Chinese Actress Tang Wei Shines on South Korean Film Festival Circuit

Nominations for the 58th Daejong Film Awards are in, and Chinese actress Tang Wei is in the running for the ‘Best Actress’ award for starring in Decision to Leave (2022), a South Korean mystery and romance movie.

In Decision to Leave, Tang plays Seo-rae, a beguiling widow suspected of murdering her husband. Throughout the film, the detective on the case (played by Park Hae-il) gets unwittingly drawn into Seo-rae’s orbit, ultimately leading to chaos.

The character of Seo-rae is a Korean-speaking Chinese woman who occasionally relies on a translator app. Film reviewer Brian Tallerico commented that the directorial decision highlights how Seo-rae and the detective “aren’t really speaking to one another in a direct manner.”

This sort of obfuscation, along with themes of desire and regret, reverberates throughout Decision to Leave, which has been well-received on the international film festival circuit and by South Korean audiences.

The Korean Film Council even selected Decision to Leave as South Korea’s submission for ‘Best International Feature Film’ at the 95th Academy Awards. The film has made almost 14 million USD at domestic box offices.

Chinese netizens have celebrated Tang’s nomination, with many calling her a “goddess.” The hashtag for her nomination garnered more than 76 million views in less than 24 hours on the Chinese microblogging platform Weibo.

Tang first gained fame for playing the female protagonist in Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution (2007), a period film based on Eileen Chang’s book of the same name.

Since then, she has starred in popular films like the 2013 romcom Finding Mr. Right and the 2015 action thriller Blackhat (with Chris Hemsworth). Decision to Leave isn’t Tang’s first time working with a South Korean director: she also starred in Tae-yong Kim’s Late Autumn (2010).

A decade and a half later, Tang is back in the spotlight for her acting skills. Earlier this year, she was the first foreign actress to win ‘Best Actress’ at two smaller South Korean film awards (Chunsa Film Art Awards and the Buil Film Awards), also for her outstanding performance in Decision to Leave.

Also known as the Grand Bell Awards, the Daejong Film Awards is the most prestigious of the three and has been dubbed ‘South Korea’s version of the Oscars’ by The Wall Street Journal.

Fans will finally find out if Tang will take home the ‘Best Actress’ award again during the award ceremony on December 9.

Cover image via IMDb