Yu Kan-ping to receive Golden Horse lifetime achievement award

Taipei, July 27 (CNA) Film director Yu Kan-ping (虞戡平) will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 63rd Golden Horse Awards, Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival Executive Committee announced Monday.

In a press statement, Yu said the honor came as a great surprise ahead of his 76th birthday.

Yu entered the film industry in 1974, working in roles including assistant director before making his directorial debut in 1979 with the wuxia, or martial arts, film "Love and Sword" (要命的小方).

He soon developed his own storytelling style with the award-winning "Papa, Can You Hear Me Sing?" (搭錯車), which won four awards from 11 nominations at the 20th Golden Horse Awards in 1983, including the late Sun Yueh's (孫越) second best actor award.

Yu became known for weaving contemporary social issues into fiction, as in his 1985 film "Myth of a City" (台北神話).

His 1986 film "The Outsiders" (孽子), adapted from Taiwanese author Pai Hsien-yung's (白先勇) novel "Crystal Boys," was a milestone in both his career and Taiwan's LGBTQIA+ community.

Its avant-garde subject matter led to censorship during Taiwan's Martial Law era, which lasted from 1949 to 1987 under the then-Kuomintang government.

The film's continuing importance as an LGBTQIA+ work was underscored when an unedited 4K restoration opened the seventh Queer East Festival in London on May 1 this year and screened to a full house at the Barbican Centre.

After completing "Two Painters" (兩個油漆匠), an adaptation of Huang Chun-ming's (黃春明) novel of the same name about a Taiwanese Indigenous person and a war veteran, Yu shifted his focus to documentaries about Taiwan's Indigenous peoples.

His documentaries about Taiwan's Indigenous communities earned him several accolades in recent years, including the 24th National Award for Arts in 2025, recognition from the Council of Indigenous Peoples and an honorary doctorate from National Dong Hwa University.

Upon being named the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award ahead of the ceremony on Nov. 22, Yu thanked Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival Executive Committee for the recognition.

"Filmmaking allowed me to archive the stories between Taiwan and its people," Yu said. "It also allowed me to remember the voices and the times that could be easily ignored."

The complete list of Golden Horse Awards nominees will be announced on Oct. 1.

In addition to the awards ceremony on Nov. 22, the 2026 Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival will open Nov. 6, with ticket sales starting Oct. 25.