Lim Giong (; born 7 June 1964) is a Taiwanese musician, DJ, actor, and an active figure in the Taiwanese experimental electronic music scene. He is known for recording rock songs in Taiwanese Hokkien, starting with his first hit song "Marching Forward" in 1990. He is also known as writing film scores for directors such as Hou Hsiao-hsien, Jia Zhangke, and Bi Gan. His has received numerous awards for his work, including the Cannes Soundtrack Award in 2015 for The Assassin. Early life Lim was born in Changhua, later moving to Taichung where his parent ran a small food stall. He was educated in public schools and can speak Mandarin fluently, but he chose to sing in the local dialect Taiwanese Hokkien. After he finished his service in the army in 1988, he went to Taipei with the intention of pursuing a music career, and spent the next two years working in restaurants and beer halls. Career Lim Giong's music career began in 1990 when he was signed by a record company, and his first album, Marching Forward (向前走) was released in December 1990. The album proved highly successful, selling over 400,000 copies. In his early albums Lim sang exclusively in Taiwanese Hokkien, and his music showed influences from American and British disco-pop, rock, metal, rap as well as Bob Dylan. His songs ranged from love songs to observations of day-to-day reality of life in contemporary Taiwan including schools, military service and traffic. The title song from his first album, which describes his excitement upon his arrival in Taipei, became highly popular, including being used as campaign songs by political parties. It was chosen as the Song of the Year at the 3rd Golden Melody Awards. His second album. Brother of Spring, was released in early 1992. It chronicles his struggles before he became famous. This year he also started his acting career and association with the films of Hou Hsiao-hsien, first appearing in a cameo in Dust of Angels. He was associated with the genre known as New Taiwanese Song and gave rousing performances of folk-pop songs, such as "A Soundless Place" from the soundtrack of Dust of Angels. From his third album onwards (Entertainment World, recorded in England in 1993), his compositions, inspired by Taiwanese traditional music, became increasingly infused with electronic music and evolved from drum and bass, break beat, ambient and electronica towards more experimental and