'Grandmaster' leads Golden Horse film nominees

[October 02, 2013]  TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) -- Wong Kar-wai's martial-arts epic "The Grandmaster" received a leading 11 nominations for Taiwan's Golden Horse Awards, including best picture. Other contenders include Jia Zhangke's "A Touch of Sin" and Anthony Chen's "Ilo Ilo," each with six nominations.

"The Grandmaster" about the legendary Ip Man is Wong's biggest hit, with his stylized emotional imagery punctuated by crowd-pleasing combat featuring stars Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Ziyi Zhang. It earned $5 million in a limited U.S. release after a $55 million global run.

Wong, Leung and Zhang were nominated Tuesday, and the film will compete in its category against "A Touch of Sin," "Ilo Ilo," "Stray Dogs" and "Drug War" by Hong Kong's Johnnie To.

The other directing nominees are To, Jia Zhang-ke for "A Touch of Sin," Tsai Ming-liang for "Stray Dogs" and Chung Mong-hong for "Soul." Anthony Chen is up for best new director for "Ilo Ilo," alongside actors-turned-directors Vicki Zhao for "So Young" and Juno Mak for "Rigor Mortis."

"Cold War" actor Tony Leung Ka-fai, already named best actor at the Hong Film Awards, is up for the Golden Horse award for the same role. Jimmy Wang Yu in "Soul," Nick Cheung in "Unbeatable" and Lee Kang-sheng in "Stray Dogs" are the other nominees.

Zhang received her third Golden Horse nomination. Other best actress nominees are last year's winner, Gwei Lun-mei, for "Christmas Rose," seven-time nominee Shu Qi for the comedy "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons," Sammi Cheng for "Blind Detective" and Hong Kong newcomer Cherry Ngan for "The Way We Dance."

The Golden Horse film festival celebrates Chinese-language cinema, and the awards are the most prestigious for film in the greater China region. Singapore's "Ilo Ilo" and Taiwan's "Soul" are among films at the festival that are also Oscar entries.

The festival runs Nov. 8-28, and the awards will be announced Nov. 23.

[Associated Press]

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