23:18 – And that’s it for us tonight. Thanks a lot for following, and see you next April for the Hong Kong Film Awards!

23:12 – Yang Ya-che pulls out a 沒有人是局外人 aborigine rights activist banner during his speech. Amazing.

Final tally: The Great Buddha+ takes home five awards; The Bold, The Corrupt, and the Beautiful and See You Tomorrow each take three; Old Beast takes two; Have a Nice Day, Missing Johnny, Alifu, Mon Mon Mon Monsters, Brotherhood of Blades 2, Plastic China, Inmates each take one award.

23:09 – Jury president Wu Nien-jen now onstage to present the Best Film award.

And the Best Film award goes to: The Bold, The Corrupt, and the Beautiful! I know the Golden Horse jury would end with an upset!

Wu jokes that Yang Ya-che looks a bit like a young him. Yang gives Kara Hui a HUGE HUG.

A win for Taiwan, but definitely not the win that everyone expected. What a surprise.

23:06 – Time for the final award of the night. Let’s see if The Great Buddha+ will go out with a high or if Angels Wear White will pull off a last-minute surprise.

22:59 – Both actress awards went to The Bold, The Corrupt, and the Beautiful, which tells you how great the women are in this film.

22:58: The Best Actress award goes to: Kara Hui for The Bold, The Corrupt, and the Beautiful! This is her first Golden Horse award for Best Actress.

22:54 – Jessica Chastain and Ang Lee present the Best Actress award. Chastain starts with a “Da Jia Hao” to impress everyone, of course.

Lee speaks in Mandarin, while Chastain speaks in English. Lee interprets for her.

Chastain makes a little wink to Lee, hinting that she wants to work with him one day.

Lee says in Mandarin that this happens whenever he does one of these with actors.

22:48 – Another commercial break with two awards left to go. Looks like we have at least half an hour to go.

22:45 – Time for the Best Actor award. Looks like Takeshi Kaneshiro isn’t here after all.

The Best Actor award goes to: Tu Men for Old Beast! 

22:43 – Last year’s Best Actor and Best Actress winners – Fan Wei, Zhou Dongyu, and Ma Sichun onstage now to present the Best Actor award.

Ma complains that she got called backstage too early and wasn’t able to listen to J.J. Lin’s performance, but she’s happy that she got to meet him there.

22:36 – Qu praises her investors for letting her make a film with two young lead actresses who may still not exactly understand what the film is saying.

22:31 – The Best Director award goes to: Vivian Qu for Angels Wear White! 

Now the film can bypass the mainland China film quota and get a proper Taiwan theatrical release.

22:27 – Is there some kind of deal that dictates all pop stars at the Golden Horse Awards must end their medleys with their own song? I’m just saying, this medley is going on 10 minutes and it should’ve been over one song ago.

Teddy Robin, Tsui Hark, Nansun Shi, Raymond Wong, and Eric Tsang finally take the stage. The five are here to present the Best Director award.

Raymond Wong just could not resist dropping the Happy Ghost name.

22:18 – J. J. Lin continues the tribute with a medley of theme songs for Cinema City films.

22:15 – Another break before the major awards – a tribute to Hong Kong’s Cinema City Film. The company got a similar tribute earlier this year at the Hong Kong Film Awards.

22:09 – Heading into the home stretch – Four awards left to go for the night. Expect one commercial break per award, so this is going to take a while.

22:07 – Hsu starts with a joke: “You only get one chance at the Lifetime Achievement Award, so I’ll have to ask the Best Actor and Best Actress nominees to come back at 5 am to get their award.”

22:01 – Golden Horse chairperson Sylvia Chang on stage now. This is Chang’s final year as chairperson of the festival.

She’s here to present the Lifetime Achievement Award to Hsu Feng. Not only did she star in King Hu’s classics, she also produced films and donated NT$5.1 million for the restoration of A Touch of Zen.

21:56 – As the ending of Foley Artist reveals, Hu was dismissed from his longtime post at Central Motion Pictures in 2015 and has since been working freelance in half-retired state.

21:54 – Time to present the Outstanding Taiwanese Filmmaker of the Year award to foley artist Hu Ding-yi.

You can see more about Hu’s work in documentary Foley Artist. The film recently played at the Tokyo and Hong Kong Asian Film Festivals.

21:47 – Before presenting Best Original Film Song, Chen and Na Dow both ask their peers for more chances to act in films.

The award for Best Original Film Song goes to: The Great Buddha+. We’re at five awards now.

This is Lin Xiang-sheng’s first and second nominations, as well as his first and second Golden Horse wins.

21:43 – This is Lin Xiang-sheng’s first Golden Horse Award. Lin is also known as a social activist in Taiwan.

21:41 – Na Dow and Ella Chen now onstage to present Best Original Film Score and Best Original Song.

The two practice their Japanese because there are two Japanese nominees in Best Original Film Score.

The Best Original Film Score award goes to: The Great Buddha+, for its fourth award of the night! It’s now the official front-runner of the night.

21:37 – And now a short clip of last night’s Golden Horse party, where the Audience Award and FIPRESCI award were presented.

21:34 – Tao now introduces this year’s jury, led by Wu Nien-jen.

Wu reveals that the jury began deliberations this morning at 8:30, and their cell phones have been confiscated since then.

21:25 – Jolin Tsai now onstage with one of those long medley performances. Which means it’s time to finish up that pizza.

21:19 – With Great Buddha+ winning the screenplay award, it seems like the path is being laid out for it to win the top prize, but the Golden Horse has a tendency to surprise, so let’s see what happens.

21:15 – Feng now presents Best Adapted Screenplay. Feng’s Youth is one of the nominated films, so he admits to being nervous.

And the Best Adapted Screenplay award goes to: Huang Hsin-yao for The Great Buddha+ for its third award of the night.

Huang “adapted” the film from his own short film. He gives a shout out to his documentary roots and thanks his fellow Taiwanese people in Taiwanese.

21:10 – Feng Xiaogang onstage now to present the Best Screenplay awards.

The Best Original Screenplay award goes to: Zhou Ziyang for Old Beast! 

21:05 – Time to wrap up those technical awards with Best Makeup and Costume Design.

The Best Makeup and Costume Design award goes to: See You Tomorrow for its third award. Co-winner Cheung Siu-hong also opts to speak Cantonese for his speech (William Chang isn’t here this year).

Cheung keeps thanking Wong Kar-wai and instead thanks director Zhang Jiajia for “his words”.

21:01 – And now, time for Best Art Direction.

The Best Art Direction award goes to: See You Tomorrow, for the film’s second award of the night.

20:54 – Huang’s presenting his third award of the night: Best Animated Feature

The award for Best Animated Feature goes to: Have a Nice Day! 

20:52 – Finally, someone tells the winner to just speak Cantonese.

20:49 – Huang Bo remains to present the Best Animated Short Film.

The Best Animated Short Film goes to: Losing Sight of a Longed Place, representing Hong Kong. These kids truly look surprised to be here.

20:44 – Damn, that Hsu Wei-ning nomination reel from The Tag-Along 2 is creepy.

And the Best Supporting Actress award goes to: Vicky Chen for The Bold, The Corrupt, The Beautiful! The first award for the Yang Ya-che film.

Chen is also nominated for Best Actress tonight for Angels Wear White.

It’s hard to believe that Chen is only 14 years old. She’s great in The Bold…

20:41 – Tao walks onto the stage right under a huge spotlight with Huang Bo behind her providing support.

Huang Bo has an iPhone X.

20:38 – Huang Bo and Tao have a little backstage segment before presenting Best Supporting Actress together.

Huang is nominated for Best Actor tonight for The Conformist.

20:34 – The Great Buddha+ has now won two awards, automatically making it the front-runner of the night so far.

Tan Wei-wei now onstage to perform the theme song for Love Education.

20:25 – And it’s time for Best Cinematography. Lin asks Chen why cinematographers are always so quiet and introverted on set.

“Your husband’s a cinematographer, you should know!” – Chen Yu-hsun

The award for Best Cinematography goes to: The Great Buddha+!

This is Chung Mong-hong’s fourth nomination (under his alias Nagao Nakashima) and first win. Godspeed star Na Dow accepts the award on his behalf.

There was previously a report on Variety about how The Great Buddha+ being shot on an iphone. As the director says, that’s not true. The + in the title is a reference to its root as a short film. Since the feature film version is like an upgrade of the short film, Huang Hsin-yao decided to add a + in the title.

20:23 – I haven’t heard so much Taiwanese in a Golden Horse victory speech in I don’t know how long.

20:20 – Chen gets a HUGE applause from his peers in Taiwan. This is his first nomination and win at the Golden Horse. He’s also an acting and Taiwanese dialect coach on films.

20:18 – And the Best Supporting Actor award goes to: Bamboo Chen for Alifu The Princeess! It’s true, he was the best part of that film.

20:16 – Chen Yu-hsun and Lin Mei-hsiu on stage to present Best Supporting Actor.

Their first line: “Hi, we are not nominated tonight!”

The two joke about how being nominated is so great because they each get an electric cooker. I can confirm that a friend who served on the jury this year also received one.

20:12 – Tao now in the audiences stand to speak to Ang Lee. His son is a nominee tonight for Who Killed Cock Robin.

Of course, it’s because it’s time for Best Supporting Actor.

“Well, [Mason} is still young, so I hope that he doesn’t win this year” – Ang Lee. He also asks his peers to give Mason a chance to work on his acting.

Mason, understandably, looks embarrassed as hell.

20:08 – Lin Sheng-xiang onstage now to perform the (Taiwanese-language) theme song from The Great Buddha+

20:03 – To recap: The Great Buddha+, See You Tomorrow, Missing Johnny, Mon Mon Mon Monsters, Brotherhood of Blades 2, Plastic China, Inmates each have one award. No clear frontrunner yet.

20:00 – First hour wrapped. Now, the in memoriam memorializing those that left us in the past year.

Chu Ke-liang was up first, which was a very big deal considering that there was some controversy about Chu not getting any recognition from the Golden Horse this year. He was followed by director Chi Po-lin.

Willie Chan, Mona Fong, and Kinson Tsang got the last slots.

19:56 – Lin stays to present Best Documentary. Will Plastic China take this one too?

The Best Documentary award goes to: Inmates! Naturally, a five-hour documentary wasn’t going to be nominated for Best Editing, so here it is.

19:55 – For those keeping tabs, all but one winner tonight so far are from Taiwan. Even the firm that did See You Tomorrow is a Taiwan firm.

Lee gives some love for more female-led stories before leaving the stage.

19:52 – Lin now presents Best Live Action Short Film.

And the Best Live Action Short Film award goes to: Babes’ Not Alone by Lee Yi-shan.

19:50 – Jean Tsien thanks former collaborator Ang Lee, who told her that Chinese people are natural editors.

19:48 – And the award for Best Editing goes to: Plastic China!

Is this the first time that a documentary has won the Best Editing award? The answer is no. The Man Behind the Book won the award back in 2011. KJ also won the award in 2009, so this isn’t even Cnex’s first award.

By the way, Plastic China does not have an entry on Douban in China.

19:47 – Ariel Lin now on stage solo to present Best Editing. Wonder why she’s doing this alone.

19:41 – For anyone interested, this is the Taiwan firm that just won Best Visual Effects.

19:40 – Now it’s time for Best Action Choreography.

The Best Action Choreography award goes to: Brotherhood of Blades 2

The first film was also nominated, but didn’t win. This is choreographer Sang Lin’s second nomination and first win.

To be honest, I didn’t remember much of the choreography from the film. I can say that it was solid.

19:38 – Winner Johnny Lin reveals that this is the first time that a Taiwanese special effects firm has won this award. Wow.

19:36 – And now the Best Visual Effects award.

The Best Visual Effects award goes to: See You Tomorrow. 

19:33 – This is Tu Duu-chih’s 36th nomination and his 12th win. This guy is the godfather of sound in the Taiwan film industry.

His son Tu Chun-tang is also a co-winner. “Congratulations, dad,” he says.

19:32 – Technical awards time. First up is Best Sound Effects.

The Best Sound Effects award goes to: Mon Mon Mon Monsters! 

19:30 – Chris Wu and Best Supporting Actress nominee Hsu Wei-ning now on stage to present two awards.

A shot of Jessica Chastain, who is here to present an award, looking very confused.

19:26 – Second Hand Rose Band now performing the theme song from Free And Easy 

19:22 – And it’s time for our first commercial break. Time for pizza.

19:18 – The announcer for the award nominees this year has a really scary voice.

And Best New Performer award goes to: Rima Zeidan for Missing Johnny!

Hsu almost didn’t want to give up the award as she tries to hand it to Zeidan.

On a personal note, I really like this film.

19:16 – “Are you jealous that Huang Hsin-yao got to give a victory speech?” – Dee Hsu
“It’s OK, I got to touch the Golden Horse statue” – Kevin Tsai

Hsu and Tsai stay to present the Best New Actor award.

19:13 – The first award of the night is Best New Director.

The award goes to: Huang Hsin-yao for The Great Buddha+!

The Great Buddha+ has been picking up awards since its debut at the Taipei Film Festival. It’s nominated for ten awards tonight.

19:10 – Dee Hsu and Kevin Tsai – the star and director of Didi’s Dream – snuck their way into the group. They’re actually both eligible for Best New actor and Best New director, but of course neither of them got nominated.

“It must’ve been Lin Chiling’s fault that we didn’t get nominated” – Dee Hsu

They stay on stage to present an award.

19:08 – The nominees for Best New Director and Best New Actor all take to the stage to greet the audience.

19:06 – Tao asks Tian Zhuangzhuang if he wants to sing the song that he sang at the end of LOVE EDUCATION. Of course he refused.

Naturally, Tao turns to Kara Wai, who had her own awesome singing moment of The Bold, The Corrupt and the Beautiful.

19:03 – Matilda Tao back again as host this year, introducing the nominees. She points out that three of the five best directors nominees this year are women – Ann Hui, Vivian Qu, and Sylvia Chang.

19:00 – Here we go! I can confirm that the official Youtube feed does work in North America, so follow along!

18:55 – While I care about how Taiwan films will do tonight, a lot of celebrity watchers are wondering whether nominee Takeshi Kaneshiro will actually show up. The superstar is notoriously secretive and rarely attends these functions. We’ll find out whether he’s here in a few minutes.

18:48 – Welcome to the Asia In Cinema live blog for the 54th Golden Horse Awards. You know how it goes – keep reloading this page to see the latest updates. The latest post is on top so you won’t have to scroll to the bottom.

Several awards were already handed out last night: The Bold, The Corrupt and the Beautiful won the audience award and Old Beast won the FIPRESCI prize.

Meanwhile, we’re watching the final moments of the red carpet ceremony before the awards begin.