| On Happiness Road | |||||||||||
| Native Name: |
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| Director: | Sung Hsin-yin | ||||||||||
| Producer: | Sylvia Feng | ||||||||||
| Screenplay: | Sung Hsin-yin | ||||||||||
| Starring: | Gwei Lun-mei Chen Bor-jeng Jane Liao Wei Te-sheng | ||||||||||
| Music: | Wen Tzu-chieh | ||||||||||
| Studio: | Happiness Road Productions | ||||||||||
| Distributor: | Ablaze Image[1] | ||||||||||
| Runtime: | 110 minutes | ||||||||||
| Country: | Taiwan | ||||||||||
| Language: | Taiwanese Hokkien Mandarin English | ||||||||||
| Budget: | NT$50 million | ||||||||||
| Gross: | NT$13 million (Taiwan)[2] | ||||||||||
On Happiness Road is a 2017 Taiwanese animated film written and directed by Sung Hsin-yin, her directoral debut. The film is based on her own animated short of the same name which won start-up funding at the Golden Horse Awards in 2013.[3] It was screened at the Busan International Film Festival on October 15, 2017, and saw a theatrical release in Taiwan on January 5, 2018. The film has won numerous awards, including Best Feature Film during the 2018 Tokyo Anime Award Festival, Best Animation Feature at the 2018 Golden Horse Awards, as well as Grand Prize, Best Animation, and Audience Choice Award at the 2018 Taipei Film Festival, and was also submitted for nomination to the 2018 Academy Awards in the Animated Feature Film category.[4] The theme song was sung by pop star Jolin Tsai.
Chi was born in Taiwan on April 5, 1975, the day Chiang Kai-shek died, and so she grew up during a time when Taiwan slowly transformed from a single-party dictatorship to a democracy.[5] After immigrating to the United States, she receives news of her grandmother's death. When she returns to Taiwan for the funeral, memories from her childhood and adolescence return to her. As she reconnects family, friends, neighbors and acquaintances from her childhood, she begins to reflect on the nature of her unhappiness. As she reminisces about her childhood and the political backdrop of her upbringing, she sees how her native land has changed in her absence and reflects on how she had changed during that time as well.
Sung was inspired to tell her personal story of growing up in Taiwan in film school at Columbia College Chicago after the film Persepolis (film) during a class.[6] After graduation, she created a 13-minute short animation which won the grand prize at the Golden Horse Film Project Promotion in 2013.[7] The award of 1 million NTD allowed her to start expanding the short into a full-length feature. Securing further funding for the film was difficult, since many Chinese investors would not invest in a film which covered Taiwan's political history.[8] In support of the project, director Wei Te-sheng and actress Gwei Lun-mei worked as voice actors in the film for free.[9]
The film is entirely hand-drawn,[10] with some of the animation done in Indonesia.[11]
| Award | Category | Recipients | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 55th Golden Horse Awards | Best Animation Feature | On Happiness Road | [12] | |
| Best Adapted Screenplay | Sung Hsin-yin | |||
| 2018 Tokyo Anime Awards Festival | Best Feature Film | On Happiness Road | [13] | |
| 2018 Taipei Film Festival | Grand Prize | On Happiness Road | [14] | |
| Best Animation | On Happiness Road | |||
| Audience Choice Award | On Happiness Road | |||
| 2018 Asia Pacific Screen Awards | Best Animated Feature Film | On Happiness Road | [15] | |
| 2018 Stuttgart International Film Festival | Animovie Award | On Happiness Road | [16] | |