The 38th Hundred Flowers Awards opened on the evening of August 7 at Beijing’s Chaoyang Park, marking the first time in 64 years that China's only film awards decided entirely by audience votes have returned to the city where they began.

Among the evening's most quietly resonant moments was the appearance of the cast of Dear You. Although the film missed the official registration deadline for this year's competition, its cast and crew were specially invited to take part in the opening ceremony, a gesture that offered a fitting reminder of the awards' founding spirit: the audience decides what matters.

Lead actors Li Sitong and Wang Yantong took the stage alongside screen legends Zhu Shimao and Cong Shan, the beloved screen pairing from the 1982 classic The Herdsman, to perform the song "Flowers in the Years."

The performance brought together four decades of Chinese cinema in a single moment, placing a generation that helped define a golden era of Chinese film alongside the one now writing its next chapter.

Beyond the awards themselves, this year's activities have turned Beijing into a citywide celebration of cinema, with indoor and outdoor screenings, themed forums and a range of film-related cultural events taking place across the city.

The festivities will run through August 10, when the main awards ceremony will be held at the National Speed Skating Oval. The winners will be decided on the spot by 101 audience judges casting their votes live.

Eight major awards will be presented that evening, with the final results determined not by an industry jury, but by members of the audience themselves, keeping alive the Hundred Flowers Awards’ distinctive tradition of giving moviegoers the final say.