On August 10, the 38th Hundred Flowers Awards Ceremony and Closing Ceremony were held in Beijing. Hong Kong actress Michelle Wai won the Best Actress Award for her performance in "The Last Dance."
"The Last Dance" focuses on the funeral industry. Michelle Wai's character, Guo Wenyue, is essentially a woman trapped by tradition and prejudice, silently working hard and waiting for an opportunity that may never come, ultimately breaking free through her own perseverance. Similarly, Michelle Wai herself has struggled in the entertainment industry for over a decade, mostly playing supporting roles. Finally, at age 42, she became the Hundred Flowers Best Actress, voted in one by one by the audience.
On the evening of August 10, at the 38th Hundred Flowers Awards ceremony, 101 public judges pressed their buttons live. When the vote counter on the big screen froze, the entire venue paused in surprise. Michelle Wai, for her role as Guo Wenyue in "The Last Dance," received 51 votes, more than half. Second place went to Gao Ye with 26 votes, followed by Song Jia (also nominated) with 18 votes, Zhang Zifeng and Ma Li each with 2 votes, and Zhuang Dafei with 1 vote.
One crazy detail: when she walked onto the stage to accept her award, the stitches on her upper left lip had been removed less than 24 hours prior. On the night of July 30, while filming the series "Hunting Lies," a shard of glass sliced her lip from top to bottom, damaging muscle and blood vessels, requiring over fifty stitches inside and out. The stitches were removed on August 9, and by August 10, she was already on the red carpet.
When Michelle Wai won the Hundred Flowers Award for Best Actress, her reaction was quite interesting. Unlike other actresses, her first reaction wasn't joy, but bewilderment. She stood up flustered, looking completely dazed, with nervousness, excitement, and awkwardness written all over her face. It seems this Hundred Flowers Award was indeed a major upset. She came to the mainland alone for the ceremony, likely expecting just to be a nominee, never imagining she'd end up on stage giving an acceptance speech.
During her speech, you could even see that her lips, still healing from over fifty stitches, weren't fully recovered. Her gown was simple, without elaborate preparation, but she tried her best to speak Mandarin clearly so everyone could understand her, which was oddly endearing.
Netizens later commented, "Michelle Wai won Best Actress not because she got over 50 stitches in her mouth while filming, but because she spent a year fully immersing herself in learning the intangible cultural heritage of funeral rites. This kind of deep, pre-production character immersion feels like something from a past life in our domestic entertainment industry."
Michelle Wai truly faced numerous difficulties while filming "The Last Dance."
The first hurdle was learning the traditional Hong Kong craft of "Nam Mo" chanting, which is typically passed down only from father to son, meaning no masters were willing to teach her. Undeterred, she spent three months painstakingly finding two masters who agreed to teach her the movements for handling funeral ritual implements. By combining their teachings, she finally pieced together the complete ritual protocol.
The second hurdle was mastering the ritual. She had to memorize ancient scriptures, learn the placement and movement of ritual implements, and master the fire-jumping procedure. Despite her natural lack of coordination, she stubbornly practiced for nine months until it became muscle memory. To match the character's physical demands, she also spent a year working with a personal trainer one-on-one to improve her fitness.
The third hurdle was that Hong Kong funeral homes are extremely busy, offering only three days for observation and filming: the first day of the Lunar New Year, Qingming Festival, and Chongyang Festival. This meant she had to pull all-nighters during those three days to compress her shooting schedule, not to mention the long-term visits to funeral homes and funeral supply shops to observe the habits, expressions, and micro-expressions of practitioners. Honestly, for an immersive method actor like Michelle Wai, it's impossible not to feel depressed. She truly gave her all for the role!