And Grand Bell Winners Announced...

The weekend's Grand Bell awards left Kim Tae-yong's acclaimed family drama Family Ties with the Best Film award, The Host's Bong Joon-ho awarded Best Director, it's been announced over at Screen Daily... Family Ties is only the second film from writer-director Kim after 1999's unconventional horror Memento Mori, which formed the second part of the Whispering Corridors "school horror" trilogy. Scooping Korea's top prize marks some return to the director's chair...

Other major awards were as follows...

Leading Actress: Kim A-jung (200 Pounds Beauty)

Leading Actor: Ahn Sung-ki (Radio Star)

Supporting Actor: Kim Yoon-suk (Tazza: The High Rollers)

Supporting Actress: Shim Hye-jin (Over The Border)

Cinematography: Park Hyun-chul (200 Pounds Beauty)

Grand Bell Nominees Announced...

KOFIC is reporting the nominees for this year's Grand Bell awards, Korea's rough equivalent to the Oscars. As with its American counterpart perhaps, the Grand Bells place a value on commercial fare, which often means the year's biggest box office hit ends up scooping the Grand Bell itself, which is exactly what happened last year with The King and the Clown. No surprise, then, that this year sees relatively err... lightweight but hugely successful titles such as 200 Pounds Beauty (pictured) among the nominees, but may well see Bong Joon-ho's monster monster movie The Host run off with the spoils...

Nominations in the main categories are as follows...

Best Film
Radio Star
A Dirty Carnival
200 Pounds Beauty
The Host
Family Ties

Best Director
Kim Yong-hwa (200 Pounds Beauty)
Bong Joon-ho (The Host)
Kim Tae-yong (Family Ties)
Ryoo Seung-wan (City of Violence)
Choi Dong-hoon (Tazza: The High Rollers)

It's also worth noting that one or two winners of Grand Bells long forgotten are to set to appear on Firecracker TV soon - keep an eye out!