20 Films you shouldn’t miss at the 59th Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival (Part 1)

By Asian Film Festival on October 28, 2022 • ( 2 Comments )

These are twenty films you shouldn’t miss at the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival which will take place from November 2 – 20, 2022 in Taipei, Taiwan.

**A Holy Family** by Elvis Lu – Taiwan, France | 2022 – 87 minutes
**Section**: Golden Horse Award

After twenty years of absence, director Elvis Lu returns home to his family. He comes back with the aim of facing the real motive of his departure – the stubborn belief in the powers of his elder brother, A-zhi, a psychic in the village. Lu documents day by day, realising that in the end, maybe the real wound in the family life is, in fact, his own departure. (TGHFF 2022)

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**Ajoomma** by He Shuming – Singapore, South Korea | 2022 – 90 minutes
**Section**: Golden Horse Award

Inspired by the director’s mother, Ajoomma is the story of a middle-aged, Korean-drama obsessed widow from Singapore, who travels out of the country for the first time to Seoul in South Korea and ends up getting lost. Her journey becomes an unexpected road of self-discovery, as she comes to terms with the life that she truly wants to have for herself. (TGHFF 2022)

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**All That Breathes** by Shaunak Sen – UK, India, USA | 2022 – 94 minutes
**Section**: To Infinity and Beyond

In one of the world’s most populated cities, two brothers, Nadeem and Saud, devote their lives to the quixotic effort of protecting the black kite, a majestic bird of prey essential to the ecosystem of New Delhi that has been falling from the sky at alarming rates. Amid environmental toxicity and social unrest, the ‘kite brothers’ spend day and night caring for the creatures in their makeshift avian basement hospital. (TGHFF 2022)

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**Autobiography** by Makbul Mubarak – Indonesia, France, Germany, Poland, Singapore, Philippines, Qatar | 2022 – 116 minutes – **Section**: Windows on Asia

With his father in prison and his brother abroad for work, young Rakib works as the lone housekeeper in an empty mansion belonging to Purna, a retired general. After Purna returns home to start his mayoral election campaign, Rakib bonds with the older man. When Purna’s election poster is found vandalised, Rakib doesn’t hesitate to track down the culprit, kicking off an escalating chain of violence… (TGHFF 2022)

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**BL Metamorphosis** by Shunsuke Kariyama – Japan | 2022 – 118 minutes
**Section**: Windows on Asia

Urara Sayama is a 17-year-old high school student whose only hobby is reading boy’s love (BL) manga. She works part-time in a bookstore, where she meets 75-year-old Yuki Ichinoi, who has lived alone since her husband passed away. Attracted by the cover, Yuki buys a BL manga and subsequently becomes a fan of the genre. As Yuki and Urara develop a friendship, they decide to take on a challenge. (TGHFF 2022)

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**Blue Island** by Chan Tze-woon – Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan | 2022 – 97 minutes
**Section**: Golden Horse Award

Through cinematic reconstructing and reimaging, four young participants of Hong Kong 2019 protests parallel and overlap experiences of their predecessors of Cultural Revolution, 1967 Riots and Tiananmen Square. They find themselves in similar predicaments and seemingly irreversible fates. How do the youth of today forecast what future holds for them in the city of Hong Kong? (TGHFF 2022)

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**Convenience Story** by Satoshi Miki – Japan | 2022 – 97 minutes
**Section**: Wonderland

Kato is a scriptwriter in a severe slump. He submits ideas for potential movies but makes no headway and spends his days feeling downhearted. One day when he stumbles into “Ideal Mart”, a convenience store where he can find everything his heart desires, he encounters a mysterious married woman, who gets his creative juices flowing again, but little does he know that he is trapped in an alternate dimension, cut off from the real world. (TGHFF 2022)

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**DEMIGOD: The Legend Begins** by Chris Huang – Taiwan | 2022 – 103 minutes
**Section**: – Golden Horse Award

Youthful polymath Su Huan-jen is a martial artist, a doctor and an unpredictable headache for his master Eight-toed Qilin. In going against his master’s advice, Su Huan-jen unwittingly sets off a lethal power struggle between the Five Mountains. Ensnared in a conspiracy that even his master cannot escape from, it is up to Su Huan-jen to turn back the tide and stop the evil mastermind before it is too late… (TGHFF 2022)

Screening:
November 14, 2022 | Monday | BREEZE CINEMAS A | 14:10 pm

Trailer:

**Far Far Away** by Amos Why – Hong Kong | 2021 – 95 minutes
**Section**: Golden Horse Award

28-year-old IT geek Hau is a mediocre but warm-hearted introvert and so far, he has only been in love once. Surprisingly, this year he ends up getting romantically involved with five different women. The one thing they have in common is that they all live in far-flung parts of Hong Kong. After taking five intensive relationship courses within these 365 days, will he find “the-one”? (TGHFF 2022)

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**Fast & Feel Love** by Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit – Thailand | 2022 – 132 minutes
**Section**: Windows on Asia

Kao is the world’s fastest sport-stacking champion who is constantly being challenged. In the midst of this, Kao’s long-time girlfriend, who has taken care of him and everything else in his life, decides to end their relationship. While Kao must keep up with up-and-coming stacking challengers, he also needs to learn the basic daily life skills. Yet, the most difficult task of all for him is figuring out how to win back his girlfriend. (TGHFF 2022)

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