Without big budget, fancy visual effects, big-name stars, or dazzling martial arts scenes, Chinese wartime romance, The Knot, is set to vie for glory at the film industry's most prominent awards, the Oscars. The film, which has won several domestic film awards, has beaten the Golden Lion-nominated The Sun Also Rises to become the candidate from the Chinese mainland to compete for Oscar nominations for best foreign-language film, according to the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, which finalized the selection.

Shot in Shanghai, Tibet and Canada, The Knot follows the romance between a medical student and a young female painter, who meet in Taiwan. The student flees to Chinese mainland ahead of a political crackdown, and civil war in 1949 separates the two sides - and the lovers.

Director Yin Li was just back to Beijing from the Rio International Film Festival held in the Brazilian city of Rio, where The Knot was screened. He said he had no worries that the film would pose a cultural barrier to Western audiences due to its historic background, citing its successful Rio screening as a proof.

The Knot was the best film at this year's Huabiao Awards, the top official honor for Chinese films. It also won a special jury award at the Shanghai International Film Festival in June.

At the Oscars selection, the film will join Taiwan-born director Ang Lee's Lust, Caution, which won a Golden Lion - the top prize at the recent Venice Film Festival - and Hong Kong filmmaker Johnnie To's Exiled. Lust, Caution is Taiwan's submission, and the gangster flick Exiled will represent Hong Kong.

This year's selection for Chinese-language Oscar submissions encountered twists and turns, as Jiang Wen's The Sun Also Rises was first replaced by Johnnie To's Exiled for Hong Kong's candidacy and later lost to The Knot in representing the mainland.

Peter Chan's The Warlords, the previous mainland candidate, was dropped from the bill due to disputes among its investors.

The three Chinese-language submissions highlight the growing integration of the Chinese-speaking film industry.

Chinese filmmakers have long looked to Oscar and many big name directors have tried to compete, such as Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige. Usually, those films have big-budget investment, international stars and kungfu plots. The Knot, on the contrary, is not as shining as the previous Oscar candidates made in China.

The submissions still need to survive another round of screening to become official nominees in the Oscars' best foreign film category. The US Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences usually narrows submissions to up to five nominees.

The final list of five nominations will be announced in late January, ahead of the 80th Academy Awards night on February 24, 2008.

(China Daily 10/17/2007 page6)