Chen Kunhou

Chen Kun-hou (陳坤厚) is a veteran cinematographer, who started his career in the 1960s. He won his first best cinematography award at Golden Horse Awards in 1978 for He Never Gives Up (汪洋中的一條船), directed by Li Hsing. In the early 1980s he began to direct his own films in collaboration with Hou Hsiao-hsien. After series of urban comedies, he made quite a few representative films of the Taiwan New Cinema, such as Growing Up, which won him the best director award at the Golden Horse Awards, His Matrimony (結婚; 1985), which won him the second best cinematography award at Golden Horse Awards, and My Favorite Season (最想念的季節; 1985), and Osmanthus Alley (1987). He is awarded for his life achievement in Taiwan cinema at the 60th Golden Horse Awards in 2023.

Career Chen Kun-hou was born in Taichung in 1939. He was enrolled in Central Motion Picture Corporation in 1962 to learn cinematography. His uncle Lai Cheng-ying was an established cinematographer there at CMPC already. He started as an apprentice and was promoted to cinematographer in 1971. His first film as a cinematographer is Story of Mother (母親三十歲; 1973), in which his cinematography adds a tragic-realistic tone this highly acclaimed film by Sung Cun-shou (宋存壽). He worked with Li Hsing for many of his films in the late 1970s, including He Never Gives Up, Good Morning Taipei (早安台北; 1979), The Story of A Small Town (1979), and My Native Land (1980). He won his first best cinematography award at Golden Horse Awards for his cinematography in He Never Gives Up in 1978.

Starting from 1979, Chen Kun-hou and Hou Hsiao-hsien teamed up to produce six romantic urban comedy films by taking turns to be the director, four of which directed by Chen are (天涼好個秋; 1980), Lover on the Wave (我踏浪而來; 1980), Longing (蹦蹦一串心; 1981), and it won the best feature film, best director, and best script at the Golden Horse Awards in 1983.

After Chen Kun-hou parted ways with Hou Hsiao-hsien, he was productive as a key director of the Taiwan New Cinema and made six films, mostly adaptations of literary works, from 1984 to 1988, including Out of The Blue (小爸爸的天空; 1984), His Matrimony, My Favorite Season, Drifters (流浪少年路; 1986), Osmanthus Alley, My Mother's Teahouse (1988).

Starting from 1989, Chen Kun-hou began to be involved in TV productions, especially documentaries, such as Feiyue Qingchun (飛越青春; 1992) and The Story of Confucius (孔子的故事; 1993). He later went to China and help Chow Ling-Gong (周令剛) establish Fee Tang Stellar Movie-Making Base (飛騰影視城; now Mega Jincheng Movie-Making Base) at Beijing. a popular film based on the namesake novel by Chung Chao-cheng.

Filmography

Awards and honors +YearAwardCategoryFilmResultRef.197815th Golden Horse AwardsBest CinematographyHe Never Gives Up