The husband and wife team of Otsuka Ryuji and Huang Ji, who worked with a minimalist crew and mostly non-professional actors, gave a round of thanks to Asian leading auteurs for inspiring them, and then hugged each other on stage for winning the Taipei Golden Horse Film Awards best narrative feature prize with their pregnancy drama “Stonewalling.”
The numerical winner on Saturday night was “Old Fox,” which earned the best director award for Hsiao Ya-chuan, as well as the best supporting actor, makeup and costume, and best film score prizes.
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The nominations, announced in October, saw “Snow in Midsummer” collect nine nominations and Taiwan’s Oscar contender “Marry My Dead Body” head the field with eight. They were narrowly ahead of a further cluster of films with seven nominations each, including “Abang Adik,” “Old Fox,” “Trouble Girl” and “The Pig, the Snake and the Pigeon.”
On the evening, “Marry My Dead Body” won only one prize (for best adapted screenplay), while the Golden Horse Film Festival’s opening title “Snow in Midsummer” was also largely snubbed. It won only in the best sound effects category.
The Golden Horse Film Awards are generally considered as the most prestigious awards in Chinese-language cinema, though they have become less representative of the full width of the Chinese-language industry in recent years due to mainland Chinese pressure on Taiwan. But the Taiwan government is fighting back by bolstering other aspects of its cultural soft power. And for those in attendance Saturday at Taipei’s 2,500-seater Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall venue such trifles seemed far away.
Instead, the 60th anniversary edition resembled an arms wide open, joyful and glitzy party. Presenters, awards winners and even the head of a local telecoms firm received warm and plentiful applause from a fired-up audience.
On the red carpet were a parade of Chinese-language and Asian cinema celebrities. On stage at different times were Brigitte Lin, Sylvia Chang, Ang Lee, Lin Chi-lin, Hong Kong’s Ann Hui and Japan’s Kitano Takeshi and Yakusho Koji. At opposite ends of the career spectrum, retired actor Brigitte Lin and 12-year-old Audrey Lin received the evening’s biggest cheers. Though there were plenty more too for producer Lin Shih-ken, announced as the filmmaker of the year.
Best Narrative Feature“Stonewalling”
Best Leading ActorWu Kang-ren in “Abang Adik”
Best DirectorHsiao Yu-chuan
Best Documentary Feature“Youth”
Best Leading ActressAudrey Lin in “Trouble Girl”
Best Original Film ScoreChris Hou for “Old Fox”
Best Original Film Song“The Usual” Lyricist : Wu Nien-jen Composer : George Chen Performer : Hung Pei-yu in “Day Off”
Best Supporting ActressBeatrice Fang in “Day Off”
Best Film EditingLiao Ching-sung, Otsuka Ryuji for “Stonewalling”
Best Supporting ActorAkio Chen for “Old Fox”
Best cinematographyYu Jing-pin for “Fish Memories”
Best Original ScreenplaySun Jie “The Mountain Is Coming”
Best Adapted ScreenplayWu Chin-jung, Cheng Wei-hao for “Marry My Dead Body”
Best Make Up and Costume DesignWang Chih-cheng, Shirley Kao for “Old Fox”
Best Art DirectionHuang Mei-ching, Tu Shuo-feng for “Eye of the Storm”
Best Sound EffectsTu Duu-chih, Wu Shu-yao, Chen Kuan-ting for “Snow in Midsummer”
Best New PerformerTse Yoyo in “Fly Me to the Moon”
Best Action ChoreographyHung Shi-hao for “The Pig, the Snake and the Pigeon”
Best New DirectorNick Cheuk for “Time Still Turns the Pages”
Best Visual EffectsArChin Yen for “Eye of the Storm”
Best Animated Feature“Pigsy” Dir. Chiu Li-wei. (studio2 Animation Lab, Cheer Digiart Inc., MyVideo, Taiwan Mobile, Tomorrow Together Capital)
Best Animated Short“Monsoon Blue” Dirs. Ellis Chan Ka-yin, Wong Hiu-kit
Best Live Action Short“Before the Box Gets Emptied” Dir. Ho Sze-wai
Best Documentary Short“The Memo” Badlands Film Group
Lifetime Achievement Awards (2x)Chen Kun-houBrigitte Lin
Outstanding Taiwanese Filmmaker of the YearLin Shih-ken
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