Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival

• Best Director & Best Picture

  The Warlords (DVD) (Director's Edition) (Hong Kong Version)
  From Comrades, Almost a Love Story to Perhaps Love, Peter Chan seems to have perfected the formula for commercial filmmaking. Chan is the rare director who connects with both mainstream audiences and arthouse critics, so it's no surprise that his first stab at the big-budget war epic, The Warlords, has become one of Hong Kong's biggest blockbusters of 2007. Superstars Jet Li, Andy Lau, and Takeshi Kaneshiro star in this grand and gritty tale of war, romance, and brotherhood in 19th-century China. Based on Chang Cheh's Blood Brothers, the film features action choreography from Ching Siu Tung (Hero) and impressive, large-scale battle scenes befitting of the big screen.
  
  

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• Best Leading Actor

  Assembly (DVD) (Hong Kong Version)
  China's foremost commercial filmmaker Feng Xiaogang lives up to his name with the blockbuster war film Assembly. Pulling in over 23 millian yuan at the domestic box office, Assembly outgunned even The Warlords which was screening concurrently. After years of satirical comedies, Feng's films have gotten progressively bigger in recent years, starting with 2004's A World Without Thieves to 2006's star-studded period piece The Banquet. Based on a novel by Yang Jinyuan, Assembly continues this trend in scale and production, but where The Banquet is glossy, Assembly is gritty, pulling in audiences not with star power, but the magnitude of the war experience. Assembly's realistic battle scenes and brilliant camerawork have earned the film comparisons to Saving Private Ryan, but equally powerful is the human drama that follows the war.
  
  

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• Best Leading Actress

  True Women For Sale (DVD) (Hong Kong Version)
  Hong Kong film auteur Herman Yau follows up his highly acclaimed 2007 prostitute ensemble drama Whispers and Moans with True Women For Sale. With the original Chinese title meaning "I don't sell my body, I sell my womb", Yau's latest work sells not only tales of sex workers, but also a realistic portrayal of the marginalized in a poor, old district of Hong Kong.
  
  

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• Best Supporting Actress

  Orz Boyz (DVD) (2-Disc Edition) (English Subtitled) (Taiwan Version)
  There's no need to "ORZ" (bow in apology and deference) when it comes to Orz Boyz! Best known as the author of Blue Gate Crossing which was adapted into a hit film in 2002, Taiwan novelist and first-time director Gillies Yang Ya Che won the Best Director prize at the 2008 Taipei Film Festival with this childhood charmer dedicated to kids who can't wait to grow up, and adults who wish they could be kids again.
  
  

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• Best Film Editing

  Connected (DVD) (Hong Kong Version)
  It's Hong Kong's turn to borrow from Hollywood. Director Benny Chan (Invisible Target) adapts the 2004 Hollywood film Cellular for Asian audiences with Connected, an entertaining and suspenseful thrill ride that proved popular with audiences during its 2008 theatrical release. Hong Kong's Louis Koo (Rob-B-Hood) stars as the everyman hero played in the Hollywood version by Chris Evans, and the filmmakers have added a romantic subplot by casting Taiwan's Barbie Xu (Meteor Garden) in the role originated by the older Kim Basinger. As the film's black-clad villain, Mainland actor Liu Ye (Blood Brothers) exudes over-the-top, entertaining menace. Rounding out the cast are Nick Cheung (Exiled) as a stalwart traffic cop, with Louis Fan (The Moss), Eddie Cheung (Election), TVB actor Wong Cho Lam and model Ankie Beilke in key supporting roles.
  
  

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Directors