Beloved Chinese actor Cheng Peipei, who died last month, will be honored with a lifetime achievement award at the Golden Horse Film Awards in November.
Cheng, a pioneer in martial arts roles for actresses, died in the San Francisco Bay Area after suffering from a degenerative brain disease. She was 78.
Veteran Taiwanese cinematographer and director Lin Wen-chen will also be honored.
The Golden Horse Film Festival, which runs from November 7 to 23, will feature tributes to Cheng, including screenings of classic martial arts films “Come Drink with Me” and “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” and the musical “Hong Kong Nocturne,” in which Cheng stars.
“Cheng began as an apprentice at the Southern Experimental Theatre Company of Shaw Brothers Studio, and gradually took off in the mid-1960s, particularly for her portrayal of the lead role of the golden swallow in King Hu's “Come Drink With Me”, which also established her on-screen persona as a swordswoman. At the peak of her early career, she starred in several martial arts films and thus earned the title of “Queen of Martial Arts”. But Cheng also gave outstanding performances in the romantic dramas “Lovers' Rock” and “Song of Orchid Island”, as well as the musical “Hong Kong Nocturne”.
“After her marriage, Cheng mostly appeared on the small screen in talk shows, dance classes and documentaries; her rare appearance on the big screen during that time was in King Hu's All the King's Men. In the 1990s, Cheng resumed her acting career and caught the attention of the younger generation as Madam Wah in Flirting Scholar, co-starring Stephen Chow. Later, she became Jade Fox in Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, for which she won Best Supporting Actress at the Hong Kong Film Awards. Cheng's performance in Lilting also earned her a Best Actress nomination at the British Independent Film Awards.”
Lin is widely praised for his role as an educator. He served as head of the cinematography and technical departments at Central Motion Picture Corporation, where he trained award-winning cinematographers including Liao Bing-gong and Mark Lee Bing-beng. In 2020, Lin published his autobiography, which chronicles his first-hand experiences watching the development of Taiwanese cinema from the 1950s to the 1980s. The festival will screen Orchids and My Love to showcase his subtle and rich cinematic sense.
Nominations for the Golden Horse Film Awards will be revealed on October 2, with winners announced at a ceremony on November 23 at the Taipei Music Center.
