There is no award given to action (choreography) directors at film festivals in the Chinese mainland, where the kungfu movie was born and took off, a Chinese film researcher said.

"Action director" is the only profession China invented in the history of movies, a great contribution to the world film industry, said Jia Leilei, vice president of The Academy of Arts of China Institute for Film and Television, at a forum of the 14th Golden Rooster and Full Blossom Film Festival held in China's southernmost coastal city of Sanya from November 9 to 12.

Action directors have been working over 80 years in the Chinese film industry and have also worked in Japan, the Republic of Korea and even in Hollywood, he said.

"However, no award has been set up to action directors in the Chinese mainland, which indicates this profession has not won enough attention," Jia said.

The main film awards in China include Hua Biao, Golden Rooster, Full Blossom, Golden Cup and Golden Deer.

In the 1960s and 1970s, when kungfu movies were prosperous in Hong Kong, action scenes occupied more than half - even 70 percent- in an entire film, Yin-Chieh Han, a famous Hong Kong action director was quoted by Jia as saying.

In modern movies, action directors are not only responsible for fight action design, but also for the design of car racing and crashing and gunfights, Jia said.

Action directors are not confined to swordsman movies any more, but are as important as art directors and cinematography directors in a film, he said, adding, "Choreography has become an essential aesthetic and technical support for today's mainstream movies," he said.

In addition, the separation of duties of the director and action director reduces the cost of a film, as they direct two working groups in simultaneous shootings, he said.

Unfortunately, the action director generally ranks after the 10th in the name list of production personnel of a Chinese mainland movie, preceded by actors, actresses and even composers. On some occasions, there were even no the names of action directors in some brief introductions of movies and even in movie literature.

Actually, the "Best Action Choreography" award was set up at the Second Hong Kong Film Awards in 1983, which was granted to Jackie Chan, Ching Siu-Tung, Yuen Woo-ping, Chia-Liang Liu and Stanley Tong. In Taiwan, the first "Best Action Choreography" award of Golden Horse Awards was born in 1995.

"Currently, it's only the Chinese mainland that has not established an award for action directors," Jia said.

It is quite likely that "Best Action Choreography" awards will be set up at international film festivals in the future, as kungfu movies are increasingly popular in the non-Chinese countries, Jia said.

"If there is still no award for action directors then, we would be in an awkward position," he said.

(Xinhua News Agency November 11, 2005)