Zanilia Zhao has recently won her very first Hundred Flowers Award for Best Supporting Actress.

As reported on Sohu, the actress was honoured for her performance in Zhang Yimou’s “Article 20”, which also marked her first nomination at the prestigious event.

However, as Zanilia wasn’t able to attend the event, she took to Weibo to express her gratitude for the recognition, writing, “I am honoured that my role as Hao Xiuping in the movie “Article 20″ won the Hundred Flowers Award for Best Supporting Actress. It is a pity that I can’t come to the award ceremony this time to personally welcome this great honour.”

“When I wrote this paragraph, I didn’t know if it would have the opportunity to be read on stage. Just like being an actor, there will be ups and downs, there will be calm as water, there will be seeing and not being seen, but every time we still have to do our best. Hao Xiuping, silent and beautiful; being an actor, nameless and moving. Although I can’t come to the scene this time, even if the actor Zhao Liying is not there, I hope the role will be there,” she added.

Zanilia also thanked Zhang and the team for giving her the opportunity, and all the audiences for their love and support.

(Photo Source: Zanilia Weibo, HK01)

The 37th Hundred Flowers Awards has recently announced the nominations for this year’s awards, and Chinese netizens didn’t seem to be very happy with the Best Actor nominees.

As reported on ET Today, this year’s Best Actor nominees seemed to ignore the more veteran actors like Wang Baoqiang and Shen Teng, and decided instead to fill the nomination slots with younger stars.

With the exception of Andy Lau, who is nominated for “The Wandering Earth 2”, or Zhu Yilong, who has been praised for his performance in “Lighting Up the Stars”, netizens couldn’t help but mock the three other nominees – the 24-year-old Wang Junkai (for “Homecoming”), the 23-year-old Jackson Yee (for “Full River Red”) and the former idol Lay Zhang (for “No More Bets”).

One commenter stated, “Wang Junkai and Lay Zhang in the Best Actor category. I seem to feel the pain of American people voting for Biden or Trump.”

Another posted, “Except for Andy Lau and Zhu Yilong, the others are all mediocre.”

Meanwhile, others defended the three actors criticised by netizens, saying that Wang, Jackson and Lay have all made breakthroughs in their performance in their respective movies and are worthy of being nominated.

The said awards, considered among the prestigious award ceremonies in China aside from the Golden Rooster Awards and Huabiao Film Awards and is likened to Hollywood’s Golden Globes Awards, will be held in Chengdu, Sichuan from 2 to 4 August.

(Photo Source: IMDb)