Bodyguards and Assassins scoops up eight film awards

The all-star epic Bodyguards and Assassins, which recounts the story of how a group protects 'father of the nation' Sun Yat-sen during his brief stay in Hong Kong, was the biggest winner at last night's 29th Hong Kong Film Awards, scooping eight titles, including best film.

But the epic, which received 18 nominations, lost best screenplay to Alex Law Kai-yui's Echoes of the Rainbow, which won four prizes.

Peter Chan Ho-sun, producer of Bodyguards, beamed when he took to the stage to receive the best film award. 'This is the first time I have taken an award for a film I served on purely as a producer,' Chan said. 'Although I am widely known as a director, I would want people to remember me as a producer.'

Before last night's ceremony, Bodyguards director Teddy Chen Tak-sum was holding out hope the film would win at least nine prizes.

Cheers erupted in the Cultural Centre's Grand Theatre when the host named as best actress Wai Ying-hung - who won the same award at the first Hong Kong Film Awards - for her role as an alcoholic single parent in At the End of Daybreak. The character also won her the best actress awards at the Asian Film Awards, Hong Kong Film Critics' Society awards and Golden Horse awards in Taiwan.

A tearful Wai said: 'I desperately wanted this prize. I don't know why I was 'frozen' for some 10 years... I don't know why I was at a low point. I nearly gave up on myself and my life. But now I feel I confident. I know I belong to the acting industry,' she said, thanking those who had given her a hand in difficult times.

Simon Yam Tat-wah cheerfully took the best actor award for playing a shoemaker and father in Echoes, which is set in the Hong Kong of the 1960s and relates the experiences of a struggling cobbler couple and their two young sons.