AFP - The cream of Asian cinema is set to gather in Taipei on Saturday for the Golden Horse Film Awards, considered the Chinese-language "Oscars".

Famed Taiwan directors Ang Lee and Hou Hsiao-hsien will join Hong Kong peers Johnnie To and Stanley Kwan to present the best director award at tonight's gala ceremony.

However, another top Hong Hong film-maker, John Woo, reportedly will shun the event after his blockbuster war epic "Red Cliff II" was snubbed by the Golden Horse nomination committee.

"It's disappointing and regrettable. The actors and the crew did very well and worked really hard... I didn't understand what standard the judges used," he told reporters in Taipei earlier this week.

Chinese actor Zhang Hanyu and last year's best actor winner also voiced bewilderment at the judges' decisions.

"I was hoping for a best actor nomination for 'The Message'. I didn't know what happened," said Zhang, who is instead up for the best supporting actor for the lesser known "The Equation of Love and Death".

Hit espionage thriller "The Message" received five nods, including a surprise double nomination in the best leading actress category for Zhou Xun and Li Bingbing of China.

Other nominees including Li, director Clara Law and heart-throb actor Daniel Wu of Hong Kong, as well as Taiwanese director Leon Dai, are expected to walk down the red carpet in a suburban Taipei auditorium.

Law, whose romantic drama "Like a Dream" led this year's race with nine nominations, is pitted against Dai ("No Puedo Vivir Sin Ti") for top honours at the 46th edition of the awards.

Critics favour Dai's social drama for best picture for its emotionally charged depiction of a diver's desperate fight for custody of his daughter, a plot based on a true story.

Law is in a tight race with Malaysian art-house director Tsai Ming-liang ("Face") for the best director gong, although her film could dominate the acting categories for Wu and Chinese actress Yolanda Yuan.

However, Chinese director Guan Hu could snatch the awards from his more acclaimed rivals with "Cow", a black comedy about a Chinese farmer protecting a cow during the war against Japan in the 1940s, critics say.

The Golden Horse Awards, broadcast by Chinese-language channels as far away as Canada, are styled on the US Academy Awards but are decided by a jury along the lines of the Cannes film festival.