Golden Horse 2021: The Soul, The Falls, and Drifting lead the nominations
Wednesday, October 6, 2021 at 12:00PM
NATHANIEL R in Chang Chen, Golden Horse Awards, Kai Ko, Moneyboys, Roy Chiu, The Falls, The Soul

THE FALLSby Nathaniel R

The nominations have been announced for Taiwan's annual Golden Horse Awards. Social drama Drifting about a homeless ex-con leads the pack with 12 nominations. Very close behind are the mother/daughter pandemic drama The Falls (which we reviewed at Venice) and the Chang Chen led mystery The Soul (streaming on Netflix) with 11 nominations each. Moneyboys, the gay hustler drama that premiered at Cannes this summer snagged just two nominations but big ones (Best Actor for Kai Ko and Best New Director for C.B. Yi).

The actual winner doesn't often translate into being Taiwan's Oscar submission (The Assasin and A Sun are the only winners of the past ten years to be sent to the Oscars) though the submission is often among the nominees. UPDATE 10/06 That's true again this year as The Falls has just been selected for the Oscar competition.

The complete list of nominations and a lot more photos after the jump... 

BEST NARRATIVE FEATURE

 

 

BEST DIRECTOR

TERRORIZER

 

Drifting Petals, which is remarkably not the same movie as Drifting, is also without a listing at IMDb yet so we dont know anything about it. Terrorizers which played TIFF last month is a drama about lost youth in Taipei centered around a young man who commits a slashing attack in public (note: it is not the same film as the classic Terrorizers (1986) from Edward Yang. Chung Mong-hong won this prize two years ago for A Sun.

 

BEST NEW DIRECTOR

It's the fresh new filmmaking voices category. Treat or Trick is a police thriller, Man in Love is a romantic drama about a small time crook. May you stay forever young doesn't yet have an IMDb page so we have no info.  

BEST ACTRESS

Gingle Wang and Alyssia Chia in "The Falls" 

80% of the category is mother and daughter duets with both The Falls and American Girl landing the daughter and her sick mother in the category. Chen Shiang-Chyi (The Wayward Cloud, What Time Is It There?) previously won this category for Exit (2014)

 

BEST ACTOR

Kai Ko in "Moneyboys"Roy Chiu in "Man in Love"

 

You know Chang Chen of course since he starred in numerous Asian classics like Three Times, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Happy Together and more and he's also in Dune which is about to hit theaters. Roy Chiu was previously nominated in this category for Dear Ex (2018), a gay romantic drama of sorts that was an Oscar submission and is currently streaming on Netflix. Francis Ng previously won this award for The Mission (1999)

Kai Ko is a previous Golden Horse winner from when he was just 20 (You Are the Apple of My Eye) and he's having a big year with Moneyboys and Till We Meet Again (both up for prizes here) though he doesn't like the term "comeback" after his career was dampened by a drug bust seven years back. 

 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Lung Shao-Hua in "The Last Stray"

 

BEST NEW PERFORMER

A few of these movies don't have IMDb pages yet so this category is something of a mystery.

 

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Coffin Homes is a horror comedy satirizing the overpriced housing market in Hong Kong

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

BEST ART DIRECTION

BEST MAKEUP AND COSTUME DESIGN

BEST FILM EDITING 

 

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS 

PLURALITY

Plurality is a sci-fi action film about a man who has had four dead serial murder suspects loaded into his brain.

BEST ACTION CHOREOGRAPHY

There are a lot of movies called Nezha so we don't know which one this is.

BEST SOUND EFFECTS

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

MAN IN LOVE

OUTSTANDING TAIWANESE FILMMAKER

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD  

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