The 61st Golden Bell Awards drama ceremony takes place on October 24, 2026, at the Taipei Music Center. The drama lead actor nominees are Vic Chou, Kaiser Chuang, Jack Tan, Tseng Jing-hua and Hsieh Chang-ying. Their five works place characters within medical care, construction, prison work, crime and a political-social setting. For viewers catching up before the awards, understanding the problems each role faces offers a more useful starting point than comparing popularity alone.
Vic Chou and Tseng Jing-hua: trauma from different positions
Vic Chou is nominated for psychiatrist Ma Yi-sen in The World Between Us II. The character carries both a professional identity and the trauma of losing family. A useful viewing question is how professional reason and private emotion collide within one person. This is an approach to reading a drama and a performance, not a way to turn a fictional character’s experience into real-world medical judgement.
Tseng Jing-hua is nominated for Li Jen-yao in If I Hadn’t Seen the Sun. The story connects crime, experiences in youth and later choices. Viewers can compare posture, speech and reactions across its timelines. Understanding how a work constructs a person is different from defending that character’s actions, a distinction worth continuing to question in this kind of narrative.
Tseng Jing-hua as Li Jen-yao in If I Hadn’t Seen the Sun.
Kaiser Chuang and Jack Tan: put the character back at work
Kaiser Chuang is nominated for A-tsai in Urban Builders, a foreman on Taipei’s MRT construction in the 1990s. A workplace reading can follow how he moves between the crew, family and construction risks, and how authority is established through body and language. City building supplies more than a background: it determines how people depend on one another.
Kaiser Chuang as construction foreman A-tsai in Urban Builders.
Jack Tan plays Kao Chih-yao in the prison drama, moving from life as an athlete into prison work. Comedy coexists with a high-pressure workplace, making it useful to watch how jokes change a character’s situation rather than only who reacts most strongly. The two workplace dramas can be compared through a shared question: when someone enters a new institution, which rules must they learn, and which freedoms do they lose?
Jack Tan as Kao Chih-yao in the prison drama.
Hsieh Chang-ying in Zero Day Attack: Snake
Hsieh Chang-ying is nominated as Wu Kai-jui in Zero Day Attack: Snake, caught between debt, relationships and a need for recognition. Such a role often turns on the gradual accumulation of choices. Viewers can notice changes in speech and position when he meets different people, then consider how the story connects individual difficulties with a wider social environment.
Hsieh Chang-ying as Wu Kai-jui in Zero Day Attack: Snake.
All five are currently nominees, with the winner to be announced on October 24. Drama lead actor and miniseries lead actor are separate awards and should not be combined into one list. Broadcast and livestream arrangements can be checked on the official Golden Bell 61 website; availability of the nominated works should also be checked by platform and region.
