Golden Horse Awards 2020: Gay dramas abound but a romantic comedy takes it.
Wednesday, December 2, 2020 at 4:01PM
NATHANIEL R in Bai Ling, Chen Shu-fang, Days, Dear Tenant, Golden Horse Awards, Mo Tzu-yi, My Missing Valentine, Tsai Ming-liang, Your Name Engraved Herein

by Nathaniel R

Oops. We missed sharing Taipei's Golden Horse Awards this year as they happened right before Thanksgiving and we were otherwise occupied! Past lineups have had films from Singapore, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia and more competing for the top prize. For the past two years, however, due to political tension and a boycott from China we're seeing less of that and it's becoming more centered on Taiwanese movies. This year three gay dramas did well (one of them is on Netflix) but it was a romantic comedy that won...

BEST NARRATIVE FEATURE 

Taiwan's current Oscar submission A Sun (streaming on Netflix) was the big winner last year about this time. Golden Horse eligibility typically runs early fall to late summer so it doesn't line up exactly with Oscars or submission calendars. That's particularly true this year with the schedule very messy. For their submission in 2021, they'll have to pick something that opens after January 1st, 2021 so it won't be any of these titles. 

BEST DIRECTOR

Tsai Ming-liang is the most famous, internationally speaking, among these directors though his film Days was not a frontrunner for these prizes as it only received 1 nomination beyond the Film/Director categories. Fruit Chan, whose film Made in Hong Kong was submitted by Hong Kong to the Oscars in 1998, is the only Best Director nominee this year whose film (The Abortionist) didn't place in Best Film. Classmates Minus director Huang Hsin-Yao was previously submitted to the Oscars by Taiwan in 2018 for The Great Buddha+

BEST DOCUMENTARY

The winner is a three hour documentary about a grassroots democratic movement in southern China to remove a corrupt local government but the new government is beset by the same kinds of corruption. 

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

Last year they had no nominations in this category, so they recovered from the China boycott this year. The winner is a toon about a teenage boy who meets an old anthropomorphic plastic bag who doesn't see himself as junk - take that, Forky! This is not to be confused with the Oscar-winning animated short The Lost Thing (2010) or the recent Taiwanese picture Cities of Last Things (2018) both of which come up on google if you search for this movie (so i wasn't able to find an image). We're always begging filmmakers to pick titles that are unique! 

BEST LEADING ACTOR

Best Actor winner Mo Tzu-yi who wins for a gay drama

Most of these men are first time Golden Horse nominees except, oddly enough, the two youngest of them, Austin Lin (also known as Lin Po-hung) who won Best Supporting Actor four years ago with At Cafe 6, and Liu Kuan-Ting who won Best Supporting Actor just last year for Taiwan's current Oscar submission A Sun. They're both 32.  Apparently Mo Tzu-yi's top competition was another actor in a gay role, Singapore's Mark Lee in the drag comedy Number 1. 

BEST LEADING ACTRESS

81 year old Chen Shu-fang won BOTH the female acting prizes this year.

81 year old longtime film and tv star Chen Shu-fang won both Best Actress and Best Supporting actress this year. She's been working regularly in cinema since 1971.

As for the other nominees. This is Gwei Lun-mei's fourth nomination as a leading actress (one previous win) and Nikki Hsieh's second nomination (one previous win in Supporting). Relative newcomer Patty Lee is a first time nominee and headlines the Best Film winner. (She got a double nomination this year as she co-wrote the Original Song from the film). And, of course, you know Bai Ling  who has worked on an international scale since the 1990s. Bai Ling hasn't been a regular presence at the Golden Horse Awards but she did win Supporting Actress back in 2004 for her sole previous nomination. 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

As you can see with acting nominations, Asian film awards are far less averse to acting nominations for genre films than their counterparts in English language markets as you semi-regularly see nominations from horror, comedy, and action films.

BEST NEW DIRECTOR 

Chong Keat-aun's feature also won the Fipresci from critics. We believe it's also referred to as "South Witch"?

BEST NEW PERFORMER

Troy Liu and Buffy Chen star in the acclaimed sexual abuse drama "The Silent Forest"

Chen Yan-fei, also known as Buffy Chen, co-starred in another Golden Horse winning film this year (Little Big Women). In The Silent Forest she plays a victimized teenager at a school for kids with special needs.  

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Tseng Jing-hua and Edward Chen play the young lovers in "Your Name Engraved Herein"

Your Name Engraved Herein is a gay drama told in both the present (2018) and the past (1988) about schoolmates who fall in love and meet again thirty years later. Taiwan was the first Asian country to legalize gay marriage. 

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

Not sure how a romantic comedy won this prize? Perhaps it has fantasy sequences? The Rope Curse 2 is a horror sequel, about a young psychic whose aunt is possessed be a demon.

BEST ART DIRECTION 

BEST MAKEUP & COSTUME DESIGN


Drag queen comedy Number 1 beat out a horror sequel (The Rope Curse 2), a noir (Precious is the Night), a very odd sounding Dramedy about a woman shoes husband dies after his leg is amputated (A Leg), and a Best Film nominee / period piece (Hand Rolled Cigarette) for this prize.  

BEST ACTION CHOREOGRAPHY

Teddy Ray Huang and Li Shao-Peng won "Best Action Choreography"

Get the Hell Out is a horror comedy about a virus that turns politicians into zombies. A Choo is a superhero film of sorts. 

BEST ORIGINAL FILM SCORE 

BEST ORIGINAL FILM SONG

BEST FILM EDITING

BEST SOUND EFFECTS 

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT

Night is Young is a 25 minute short about a taxi driver during one night of intense social unrest in Hong Kong. 

BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM

Joe Hsieh who directed Night Bus about a fatal accident on the road also served as the animation director on Yonfan's bizarre and bewitching No. 7 Cherry Lane which I saw at TIFF last year and which we just found out is  being submitted for Best Animated Feature at the Oscars this year. 

AUDIENCE CHOICE AWARD

FIPRESCI PRIZE 

OUTSTANDING TAIWANESE FILMMAKER OF THE YEAR

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD 

 

The 57th annual Golden Horse Awards were held in Taipei on November 21st. The Golden Horse Awards Intagram account has lots of lovely photos of the event.

Article originally appeared on The Film Experience (http://thefilmexperience.net/).
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