Via The Star / Associated Press:
Fortissimo, the Hong Kong distributor of Tian Zhuangzhuang's Wu Qingyuan / The Go Master, has withdrawn the film from Taiwan's annual Golden Horse Film Festival. The Go Master, the story of Go game master Wu Qingyuan, has been nominated in four categories for the Golden Horse Awards, including Best Actor (Chang Chen). Pressure from mainland officials is reportedly the reason for the abrupt withdrawal.
Among the 2006 Golden Horse nominees, Ru guo · Ai / Perhaps Love, with twelve nominations including Best Film, Best Director (Peter Chan Ho Sun), and Best Actress (Zhou Xun, this year's winner at the Hong Kong Film Awards and the Hong Kong Film Critics Awards), is the odds-on favorite. Perhaps Love revolves around a love triangle that is formed during the making of a film musical. (The screenplay, by the way, failed to receive a nomination.)
The other Best Film nominees are Ning Hao's box-office sensation Fengkuang de shitou / Crazy Stone, a caper comedy-thriller that has been referred to as the Chinese Ocean's Eleven; Su Chao Pin's Guisi / Silk, a supernatural thriller in which a team of scientists capture the energy of the ghost of a child (and reportedly the most expensive locally produced film in Taiwan's history); Johnnie To's gangster flick Fong juk / Exiled; and Patrick Tam's Fu zi / After This Our Exile, a father-son drama set in rural Malaysia
that received a total of seven nominations.
I Don't Want to Sleep Alone pulled out of the 43rd Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival
Full list of winners and nominees at the 43rd Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival
Australian International Film Festival 2006 Award Winners
All this political bullshit. Why can't they just leave the film world alone? They're always trying to interfere. Banning this, banning that. It's ridiculous.