Taiwan director Hou Hsiao-Hsien won the Best Director Award at the 68th Cannes Film Festival on Sunday while the Palme d'Or for Best Film was given to French movie "Dheepan."

Director Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Best Director award winner for his film "The Assassin" (Nie yinniang), poses during a photocall after the closing ceremony of the 68th Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, southern France, May 24, 2015. [Photo/Xinhua]

Hou was honored for his new film "The Assassin (Nie Yinniang)." Set at the end of the Tang Dynasty in ninth-century China, the film tells a story of a highly trained female assassin who is sent back to her home province to kill its governor, to whom she is also betrothed, after a failed mission.

Hou, 68, from Taiwan, said after the award ceremony he was not disappointed not to win the Palme d'Or.

"To decide whether you win the award is simple, that is whether you did a good job in filmmaking," Hou said, "but the key problem is how the jury saw it. Sometimes the award would come right in time. They may not quite understand my film, so when they decided to award me the Best Director, I feel they are capable of making the right choice. This is good."

He added, "Film has many varieties. The way that I do films may not be understood by normal people. The form of my films is very personal, and I do whatever I want to do. This is not something normal people or all people can understand."

After the premiere of “The Assassin” at Cannes, Chinese and foreign media and critics applauded the film as a "groundbreaking" work that delivered the poetic beauty of the spirit of Chinese culture and martial arts. Deborah Young of The Hollywood Reporter wrote, "Hou Hsiao-Hsien brings a pure, idiosyncratic vision to the martial arts genre."

Hou said he would love to film at least three movies set against the background of the Tang Dynasty. He spent seven years making "The Assassin," during which time he read many ancient classics from or about the dynasty to prepare for the film. Many of the characters in the film speak in ancient Chinese languages, and they don’t fly around in the sky during fight scenes as is often seen in other martial arts films.

"Making a film reflects a director's emotions toward the subject, and the emotion and affection between the people and the land you live on," Hou said.

This is the seventh time that one of Hou's movies has competed for the Palme d'Or. He won the Jury Prize for "The Puppetmaster" in 1993 and the Technical Grand Prize for "Millenium Mambo" in 2001.

The French movie "Dheepan," directed by Jacques Audiard, won the Palme d'Or for the Best Film. "Dheepan" tells the story of a former soldier, a young woman and a little girl who pose as a family in order to escape the civil war in Sri Lanka. They end up settling in a housing project outside Paris. They barely know one another, but they try to build a life together.

This is the fourth time that a film by Audiard's has been entered in the main competition at the Cannes Film Festival. He won the Best Screenplay Award for "A Self-Made Hero" in 1996, and the Jury Grand Prize of for "A Prophet" in 2009.

France is the biggest winner at this year's Cannes Film Festival, as French actor Vincent Lindon won the first major award of his career for portraying a middle-aged man struggling with unemployment in "The Measure of a Man," directed by Stephane Brize. Meanwhile, French actress Emmanuelle Berco won Best Actress for her role in "Mon Roi," a movie about the passionate and destructive love between a couple in their forties during a 10-year period.

But Berco had to share the Best Actress honor with American actress Rooney Mara who starred as a department store clerk in "Carol," a movie about a lesbian relationship.

Also, for the first time in history, the Palme d'Honneur of the Cannes Film Festival was awarded to a woman, French director Agnes Varda.

Yorgos Lanthimos, who made his first submission to the main competition at Cannes this year, won the Jury Prize for his movie “The Lobster,” while the Grand Prize was awarded to Hungarian director Laszlo Nemes' "Saul Fia (Son of Saul)." Mexican director and screenplay writer Michel Franco won the Best Screenplay Award for his movie "Chronic."

Although Chinese director Jia Zhangke’s film "Mountains May Depart" didn't win any of the festival’s awards, his latest film’s premiere at Cannes was well-received. But Jia didn't go away empty-handed -- he received special recognition for the Carrosse d'Or award on May 14 during the opening ceremony at the Director's Fortnight sideline event.

Jia also announced at Cannes that he has founded a new film production company in Shanghai named "Fabula" with his partners. Their first project will be a film adapted from a mystery novel by Japanese writer Higashino Keigo.

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