22 Mar - Korea's Lee Chang-dong wins Best Director and Best Screenplay for his drama "Poetry" while his countryman Ha Jung-woo took Best Actor for his performance in "The Yellow Sea" at the fifth edition of the Asian Film Awards in Hong Kong.
The event, held annually since 2007, is marked by a very unlikely Best Picture winner - Apichatpong Weerasethakul's experimental indie "Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives" - and also the notable absence of Japanese guests due to the natural disaster that has struck Japan recently. The star-studded awards ceremony saw 18 awards handed out at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre where Lisa S., Angela Chow and Archie Kao hosted the broadcast. Another Korean who won a prize was Yoon Yeo-jeong for her supporting role in the twisted drama "The Housemaid". However, Best Actress nominee Jeon Do-yeon for the same movie lost out to Xu Fan's powerhouse performance in her filmmaker husband Feng Xiao Gang's earthquake drama "Aftershock".
Kim Dong-ho, the outgoing chairman and current honourary director of the Busan International Film Festival which he founded in 1996, won the Asian Film Award special prize for Outstanding Contribution to Asian Cinema.