Golden Horse Nominations for 2023

by Nathaniel R

Snow in Midsummer, Marry My Dead Body, and Stonewalling are nominees

Nominations have been announced for the 60th annual Golden Horse Awards. The annual juried event covers the best in Chinese-language cinema. The ceremony will be held on November 25th this year. Stonewalling, Taiwan's Oscar submission Marry My Dead Body, Time Still Turns The Pages, Eye of the Storm, and Snow in Midsummer are all up for the top prize and three of them are streaming. Read on for more about these films and the nominations list...

BEST FEATURE 

• Eye of the Storm  (Taiwan) -7 nominations 
  A drama about a hospital thrown into lockdown due to a virus outbreak. STREAMING ON NETFLIX
  
  
• Marry My Dead Body (Taiwan) - 8 nominations
  A crime comedy about a homophobic cop trying to solve a case and the spirit of a gay man who he accidentally marries and whose death is connected to the cop's case. STREAMING ON NETFLIX.
  
  
• Snow in Midsummer (Malaysia/Singapore/Taiwan) - 9 nominations
  A retelling of a famous Chinese story set during the Yuan dynasty about a widow named Dou Eh who is wrongfully convicted for a crime she didn't commit.
  
  
• Stonewalling (China) -3 nominations
  A drama about an aspiring flight attendant who discovers that she is pregnant and wants to hide the pregnancy. STREAMING ON CRITERION CHANNEL
  
  
• Time Still Turns the Pages (China) - 5 nominations
  A high school teacher is is in crisis when he finds an anonymous suicide note in his classroom. 

In terms of numbers the nominees were a bit surprising since four titles that weren't nominated had similar nomination tallies including Malaysia's undocumented orphan brothers drama Abang Adik and the Taiwanese drama Old Fox (both with 7 nominations), as well as the Taiwanese action film The Pig the Snake and the Pigeon and Taiwan's drama Trouble Girl (both with 6 nominations) but more on those titles in a bit.

Because Oscar eligibility for international feature film operates on a different calendar than each country or region's own awards, you'll sometimes see overlap between two separate years. For instance, Hong Kong's current Oscar submission A Light That Never Goes Out was a winner at last year's Golden Horse Awards while Taiwan's current Oscar submission Marry My Dead Body, is competing for the Golden Horse this season.

BEST DIRECTOR

• Cheng Wei-hao (5 noms / 1 win) - Marry My Dead Body
• Hsiao Ya-chuan - Old Fox
• Wong Ching-po - The Pig, The Snake, and the Pigeon
• Chong Keat-aun - Snow in Midsummer 
• Huang Ji & Otsuka Ryuji - Stonewalling

Old Fox is a morality drama about a young boy and his father at a crossroads, while The Pig The Snake and the Pigeon is an action film about competing criminals. 

BEST LEADING ACTRESS

• Hu Ling - Carp Leaping Over Dragon's Gate
• Lu Hsiao-fen - Day Off
• Jennifer Yu - In Broad Daylight
• Chung Suet-ying - The Lyricist Wannabe
• Audrey Lin - Trouble Girl

None of these pictures are nominated in the top category -- not unlike what sometimes happens with the Oscars best actress category sometimes. Day Off is about an older woman who runs a barbershop asked to travel for an old clients haircut. It's a comeback for Lu Hsiao-fen who hasn't been onscreen in 20 years. Trouble Girl, which does not yet have an IMDb page, stars Audrey Lin stars in Trouble Girl about a girl who is bullied at school and then realizes that her mother (also nominated Ivy Chen) is in a relationship with her teacher.  In Broad Daylight is a social issues drama about a reporter investigating abuse in an old folks home. 

We couldn't find info on the other two films Carp Leaping Over Dragon's Gate and The Lyricist Wannabe

BEST LEADING ACTOR

• Wu Kang-ren - Abang Adik
• Wang Po-chieh - Eye of the Storm
• Hsu Kuang-han - Marry My Dead Body
• Austin Lin (3rd nomination) - Marry My Dead Body
• Ethan Juan (2nd nomination) - The Pig, The Snake, and the Pigeon

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

• Beatrice Fang - Day Off
• Rachel Leung - In Broad Daylight 
• Eugenie Liu - Old Fox
• Wan Fang - Snow in Midsummer
• Ivy Chen Yi-han (3rd nomination) - Trouble Girl

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

• Jack Tan - Abang Adik
• Fu Meng-po (2nd nomination)  - Day Off
• Bowie Lam - In Broad Daylight
• Akio Chen - Old Fox
• Sean Wong Tzu-lok - Time Still Turns the Pages

BEST NEW PERFORMER 

• Tan Kimg-wang - Abang Adik
• Travis Hsu - A Boy and a Girl
• Yoyo Tse - Fly Me to the Moon
• Daniel Hong - Miss Shampoo
• Yeh Hsiao-fei - Who'll Stop the Rain

BEST NEW DIRECTOR

• Jin Ong - Abang Adik
• Lee Hong-chi - Love is a Gun
• Sun Jie - The Mountain is Coming
• Alan Zhang -This Woman
• Nick Cheuk - Time Still Turns the Pages

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

• Carp Leaping Over Dragon's Gate
• The Mountain is Coming
• Stonewalling
• Time Still Turns the Pages
• Trouble Girl

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

• Fly Me to the Moon
• The Lyricist Wannabe
• Marry My Dead Body
• Snow in Midsummer

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

• Abang Adik
• Eye of the Storm
• Fish Memories
• Snow in Midsummer
• Who'll Stop the Rain

BEST ART DIRECTION

• Eye of the Storm
• In Broad Daylight
• Miss Shampoo
• Old Fox
• Trouble Girl

BEST MAKEUP AND COSTUME DESIGN 

• Abang Adik
• In Broad Daylight
• Miss Shampoo
• Old Fox
• Snow in Midsummer

BEST ACTION CHOREOGRAPHY

• The Bridge Curse: Ritual
• Marry My Dead Body
• Miss Shampoo
• The Pig, The Snake, and the Pigeon
• Pigsy

BEST FILM EDITING

• Eye of the Storm
• Marry My Dead Body
• The Pig, The Snake, and the Pigeon
• Stonewalling
• Time Still Turns the Pages

BEST SOUND EFFECTS

• A Boy and a Girl
• Eye of the Storm
• The Pig, The Snake, and the Pigeon
• Snow in Midsummer
• Trouble Girl

BEST ORIGINAL FILM SCORE

• Eye of the Storm
• Old Fox
• The Pig, The Snake, and the Pigeon
• Snow in Midsummer
• Trouble Girl

BEST ORIGINAL FILM SONG

• Abang Adik - "A Walk To Remember"
• Day Off - "The Usual"
• Marry My Dead Body - "Untitled"
• Old Fox - "Fledgling"
• Snow in Midsummer - "May Threnody"

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

• The Clinic
• Elegies
• Free Beats: the Musical Journey of Chen Ming Chang
• Where
• Youth (Spring)

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT 

• Eviction and Beyond
• Girl of Wind
• Hearing from the Dolphin
• The Memo
• Of Dreams in the Dream of Another Mirror 

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT

• Al Niente
• Before the Box Gets Emptied
• Boys on the Bridge
• Reclaim My Summer
• The Stag

BEST ANIMATED SHORT

• Braided
• Egret River
• Ever Changing Clouds, Like My Ever Changing Life
• Ghost of the Dark Path
• Monsoon Blue

The following prizes are decided in different ways or by different sets of voters

AUDIENCE AWARD

• TBA 

OUTSTANDING TAIWANESE FILMMAKER OF THE YEAR

• Lin Shih-Ken - producer

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

• Brigitte Lin - actress
• Chen Kun-hou - cinematographer/director

Comments

[ed12042]

There is an inside joke how hunky all the Best Leading Actor nominees are this year.
<https://www.instagram.com/p/Cx8Tz9hvkgg/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA%3D%3D>

[ajnrules]

The Lyricist Wannabe appears to be a coming of age story about a young girl who aspires to become a professional lyricist. It was apparently the closing film at the Hong Kong Asian Film Festival. The interesting thing is that Chung Suet-ying is a lyricist herself, but I don't know how autobiographical the film is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XHPhW3N4k4

Carp Leaping Over Dragon's Gate appears to be about a mother that stresses about her daughter's high school entrance examinations, possibly more than her daughter does. There isn't a lot of information on Chinese language websites either, but it seems like it'll be a gritty drama.

Apparently Audrey Lin in Trouble Girl is only 12 years old, making her the youngest nominee for Best Actress in Golden Horse history. The Australian-born child star was also in American Girl streaming on Netflix.

[NATHANIEL R]

ajn -- ooh thanks for that research.

ed -- that's funny. They are a beautiful group!

[kin]

I missed messaging this weekend, but "Time Still Turns the Pages" should be credited to Hong Kong, and not China.

[James Wesley]

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