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The audience choice honors, founded by Haige Wang, aim to encourage cross-cultural collaboration throughout the entertainment industry worldwide

The Huading Awards aim to promote Asia’s thriving arts and cultural scene, spread Asian culture, and help bridge the gap between the Asian and global entertainment industries. These awards are the highest honor given for celebrities’ reputations among global audiences, with award shows featuring different themes including public images, films, TV shows, music, and fashion.

Creators and stars of “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” “The Whale” and “All Quiet on the Western Front” were among the winners at the 36th Huading Awards, China’s leading audience choice honors, held in Los Angeles on March 31.

The international entertainment award show recently returned to Hollywood for an in-person ceremony after seven years, celebrating globally recognized talent across film, television, music and more with an in-person ceremony and star-studded red carpet. In addition to representing Chinese culture, the awards — which are held alternately in China and abroad — aim to encourage cross-cultural collaboration and bridge the gap between the Asian and global entertainment industries.

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For this year’s return to the U.S., Bill Mechanic, chairman and CEO of Pandemonium Films and CEO of Cosmos Pictures, served as chairman of the 36th Huading Awards Jury. Others, including writer and director Nicholas Meyer (“Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan”) and music composer, publisher and author Herb Jordan were among those who served as judges.

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Based on the Chinese audience’s evaluation of entertainment leaders, winners of this year’s Global Film and Television Hauding Awards included editors Matt Villa and Jonathan Redmon (“Elvis”); and composer Simon Franglen, who won Best Global Film Song for “Nothing Is Lost (You Give Me Strength)” from “Avatar: The Way of Water,” among others, while “All Quiet on the Western Front” took home the highest recognition, the Best Global Picture Award. Additionally, four new production awards were added to the program this year, celebrating creators behind the camera of “Top Gun: Maverick,” “Argentina, 1985” and “The Son.” In the television focused categories, “Better Call Saul,” “The White Lotus” and “The Bay” were among the winning titles. Kristos Andrews took home the prize for Best Global TV Series Leading Actor for his performance in “The Bay,” while the show itself was awarded Best Global Daily TV drama, with the series’ creator, director and executive producer, Gregori J. Martin, and executive producer Wendy Riche, in attendance to accept the honor.

Each installment of the Huading Awards has reflected the growth and evolution of the awards program. In 2014, when the awards were poised to make their U.S. debut, Huading Awards chairman and founder Haige Wang — who is also the chairman of the World Film Industry Conference and the Aollywood Film Workers Association — began cold-calling top industry figures to produce the ceremony and found himself coming up short in his search.

“But I thought, ‘If we want to do it right, we should recruit the best of the best to produce the show.’ Two nights before my flight back to China, the phone rang.”

On the other end was an experienced award show producer who, after hearing Wang’s vision for the awards, decided to take him up on the opportunity and came on board to executive produce the inaugural Stateside installment of the international event.

“As a witness and beneficiary to this particular cultural exchange, it has been a rewarding experience growing, learning, competing and collaborating with my American collaborators,” says Wang. “I want to establish a platform where competition leads to further collaboration.”

Regarding the decision to enlist Chinese citizens and those in the Chinese diaspora around the world to collectively determine the Huading honorees, Wang explained that the idea to recognize well-known figures came after news broke on celebrity drug use and other wrongdoings. “I started wondering how public images are established by and for celebrities, and what is expected of fame beyond talents by the audience,” Wang says.

Over the past 15 years, Huading has established a global public voting process and gradually expanded the award categories beyond public image to cover film, TV, music, fashion and other facets of the arts. After the first show in Hollywood, Huading returned to Los Angeles in 2016, before the pandemic halted in-person productions.

With COVID-19 restrictions lifting and international travel gradually getting back into full swing, Wang is looking towards the future of the Huading Awards.

“These are the first shows since the pandemic,” he adds. “[There are] lots of opportunities opening for the U.S.’s and China’s film and TV industry. Huading hopes to continue earning industry respect through collaboration and global recognition through healthy exchange.”

In addition to the efforts to focus on the award program’s expansion in the United States, the Huading Global Music Awards are set to take place this July in Macao and will be followed by the Huading Public Image Awards in November.

For more information, visit the Huading Awards’ official website, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube channel.

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