Taiwan director Hou Hsiao-Hsein has taken home the Akira Kurosawa Award at 18th Tokyo International Film Festival, presented last Saturday night. 

The award was first established last year to honor influential directors around the world in the name of celebrated Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. Last year, it was delivered to US director Steven Spielberg and Japanese director Yamada Yoji.

Chinese films have encompassed a great part of this year's Tokyo International Film Festival. Besides Zhang Yimou's film Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles, which opened the festival, two Chinese films are vying for awards in competition. At the same time, four-fifth of the films screened in the "Winds of Asia" session came from China. 　　　　

(CRI October 31, 2005)