2008 marks the second year that LoveHKFilm.com used a jury, panel, association or other synonym for a group of people to select its annual awards. Seven individuals took part, and each tried to make this a fair, balanced and responsible voting process. Whether or not they succeeded is questionable.

The full list of Awards was announced via PCCW Broadband on March 15th, 2009 in Hong Kong. The same day, the Webmaster went to see Watchmen in IMAX.

A full list of jury members can be found below. Most of them are using their real name.

Best Director
Winner:
- Ann Hui On-Wah (The Way We Are)
Nominees:
- Benny Chan Muk-Sing (Connected)
- Sylvia Chang (Run Papa Run)
- Dante Lam Chiu-Yin (The Beast Stalker)
- John Woo (Red Cliff)

Worst Film
The Butterfly Lovers
Not the slam dunk winner that Wonder Women was last year, The Butterfly Lovers nevertheless earned enough ill will to walk away with 2008's Worst Film award. Nobody here blames the stars, though.

Runner Up: Missing

Most Underrated Film
All About Women
Panned by many and liked by few, All About Women actually found a few admirers on our awards jury. It also found at least one person who absolutely hated it, but that wasn't enough to stop the jury from making it their pick for Most Underrated Film of 2008. Besides, any film with Zhou Xun and Guey Lun-Mei deserves a chance.

Most Overrated Film
CJ7
If one were to equate a mega-huge box office gross with quality, then CJ7 certainly deserves this award. The film actually made it to one jury member's Top 10 list, but the rest seemed to feel that it really was not that good. Stephen Chow, we miss you.

Runner Up: Ip Man

Most Bizarre Film
City Without Baseball
The Hong Kong baseball team endorsed this film at the Hong Kong International Film Festival, saying that they were proud that their story could be told. Since the film was filled with homoeroticism, full-frontal nudity, and very little sports action, one wonders if baseball is really their first priority. Directed by a man named Scud.

Runner Up: Shamo

Most Disappointing Film
CJ7
It's the second award for CJ7, and sadly yet another negative one. We're guessing the jury ranked CJ7 as Most Disappointing because expectations were so high, and the film struggled to meet them. This doesn't mean that the film was necessarily bad. It just wasn't as good as we had hoped. More Stephen Chow would have helped.

Runner Up: Missing

Funniest Performer
Louis Koo Tin-Lok (Connected)
While his performance wasn't intentionally comedic, Louis Koo wins this year's Funniest Performer award for his sweaty overacting in Connected. Special mention should go to the fact that he made the character likeable - not a requirement here, but one that certainly helped his chances.

Runner Up: Tsui Tin-Yau (La Lingerie)

Most Annoying
Siu Fei (Forgive and Forget)
Nobody grated on nerves more than Siu Fei, whose appearance as the annoying "friend" of Alice Tzeng in Forgive and Forget was a lowlight of the film - and indeed of Hong Kong Cinema in 2008. At least he was okay in The Vampire Who Admires Me.

Runner Up: Kelly Chen (The Empress and the Warriors)

Most Awesome
Donnie Yen Ji-Dan (Ip Man)
Nobody was more "the Man" than Donnie Yen in Ip Man. Famously picked on for his preening acting in SPL and Flash Point, Yen delivered a fine, layered performance as the Grandmaster of Wing Chun. He kicked ass, too.

Runner Up: Francis Ng Chun-Yu (Shamo)

Most Underrated Performer
Chan Lai-Wun (The Way We Are)
Having already been nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the Hong Kong Film Awards and also the LoveHKFilm Awards, one may wonder how Chan Lai-Wun could also win the Most Underrated Performer award. But she did, so there.

Runner Up: Shawn Yue (Shamo)

Best Overacting
Louis Koo Tin-Lok (Connected)
Apparently, Louis Koo was so impressive in Connected that he was able to walk off with two awards - for Funniest Performer and also Best Overacting. Considering that he was a recipient of the Worst Overacting award last year, this is an improvement.

Runner Up: Shidou Nakamura (Red Cliff)

Worst Overacting
Siu Fei (Forgive and Forget)
Not content with winning Most Annoying, Siu Fei goes for the double dip with a win for Worst Overacting. Curiously, his main competition for both awards was Kelly Chen, who apparently did not win many fans in The Empress and the Warriors.

Runner Up: Kelly Chen (The Empress and the Warriors)

Taking Up Space
Kelly Chen (The Empress and the Warriors)
The year's most heated competition: Siu Fei vs. Kelly Chen! Siu Fei came out ahead with two awards, but Kelly won the big one for her bewildering performance in The Empress and the Warriors. Congratulations on the wedding and your pregnancy, Kelly!

Runner Up: Siu Fei (Forgive and Forget)

Career Suicide
Disqualified
Unfortunately, the winner of this award was disqualified because we tried to honor him for something that occurred outside of an actual film. That violates passage 7, paragraph 3 on page 243 of the LoveHKFilm Awards rulebook so we had to abort. We apologize for this error. In completely unrelated news, Macbook repair courses are now a requirement at all Hong Kong universities.

The Hand of China Award
Decade of Love
About thirty films from 2008 could win this award, but we'll give it to the omnibus film Decade of Love because it promised ten stories but only gave us nine. One, director Chung Kai-Cheong's "The Aureole", was suspicously missing when the film finally got its delayed release. Oddly, nobody bothered to change the release poster, which still advertised ten stories.

The Forgotten Award
Fate
Starring Miki Yeung, Deep Ng and Blacky Ko's son, this direct-to-video film from Andrew Lau's Basic Pictures gets our Forgotten Award because of this dubious honor: it was the only qualifying film from 2008 that nobody on our jury saw. One person tried twice and fell asleep both times within ten minutes.

The Dynasty Award
Shamo
Named in honor of Mongkok's cavernous local theater, where schoolgirls giggle and gangsters smoke and swear, this award is given to a guilty pleasure that practically invites audience participation. Soi Cheang's lurid, mystifying and unintentionally hilarious Shamo totally qualifies.

Runners-up: The Empress and the Warriors, Kung Fu Hip Hop

Subtitle of the Year
"In the past three years of my work, I just felt twice that my fingers were resurrected." (from Kung Fu Hip Hop)
The above subtitle was the highlight of Kung Fu Hip Hop, a film that possessed such zingers as "Yes, Hot Girl" and "You're a natural born dancer." We can partially thank the film's writer Ning Cai-Shen, who's credited as the film's "dramaturgist". The rest of the thanks go to the subtitle translator, who deserves a beating.

The Next 10 Best Films of 2008
The Beast Stalker
Run Papa Run
High Noon
Connected
True Women For Sale
Red Cliff
Painted Skin
Besieged City
All About Women
Sparrow

Ross Chen (a.k.a. Kozo)
Webmaster, LoveHKFilm.com

Shelley Cheung
Minion of Kozo
Editing Monkey, YesAsia.com

Paul Fox (a.k.a. Canton Kid)
College Lecturer, Media Studies
HKU Space

Kevin Ma (a.k.a. LMFDean9)
Film Student
Writer, LoveHKFilm.com

Sean Tierney
PhD and Hong Kong Film Scholar

Yang Won-Min
Botanist

Tim Youngs
Film Festival Consultant