Taipei - US-based Taiwan director Ang Lee's Lust, Caution won 11 nominations Saturday for the upcoming Golden Horse Awards, the world's largest film competition for Chinese-language films.
As Lust, Caution has been nominated for half of the Golden Horse's 22 awards, it looks set to be the biggest winner when the awards are announced in Taipei on December 8.
This will be a consolation for Lee as the US Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has rejected Taiwan's entering Lust, Caution as a Taiwan film, citing it does not have many Taiwan actors.
Chinese films will make a strong presence in the 44th Golden Horse film festival, with film stars and directors like Yu Nan, Joan Chen and Jiang Wen, and comic TV drama actor Zhao Benshan winning various nominations.
China's Wang Anquan (Tuya's Marriage) and Li Yang (Blind Mountain) will compete against Ang Lee for Best Director.
For Best Actress, China's Tang Wei (Lust, Caution) faces tough competition from compatriots Yu Nan (Tuya's Marriage), Joan Chen (The Home Song Stories) and Li Bingbing (Yun Shui Yao).
Lust, Caution, set in China's war against Japanese invasion in the 1940s, is about a patriotic student's fatal love for a pro-Japanese spy.
Tuya's Marriage is the sad tale of Tuya, a poor herdswoman in Inner Mongolia, forced to divorce her crippled husband to marry a richer man so the new husband can feed Tuya and Tuya's sick husband.
Yun Shui Yao, which is being considered as China's entry for Best Foreign Language Film in the Oscars, is about a couple who remain in love despite being separated by Taiwan-China cross-Strait hostility.
The Home Song Stories is an Australia-Singapore production about a Shanghai cabaret singer (played by Joan Chen) who marries an Australian seaman and emigrates to Australia, but falls in love with an illegal Chinese immigrant.
It has won 13 nominations for the 2007 AFI (Australian Film Institute) Awards, nicknamed Australian Oscar, to be presented on January 11, 2008.
Jiang Wen, one of China's fifth-generation directors, has won two nominations - Best Screenplay Adaptation and Best Film Editing - for his film The Run Also Rises.
Shortlisted for Best Actor are Hong Kong film stars Tony Leung (Lust, Caution) and Aaron Kwok (The Detective), China's Zhao Benshan (Getting Home) and Singaporean actor Gurmit Singh (Just Follow Law).
Taiwan, China and Hong Kong have their own annual domestic and international film festivals, but the Golden Horse awards are open to Chinese-language films from all countries.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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