Chung Mong-hong, aka his pseudonym Nagao Nakashima, is a Taiwanese film director, screenwriter and cinematographer. He received a BS in Computer Engineering from National Chao Tung University in Taiwan, and an MFA in Filmmaking from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
“Chung Mong-hong has established himself as one of the boldest voices in contemporary Asian cinema. Remaining unjustly unknown in America, his films encompass everything from documentary to psychological horror, retaining a unique quality that is darkly comic, strikingly stylish, and subtly surreal.” – BAMcinématek, 2015
“As the director of Soul (TIFF '13) and Godspeed (TIFF '16), and a producer on The Great Buddha+ (TIFF '17), Chung has established himself as an innovative filmmaker, and this marks another creative chapter in his career.” – Toronto International Film Festival, 2019
Lately, he had produced another two films: A Leg(腿) and Classmate Minus(同學麥娜絲). The former was nominated for Best Leading Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Original Screenplay, Best Makeup & Costume Design at the 57th Golden Horse Awards, while the later got 9 nominations, including Best Narrative Feature, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Original Film Music, Best Film Editing, and Best Art Direction.
Filmography:
2020 | Classmates Minus(同學麥娜絲)(Directed by Huang Hsin-yao) | *As Executive Producer and Director of Photography (a.k.a. Nagao Nakashima) |
2020 | A Leg(腿)
(Directed by Chang Yao-sheng) | *As Executive Producer, Co-Screenwriter and Director of Photography
(a.k.a. Nagao Nakashima) |
2019 | A Sun(陽光普照) | |
2018 | Xiao Mei(小美)
(Directed by Maren Hwang) | *As Executive Producer and Director of Photography (a.k.a. Nagao Nakashima) |
2017 | The Great Buddha+(大佛普拉斯)
(Directed by Huang Hsin-yao) | *As Executive Producer and Director of Photography (a.k.a. Nagao Nakashima) |
2016 | God Speed(一路順風) | |
2013 | Soul(失魂) | |
2010 | The Fourth Portrait(第四張畫) | |
2008 | Parking(停車) | |
2006 | Doctor(醫生) [doc] | |
*Classmates Minus
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FacDPq6NM6k
Huang Hsin-yao / 2020 / 122min
This is a story about four high school classmates. The storylines are intertwined with one another. Here are a middle-aged director who is frustrated with his undiscovered talents, a hard-working white-collar worker who is depressed about his lack of achievement, an idle part-timer at the Household Registration Office who is hesitant about love and a paper offering maker who is able to communicate with the dead.
2020 Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival – Opening Film
2020 Taipei Golden Horse Awards – Best Supporting Actor (Na Dow), Best Art Direction
*A Leg
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COpahiB4uOY
Chang Yao-shen / 2020 / 115min
The story begins with an amputated leg. The leg's owner is Zi-han, who passes away after the operation. His wife Yu-ying decides to find his vanished leg. During the course, she recalls how they first met, how they fell in love and how their relationship gradually shattered. Retrieving the leg is how she tries to say farewell to the man she once loved. Only after that can she begin her own journey.
2020 Tokyo International Film Festival
2020 Hawaii International Film Festival
2020 Hong Kong Asian Film Festival
2020 Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival – Opening Film
2020 Taipei Golden Horse Awards – nominated for Best Leading Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Original Screenplay, Best Makeup & Costume Design
*A Sun
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bQXpreXRyc
Chung Mong-hong / 2019 / 155min
The story is about an ordinary family of four. The father, A-Wen, is a driving instructor; the mother, Qin, is a hairdresser; the older brother, A-Hao, is a high school senior following his father's expectations, preparing for retaking his medical school entrance exams; the only member who seems problematic is the younger brother A-Ho, who has been "different" since he was a child.
2020 selected as the Taiwanese entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 93rd Academy Awards
2020 Hong Kong Asian Film Awards – Best Supporting Actress
2020 Palm Spring International Film Festival
2019 Taipei Golden Horse Awards – Best Narrative Feature, Best Director, Best Leading Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Film Editing and Audience Choice
2019 Singapore International Film Festival – Asian Vision
2019 Tokyo International Film Festival – World Focus
2019 Busan International Film Festival – A Window On Asian Cinema
2019 Toronto International Film Festival – Contemporary World Cinema
*Xiao Mei
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-aqXFZvCgk
Maren Hwang / 2018 / 95min
This is a story about finding Xiao Mei. Xiao Mei is missing. The interviews and memories of nine individuals who all had connections with her gradually piece together the puzzles of her life. None of them knows where Xiao Mei has gone, but all they want is for her to be all right, so everything will be all right. Featuring the unique voice of Huang Hsin-Yao, director of critically acclaimed The Great Buddha+, Xiao Mei offers a glimpse of a wandering girl’s troubled life.
2018 Taipei Golden Horse Awards, nominated for Best Cinematography, Best Original Film Score, Best Original Film Song
2018 Berlinale –Panorama, nominated for GWFF Best First Feature Award
2018 Hong Kong International Film Festival – Opening Film
2018 Taipei Film Awards –Best Cinematography
2018 Focus On Asia Fukuoka International Film Festival
2018 Strasbourg European Fantastic Film Festival - Crossovers Grand Prix
*The Great Buddha+
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=br7eRYniQ90
Huang Hsin-yao / 2017 / 104min
Pickle works as a security guard at a Buddha statue factory at night. His favorite pastime is to read porn magazines and watch TV with his best pal Belly Button. One day, out of boredom, they grab the dash cam of Pickle's boss and watch the recordings. Pickle and Belly Button soon realize that they have not only intruded a man's private life but also witnessed his dirty little secrets that will trigger a chaotic chain reaction.
2018 selected as the Taiwanese entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 91st Academy Awards
2018 MoMA & Film Society of Lincoln Center’s New Directors / New Film
2017 Toronto International Film Festival – Winner of NETPAC
2017 Taipei Golden Horse Awards –Best Cinematography
2017 Tokyo International Film Festival
2017 Busan International Film Festival
2017 Vancouver International Film Festival
*God Speed
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GD_Fbkr88a0
Chung Mong-hong / 2016 / 111min
A sadsack slacker and small-time crook (Na Dow) is tasked by a taciturn mob boss to traffic a package down south; unable to find a proper means of transport, he is practically forced by old cabbie Lao Xu (Hong Kong comedy legend Michael Hui) to be his fare for the cross-country journey. What ensues is a postmodern reinvention of the comedic double act as the pair of unsuspecting drug mules incessantly bicker over money, share strange anecdotes about the meaning of life, and suffer an endless run of bad luck largely due to Lao Xu’s chronically poor decision-making. Meanwhile, the southern gangsters they are driving toward are having an existential crisis of their own, in a bloody maelstrom of plastic-wrapped furniture, chainsaw-unfriendly motorbike helmets, and vicious dog-eat-dog betrayal.
2016 Toronto International Film Festival – Vanguard
2016 Vancouver international Film Festival – Dragons & Tigers
2016 Taipei Golden Horse Awards – Best Art Direction
2016 Hong Kong Film Awards – Best Film From Mainland And Taiwan
2016 Tokyo International Film Festival – World Focus
2016 Seattle International Film Festival – Asian Crossroads
2016 Edinburgh International Film Festival – World Perspectives
2016 Melbourne International Film Festival
*Soul
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkMf75xl44I
Chung Mong-hong / 2013 / 111min
A-Chun is a quiet thirty-year-old who works as a chef in a Japanese restaurant in Taiwan. One day, without apparent reason, he falls into a coma, and wakes up in a strange mental state. As if under a spell, he doesn’t respond to any external stimulus, and doesn’t speak or eat. He is taken back to the mountains, the place where his father lives and grows orchids. His father and sister are puzzled—until violence explodes within and around A-Chuan, setting off a series of unexpected events. A fascinating and chilling psychological thriller of demonic possession and the mysterious happenings surrounding it, Soul probes a father-son relationship shattered by a foreign presence and unspoken family secrets.
2013 Toronto International Film Festival
2013 Chicago International Film Festival
2013 Tokyo International Film Festival
2013 Taipei Golden Horse Awards – Best Sound Effects
2013 Taipei Film Awards – Best Narrative Feature, Best Actor, Best Cinematography, Best Music
*The Fourth Portrait
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdRmNK0P_Cw
Chung Mong-hong / 2010 / 105min
“Caught between his prostitute mother and abusive stepfather, ten-year-old Xiang serves as a stoic witness to the cruelty and deception of the adult world. His only means of expression are the disturbing drawings he shares with his teacher — images which also contain clues to a family secret he has long been shouldering on his own. Deftly balancing pitch-black tragedy with surprising moments of warmth and humor, The Fourth Portrait reflects the complexity of rural Taiwan’s dark underbelly.” – Film at Lincoln Center
2010 Taipei Golden Horse Awards – Best Director, Best Supporting Actress, the Outstanding Taiwanese Film of the Year, FIPRESCI Prize
2010 Valladolid International Film Festival – Best Director of Photography
2010 Vancouver International Film Festival
2010 Hawaii International Film Festival
2010 Nantes Festival of the Three Continents 2010 – Audience Choice
2010 Locarno Film Festival – Official Competition
2010 Busan International Film Festival – A Window on Asian Cinema
2010 Tokyo International Film Festival –Taiwanese Cinema Renaissance: New Breeze of the Rising Generation
2010 Taipei Film Festival – Opening Film
2010 Taipei Film Awards – Best Narrative Feature, Best Actor
*Parking
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbJsFhiIecI&list=PLdBiL3yzKroUGRyRyXllJOp-u_eSoHiw9&index=88
Chung Mong-hong /2008 /112min
On Mother’s Day, Chen Mo goes to a bakery to buy dessert for his wife, only to find his car blocked in by a double-parked car. As Chen searches for the car’s owner in the nearby apartment buildings, he comes across a variety of strangers and their secrets: a broken family of an old couple and a little girl (and absent parents), a retired gang leader turn barber, a Taiwanese pimp and his mainland Chinese prostitute girlfriend, a tailor form Hong Kong on the run. In fact, Chen and his wife are also stranger to each other, long wanting to have a child without success. In the span of an evening of chance encounters, communications and conflicts, the film paints a picture of the urban life and other characters. At the end of the adventure, he and his wife have a new hope, a child.
2008 Cannes Film Festival – Un Certain Regard
2008 Vancouver International Film Festival
2008 Busan International Film Festival
2008 Golden Horse Awards – Best Art Direction award, FIPRESCI Prize
2009 Taipei Film Awards – Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best New Talent awards
*Doctor
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3gAa_XFDX0
Chung Mong-hong / 2006 / 95min
On US Independence Day, 1996, Taiwanese-American 13-year-old genius Felix posted a puzzling notice on his bedroom door. Three hours later, he had ended his own life. Devastated, his father, Dr. Wen, left Iowa City, his home of twenty years, and moved to Miami. Though the sunny, warm clime and passage of time have distanced him from the traumatic experience, his grief and perplexity linger. Six years after Felix’s death, a boy from Peru, Sebastian, comes to receive treatment for cancer from Dr. Wen. Through the stories of the two adolescents and Dr. Wen’s loving concern for them, the documentary portrays with touching compassion the transience, struggles, mysteriousness, and preciousness of life.
2008 MoMA’s Documentary Fortnight
2007 Visions du Reel International Film Festival
2006 Taiwan International Documentary Festival – Merit Prize for Asian Vision Competition
2006 Golden Horse Awards – nominated for Best Documentary
2006 Taipei Film Awards – Best Documentary Award