[2022.02.09] THE 40TH HONG KONG FILM AWARDS WILL ANNOUNCE ITS NOMINATIONS AS SCHEDULED

Patrick Tse already won the 28th Hong Kong Film Critic Society Award Best Actor with TIME.  His son Nicholas Tse received many votes in the first round Hong Kong Film Award first round balloting.  Father and son may share the stage to compete for Best Actor.

ZERO TO HERO's Leung Chung Hang and Fung Ho Yeung, ANITA' Louise Wong have a good chance at the Best New Performer nomination.

Hong Kong Film Awards Association president Derek Yee would announce the nominations as scheduled.  Earlier he urged voters and professional jury members to vote on social media. 
courtesy of mingpao.com

The 40th Hong Kong Film Awards due to the pandemic announced its suspension in 2020. The Hong Kong Film Awards Association decided to postponed the event until 2021, any 2020 and 2021 film releases that have met the Hong Kong Film Award qualifications would compete together for the first time this year. As the fifth pandemic wave cases rose to very severe levels, the government yesterday announced further tightening of pandemic prevention measures until the 24th. The Hong Kong Film Awards president Derek Yee Tung Sing would announced the nominations as scheduled on February 16th. Since the awards would be difficult to postpone again, yesterday the board of directors met to discuss responses. The 28th Hong Kong Film Critic Society Awards presentation that would take place in March would also be affected, a spokesperson revealed that it would very likely take place online.

The Hong Kong Film Awards president Yee Tung Sing yesterday revealed that the board of directors met to discuss details and responses and decided to announce the nominations as scheduled on February 16th. ViuTV, which would broadcast the award show live, would make a venue available for the Hong Kong Film Award Association to hold the press conference.

As for the April 17th award show, currently it would still take place the Cultural Center in Tsim Sha Tsui. However the event would continue to pay close attention to the government social distancing measures. He said, "The earlier seating restriction was an empty seat for every six. Due to the restriction on the number of people permitted, nominees would come first. However the government has been updating the rules, now only those who have been vaccinated would be admitted. This year's scale definitely would not be as grand as in the past."

Siu Bo said that this year's situation has been even more complicated than last year's; because of the decision to suspend the event they did not need any planning. Now since they decided to go ahead they would have to begin preparing and raise the large amount of the funding that it would require. Any change would lead to severe damages. He said, "Last year the 40th award show was postponed a year. Actually it could not be postponed for another year. If we would go two years without it, keep pushing back is not the answer and not healthy either. This year would have around 70 films in competition between the two years. I hope it would happen."

Due to the pandemic, cinemas have been "closed" for months over the past two years. However many films were still released. Critical and commercial hits included RAGING FIRE (NO FOR), DRIFTING (JOOK SHUI PIU LAU), TIME (SAT CHOOK GOR WONG FUN), SHOCK WAVE 2 (CHAK DAN JUEN GA 2), ANITA, ZERO TO HERO (MAMA DIK SUN KEI SIU JI), LIMBO (JI CHI) and SHOWBIZ SPY (GA MO NUI TUEN).

Playing Anita Mui Yim Fong in ANITA, Louise Wong Dan Nei would have hope for "double nominations" for Best Actress and Best New Performer; MIRROR member Anson Lo Hon Ting with SHOWBIZ SPY and ZERO TO HERO's Fung Ho Yeung and Leung Chung Hang would also be the Best New Performer favorites.

In addition, the 28th Hong Kong Film Critic Society Awards presentation would take place in March. Spokesperson Ng Siu Nam said that currently they were not confident that the presentation would take place, because even if they wanted they would have no venue. Thus it would very likely take place online. The awards would be presented to the winners and their acceptance speech would be recorded.