Taiwan’s official entry for the 2023 Academy Awards, Goddamned Asura, is a fast-paced, twisting social drama that follows six characters, all of whom are connected to a fatal night market shooting.

Taiwanese crime drama film directed by Lou Yi-an and written by Lou Yi-an and Singing Chen. The film features an ensemble cast of six actors Joseph Huang, Morning Mo, Peijia Huang, Devin Pan, Wong Yu-xuan, and Hoa-zhe Lai.

It was inspired by real life events from newspaper reports on random killings. The film is selected as the Taiwanese entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 95th Academy Awards. In November 2021, the film premiered at Taipei's Golden Horse Film Festival where it was nominated for Best New Performer (Pan), Best Original Screenplay and won the Best Supporting Actress Award (Wang).

We caught up with Director Lou Yi-an to get his insights on Goddamned Asura.

What was your inspiration and aspiration to make this film?
“Goddamned Asura” was inspired by a series of feature stories about random killings. In 2014, the subway station random killings occurred in Taipei, and the murderer was excuted two years later. At that time, there was a debate on whether the death penalty should be abolished, and the reports on the random killings tried to understand the views of the perpetrators and victims positively. It inspired me to create this film.

Just like the title Goddamned in Chinese is not just a curse word, but a more direct meaning is "should die". Then I would like to ask “ who is more damned? ” “ Who is so unforgivable? ”“ Could it be that those monsters in the eyes of everyone also have unknown innocence? “

During the creation process, I repeatedly asked, why did the protagonist in the film commit crimes? should he be dead necessarily? I think about myself. What if I had made different choices when I was 18 years old, and walked into a different path in life, maybe everyone would only recognize that cold-blooded, dark side of me. In the case, which one is the real me? I tried to restart the lives of these characters in this movie, break those hopeless fates, and prove that people also have different possibilities of their choices.

Since the film is based on a true event; how difficult was it to create an impartial story from different perspective view given the sensitivity of the situation for each victims/characters?
In fact, this movie is not adapted from real events, but some characters are indeed inspired by real people.

Creating such stories about random killings is dangerous itself, and any biased point of views may hurt the corresponding people in reality. In reality, people are always accustomed to assigning blame; because of what happened to the parents of the perpetrator, or because his friend led him badly, so he committed the crime

Some people may even claim that because the perpetrator played violent video games and read violent cartoons, so he committed the crime. He commits crimes and then easily demonizes people. But in fact, there should not be such an equation as A+B=C to apply everyone‘s life.

In this movie, I tried to apply that demon or God into a human being through the different choices of roles, the multi-faceted characters are presented. As a result, good and evil have become less absolute, and those cursed murderers may also have the opportunity to look at it from a more tolerant perspective, so they don't seem so damned.

The story features the many current dilemma/problems that teenagers and young adults have experienced or is experiencing; How important is it to address these dilemma/problems through the film and how can they obtain help in dealing with these dilemma/problems?
Just like the film tries to blur the binary opposition of good and evil, I also try to blur the right and wrong consequences of different choices.

How did religion play a part in the film?
Asura in the title of "Goddamned Asura" is itself a Hindu god, and the Bible is quoted twice in the play, which may make people feel that religion is very important in this movie. But in fact, I am an atheist, and these religious connotations in the film are just trying to look at people with a more tolerant attitude and bring out the complex possibilities of people.

With the other heavyweight contenders’ submission for Oscar’s Best International Feature Film category; how confident are you that GODDAMNED ASURA will win the title?
As a film maker, my biggiest hope is that my work can be seened by all of the audience around the world.

It is a great honor to represent Taiwan to compete for the Oscars, and to have more opportunities for people around the world to see this film. I'm not sure about the odds of winning an Oscar award, but I'm sure if you're willing to see this movie, I'm sure you'll love it.

Just during the night of his 18th birthday, Jan-Wen went on a random shooting spree in the night market for some mysterious reason, and nobody around him had any clues to explain his motives. Axing, a teenage classmate who used to play online games and watch comics with Jan-Wen, tried hard to prove that Jan-Wen is innocent and had no intentional murder plans.

The only dead victim in this incident, Sheng, who had a huge fan base in the gaming world of "The King's Realm", was actually a low-key civil servant in real life, leading a regular and plain lifestyle unlike his performance in the virtual world. His fiancée, Vita, on the other hand, was an ambitious workaholic. After the shocking event, she felt guilty and partially responsible for causing Sheng's death, since he was waiting for her to get off work that night, as usual.

Linlin was a troubled teenage girl drowned in the gaming world of "The King's Realm" as well. She used a fake ID and nude pictures to seduce Sheng in order to get prizes and grades through his assistance in the game. And Mold, a hard-boiled news reporter covering this neighborhood, happened to be an eyewitness to this tragic incident. He got tangled in the mystery behind all these people and decided to find out the truth of this shocking crime.

All these six people started to find out the connection and the interaction between each other. They all played a key part causing this tragedy. However, if they had made different choices before the crime, would the tragedy happen? Is it possible for people to change the loops or prevent the crime, by making any changes to their decisions?

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DIRECTOR: LOU YI-AN
CASTS: JOSEPH HUANG, MO TZU-YI, PEIJIA HUANG, DEVIN PAN, WANG YU-XUAN, LAI HAO-ZHE
PRODUCERS: KAO CHUN-TING, WANG SHIN-HONG, DEREK CHUANG
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: KAO CHUN-TING, HSU KUO-LUN, WANG SHIN-HONG
SCREENWRITER: LOU YI-AN, SINGING CHEN
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: YANG FONG-MING
EDITORS: CHEN XIAO-DONG, LOU YI-AN, SINGING CHEN
PRODUCTION DESIGNER: TU SHUO-FENG
COSTUME DESIGNER: LATISHA YANG
SOUND DESIGNER: SIDNEY HU
MUSIC: WIFI, HSU CHIA-WEI, FLOW, TSAI CHIA YING
PRODUCTION COMPANIES : CONTENTDIGITAL FILM, SEASHORE IMAGE PRODUCTIONS

Feature Film: Goddamned Asura, Taiwan’s official entry for the 2023 Academy Awards with Director Lou Yi-an

Digital Cover: Nathaniel Curtis

Digital Cover: Catherine Ashmore Bradley