‘Dead Talents Society’ Leads Race For Taiwan’s Golden Horse Awards With 11 Nominations

John Hsu’s horror comedy Dead Talents Society heads the nominations for this year’s Golden Horse Awards with 11 nominations, including Best Narrative Feature, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress for Sandrine Pinna. 

The film, set in a fictional underworld where ghosts can linger in the mortal realm by competing to haunt humans, is produced by Taiwan’s Activator Co, Sony Pictures International Productions and several other local companies.

It was followed in the awards race by Tom Lin’s Yen And Ai-Lee and Geng Jun’s Bel Ami, which both received eight nominations. 

Dead Talents Society and Bel Ami are both nominated for Best Narrative Feature, along with Ray Yeung’s All Shall Be Well, Yeo Siew-hua’s Stranger Eyes and Lou Ye’s An Unfinished Film. All five of these films are also nominated for Best Director. 

Best Leading Actor nominations include King Jieh-wen (A Journey In Spring), Chang Chen (The Embers), Yau Hawk-sau (The Way We Talk), Wanlop Rungkumjad (Mongrel) and Zhang Zhiyong (Bel Ami). Wanlop is a Thai actor who played a migrant care worker in Mongrel, which premiered at this year’s Cannes film festival and received a Camera d’Or Special Mention.

Best Leading Actress nominations are Patra Au Ga-man (All Shall Be Well), Kimi Hsia (Yen And Ai-Lee), Chung Suet-ying (The Way We Talk), Sylvia Chang (Daughter’s Daughter) and Sandra Ng (Love Lies). 

In addition to Pinna, Best Supporting Actress nominations went to Pets Tseng (Big), Yang Kuei-mei (Yen And Ai-Lee), Lu Yi-ching (Mongrel) and Eugenie Liu (Daughter’s Daughter). Best Supporting Actor nods went to Lee Kang-sheng (Stranger Eyes), Mo Tzu-yi (The Embers), Zeng Guo-cheng (Yen And Ai-Lee), Daniel Hong (Mongrel) and Shih Ming-shuai (Gatao: Like Father Like Son). 

Best New Director nominations include Qiu Yang for Some Rain Must Fall, which won a  Special Jury Award in Encounters at this year’s Berlin film festival; Peng Tzu-hui and Wang Ping-wen for A Journey In Spring, which won the Silver Shell for Best Director at the 2023 edition of San Sebastian film festival; and Chiang Wei-liang and Yin You-qiao for Mongrel. Also nominated in this category are Ye Xingyu for Three Castrated Goats, which is screening in the Asian Future competition at the upcoming  Tokyo International Film Festival, and Ho Miu-ki’s Love Lies.

All the nominated films will screen at Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival (November 7-24) while the awards will take place on November 23 at Taipei Music Center.