Daylight Entertainment emerged as the night's biggest winner as it swept awards in most of the major categories for the Magnolia Awards at the 25th Shanghai TV Festival last night. The production company’s three best bets – dramas Like a Flowing River, All is Well and The Story of Minglan all had a chance to win after garnering several nominations and boy did they ever.
Out of the three, Like a Flowing River was the gold medalist of the pack, bagging the most with 5 awards - Best Art Direction for Shao Changyong, Best Supporting Actress for Tong Yao, Best Adapted Screenplay for Yuan Kepingand Tang Yao, Best Directors for Kong Sheng and Huang Wei and Best Chinese TV Series under its belt.
All is Well on the other hand finally scored the ever elusive Best Actor for its patriarch, Ni Dahong who's been nominated a few times in the past but has never quite won it. He beat out fellow Daylight Entertainment nomineeWang Kai among others. The Best Supporting Actor award went to the Su family’s renegade second son played by actor Guo Jingfei. Yao Chen who was the fan favorite for Best Actress lost the crown to Jiang Wenli for The Story of Zheng Yang Gate.
Unfortunately, The Story of Minglan did not fare so well after being pitted against its production company "team mates", and did not end up winning any awards despite being nominated for 7. Among its acting nominations were Zhao Liying for Best Actress, Zhu Yilong for Best Supporting Actor and Liu Lin for Best Supporting Actress. A sad turn of events for The Story of Minglan, a sentiment echoed by many Netizens who were disappointed that Minglan did not win any of the categories it was nominated for. Then again, to be nominated against an awesome collection of talents and dramas is no east feat and I hope the drama team can take some comfort to be counted amongst the peers of this year's winners.
Congratulations again to Daylight Entertainment and to all the nominees and winners of this year's Magnolia Awards.