Despite the political conflict with the Chinese communist government which basically has a great deal of impact on Golden Horse Film awards this year, Golden Horse Film Award still make it to the next level as being the top notch of the Chinese film award, which is the so-called Chinese Oscar. This year, South East Asia (SEA) films have a lot to do with it. Films, directors or simply the story from South East Asia have contributed a lot to this excellent result. Moreover, the SEA films have definitely shine so bright and find their own stage in this year’s event.
For those SEA directors who are nominated this year, Anthony Chen from Singapore receives the most spotlight. As a previous Best New Director, he brings back his new film, Wet Season, which talks about the language learning dilemma in Singapore’s education, a Malaysian Chinese teacher’ s daily life and the forbidden relationship with her student. Congratulations to the main character who starred the Chinese teacher ,Yeo Yann Yann, on bringing back the Best Actress Awards.
Another director who is from Malaysia, LAU Kek-huat, he has two nominated films this year, The Tree Remembers and A Love of Bolumi. He is a high-profile director recently in Taiwan, with his family biography documentary Absent Without Leave won so many international film awards. It is a film when the director himself tried to figure out the relationship between his father and his Malaysian Communist grandfather. While, this year’s nomination, A love of Bolumi is about the relationship between a Philippine migrant worker and a Malaysian student in Taiwan. The film has quite a South East Asia vibe and characteristic in it. As for The Tree Remember, it is mainly talked about the struggling of the Malaysian aboriginal when they face the racial hegemony and being left out from the economic development.
One thing that is worth mentioned is the collaboration films between Taiwan and SEA
, it is quite a special and wonderful scene in this year’s Golden Horse Award. For example, The Garden of Evening Mists, which is adapted from the Malaysian English novel, co-produced by HBO Asia, FINAS, Astro Shaw and CJ Entertainment. It was selected to be the closing film of this year’s Golden Horse Film Festival.
However, we can see that the directors mentioned above. A lot of them were students in Taiwan. Besides showing Taiwanese audience a different aspect into seeing South East Asia through the films, it is not necessary for them to only tell the stories of their home countries. After living in Taiwan for a while, they are already a great story-teller to portray Taiwan. Of course, they are already being praised a lot for their accomplishment. One of the best examples is the winner of the Best Documentary Award this year, Your Face by TSAI Ming-liang. He is an internationally well-known Malaysian director who is active in Taiwan. However, the theme for his many previous films and Your Face have already been deeply connected to Taiwan.
Source: 杜晉軒 關鍵評論網
