Oscar hopeful "The Falls" wins at the Golden Horse Awards

by Nathaniel R

Alyssia Chia and Gingle Wang arrive for "The Falls" -- will we also see them at the Oscars?

Chung Mong-hong's mother/daughter drama The Falls, which revolves around COVID-19 and mental illness, and is Taiwan's submission to the Oscars this year took home the top prize at the 58th annual Golden Horse Awards. But it was no sweeper. Chung Mong-hong, who had previously dominated the Golden Horse Awards just two seasons ago with A Sun (which went on to make Oscar's international finalist list), lost best director. Overall the wealth was spread with all of the Best Film nominees taking home statues. Chang Chen's latest star vehicle The Soul (streaming on Netflix) picked up four of them, tying The Falls haul. 

The complete list of winners and gifs and photos from the event are after the jump...

Ang Lee, Taiwan's most famous auteur, is the chairman of the festival.winners to the front! Most of these photos are from the Instagram account of the Golden Horse Film Festival.

BEST FEATURE FILM

• American Girl (7 nominations, 3 wins + 2 additional prizes)
• Drifting (12 nominations, 1 win)
• ★ The Falls (11 nominations, 4 wins)
• The Soul (11 nominations, 4 wins)
• Till We Meet Again (10 nominations, 2 wins)

American Girl took home the most prizes if you include the special awards that aren't voted on by the same group (FIPRESCI and Audience Award). Though it's about an American teenager moving back to Taiwan, and from an Taiwanese-American director (Feng-I Fiona Roan) it has no US distribution. Uff.

BEST DIRECTOR

• ★ Drifting Petals - Clara Law
• Drifting - Jun Li
• The Falls - Chung Mong-hong
• The Soul - Cheng Wei-hao
• Terrorizers - Ho Wi-ding and Hu Chih-Hsin

Curiously Clara Law picked up Best Director though that was her film's sole nomination! The art film is about a filmmaker and a piano student who meet in Australia before an uncertain future in Hong Kong. It's said to combine "memoir, fiction, travelogue, history, and personal biography". Imagine the chaos if a director only nominated in that category ever won at the Oscars!  

BEST NEW DIRECTOR

• Treat or Trick - Hsu Fy-Hsiang
• Man in Love - Yin Chen-hao
• May you Stay Forever Young - Rex Ren & Lam Sum
• Moneyboys - C.B. Yi
• ★ American Girl - Fiona Roan Feng-i

Both directing prizes went to women this year.

BEST ACTRESS

• Chen Shiang-Chyi - Increasing Echo
• ★ Alyssia Chia - The Falls
• Gingle Wang - The Falls
• Karena Lam - American Girl
• Caitlin Fang - American Girl

Alyssia Chia wins as the mother in The Falls who is dealing with mental illness during COVID quarantine. Major kudos to the Golden Horse Awards for rejecting category fraud and actually understanding dual lead same gender dramas.

BEST ACTOR

• Cheng Jen-shuo - Gatao The Last Stray
• ★ Chang Chen - The Soul
• Roy Chiu - Man in Love
• Francis Ng - Drifting
• Kai Ko - Moneyboys

You know Chang Chen of course since he starred in numerous Asian classics like Three Times, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Happy Together. The star, who just turned 45 this month, is having quite a year. He just won his first Golden Horse and also had a key role ("Dr Yueh") in Denis Villeneuve's international hit Dune.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

• Chung Hsin-ling - Man in Love
• Loletta Lee -Drifting
• Annie Chen - Terrorizers
• ★ Wang Yu-Xuan - Goddamned Asura
• Wen Cheng-ling - Leave Me Alone

22 year-old Wang Yu-Xuan wins defeating a crowd of veterans for a drama which revolves around a young man who tragically begins shooting into a crowd on his 18th birthday. We have yet to read anything about her role in the film but she said in her acceptance speech (rough translation we assume):

“I grew up watching you perform... and your performance is my nourishment.” 

Her film debut was in White Lies, Black Lies  (2015) for the same director (Lou Yi-an) as her current film.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

• Lung Shao-hua - Gatao the Last Stray
• ★ Liu Kuan-ting - Treat or Trick
• Tse Kwan-ho - Drifting
• Wil Or - Drifting
• Umin Boya - Till We Meet Again

33 year old star Liu Kuan-ting (A Sun) continues his hot streak, winning his second Best Supporting Actor prize in just three years for the crime thriller Treat or Trick (which involves bad cops and a diamond theft). Inbetween his 2019 and 2021 Supporting wins he had a stellar 2020 as well, nominated for lead actor for the romantic comedy My Missing Valentine, last year's winner for Best Feature, and co-starring in the Audience Award winner Classmates Minus, as well as in the ensemble of the superhero flick A Choo (streaming on Netflix). How long can he keep up this hot streak? 

BEST NEW PERFORMER

• Eve Al -I Missed You
• Lin Ju - Raydio
• Moon Lee - Terrorizers
• ★ Caitlin Fang - American Girl
• Devin Pan - Goddamned Asura

Caitlin Fang is the female lead in American Girl which is about a Taiwanese-American teenager.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

• American Girl
• Coffin Homes
• Echo
• ★ The Falls
• Goddamned Asura

Though he lost Best Director this go around Chung Mong-hong adds a third category to his list of Golden Horse Award wins with Best Original Screenplay. He's previously won in Cinematography (The Great Buddha+) and twice in Directing (A Sun, The Fourth Portrait).

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

• ★ Drifting
• Increasing Echo
• The Soul
• Treat or Trick
• Till We Meet Again

Drifting is a social drama about a homeless ex-con.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

• ★ American Girl
• Drifting
• The Falls
• The Soul
• Till We Meet Again

BEST ART DIRECTION

• Leave Me Alone
• The Falls 
• ★ The Soul
• Till We Meet Again
• Treat or Trick

BEST MAKEUP AND COSTUME DESIGN

• Drifting
• The Falls
• The Soul
• ★ Till We Meet Again
• Treat or Trick

Fantasy film Til We Meet Again takes this one.

BEST FILM EDITING 

• Drifting
• The Falls
• May You Stay Forever Young
• ★ The Soul
• Terrorizers

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS 

• The Falls 
• Plurality
• ★ The Soul
• Till We Meet Again
• Treat or Trick

BEST ACTION CHOREOGRAPHY

• Coffin Homes
• ★ Nezha
• The Soul
• Till We Meet Again
• Treat or Trick

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

BEST SOUND EFFECTS

• Nezha
• The Soul
• ★ Till We Meet Again
• Treat or Trick
• Terrorizers

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

• Drifting
• ★ The Falls
• Listen Before You Sing
• I Missed You
• Till We Meet Again

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

• Coffin Homes - "One by One"
• Drifting - "Drifting"
• ★ I Missed You - "I Missed You"
• Man in Love - "Oh Love, You are Much Greater Than I Imagined"
• Till We Meet Again - "Red Scarf"

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

• Dark Red Forest
• A letter to A'ma
• RAIN IN 2020
• ★ Revolution of Our Times
• Solo Dancer

DOCUMENTARY SHORT

• The Catch
• ★ In Their Teens
• The Night
• Ning
• Nothing in the Cries of Cicadas

LIVE ACTION SHORT

• All the Crows in the World
• ★ Good Day
• My Sister
• Neko and Flies
• Poem of Pakistan

ANIMATED SHORT

• Butterfly Jam
• Depths of Night
• Girl in the Water
• ★ Magical Tracing
• Paddy

AUDIENCE CHOICE

• ★ American Girl

FIPRESCI PRIZE

• ★ American Girl

OUTSTANDING TAIWANESE FILMMAKER

• ★ Frank Chen

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD  

• ★ Lin Tsan-ting
• ★ Tsai Yang-ming

Oh no Roy Chiu can't find his acceptance speech... oh wait.

And of course we'd be remiss if we didn't share this gif of Bai Ling arriving since she always knows how to get cameras flashing...

Comments

[kin]

This seems like as good a place as any to put out my wish that Glenn Dunks get his hands on Revolution of Our Times to feature for his Doc Corner. Really curious about how this obviously important piece of cinema for Hong Kong would play for someone who is so well-versed in the art of non-fiction filmmaking.

[ajnrules]

Chang Chen has certainly come a long way since his film debut with A Brighter Summer Day 30 years ago. Hard to believe this is his first Golden Horse Award.

And apparently this version of Nezha is apparently a racing flick. It seems like it's about a gamer who specializes in racing games who is recruited to become a racecar driver after a champion is forced to retire. Its trailer can be seen here.