General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Classmates Minus

Classmates Minus (同学麦娜丝) is a 2020 Taiwanese dark comedy-drama film written and directed by Huang Hsin-yao (黄信尧), his second feature after The Great Buddha+ (2017). It follows four high school friends, now in their forties in a southern Taiwan town, as they cope with work, marriage, and unfulfilled dreams, with the director himself as an intrusive, wisecracking narrator.¹

Key fact	Detail
Director / writer	Huang Hsin-yao (黄信尧); producer Chung Mong-hong (钟孟宏)²
Year / length	2020; 122 minutes; Mandarin and Taiwanese (Hokkien)³
Source	Adapted from Huang's 2005 documentary about his high school friends, Hu Lian San Xiao (唬烂三小)⁴
Main cast	Cheng Jen-shuo, Liu Kuan-ting, Nadow (Lin Na-Dou), Shih Ming-shuai; Chen Yi-wen as Congressman Gao⁵
Release	Taiwan theatrical release 20 November 2020; Netflix worldwide from 20 February 2021²^•⁶
Golden Horse Awards (57th, 2020)	Won Best Supporting Actor (Nadow), Best Art Direction, and Audience Choice Award; nine nominations including Best Narrative Feature and Best Director²^•⁷
Ratings	IMDb 7.1/10 (about 2,200 votes); Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer 56% from three reviews⁸^•⁹

Spoilers

Premise and characters

The film centers on four high school classmates who still meet at a bubble tea shop to play cards and trade insults, then return to their separate struggles.² Each man is stuck at a different dead end:

Dianfeng (Fan Man), played by Cheng Jen-shuo, sells insurance. He can do the work but not the office politics, so promotions and raises pass him by; he has saved for a new apartment and faces marriage when his girlfriend becomes pregnant.²
Bijie (Blockage), played by Liu Kuan-ting, makes paper effigy houses for the dead and claims to see spirits. Caring for his bedridden grandmother, he missed the window for marriage and turns to a matchmaking service.²
Guantou (Tin Can), played by Nadow, attempted suicide by swallowing pills, survived, and now works at a household registration office, where he meets again the class beauty of his youth, Minus.¹⁰
Tianzai (Tom), played by Shih Ming-shuai, dreams of directing films but scrapes by shooting odd commercials. Through a connection with a city mayor's promotional videos he meets the scandal-tainted Congressman Gao, who picks the clean-recorded Tom to run for legislator as a stand-in candidate.¹¹

The four storylines run in parallel rather than toward a single plot. Reviewers noted the loose structure: the Taipei Times judged that Huang makes the four-lead format work, giving each character a distinct, relatable experience, while the Sinema.SG review found the film held back by a plodding, low-tension structure even as it ends on an emotional high.¹^•³

Origin and title

Huang conceived the film while planning what to make after The Great Buddha+, recalling his own high school classmates; he said he had begun to wonder about the lives of old friends and even of strangers stopped beside him at traffic lights.¹¹^•¹² The direct source is his 2005 documentary Hu Lian San Xiao (唬烂三小), which followed his high school friends; in the feature, the friends' youthful banter has turned into worries, and time has carved class and burdens onto each of them.⁴^•¹³

The title carries several meanings. "Minus" (麦娜丝) is the nickname of the woman the characters remember as their school goddess, to whom the film's title was given; it also suggests that life needs subtraction rather than only addition, echoing the "plus" of The Great Buddha+, and it refers to the group of classmates being reduced by a death.¹⁴^•¹³

Style and narration

Huang plays himself in the film, a director shooting his next project after the success of The Great Buddha+, and narrates throughout in a cynical, humorous voice compared by the Taipei Times to traditional Taiwanese storytellers, at times breaking the fourth wall to talk with his characters and even entering the frame.¹ The opening minute announces that three years have passed since his first feature, shifts from black-and-white to color, and widens the aspect ratio from 1:1.85 to 1:2.35, while the narrator complains about his demanding production company.³ Huang also points out on the soundtrack that several supporting characters are played by the same actor.³

The band LTK Commune, a left-wing pro-independence group, supplies much of the soundtrack and appears in the film as part of an election crew, continuing Huang's practice of featuring iconic Taiwanese musicians.¹⁵

Release and reception

Classmates Minus premiered as the opening film of the 2020 Golden Horse Film Festival and opened in Taiwanese theaters on 20 November 2020.² At the 57th Golden Horse Awards it received nine nominations, including Best Narrative Feature, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Original Film Score, and Best Editing, and won three: Best Supporting Actor for Nadow, Best Art Direction, and the Audience Choice Award.²^•⁷ Netflix acquired the film and began exclusive worldwide streaming on 20 February 2021; producers Yeh Ju-feng and Chung Mong-hong framed it as a portrait of everyday life, social and economic problems, and midlife crisis seen through a Taiwanese lens.⁶

Critical response was mixed. The Taipei Times praised the balance of biting satire and silly laughs and the fully drawn leads, while noting that the female characters are treated mostly as accessories.¹ Common Sense Media's reviewer called the film disappointing and pretentious, criticizing its portrayal of women, while John Serba of Decider called it "a wonderfully bizarre film"; the Tomatometer stood at 56% from three reviews.⁹ Brian Hioe, writing in New Bloom with an MA in East Asian Languages and Cultures from Columbia University, judged it a competent second effort that deliberately echoes rough-edged domestic Taiwanese comedy rather than aiming at the international festival circuit.¹⁵ On IMDb the film holds a 7.1/10 rating from about 2,200 users, with the most ratings from Taiwan, China, and the United States.⁸

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Black comedy and satire films › Released 1998 to 2024

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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