SINGAPORE — It’s another historic win for Singapore’s Ilo Ilo as director Anthony Chen became the first Singaporean to win Best New Director at the 50th Golden Horse Awards in Taipei. 

Dubbed the Oscars of Chinese-language cinema, Chen beat fierce competition which included Sunny Luk and Longman Leung who directed Aaron Kwok and Tony Leung Kar Fai in the blockbuster hit Cold War; as well as actress-turned-director Zhao Wei who scored big at the China box office with So Young. 

What could have been a night of embarrassment for Chen turned out to be a night of victory, when a faux pas was made by the presenters on stage. They announced the names of the nominees like it was the name of the winner, and Anthony Chen happened to be the first name of the nominees announced. After clarification and laughs throughout the Dr Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall, Chen was finally officially named the winner and he went up on stage to received his trophy from the legendary John Woo. 

Chen started his emotional thank-you speech saying “I never thought I’d come to the Golden Horse Awards and win a prize. All I was hoping for was to shake Lee Ang’s hand!” to a roomful of laughter. Taiwan’s very own two-time Oscar winner Lee Ang is chairing the jury at this special 50th Golden Horse Awards and Chen’s idol.

After the excitement of his first win, he went on to pick up his second award for the night almost immediately after: Best Original Screenplay. This is on top of the Piaget Best Screenplay award he won the night before at the Golden Horse Nominees dinner. 

The Cannes Film festival Camera d’Or winner looked shocked at his win, and confessed during his speech that after all the trials and tribulations of making Ilo Ilo, he was thinking of just donning the director’s cap for his next film, and stop writing.

“But thanks to the Golden Horse jury panel’s faith and encouragement, I think I might just pick up the pen and write again,” he said with a smile.