The Nomination List of 49th Golden Bell Awards

It’s that time of the year again, the nomination list of 49th Golden Bell Awards is out! In A Good Way (我的自由年代), Amour et Pâtisserie (沒有名字的甜點店), Boys Can Fly (刺猬男孩) Sun After The Rain (雨後驕陽) and A Good Wife (親愛的，我愛上別人了) are leading in the number of nominations. 

The nomination list
(I’m only listing down the awards related to drama category.)

---

Best Television Series: Amour et Pâtisserie (沒有名字的甜點店), In A Good Way (我的自由年代), Sun After The Rain (雨後驕陽), Boys Can Fly (刺猬男孩), Hakka Series – Lonely River (在河左岸)

---

Best Leading Actor: Junior (Sun After The Rain), Hans Chung (Boys Can Fly), Christopher Lee (A Good Wife), Zhang Ting-Hu (Boys Can Fly), Blue Lan (Chocolat)

---

Best Leading Actress: Tian Xin (A Good WIfe), Zhong Xin-Ling (Sun After The Rain), Sandrine Pinna (Amour et Pâtisserie), Cheryl Yang (The Queen!), Yan Yi-Wen (Lonely River)

---

Best Supporting Actor: Wang Jing-Guan (Lonely River), Gu Li-De (Boys Can Fly), Jay Shih (In A Good Way), Chen Bo Zheng (Sun After The Rain), Yankee Yang (Sun After The Rain)

---

Best Supporting Actress: Riva Chang – Xiao Tian Tian (Sun After The Rain), Qiu Nai-Hua (Sun After The Rain), Joelle Lu (Once Upon A Time in Beitou), Xi Man-Ning (A Good Wife), Isa Hsieh (Lonely River)

---

Best Directing: Wang Xiao-Di & An Zhe-Yi (Boys Can Fly), Wu Meng-En (In A Good Way), Zhou Xiao-Peng & Ye Hong-Wei (Sun After The Rain). Chen Zhang-Lun (Lonely River), Zheng Fen-Fen (Kiss Me, Mom!)

---

Best Screenwriting: Wang Xiao-Di, An Zhe-Yi, Zhang Ke-Xin & Zhan Jun-Jie (Boys Can Fly), Gao Miao-Hui, Yu Zhi-Min, Li Ding-Wei, Wen Cai & Wang Gong-Cheng (Amour et Pâtisserie), Chen Zhang-Lun, Ke Shu-Qing & Lin Hui-Jia (Lonely River), Xu Yun-Qi & Wu Pei-Zhen (In A Good Way), Wen Yi-Hui & Li Yi-Ze (Sun After The Rain)

---

Best Marketing Programme: In A Good Way (我的自由年代), Boys Can Fly (刺猬男孩), Lovestore at the Corner (巷弄裡的那家書店), A Good Wife (親愛的，我愛上別人了), Super Taste (Variety Show)

---

Blue Lan (Apple in Your Eye) finally gets into the nomination list again after 10 years without any nominations, he definitely had a long career without any award under his belt but he got a lot of potential and he’s just really bad at picking acting projects, though I think he’s improving lately through Apple in Your Eye. His career seems to be picking up after he settled down with Jade Chou (Falling). He might have a chance to win as his competitors, Zhang Ting-Hu (Apple in Your Eye, Boys Can Fly) and Hans Chung (Mr.Right Wanted, Boys Can Fly) are rookie actors so maybe they’re not as polished as him but nothing is impossible, Zhang Ting-Hu and Hans Chung are uprising rookie actors that I’ve been keeping my eye on and if Zhang Ting-Hu wins, it’ll be an awkward situation for Blue Lan as Zhang Ting-Hu is the supporting cast in his current drama, Apple in Your Eye (妹妹).

However, I think the toughest competition for him will be Junior (Sun After The Rain) and Chistopher Lee (Mr. Right Wanted, A Good Wife) as their acting are highly raved about in their respective dramas. Christopher Lee makes an impressive debut in the Taiwanese Golden Bell Awards by being nominated with the Best Leading Actor Award, he grabbed numerous awards in Singapore so maybe he’ll be able to conquer Taiwan too.

At the same time, if his co-star, Tian Xin (A Good Wife, Marry or Not) wins the Best Actress Award again this time round, that’ll be her second Best Actress Award after winning it in the year 2011 for Who’s the One (我的完美男人). Sandrine Pinna or best known as Zhang Rong-Rong (Amour et Pâtisserie) frequently gets into the nomination list of Acting Awards so she’ll probably be a strong competitor for Tian Xin. Cheryl Yang (Tie The Knot) finally gets into the nomination list again this year, it’s been several years ever since she was nominated for the Best Actress Award for Defeated Queen (敗犬女王). Like Blue Lan, I think she’s talented but need better eye at picking projects and her latest drama, Tie The Knot (媽咪的男朋友) was very disappointing to me, sigh.

Taiwanese-Hokkien-series, Sun After The Rain (雨後驕陽) might be the biggest competitor this year as there’s a bunch of people from its cast that are nominated for best leading actor, actress, supporting actor/actress awards, it’s also nominated for best directing, music, etc… It reminds me of last year’s Falling (含苞欲墜的每一天) where it had the most number of nominations. However, different from the low-key Falling, Sun After The Rain is highly received and praised in Taiwan. Hakka Series,  Lonely River (在河左岸) is sooo under the radar that I’m not sure about this series but judging from how it grabbed several nominations, it might be an unexpected dark horse like Falling from last year.

I feel so bad for Lovestore at the Corner (巷弄裡的那家書店), the production team is pretty ambitious but not only they fail to gain decent rating, their recent episodes aren’t as well-received as when they first started and they’re only able to get into one nomination, which is the best marketing award. That’s a really disappointing news for them. This year, In A Good Way (我的自由年代) and Once Upon A Time in Beitou (熱海戀歌) may be able to win some “face” for SETTV which is well-known for making bad quality dramas (despite having so much resources compared to other channels!!!!) and their inability to appease the judges of drama awards.

Amour et Pâtisserie (沒有名字的甜點店) did better than my expectation in the Golden Bell Awards. I thought it’s a well-produced drama with beautiful cinematography and is a rare Taiwanese drama that adapt episodic-format (where each episode is about a separate story but they’re all connected in some way) but I wasn’t that emotionally invested into it, I was only into the yummy looking Jasper Liu (Pleasantly Surprised) and desserts, LOL! I heard a lot of positive reviews for Boys Can Fly (刺猬男孩) which is a human drama about the life struggles of a bunch of delinquent teenage boys and I’m getting curious about this drama after seeing it getting into so many nominations, I might have to marathon this some day because I find Zhang Ting-Hu cute!

Also, I was really surprised to see Jay Shih (In A Good Way) on the supporting actor nomination list, he did great as Ren-Wei but I don’t think he’s THAT great so I’m a little bit puzzled as I was half-expecting Lego Lee (In A Good Way) to make the list instead of him but anyways, good luck to him!

Some other honorable mentions are River Huang who is the new male lead of Annie Chen‘s (Love Now) new drama, Boysitter (摩女搶頭婚) is nominated for best leading actor under mini-series category and Megan Lai (Two Fathers) and Lee Kang-Yi (Love Me Or Leave Me, Man . Boy) are also nominated for best actress award under mini-series category.

The drama category of 49th Golden Bell Awards ceremony will air on 25th of October. So now the question is… who do you place your bets on winning the awards?

Sources: [1] [2]