FigureAsia 35 Under 35 · Entertainment
Tseng Jing-hua
Age 28 · Actor · Taiwan
Ensemble actor carrying family, historical and psychological pressures across formats
- Age at 31 December 2025
- 28
- Field
- Film performance
- Country or region
- Taiwan
- FigureAsia U35 Assessment
- 89.5 / 100
Profile
Career and documented record
An open audition for Detention brought Tseng Jing-hua into professional cinema as a student living under political repression. Born in 1997, the Taiwanese actor studied film and television at I-Shou University; the performance brought early nominations and established his ability to communicate fear and moral pressure without excessive dialogue. He then moved through queer romance in Your Name Engraved Herein, crime drama in The Victims’ Game and comedy-inflected supernatural storytelling in Oh No! Here Comes Trouble.
By 2025, that progression had given him experience in historical trauma, intimacy, procedural tension and tonal hybridity. His completed 2025 slate tests both supporting precision and long-form lead responsibility. In the family feature Family Matters, Tseng plays Hsiao Tzu-hsia, known as Big Summer, within a structure that revisits one household from changing points of view. The character must remain emotionally coherent even as the viewer’s understanding of family relationships is revised.
Tseng won the Golden Horse Award for Best Supporting Actor for the performance, recognition for shaping a distinct character without reorganising the ensemble around himself. He also appears as A-yun in A Foggy Tale, a period feature set during Taiwan’s White Terror. The film won Best Narrative Feature, connecting Tseng to a second completed work concerned with Taiwanese historical memory.
That result belongs to the full production; his role supplies supporting pressure rather than the film’s total achievement. The twenty-episode, two-part series Had I Not Seen the Sun places him at the opposite end of the responsibility scale. As Li Jen-yao, a prisoner who has confessed to serial killing, Tseng has to keep a concealed motive active across prison interviews, school memories and a tragic romance.
Director Pan Ke-yin’s account of a physically demanding eating scene gives Tseng’s control a concrete measure. Despite the strain of repeated takes, he returned immediately to comedy when filming resumed, keeping the humour rooted in ordinary family behaviour rather than allowing physical difficulty to dominate the scene.
FigureAsia selection
Why Tseng Jing-hua is on the list
Tseng is selected because one year provides evidence at both ends of the performance-responsibility spectrum. The verified Best Supporting Actor result for Family Matters supports craft and ensemble responsibility: he creates emotional consequence inside a shifting multi-perspective family without demanding narrative priority. The verified completion of twenty episodes as Li Jen-yao supports substantive contribution and durability: Tseng maintains a difficult psychological lead across two released parts rather than offering a single striking scene or an announced role. His participation in A Foggy Tale, alongside its completed recognition as Best Narrative Feature, supports Asian significance: the slate connects contemporary family life and White Terror history within Taiwanese screen culture, although the film’s overall honour is not treated as his personal award.
The performances remain personally attributable through different kinds of control. Big Summer depends on attention to family dynamics and withheld feeling; Li Jen-yao requires calibrated ambiguity across prison interviews, school memories and tragic romance. Writers, directors and ensembles organise both works, but Tseng supplies the behavioural continuity that lets changing perspectives and withheld motives function.
Compared with peers supported by one acclaimed debut, he offers three completed 2025 projects and a longer record of work under distinct directors and formats. Compared with visibility-led serial performers, he has an acting award tied to a specific supporting performance and a separate long-form lead that can be evaluated through its conclusion. That combination of film, streaming, contemporary family realism and historical memory gives his work sufficient consequence for one of 35 places without claiming that every production result belongs to him.
The eating-scene evidence matters because it shows execution under adverse production conditions. Tseng had to absorb the physical strain of repetition and then recover the scene’s comic social rhythm on cue; the result supports craft without claiming that endurance alone makes a performance distinguished.
Verified work
The 2025–26 record
Completed work
Played Hsiao Tzu-hsia in the completed 2025 feature Family Matters, sustaining the character through shifting family perspectives and winning Best Supporting Actor for the performance.
Attributable execution
Appeared as A-yun in the completed 2025 period film A Foggy Tale, contributing to a Taiwanese historical ensemble whose production received Best Narrative Feature.
Documented responsibility
Led all twenty completed episodes of the two-part 2025 series Had I Not Seen the Sun as Li Jen-yao, carrying the mystery’s concealed motive across two releases.
Verified consequence
Calibrated threat, shame and remembered tenderness throughout the 2025 serial, preserving audience uncertainty while giving its puzzle structure a continuing human history.
On-set tonal control
Returned immediately to the required comic register after physically taxing repeated takes of an eating scene, preserving ordinary family humour under production strain.
Field context
The work in its field
Stillness, threat, shame and remembered tenderness must coexist without resolving the central uncertainty too early. Across the three projects, he moves from contemporary family realism to historical cinema and a globally distributed psychological mystery. The wider significance is not volume alone: Tseng demonstrates how a Taiwanese performer can carry locally rooted memory and family dynamics through both cinema and international streaming while distinguishing ensemble contribution from star-centred narrative control.
The award-recognised Family Matters performance is especially notable because Hsiao Tzu-hsia remains legible through accounts that do not always agree about him. Tseng’s restraint preserves uncertainty without sacrificing emotional specificity; his other completed releases then test that control against historical and internationally distributed genre work.
Family Matters is also distinguished by Tseng’s ability to recover ordinary comedy under physically difficult shooting conditions, a practical test of tone that complements the film’s larger ambiguity.
FigureAsia U35 Assessment
Assessment breakdown
89.5out of 100
Substantive 2025–2026 contribution
18 / 20
Tseng completed significant performances in Family Matters and A Foggy Tale, moving between a contemporary family ensemble and a large-scale period film without relying on one familiar screen persona.
Verified impact
15 / 15
His supporting work in Family Matters received the season's principal Taiwan film recognition, while his presence in A Foggy Tale connected him to a second widely recognised narrative feature in the same window.
Originality and distinction
8 / 10
He gives supporting roles dramatic pressure through attention to family dynamics and withheld feeling, creating consequence without demanding that the production reorganise itself around him.
Industry influence
8 / 10
His case was stronger than single-project peers because two completed films showed range, and stronger than fame-led cases because the assessment could point to specific ensemble responsibility.
Individual agency
9 / 10
The assessed responsibility is the person's work as actor on Family Matters and A Foggy Tale, not the production's entire result.
Durability and demonstrated trajectory
4 / 5
The qualifying work was completed and entered public circulation within the evidence window; no announced next project earns credit.
Asian significance and global relevance
5 / 5
The work is situated in Taiwan and was compared for meaning within Asian entertainment and for consequence beyond one immediate market.
Craft or creative execution
8 / 8
He gives supporting roles dramatic pressure through attention to family dynamics and withheld feeling, creating consequence without demanding that the production reorganise itself around him.
Performance, narrative or production responsibility
5.4 / 6
Tseng Jing-hua held actor responsibility on Family Matters and A Foggy Tale; collective production credit was separated from individual agency.
Audience and critical consequence
4 / 5
His supporting work in Family Matters received the season's principal Taiwan film recognition, while his presence in A Foggy Tale connected him to a second widely recognised narrative feature in the same window.
Cross-market and format achievement
2.4 / 3
The completed work was assessed across its original Taiwan context and any verified international or cross-format circulation.
Professional practice and representation
2.7 / 3
The case records a specific taiwanese actor contribution without treating identity itself as an achievement.