Two films storm nominations

Computer-generated martial arts epic The Storm Riders and Mabel Cheung Yuen-ting's City Of Glass led the pack yesterday with 12 nominations each for the 18th Hong Kong Film Awards.

Storm Riders, directed by Andrew Lau Wai-keung and starring Aaron Kwok Fu-shing and Ekin Cheng, grossed more than $40 million at the box office last summer.

It fared best in the technical categories with nominations for best cinematography (Lau), film editing (Mak Chi-sin), art direction (Ho Kim-hung), costume and design (Lee Pik-kwan), sound design, original film score (Comfort Chan), and two nominations for original film song (The Storm Riders, Frighten Change).

Besides a best film nomination, Japanese star Chiba Shinichi, better known as Sonny Chiba, was nominated for best actor, while Shu Qi was named in the best supporting actress category.

Shu picked up a second nomination in the best actress section for her role in Cheung's cross-generation love story City Of Glass, which was also nominated for best picture. Co-star Leon Lai Ming was nominated for best actor.

Other nominations City of Glass picked up were: best screenplay (Mabel Cheung, Alex Law Kai-yui), new performer (Daniel Ng), cinematography (Jingle Ma Cho-sing), art direction (Bruce Yu Ka-on), costume and design (Bruce Yu), sound design, original film score (Dick Lee, Chiu Tsang-hei) and original song (City Of Glass).