Forgetting dad's birthday

Unlike lead roles, supporting roles often offer actors a chance to experiment with a range of characters. Of the mainland's supporting actors, Ni Dahong easily stands out.

The veteran actor, who graduated from the Central Academy of Drama in 1986, impressed audiences in director Zhang Yimou's 2006 Curse of the Golden Flower as the imperial physician who helps the Emperor poison the Empress.

Ni has been a theater actor for years and his narration and voiceoverd in such productions as Meng Jinghui's The Balcony and Lin Zhaohua's Faust, show why theater directors love him. In the film Birthday, which is showing at cinemas citywide, the actor plays the leading man. He is the father who celebrates his 60th birthday that none of his three children remember. He fakes his death in a car accident, just so he can regain his children's attention and care.