For many at this film festival, the excitement doesn’t happen on the screen, but on the red carpet.

Celebrating its 60th year, the Cannes Film Festival this year was yet another display of artful films, European elegance and Hollywood glitz and glam. Chinese films took a back seat at the festival this year, with only two independent films selected for minor awards, which they didn’t win. But never fear, China’s bevy of beauties were present on the red carpet, creating quiet a buzz across the French Riviera.

If I were to impose the titles of “the good, the bad and the ugly” on China's Cannes presence, Maggie Cheung, who served as a jury member at the festival this year, and Gong Li are my votes for “the good.” Cheung wore a golden green sleeveless gown to the opening, a string of sleek, black dresses accompanied by a leather jacket to various parties, a pretty polka dot Christian Lacroix dress at a movie premiere and she topped it all off in a silver and white mini skirt at the closing ceremony. Gong Li showed up at just a few events, but her green and white low-cut gowns were stunning.

On the other hand, Zhang Ziyi crashed and burned with her dress choices. For the opening night, she chose a small, white jacket and long gown which looked too conservative and inelegant next to her far East sisters. While Zhang’s career and English skills have been on the rise this last year, her style remains the same: bad.

When it comes to daring, or scaring, no one can beat the shamelessly sultry Bai Ling. To promote her new film, “Shanghai Baby,” at Cannes, Bai showed up in a white bikini, black fur coat and dark red, fluffy boots. Compared with some of her bizarre and skin-baring looks of before, her “Shanghai Baby” style isn’t so much shocking as it is just plain ugly.

For kicks and giggles, at the closing day of the festival, a Chinese media outlet held a mini poll titled: “Who is the most famous Chinese actress for you.” They asked 20 international journalists and 20 regular people at Cannes to choose, and in the end, Gong Li won with 20 votes (Zhang received 11 votes and Cheung came in with nine).

Li’s win was attributed to her roles in major Hollywood movies, including “Miami Vice” and “Hannibal Rising,” and once again brought up the old New York Times question: “Why Isn't Maggie Cheung a Hollywood Star?”

My answer is that Cheung is too intellectual for any of the existing Hollywood roles for Chinese actresses. And she has consistently proven, as she did with grace at Cannes, that she does not need Hollywood and its Asian stereotypes.