Huang Xi

Huang was born in 1976 in Taipei, Taiwan, and she grew up in that city.^[1][2] Huang's father was a high school classmate of filmmaker Hou Hsiao-hsien and was involved in the funding of Hou's 1985 film Taipei Story.^[2] She visited Hou's production set at a young age, which sparked her interest in film.^[3] Since childhood, she has been fascinated by Hong Kong films and cites the works of Wong Kar-wai, Raymond Wong, and John Woo as major influences on her aesthetics.^[4] She completed her elementary education in Taiwan and continued her studies in Singapore and Vancouver.^[5] By high school in Vancouver, she took a filmmaking course and produced several short films, further deepening her interest in pursuing filmmaking.^[1] She enrolled at the New York University Tisch School of the Arts in 1994 and later earned a Bachelor of Arts in cinema studies.^[3][6]

Huang interned as a production assistant on Hou Hsiao-hsien's production crew for his 1996 film Goodbye South, Goodbye.^[1][7] After graduation, she returned to Taipei in 2000,^[6] and joined Hou's production company Sino Movie for two years.^[7] She then left the film industry due to her family's financial struggles and pursued a career in digital marketing.^[4] Eventually, she transitioned her career and opened a public relations company.^[6] In her thirties, Huang faced a serious illness that resulted in hospitalization, which prompted her to reflect on what she truly wanted to do, ultimately realizing her passion for filmmaking.^[4] She then returned to Hou's crew and worked as an assistant director on the 2015 film The Assassin.^[6]

Encouraged by Hou, Huang began writing a screenplay during the production of The Assassin.^[6] Hou served as the producer, and she invited film score composer Lim Giong, editor Liao Ching-sung, and cinematographer Yao Hung-i, the frequent collaborators of Hou whom she had met while working on his crew, to join the project.^[1] Due to her inexperience in scriptwriting, Huang wrote several prose-like short stories, which she later combined into a full screenplay that became her debut feature Missing Johnny.^[1] The film was released in 2017 when Huang was 40 years old.^[4][8] Richard Kuipers of Variety praised Huang's "richly layered screenplay" and "meticulous direction", calling the film "an elegantly composed mood piece";^[9] while Wen Tien-hsiang [zh] of Mirror Media remarked that her screenplay was "expansive but challenging to wrap up effectively".^[10] Huang won Best Screenplay in the 19th Taipei Film Awards and received a nomination for Best New Director in the 54th Golden Horse Awards.^[11][12]

After filming Missing Johnny, Huang moved to Los Angeles.^[13] She later returned to Taiwan to work with Hou Hsiao-hsien on another project, the HBO Asia fantasy series Twisted Strings [zh], where she served as director and Hou as producer once again.^[14] Chien Ying-jou, writing for United Daily News, praised the genre-bending narrative and called it "an experiment on the future of Taiwanese drama".^[15] Hou received nominations for both Best Directing and Best Writing in the 57th Golden Bell Awards, and Twisted Strings won Best Miniseries.^[16] During her time in Los Angeles, Huang also conceived and began writing a screenplay that eventually developed into her second feature film Daughter's Daughter,^[13] which premiered at the 49th Toronto International Film Festival in competition for the Platform Prize in 2024.^[17] Josh Slater-Williams of IndieWire commended Huang's "patient storytelling" and "riskier writing tricks", which delivered a "deeply moving" story;^[18] while Wendy Ide of Screen Daily called the film "elegant and affecting".^[19] Huang won Best Original Screenplay in the 61st Golden Horse Awards with the film.^[20]