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Siqin Gaowa

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Siqin Gaowa
ᠰᠡᠴᠡᠨᠭᠤᠸ᠎ᠠ
Born (1950-01-19) 19 January 1950 (age 74)
Guangzhou, Guangdong, China
CitizenshipSwiss
OccupationActress
Years active1970–present
Spouses
Sun Tiangxiang
​
​
(m. 1968; div. 1976)​
Ao Xingchen
​
​
(m. 1977; div. 1983)​
Chen Liangsheng
​
​
(m. 1986; died 2022)​
Children2 (son and daughter)
AwardsGolden Phoenix Awards
1993 Special Contribution Award
Hong Kong Film Awards – Best Actress
1984 Homecoming
2007 The Postmodern Life of My Aunt

Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards – Best Actress
1995 The Day the Sun Turned Cold
2007 The Postmodern Life of My Aunt

Golden Rooster Awards – Best Actress
1982 Rickshaw Boy

Hundred Flowers Awards – Best Actress
1982 Rickshaw Boy

Flying Apsaras Awards – Special Performance Award
1996 Er Leng Ma, The Party Member

Siqin Gaowa (Mongolian Cyrillic Цэцэнгуа, born 19 January 1950), born Duan Anlin, is a Chinese-born Swiss actress. She was born in Guangzhou to a Han Chinese father and a Mongol Chinese mother. Her father died when she was 4, she was raised by her mother in Inner Mongolia.[1] She has been married to musician Chen Liangsheng (陈亮声) since 1986 and currently holds Swiss citizenship together with her husband.

Siqin Gaowa made her debut in the 1981 film Anxious to Return, in which she plays Yuzhen, a woman that during the Sino-Japanese War saves a wounded soldier, and falls in love with him. She was awarded the Ministry of Culture's Youth Creativity Award for her performance. She achieved fame and garnered wide acclaim for her performance in the 1982 film Rickshaw Boy, an adaptation of Lao She's novel of the same title, in which she portrayed "Tigress", the love interest of Zhang Fengyi's character "Xiangzi". She won the Golden Rooster Award and Hundred Flowers Award for Best Actress that year.

In 1995, she was a member of the jury at the 45th Berlin International Film Festival.[2]

Some of her most notable appearances in other movies include Kangxi Dynasty and Full Moon in New York. She won the award for Best Actress at the 4th Hong Kong Film Awards for Homecoming, becoming the first Mainland Chinese actress to win the honour.[3] In 2008, she won her second Best Actress in the 27th Hong Kong Film Awards for her role in The Postmodern Life of My Aunt.

Early life

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Siqin Gaowa was born Duan Anlin in Guangzhou,[4] Guangdong Province, China, on 20 January 1950. Her mother was a Mongolian woman, while her father was a Han Chinese army officer originally from the Shǎnxī Province, who was stationed in Guangzhou at the time of her birth. Her father died of an illness when Siqin Gaowa was four years old, and her mother subsequently moved back to Inner Mongolia with her.[4]

She grew up in Ningcheng County, Inner Mongolia. She had a rough childhood in Inner Mongolia, where "life was hard, and material comforts rare".[4] As a child, Siqin Gaowa showed a talent for dancing. When she was thirteen she was the choreographer and performer of her version of "Wine cup dance" (Zhongwan wu). In the mid 1960s she was selected to join as a dancer the singing and dance troupe of Huhhot.[4]

With the Huhhot troupe she performed at music and dance programs of minority groups in Beijing. Sometime before the Cultural Revolution, however, she injured her foot, and had to give up her career as a dancer.[4] She then decided to switch to acting.[4]

Her stage name, Siqin Gaowa, means "beauty and wisdom" in Mongolian.[4]

Career

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One of her first leading roles was in the movie Anxious to Return (1979)[5] or Eagerly Homebound (Guixin sijian).[4]

Siqin Gaowa became initially known for her performance in this movie. In the movie, she portrays the widow Yu Zhen, an honest peasant woman, who during the Sino-Japanese War saves and falls in love with a wounded soldier who is "trying to grapple with his conflicting emotions."[6][7][8] For her portrayal in this movie, Siqin Gaowa won the Ministry of Culture's Youth Creativity Award in 1979.[4] Her portrayal of Yu Zhen was followed by supporting roles in the movies Xu Mao and his Daughters (1981) (Chinese: Xu Mao he tade nǚ'ermen[4]) and Dragons and Snakes of the Big Lake (1982) (Chinese: Daze long she[4]).

She achieved fame and wide acclaim with her portrayal of Hunui in Rickshaw Boy (1982), literally translated, Camel Xiangzi (Chinese: Luotuo xiangzi).[4] The film is based on Lao She's novel of the same name. For her interpretation of Hanui in Rickshaw boy, Siqin Gaowa was awarded the Hundred Flowers Award for Best Actress and the Golden Rooster Award for Best Actress in 1983.[4]

In 1984 she was acclaimed for her portrayal of Azhen in the award-winning Homecoming (1984), literally translated, Time and Tide (Chinese: Sishui liunian). The film "tells the story of the journey of a woman, Shan Shan (Koo Mei-wah) from Hong Kong to her hometown in China to visit her childhood friends, Ah Chun (Siqin Gaowa), and Hao-chong (Tse Wai-hung)."[9]

The movie was also selected as Hong Kong's entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 57th Academy Awards.[10] For her performance in Homecoming she was awarded the 1985 Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actress.[4]

In 1989, Siqin Gaowa starred in Full Moon in New York (1989), where she acted again alongside Koo. The movie tells about three Chinese women who immigrated to New York City from Hong Kong, Taiwan and the mainland, with Siquin Gaowa playing Zhao Hong from the mainland.[11] At one point in the move the women carouse, and each one sings Chinese songs that are popular in her culture.[12] The three immigrant women find themselves in New York without a physical home nor a homeland, they "each live and enact personal dramas of loss and displacement," but are finally depicted as happily together in the last scene.[13]

In 1993, Siqin Gaowa played the lead role in Woman Sesame Oil Maker (1993), which tells the story of a woman in a small village in Hebei[14] who runs a small sesame oil business that becomes unexpectedly successful, but who then uses her money to buy a peasant bride for her mentally disabled son. It was said that the woman, Xiang, "unforgettably played by Siqin Gaowa,"[15] brilliantly incarnates "the dilemma of women today, in China and elsewhere, torn between restrictive old traditions and deceptive new freedoms."[15]

The film won the Golden Bear for Best Film at the 43rd Berlin International Film Festival in 1993, and Siquin Gaowa was awarded the 1993 Silver Hugo Award for Best Actress at the Chicago International Film Festival.[16][17]

In 2006, Siqin Gaowa starred alongside Chow Yun-fat in The Postmodern Life of My Aunt, presented at the Toronto International Film Festival.[18] The movie was positively received,[19] and received several awards and nominations. For he performance in this movie Gaowa won several awards, including the 27th Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actress, and was nominated for the Golden Horse Award for Best Leading Actress at the 43rd Golden Horse Awards.[20]

Personal life

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In 1968, at the age of 18, Siqin Gaowa married Inner Mongolia Film Studio director Sun Tianxiang. The couple had a daughter Sun Dan (born 1969) and son Sun Tie (born 1973), who would later become an actor himself. She divorced Sun in 1976. In 1977, Siqin Gaowa remarried to Ao Xingchen, a Chinese actor of Daur descent, and they divorced in 1983.[21]

In 1986, she married Swiss-Chinese orchestra conductor Chen Liangsheng, who was also known as Robert Chen and was previously married to Argentine pianist Martha Argerich. The couple emigrated to Switzerland. Chen died on 28 February 2022, at the age of 89.[22]

Filmography

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[23] [24]

Awards and nominations

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Siqin Gaowa has won nearly all the most prestigious awards in Asia, including China's two most prestigious awards in movie industry (Golden Rooster Awards and Hundred Flowers Awards) and the Hong Kong Film Award, Honk Kong's equivalent of the Academy Awards. She was nominated for Best Actress twice at the Golden Horse Awards.

Year Award Category Project Result
1982 Golden Rooster Awards Best Actress Rickshaw Boy Won
1982 Hundred Flowers Awards Best Actress Won
1984 Hong Kong Film Award Best Actress Homecoming Won
2007 Best Actress The Postmodern Life of My Aunt Won
1995 Hong Kong Film Critics Society Award Best Actress The Day the Sun Turned Cold Won
2007 Best Actress The Postmodern Life of My Aunt Won
1992 Chicago International Film Festival Best Actress Woman Sesame Oil Maker Won
2006 Shanghai Film Critics Awards Best Actress The Postmodern Life of My Aunt Won
2006 College Student Film Festival Best Actress Won
1998 Feitian Awards Special Honor Performance Award Dang yuan er leng ma Won
2012 Huading Awards Audience's Favorite Stars Won
2014 Media Popularity Award Won
2012 China TV Drama Awards Lifetime Achievement Award The Postmodern Life of My Aunt Won
1979 Ministry of Culture Youth Creativity Award Anxious to Return Won
1990 Golden Horse Awards Best Actress A Woman and Seven Husbands Nominated
2006 Best Actress The Postmodern Life of My Aunt Nominated

References

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  1. ^ Lee, Lily Xiao Hong; Stefanowska, A. D.; Wiles, Sue (2003). Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women. M.E. Sharpe. p. 465. ISBN 978-0-7656-0798-0.
  2. ^ "45th Berlin International Film Festival". berlinale.de. Retrieved 2011-12-29.
  3. ^ 第四屆香港電影金像獎得獎名單 (in Chinese). Hong Kong Film Awards. Retrieved 2010-03-03.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Sue Wiles; Clara Wing-chung Ho (1992). Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women Volume 2. M.E. Sharpe. p. 465. ISBN 978-1-315-49924-6.
  5. ^ US-China Peoples Friendship Association (1982). US-China Review Volume 6. US-China Peoples Friendship Association. p. 20. ISBN 978-1-782-38245-4.
  6. ^ China Review. China Review Publications Limited. 1989. p. 66.
  7. ^ Song, Yuwu (2013). Biographical Dictionary of the People's Republic of China. McFarland, Incorporated, Publishers. p. 274. ISBN 978-0-7864-3582-1.
  8. ^ Chinese Literature. Foreign Languages Press. 1983. p. 123.
  9. ^ Julian Ward; Song Hwee Lim (2020). The Chinese Cinema Book. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 170. ISBN 978-1-911239-55-0.
  10. ^ Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
  11. ^ Tan See Kam (2016). Tsui Hark's Peking Opera Blues. Hong Kong University Press. p. 162. ISBN 978-988-8208-86-9.
  12. ^ Day Wong; Laikwan Pang (2020). Masculinities and Hong Kong Cinema. Hong Kong University Press. p. 129. ISBN 978-962-209-737-7.
  13. ^ Hsiao-peng Lu; Xiaobeng Lu; Sheldon H. Lu (2020). China, Transnational Visuality, Global Postmodernity. Stanford University Press. p. 116. ISBN 978-0-8047-4204-7.
  14. ^ Elley, Derek (1993-02-26). "Xiang Hun Nu the Women from the Lake of Scented Souls". Variety. Retrieved 2008-12-05.
  15. ^ a b Wilmington, Michael. "CHINA'S PAST, PRESENT CLASH IN 'SCENTED SOULS'". Chicago Tribune. Archived from the original on 7 April 2021. Retrieved 7 April 2021.
  16. ^ Maslin, Janet (1994-02-16). "Women From the Lake of Scented Souls (1993); Review/Film; Hard Work Without Just Reward In China". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-12-05.
  17. ^ "Berlinale: 1993 Prize Winners". berlinale.de. Retrieved 2011-06-08.
  18. ^ Film Description. Toronto International Film Festival. Retrieved 3 January 2007.
  19. ^ Lam, Perry (March 2007). "People we know". Muse Magazine (2): 74.
  20. ^ Gary Bettinson (2012). China. Intellect. p. 61. ISBN 978-1-84150-558-9.
  21. ^ "3段婚姻2个娃，前夫不想活在她的光环下，为何斯琴高娃远嫁瑞士". QQ. 2020-03-25. Retrieved 2024-05-04.
  22. ^ Tianjin Radio (2022-03-02). "著名指挥家陈亮声去世！他是斯琴高娃的丈夫". The Paper. Retrieved 2024-05-20.
  23. ^ Siqin Gaowa at imdb.com
  24. ^ Siqin Gaowa at chinesemov.com
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