The nation yesterday celebrated film director Hou Hsiao-hsien (侯孝賢) winning the best director award at the Cannes Film Festival on Sunday night in France.
Hou’s film The Assassin (聶隱娘), a martial arts drama set in Tang Dynasty China, stars Taiwanese actress Shu Qi (舒淇) as a trained killer who is sent back to her home province to assassinate its governor, who is also the man she loves, portrayed by Taiwanese actor Chang Chen (張震).
In an interview with Chinese-language media after his win, Hou said that first impressions are more important than understanding the plot when it comes to movies, because images create feelings and thoughts.
Photo: Reuters
Although some critics have said the film is not easy to understand, Hou said there are some people who think it is “very beautiful” and “very poetic.”
“Seeing a movie should not be just about understanding plots and details,” Hou said.
The Ministry of Culture yesterday said that Hou would receive NT$5 million (US$163,553) for winning the best director prize and another NT$500,000 for the film making it into the main competition of the festival.
The Assassin cost NT$450 million to make. The government gave Hou NT$45 million in subsidies during the production: NT$20 million in 2010 and NT$25 million in 2011.
Sunday night’s award was the first time the 68-year-old Hou has won the director’s award at Cannes. His film The Puppetmaster (戲夢人生) took the third-place Jury Prize at the 1993 festival.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) was among those sending congratulations to Hou after the winners were announced at the festival.
“[His] innovation and colorful way of telling the story has inspired a new trend in the world of film and shone in international skies, bringing glory for Taiwan,” he said.
The top prize, the Palme d’Or. went to a French film, Dheepan, directed by Jacques Audiard. about Sri Lankan asylum-seekers trying to build new lives, one of two movies at the festival to focus on the plight of migrants.
A Holocaust drama, Son of Saul, by Hungarian director Laszlo Nemes, claimed the runner-up Grand Prize, while The Lobster, a surreal black comedy about modern love by Greece’s Yorgos Lanthimos, starring Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz, took the Jury Prize.
The best-actress trophy was won by Rooney Mara for her work in the lesbian love story Carol and Emmanuelle Bercot for Mon Roi (My King). France’s Vincent Lindon won best actor for his portrayal of a job-seeker trying to preserve his dignity in La Loi du Marche (The Measure of a Man).
Mexican director Michel Franco won best screenplay for Chronic, which stars British actor Tim Roth as a nurse caring for dying patients.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique