distinction of being the first ever Taiwanese film to win the prestigious Golden Lion award at the 1989 Venice Film Festival, where Hou also won a Special Golden Ciak award ("For artistic originality and sensitivity") and a UNESCO Award. It is also the very first film to openly deal with the authoritarian rule of the Kuomintang (KMT) after taking Taiwan over from the Japanese in 1945 following WWII, and the tragic February 28 Incident (1947), where thousands of Taiwanese citizens were killed. In the British Film Institute's 2012 Sight & Sound poll, 2 directors and 14 film critics named it one of "the greatest films ever made", ranking #322 in the directors' poll and #117 in the critics' poll. The film was also Taiwan's Best Foreign Language Film entry for the 62nd Academy Awards, but it did not make the final nomination shortlist. Starring Tony Leung Chiu-Wai as the deaf-mute but all-seeing Wen-ching and his older brother Wen-leung (Jack Kao), the film dealt with political subject matter involving the February 28 Incident and the "White Terror" era where countless Taiwanese citizens were incarcerated and shot by the KMT government in the late 1940s after their displacement from China to Taiwan after the Civil War of 1949. The film also won Best Director and Best Leading Actor (Sung Young Chen) awards at the 1989 Golden Horse Film Festival, where it was also nominated for Best Feature Film, Best Original Screenplay (Chu T’ien-wen and Hou Hsiao-hsien), Best Film Editing (Ching-Song Liao), Best Cinematography (Huai-en Chen) and Best Sound Recording (Duu-Chih Tu and Ching-an Yang) awards. The film won a Kinema Junpo Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 1991 Kinema Junpo Awards, a Best Foreign Language Film award at the 1991 Mainichi Film Concours, and a Special Award from the USA Political Film Society in 1990. It was also nominated for a Best Foreign Film award at the 1991 Independent Spirit Awards. The Puppetmaster (1993) Hou's tenth film was The Puppetmaster (1993), a sprawling half-documentary, half-narrative film hybrid that told the story of Li Tian-lu, the most celebrated puppeteer in Taiwan. The film won the Jury Prize at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Palme d'Or. The film was also another masterpiece listed in the 2012 British Film Institute Sight & Sound poll, with three directors and seven film critics declaring it as "one of the