The 50-year-old is said to have declined to be paid for 'Lost Love' as she liked its storyline so much. Photo: Sammi Cheng/Instagram
Hong Kong superstar Sammi Cheng has been named Best Actress by a panel of film critics for the first time in 22 years, according to a list of winners released by the Hong Kong Film Critics Society on Monday (Jan 16).
The 50-year-old singer-actress received the award for her role in the movie Lost Love (2023), in which she plays a mother trying to overcome the death of her young son by becoming a foster parent.
Cheng, who declined to be paid for the project as she loved the storyline, said the win came as a surprise and that the recognition holds great significance for her.
“For a long time, I have always thought about how to improve my performance and hoped to get different acting roles,” she wrote on social media on Monday.
“I have never thought of giving up and disappointing everyone.”
She also told the Hong Kong media she was so moved by the award that she was speechless for a while, as she once felt lost and frustrated in her acting career.
The Cantopop diva last nabbed the film critics award in 2001 for her titular role as the female outlaw Zhong Wuyan in the period comedy Wu Yen, which also starred Cecilia Cheung and the late Anita Mui.
Cheng has since been nominated for Best Actress several times at the Hong Kong Film Awards (HKFA) and Taiwan’s Golden Horse Awards.
She was the favourite to win Best Actress at the HKFA in 2020 for her roles in two movies, Fagara (2019) and Fatal Visit (2020).
However, she lost to Chinese actress Zhou Dongyu, who received kudos for her role as a bullied schoolgirl in the Oscar-nominated film Better Days (2019).
Hong Kong actor Louis Cheung won his first Best Actor award from the film critics society for his role as the owner of a struggling cleaning business in The Narrow Road (2022), while Best Film went to coming-of-age documentary To My Nineteen-Year-Old Self (2022). – The Straits Times/Asia News Network
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