The romantic fantasy 2046 has scored eight nominations in Taiwan's Golden Horse Awards, including best feature film, best actor and best actress categories - but Wong Kar-wai surprisingly failed to secure a best director nomination.
Nominees for the awards, dubbed the Oscars of the Chinese-speaking world, were announced by the Golden Horse Film Festival yesterday in Taipei. Hong Kong movies received 41 of the total 80 nominations.
Topping the list of nominations was 2046 - the product of five years' work for Wong. Lead stars Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Zhang Ziyi were nominated in the actor and actress categories. The film also won nominations for cinematography, art direction, costume design, original soundtrack and sound effects.
Going head to head with 2046 in the best feature film category are Johnnie To Kei-fung's Breaking News, Derek Yee Tung-sing's One Nite in Mongkok, Taiwanese director Lin Cheng-sheng's The Moon Also Rises and mainland feature Kekexili: Mountain Patrol by Lu Chuan.
Andy Lau Tak-wah (Infernal Affairs III) is once again challenging Leung in the best actor category, after losing to him at the Hong Kong Film Awards last year.
Leung, who is in South Korea, was happy with the news and hoped to make more quality films in the future.