertwined.
The film does a superb job of depicting the difficult life of workers flooding into the capital to find employment, with many scenes of exhausting work and camaraderie. Director Yang explained, "We shot a lot of scenes on construction sites, and all the extras were actual migrant workers in Beijing."
What the Snow Brings, a Japanese film directed by Kichitaro Negishi, won three key awards, including Best Film. It focuses on the relationship between brothers with a younger brother’s finding hope after living a dissipated urban life.
"With this film, I tried to focus on family relations, one of the traditional themes of Japanese movies," Negishi said. The director and lead actor Koichi Sato also took top prizes.
Conversations With Other Women won the Special Jury Prize. British actress Helena Bonham Carter, who starred in the film, took the Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role along with Jin Yaqin.
Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien was awarded a special prize named after the late great Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa.
(Shenzhen Daily November 1, 2005)
