Golden Horse Award wins by Chinese films garner praise for Taiwan

Shanghai, Nov. 25 (CNA) The success of Chinese filmmakers at the Golden Horse Awards in Taipei Saturday has sparked online discussions in China and garnered praise for Taiwan's premier film awards, which celebrate excellence in Chinese-language cinema.

Nov. 23: 2024 Golden Horse Awards

Despite China's ban on YouTube, which streamed the awards ceremony live globally, the results were shared on the Chinese social media platform Weibo by movie enthusiasts. They celebrated the unexpected wins of Chinese filmmakers in Taipei on Saturday evening.

Three of the four closely watched categories at the 61st edition of the Golden Horse Awards were won by Chinese filmmakers, including the Best Narrative Feature award won by playwright Ma Yingli (馬英力) for "An Unfinished Film" (一部未完成的電影) which she co-wrote.

Ma also accepted the Best Director award on behalf of her husband, Lou Ye (婁燁), for the Singapore-Germany production. The film follows a film crew who reunite near Wuhan, China, in January 2020 to complete a long-delayed project, only to find themselves stranded by a lockdown as the COVID-19 pandemic begins to spread.

Lou's first win in his fourth nomination was greeted with approval by bloggers, content creators and other internet users in China, but also briefly raised concerns that the Best Director award could mean the film had less chance to win in the Best Narrative Feature category,

In fact, the film went on to win both awards.

Lou's and the film's back-to-back wins at the end of Saturday's ceremony surprised the online Chinese audience, many of whom posted messages about the unexpected results and praised the film awards.

"Judge movies by movies themselves. That demonstrates the Golden Horse Awards' prominence and inclusiveness," said one comment on the evening.

Some expressed disappointment that Lou's docufiction film, scheduled to hit theaters in Taiwan on Dec. 20 following its win, remains unreleased in China.

Others questioned where the French production "Bel Ami" (漂亮朋友), a satire about gay and lesbian communities in China, would be screened after its world premiere at the Taipei Golden Horse International Festival, which concluded on Sunday.

The film won Chinese actor Zhang Zhiyong (張志勇) the Best Leading Actor award and also garnered awards for Best Cinematography and Best Film Editing.

On Saturday night, a Weibo user shared a photo collage featuring "Bel Ami" director Geng Jun (耿軍) accepting the award on behalf of Zhang, Ma picking up two awards, and Taiwanese filmmaker Sophie Suei (隋淑芬) collecting the Best Adapted Screenplay award for Wang Xiaoshuai (王小帥) for the Chinese-Dutch production "Above the Dust" (沃土).

None of the winners in the Golden Horse Awards' major categories were present at the awards ceremony, and Chinese website Douban did not list these films in its movie database, the internet user said.

The best performing Taiwanese film was horror comedy "Dead Talents Society" (鬼才之道) which took home five awards with 11 nominations.

This year's Golden Horse Awards received a record-high 718 submissions from Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore and Malaysia, the organizer said when the nominations were announced in early October.