Golden Horse Nominations for 2019

by Nathaniel R

A lonely student and his teacher become friendly in "Wet Season"

Usually the Golden Horse nominations are a fun and glamorous mix of all the hot movies and movie stars from various Chinese language countries. This year, however, due to political fallout from a speech last year and a Chinese boycott because of increasing tension between the way China sees Taiwan and the way Taiwan sees itself, no films from Mainland China are competing (which takes out a huge chunk of movies and a lot of the most famous movie stars). So the bulk of the features nominated this year are features from Taiwan with a little Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong thrown in. UPDATED WITH THE WINNERS MARKED BY STARS

BEST NARRATIVE FEATURE 

• A Sun (Taiwan) ★
• Suk Suk (Hong Kong)
• The Garden of Evening Mists (Malaysia)
• Wet Season (Singapore)
• Detention (Taiwan)

You may have noticed that Taiwan's current Oscar submission Dear Ex  (streaming on Netflix) is not nominated here. That's because it was a major nominee last year at these same awards. Curiously Singapore's current Oscar submission A Land Imagined (streaming on Netflix) was not nominated in Best Feature at the Golden Horse Awards. It had to settle for a few craft nominations...

Judging by these nominations, we have to suspect that Wet Season could be a strong contender for next year's Singaporean submission in the Best International Feature (it wasn't released in Singapore in time for eligibility this season. As for the other Golden Horse nominees, we're unsure of their release dates in their home country but for Detention, which did open in time for Oscar submitting eligibility but Taiwan chose Dear Ex.)

BEST DIRECTOR

• A Sun - Chung Mong-hong ★
• The Garden of Evening Mists - Tom Lin Shu-yu
• Wet Season - Anthony Chen
• Synapses -Chang Tso-chi
• Nina Wu - Midi Z

Synapses and Nina Wu both did well in nominations, but didn't make the top category. We're not sure what Synapses is since IMDb doesn't have a listing for it under the director's name. Nina Wu is a drama about a struggling actress.

BEST DOCUMENTARY

• The Tree Remembers
• Your Face ★
• The Good Daughter
• Bamboo Theatre
• Last Year When the Train Passed By

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

No nominees this year (Perhaps Mainland China is where most of the animated films come from?)

BEST LEADING ACTOR

Wu Chien Ho in "A Sun" 

• A Sun - Wu Chien-ho 
• A Sun - Chen Yi-Wen ★
• Suk Suk - Cheung Ka-nin
• Suk Suk - Ben Yuen
• My Prince Edward - Chu Pak-hong

Love these nominees because they remind us that a film can have more than one lead of the same gender. That's something American cinema now pretends does not exist unless the actors have different genitalia. Side note: IMDb is so messed up when it comes to Chinese language names. Wu Chien-ho and Chen Yi-wen both have extensive IMDb pages but under "A Sun" their names are listed but in separate order and link to blank IMDb pages. Note to everyone but especially to IMDb whose pages are a mess when it comes to this: when writing about Asian cinema, family names come first with most actors/directors (for example Bong Joon-ho -- Bong being the surname) unless the person is very Westernized or has an American first name in which they will often be listed in the credits in the Western tradition (like Ben Yuen above) with the family name last.

BEST LEADING ACTRESS

Lee Sinje stars in "The Garden of Evening Mists"

• A Sun - Samantha Ko
• The Garden of Evening Mists - Lee Sinje
• Wet Season - Yeo Yann-yann ★
• Synapses - Lu Hsueh-feng
• Detention - Gingle Wang 

Yeo Yann-yann is very good in Wet Season but it's the only nominee we can vouch for having seen the film. It's a very quiet performance, a character study movie even, about a teacher in an unhappy childless marriage who becomes too close to a student.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

We Are Champions

• A Sun - Liu Kuan-ting ★
• We Are Champions - Duan Chun-hao
• Wet Season - Koh Jia-ler
• Wet Season - Yang Shi-bin
• Synapses - Li Ying-chuan

We can also support the two supporting actor nominations for Wet Season. Koh Jia-ler plays a high school student with a major crush on his teacher (the leading actress) and Yang Shi-bin is her very old and ill father-in-law. The friendship that develops between these two men is one of the few moments of joy in an otherwise melancholy film. 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

• The Gangs, The Oscars, and The Walking Dead - Yao Yi-ti
• A Sun - Wen Chen-ling
• Suk Suk - Patra Au Ga-man
• 3 Days 2 Nights - Lu Yi-ching
• The Teacher - Winnie Chang ★

BEST NEW DIRECTOR 

• Boluomi - Lau Kek-huat and Vera Chen
• Scoundrels - Hung Tzu-hsuan
• The Last Thieves - Hsu Chia-kai
• Detention - John Hsu ★
• My Prince Edward - Wong Yee-lam

BEST NEW PERFORMER

Yuan Teng won Best Actor this summer at the Shanghai Film Festival for his role in "The Paradise"

• The Paradise - Yuan Teng
• Heavy Craving - Tsai Jia-yin
• We Are Champions - Fandy Fan ★
• The Teacher -Oscar Chiu
• Detention - Tseng Jing-hua

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

• A Sun
• A Land Imagined ★
• Suk Suk
• Wet Season
• Nina Wu

A Land Imagine, currently streaming on Netflix, finally shows up in the nominations. Despite being Singapore's Oscar submission, the Golden Horse Awards obviously far preferred another Singaporean picture, Wet Season.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

• Stand By Me
• The Garden of Evening Mists
• Detention ★

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

• A Sun
• The Scoundrels ★
• We Are Champions
• The Garden of Evening Mists
• Nina Wu 

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

The Devil Fish 

• The Devil Fish
• We Are Champions
• Synapses
• Detention ★
• Mayday Life

BEST ART DIRECTION 

• Paradise Next
• The Magnificent Bobita
• The Garden of Evening Mists
• Detention ★
• Nina Wu 

BEST MAKEUP & COSTUME DESIGN

• The Magnificent Bobita
• The Gangs, The Oscars, and The Walking Dead
• The Scoundrels
• The Garden of Evening Mists ★
• Nina Wu

BEST ACTION PHOTOGRAPHY

• The Scoundrels ★
• We Are Champions
• Detention
• Mayday Life 

BEST ORIGINAL FILM SCORE 

• Your Face
• A Land Imagined ★
• The Garden of Evening Mists
• Detention
• Nina Wu 

BEST ORIGINAL FILM SONG

• “A Kind of Sorrow” from More Than Blue
• “Distant Journey” from A Sun
• “The Day After Rain” from Detention ★
• “Nina Wu” from Nina Wu
• “My Prince Edward” from My Prince Edward

BEST FILM EDITING

• A Sun ★
• The Scoundrels
• A Land Imagined
• The Garden of Evening Mists
• Detention 

BEST SOUND EFFECTS 

• The Scoundrels
• We Are Champions
• A Land Imagined
• Detention
• Nina Wu ★

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT

• Old Man and A Dog
• Liu A, Sing A, and Bi Hong
• Rebel boy
• 3 Generations 3 Days ★
• Langit Budak Biru 

BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM

• Hidden Zone
• My Father at Grandma’s Funeral
• Gold Fish ★
• Adorable
• The Lighthouse 

OUTSTANDING TAIWANESE FILMMAKER OF THE YEAR

• Tang Shiang-chu

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD 

• Wang Toon

The 56th annual Golden Horse Awards will be held in Taipei on November 23rd. 

Comments

[Owl]

Koh Jia Ler and Yann Yann Yeo in Wet Season played mother and son in Ilo Ilo (a.k.a. Mom and Dad Are Not Home) in 2013. The film was submitted to the Academy as Singapore's entry. Yeo Yann Yann was amazing in Ilo Ilo (with the same intensity and commitment as Hsieh Ying-Xuan in Dear Ex). Wet Season is Koh Jia Ler's second film since Ilo Ilo in 2013. Anthony Chen wrote and directed both films.

Surprised Ki-Xi Wu did not get nominated as the titular character in Nina Wu. Must be a strong lineup.

[Leo]

"The Garden of Evening Mists" is based on the 2012 Booker Prize shortlisted novel of the same title by Tan Twan Eng.

[Dave in Hollywood]

Here I was just thinking that Fandy Fan is my favorite name ever, and then I go to his IMDB page and see that I've already seen him in one of those fun G-rated gay soap operas, I think from Taiwan. His particular one was HIStory. PS he is beautiful.

[Rod]

A Land Imagined was a terrible film. I really didn't like it at all.

[Alex]

China's boycott also has a lot to do with Hong Kong, since Taiwan is strongly supportive of Hong Kong protesters, and the ceremony is bound to filled with free speeches about Hong Kong situation, which will not be allowed by China's authorities. Btw, Suk Suk (Hong Kong) is a LGBT film that has no chance to be openly released in China, therefore it becomes one of the few Hong Kong films to defy China's pressure and join Golden Horse Awards.

[Mirko]

I wanna know everything about The Garden of Evening Mist