{"id":41288,"date":"2026-04-02T20:22:35","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T12:22:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=41288"},"modified":"2026-04-02T20:22:35","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T12:22:35","slug":"why-fierce-mothers-and-violent-monsters-star-in-joe-hsiehs-animated-films","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=41288","title":{"rendered":"Why fierce mothers and violent monsters star in Joe Hsieh\u2019s animated films"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<div datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1xdhyk6 ec74h0k0\">One of the highlights of this year\u2019s <span data-qa=\"Component-Text\" class=\"css-0 ef9u0v00\">Hong Kong International Film Festival<\/span> (HKIFF) is a collection of five animated short films from Taiwanese director Joe Hsieh Wen-ming. Awash with vivid imagery of an often erotic and violent nature, Hsieh\u2019s work also channels a palpable sense of compassion, not least in its depictions of mother-child relationships.<\/div>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Co-directed by Hsieh and Yonfan and with touches of David Cronenberg\u2019s 1986 horror <em data-qa=\"ContentSchemaRender-defaultRenderMapFunctions-Component\" class=\"css-1mniedq ex3nmsa15\">The Fly<\/em>, <em data-qa=\"ContentSchemaRender-defaultRenderMapFunctions-Component\" class=\"css-1mniedq ex3nmsa15\">Praying Mantis<\/em> is a brightly coloured body horror fantasy that tells the story of a cursed insect woman who seduces men to feed her ailing son.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cI think women are really something,\u201d Hsieh tells the South China Morning Post in a Zoom interview ahead of the film\u2019s Hong Kong premiere. \u201cMy mother is a tough woman and she raised me to chase my dreams. So all my films feature mothers and their children. Women are tough; they have power.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"image-inline-container e1a5rv550 css-1llrc1m e1yqhwb40\" data-qa=\"Component-renderMap-StyledDiv\">\n<div class=\"image-inline caption e1fvabeq0 css-19sk4h4 ea9pn0s0\" data-qa=\"Component-Container\">\n<figure class=\"image-inline caption ea9pn0s1 css-1qeofuq e1gf69pb0\" data-qa=\"ArticleImage-ArticleImageContainer\">\n<div data-qa=\"ArticleImage-handleRenderImage-ImageContainer\" class=\"css-0 e1gf69pb3\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Taiwanese director Joe Hsieh holds his grand prix short film award for Night Bus (2019), given at Animafest Zagreb in 2021.\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/img.i-scmp.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/fit=contain,width=1024,format=auto\/sites\/default\/files\/d8\/images\/canvas\/2026\/04\/01\/6e22ae32-e4da-4629-a3a7-e0b6c73480ba_b76b048c.jpg\" title=\"Taiwanese director Joe Hsieh holds his grand prix short film award for Night Bus (2019), given at Animafest Zagreb in 2021.\"\/><\/div><figcaption data-qa=\"ArticleImage-DescriptionContainer\" class=\"css-1bj5zno e1gf69pb1\">Taiwanese director Joe Hsieh holds his grand prix short film award for Night Bus (2019), given at Animafest Zagreb in 2021.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Born in Taipei in 1980, Hsieh developed a fascination with cinema, and particularly horror movies, at an early age. He admits to being an unhappy child who was bullied at school, but he found solace in the comforting glow of the television screen.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/lifestyle\/entertainment\/article\/3348633\/why-fierce-mothers-and-violent-monsters-star-joe-hsiehs-animated-films?utm_source=rss_feed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article At Source <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the highlights of this year\u2019s Hong Kong International Film Festival (HKIFF) is a collection of five animated short films from Taiwanese director Joe&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41289,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[1669,19561,4921,19562,5468,16742,2309,297,5243],"class_list":["post-41288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bored-interesting","tag-animated","tag-fierce","tag-films","tag-hsiehs","tag-joe","tag-monsters","tag-mothers","tag-star","tag-violent","wpcat-33-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}