Chris Wu Wins Best Actor at the 2013 Asian Television Awards in Singapore

I think there are drama lovers out there who will do collective fist pumps and scream “FINALLY!!!” with me once I share this news. At this week’s 18th annual Asian Television Awards held in Singapore, my man Chris Wu nabbed the Best Actor in a Drama award for his exquisite performance in the 5-episode Taiwanese docu-drama Emerging Light. Oh. Hells. Yeah. All this talk of “give the man an award” has finally come to fruition and I shall lament no more that he’s superb acting isn’t getting recognized domestically or abroad. In the drama he played a real life polio-stricken man who ended up becoming a philanthropist for the Tzu Chi Foundation. The Asian Television Awards is a strange beast, very sprawling in its categories and diverse in its nominees selection. It started in 1987 by the Singapore Broadcasting Corporation but is now organized by Television Asia Plus magazine comprising of over 30 categories including Best Documentary Program, Best News Program, Best Cinematography, Best Current Affairs Presenter and more. A panel of judges from over 15 countries in Asia evaluate over 1,400 entries at current count and select the nominees and then vote on the winners. Winners every year in all the categories can come from a variety of Asian entertainment industries, which makes this years Best Actor and Best Actress win doubly exciting and an honor for Taiwan. In addition to Chris winning best actor, Taiwanese actress Chou You Ting (Jade Chou, who coincidentally co-starred with Chris in the romance drama What is Love), won Best Actress for the PTS drama Falling. Chris attended the ceremony with another Taiwanese actress Huang Pei Jia who was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her drama Smiling Life so was able to accept his award in person. On an aside, a few Korean dramas were nominated – Nice Guy and Gu Family Book were both nominated for Best Drama series but lost out to the Japanese drama Tonbi (Black Kite), while Heartstrings was nominated in the Best Single Drama or Telemovie category and actually won! Forget it airing in 2011 and it pretty much was meh, at least it was a win for Korea. Congrats to Chris for bringing home a well deserved win!

Trailer for Emerging Light: