C-actress 23 Year Old Li Geng Xi Becomes the Youngest Best Actress Winner at the 2024 Golden Rooster Awards
The Chinese movie domain typically has actors and actresses that aren’t frequent C-drama faces due to the prestige level, film stars look down on C-dramas especially with so many rookies and nepo babies easily getting roles. But since I don’t watch as many C-films I don’t follow their award circuit as much but this year’s 2024 Golden Rooster Awards feting the best in film got my attention due to drama actor Wang Yi Bo getting a Best Actor nomination as he slowly builds his foundation in the film industry. He didn’t win at last night’s ceremony but it was another young C-star who did set a new record. Li Geng Xi won Best Actress for her role in the movie Viva La Vida and becomes at 23-years old the youngest Best Actress winner in Golden Rooster’s 37 year history. C-netizens are not happy with her win because she’s perceived as also a “hopeless illiterate” for failing the college entrance gaokao exams a few times. But for that I think her strength is not in academic knowledge but in acting so it’s not that big a deal as long as she doesn’t embarrass herself in interviews and whatnot.
She’s pretty and i thought wang yibo will win this time. Maybe next time he will.
Actresses and actors should be judged only for their acting skills. Both college education and interviews are irrelevant, petty things. The only thing that matters is their ability to portray the characters and convince the audience with skills. Unfortunately, c-ent suffers with too many going overacting route and viewers slowly stop buying this kind of performance.
Agree with you, college degree means nothing if you donโt have the acting skills to back it up. I can see why she won, her acting in the movie is impressive, especially compared to the likes of most young c actors. I wonder if peng yuchang got something too from this movie
Unfortunately, some uneducated or ill-spoken C actors can’t act either. LOL.
I bet there are hundreds of thousands of kids in China failing their college entrance exams. Seeing one of them who actually made it regardless must be soothing. The girl’s an actress, ffs. And it seems she found the career that suits her, so her haters should just stop being guided by their envy.
That’s not what desperate illiterate means.
It never did and then Yibo’s team tried to move the goal posts to wash him. It always meant someone who had no desire to improve themselves, you know, like Yibo.
Of course, Nena, one of the chief Yibo stans here, who made sure to fight hard to wash his racism, is going to do the same for this too. If Neba here is ok with racism, what’s a little illiteracy.
Please stay away from the internet and go get help.
@Nena but they are not wrong. You did defend his racism and you are defending his ignorance, trying to twist the original version of what DI means.
Typical Yibo fan, nothing out of the ordinary. It’s not working of course, considering that even his fans in China openly talked about money exchanging hands for this nomination and then worried if enough was given for a win. Well, obviously not. Still he hasn’t worked in two years, maybe this will finally get the directors to stop rejecting him.
You can of course still cheer him on. I mean people are fans of even worse people. But at least try not to play dumb.
I remember her as the miscast heroine in Sword Snow Stride. Glad she found an acting path that suits her that is much more prestigious.
I hardly watch Chinese movies nor have I watched LGX before so I won’t retort C-netz’s opinions on her acting and of her not deserving the win. When the award nominees list came out, C-netz already said they think both WYB and LGX don’t deserve the nomination.
Anyway it should be pretty much known already that getting nominated and winning any of the Chinese acting awards depends fully on money and connections, save for the Flying Apsaras Awards.
forreal? so this girl bought the prize? i heard she’s a nepo baby, but i also heard she did really well in this movie (i haven’t watched it.)
@Coralie Yep, she’s a complete nepo baby. From the info I gathered over at weibo, C-netz think her acting is just average, not that bad but not deserving of Best Actress award either. There’s also a video going around where she went up to receive the award and someone from the audience stands shouted ้ปๅน which basically means the award is rigged. Now the word is that her side rigged this award by removing other actresses who delivered more impressive acting in the current eligible batch of movies from the nominations so that her performance will appear on par with other nominations for this BA award, and therefore make her win seems less jarring.
@Lilith
Can you tell me who those eligible candidates are?
I’m not sure, these are words from C-netz. I do know that the movie YOLO (female lead Jia Ling) is notably missing from all nominations in this Golden Rooster Awards. Some C-netz were also saying Zhou Xun also had a movie or something.
@Lilith
I might have some bias since I watch la vida and enjoyed it. But from what I know, yolo is not received well by the movie critics, mostly because the expectations is high for jia lingโs second movie, and they thought itโs not unique enough since it was sort of remake.
I donโt know about zhou xun movie tho, I havenโt checked it out
there are so many talented, acclaimed actors who don’t have a college education or don’t thrive in academic settings. it sounds silly and for all their โhopeless illiterateโ criticism, conversely ignorant and elitist, to say an actor is undeserving of an award just because they failed an unrelated exam a few times when all that matters is if they gave a good performance. i feel bad for her and hope she isn’t too bothered over the irrelevant criticism and continues to put out good work!
I think some people are trying to wash the original meaning of “hopeless illiterate”. It doesn’t refer to a person with low education, it refers to a person who doesn’t have any will to improve his lack of knowledge.
But why is this the case for Li Geng Xi?
@Nena I already said it. Those people used it on her with the intention of washing the meaning behind the phrase. They first blurred the meaning to another, then subsequently wash the original person who’s nicknamed the Hopeless Illiterate by saying things like “We shouldn’t judge people by their education levels.”
She has a passion for acting and education is possibly not her forte. Not everyone is fortunate to be born smart nor have all the reaources to be smart.
Besides that, I honestly don’t like her performances as an actress so pleasantly surprised she won best actress award.
Yibo is building what exactly, considering he hasn’t worked in almost two years and he keeps getting rejected? Lol bus stans will finally have to face reality soon.
Good on her, congratulations. She actually earned her nomination and win. No money involved.
Why people keeps rejecting Yibo? despite his popularity
We don’t know if he got rejected or he just being picky. His fans said not because he got rejected but he likes to try another goal lol. But we can guess its because too risky to casted him with his fans always made troubles too create fanswar on crews and to his co-stars if they not give their master favor.
I think the guy has an enormous army of crazy fans and crazy haters (both categories can be found in this blog too…) so I guess they stay away. I mean there is a ton of good looking, talented enough young actors, why pick one who has a gift for attracting loonies.
@Nena, all you said applies to Xiao Zhan too. XZ got a huge army of crazy stans and haters too. But one has to wonder why there’s a long line of projects waiting for XZ to say “yes” and this doesn’t happen to WYB.
She is like a Zhou Dong yu. Both shine more in genres other than idol dramas. As someone said before : a miscast in sword snow stride with absolutely no chemistry with Zhang Ruo Yun
personally i don’t care if someone is illiterate or does poorly academically. like others mentioned, what matters is if they got innate talent and will put effort into portraying their roles well. everything else is not important.
there’s this african singer who sings chinese songs really well – Bao An – and he’s literally a security guard. he’s an amazing singer. illiteracy doesn’t negate talent…
I too stay by that. I know of many who are bad at studies and gave up early, pick up other skills and excel in them. Everyone is different. Focus on your strength.
If actors have academic achievement they wouldn’t have been actors. Generally actors do menial jobs whilst learning the art. Perhaps some do have degree in art, language, etc but let’s face it, actors aren’t academicians. Some can’t even talk right and yet cold act so well. Usually those who bhai it rough in life makes good actors. So don’t judge them by literacy, just by what you see on screen.
Agree with you, having good education for actors should be just add on, not a requirement
I commented before but its not appearing so sorry if gets double post.
LGX is criticized more for the fact that she has good resources than education level. She is signed to Xu Jinglei a powerful actress and figure in Cent. She gets top scripts, like an FL in Snow Sword Stride, after JOL epic success it was very anticipated, got a role in The Long Season and even a cancer movie made entirely for awards. Her movie Viva La Vida flopped and got pulled out from theaters and then released again with good slots and still only got around 250M yuan in BO. The rigging started from nominations with Yolo the highest grossing movie 3 billion Yuan not geting nominated for anything. Jia Ling director and actress got zero nominations. The nominees lineup for best actress wasnt the best so they probably thought her win wouldnt look suspicious.
Lol I don’t understand why China picks the worst looking actresses to “boost”. On top of being mediocre in talent. Its like they can no longer find movie actresses that are both beautiful + talented like Gong Li and Zhang Ziyi.
Too many untalented nepo babies, and these nepo babies all want to be in the spotlight.
Congrats to her! I remember seeing her in one of those idol dramas a few years back – she was charming but didn’t quite have the looks that would break out. I’m glad she found a path in doing non-idol-esque works.
The failure rate for the college exams is high enough that calling her a hopeless illiterate would mean calling half the country hopeless illiterates. She spent some years in American schools so I don’t think that helped either.
Her taking it multiple times meant she had really tried to get into college. Even without going to college, she can still be intellectually curious.
I do worry when actors/actresses win big awards this young. There is pressure to be even better the next time.