KUALA LUMPUR, March 8 — Chinese director Zhang Yimou will be bestowed the lifetime achievement award and a prize for directing Full River Red, the highest-grossing Asian film of 2023 during the Asian Film Awards (AFA) on Sunday.
Event organiser said the awards are not only a testament to Zhang’s extraordinary achievements, but also to his continued success, having won the Asian film contribution award at the 4th AFA in 2010 and the best director award at the 15th Asian Film Awards in 2021 for One Second.
Variety quoted Zhang in a statement that he considered himself very fortunate to have chosen filmmaking as his lifelong profession.
“Having been in the industry for over four decades, I am grateful to everyone who appreciates my films. I will keep learning and strive to surpass myself. Always having anticipations for the future, I hope that my best film will be my next one,” he said.
Set during the Southern Song Dynasty and adopting a tone somewhere between mystery and comedy, Full River Red recounts how two soldiers are embroiled in a conspiracy after they are tasked with uncovering the murderer of a messenger from a rival dynasty.
It was released last January and headed the Lunar New Year box office in China before being released in other territories including Hong Kong, the UK, North America, South Korea, Australia, Singapore and Malaysia.
Ticketing agency Maoyan reports that its aggregate worldwide gross was US$667 million (RM3.13 billion) making it the leading Asian film last year and the eighth worldwide.
This will be Zhang’s second lifetime achievement award, having received the first honour at the Tokyo International Film Festival and a box office achievement award at CineAsia in December.
Starting out as a cinematographer, Zhang made his directorial debut with Red Sorghum, a powerful story set in a sorghum distillery during the second Sino-Japanese War, which won the Golden Bear at the Berlin film festival.
The Asian Film Awards will be held at the Xiqu Centre in Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District.
