The Chinese film Beijing Blues has won the Best Feature Film award and Hong Kong's Johnnie To took home the Best Director award at Taiwan's Golden Horse Film Festival, an event considered the Chinese-language Oscars.
Beijing Blues portrays the lives of urban dwellers through the work of a squad of plain clothes crime-hunters.
The director Gao Qunshu was visibly shocked to receive the award. He thanked the "globe" for giving an inexperienced director such as himself such honour and recognition.
To won Best Director for Life Without Principle, which is about ordinary citizens in Hong Kong who are caught in the fallout of the global financial meltdown.
The film also won the veteran Hong Kong actor Lau Ching Wan the Best Leading Actor award for his portrayal of a triad thug seeking to recover money lost in a loan shark scheme.
Taiwan's Gwei Lun-Mei won the Best Leading Actress award for portraying a woman involved in a romantic triangle in GF-BF.
She burst into tears on receiving the award after beating out hot contenders including Hao Lei and Bai Bai He, both of China.
The controversial Chinese director Lou Ye did not receive the widely expected award for directing the box-office hit Mystery. But at the ceremony, Lou was mentioned for making a movie that has entered the commercial mainstream after years on the social and artistic edge. - AP