Chinese director Diao Yinan’s (刁亦男) thriller Black Coal, Thin Ice leads the nominations for the annual Golden Horse Awards organizers said yesterday.
The film tells the story of a washed-up ex-cop investigating a series of grisly murders. It scored eight nominations, including best film, best director, best actor and best actress. The movie already won the Berlin Festival’s Golden Bear award in February.
Chinese director Lou Ye’s (婁燁) Blind Massage — about visually impaired people finding work as massage therapists — follows closely with seven nominations, including best film and best director. It has some blind actors.
Also nominated for best director are Chinese director Wang Xiaoshuai’s (王小帥) Red Amnesia as well as Myanmar-born, Taiwan-based Midi Z’s (趙德胤) Ice Poison and Ann Hui’s (許鞍華) The Golden Era from Hong Kong. Hui last won the directing award in 2011.
Hui’s film is based on the real-life story of a famed Chinese woman writer in the early 20th century. It is up for best film along with Taiwan’s baseball movie Kano and A Fool — the directorial debut by veteran Chinese actor Chen Jianbin (陳建斌), who is vying for both best new director and best actor.
Chen will face-off against compatriot Liao Fan (廖凡) (Black Coal, Thin Ice) for the top acting honor, as well as Hong Kong’s Sean Lau (劉青雲) (The White Storm), Taiwanese Chang Chen (張震) (Brotherhood of Blades) and Japanese actor Masatoshi Nagase for his role as a baseball coach in Kano.
Kano is the Taiwanese film which won the most nominations this year with six, including for best new director.
In the leading actress category, China’s Gong Li (鞏俐) (Coming Home) faces Tang Wei (湯唯) (The Golden Era) and Zhao Wei (趙薇) (Dearest) Taiwan’s Gwei Lun-mei (桂綸鎂) (Black Coal, Thin Ice) and Chen Shiang-chyi (陳湘琪) (Exit).
The winners are to be announced at a Nov. 22 ceremony in Taipei.
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
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