Hong Kong grabs top honors at Taipei movie awards

TAIPEI, Nov 25 (Reuters) A Hong Kong movie took top honours today at the Taiwan Golden Horse Awards, the most coveted Chinese-language film prize in Chinese cinema.

Hong Kong's Peter Chen won the best director award with his film ''Perhaps Love'', a musical, which had 12 nominations.

Taiwan's own film industry has suffered in recent years at the awards ceremony, equivalent to the ''The Oscars'' in Chinese cinema, due to a focus on low-budget films that win overseas awards, but fare poorly at the box office.

Hong Kong pop singer Aaron Kwok won best actor for the film ''After This our Exile'' -- the second time in a row that Kwok won the award. China's Zhou Xun grabbed best actress for ''Perhaps Love''.

Taiwan's last claim to fame was Taiwan-born director Ang Lee, who won an Oscar for best director for ''Brokeback Mountain'', in 2005.

Taiwan has played host to the Golden Horse Awards for the past 43 years, and has had to watch the growing dominance of Hong Kong and Chinese films, as its own industry struggles to make profits.

REUTERS KR ND2250