The 11th Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival (PiFan) awarded Na Hong-jin's serial murderer thriller The Chaser with its top Best of Puchon prize and the European Federation of Fantastic Films (EFFF) Asian Award. The film also took best actress for Seo Young-hee.

'We had great rains over the weekend and had to cancel all our outdoor events, but the success of NAFF raised our spirits,' said festival director Han Sang-joon, commenting on the Network of Asian Fantastic Films (NAFF) with its project market and Fantastic Film School which ran July 19-23 (see separate story).

'Up until now, PiFan held our audiences in the highest importance, but now we have also added to that the expansion of industry networking,' he said of what was arguably the high point of the festival.

Tomas Alfredson picked up best director for his delicate vampire children film Let The Right One In. Winning with critics and audiences alike, the film also took the Prugio Citizen's Choice award.

Ekin Cheng and Shawn Yue shared the best actor award for their performances in Kelvin Tong's Rule Number One, an evil spirit-induced homicide epidemic thriller.

The jury award went to Fear(s) Of The Dark, an innovative portmanteau film by various directors, dealing with terror and nightmares.

One of the most talked-about films was interestingly enough the festival trailer shown before each screening. A spoof on genre films directed by Kwon Lee, one of the NAFF project market selectees, the trailer had festival-goers saying, 'I want to see THAT film.'

PiFan ran July 18-27, with the awards ceremony on the last Friday (July 25) screening the world premiere of Kwak Jae-yong's international version of Cyborg She.

Two days of repetition screenings and a surprise screening of Stephen Chow's sci-fi movie CJ7 followed.

Full Winners' List:

Best of Puchon - The Chaser / Na Hong-jin (Korea)

Best Director - Tomas Alfredson / Let The Right One In (Sweden)

Best Actress - Seo Young-hee / The Chaser

Best Actor - Ekin Cheng, Shawn Yue / Rule Number One (dir: Kelvin Tong, Hong Kong/Singapore)

Jury's Choice - Fear(s) Of The Dark / Blutch, Charles Burns, Marie Caillou, Pierre Di Schiullo, Lorenzo Mattotti, Richard McGuire (France)

Prugio Citizen's Choice - Let The Right One In / Tomas Alfredson

Special Mentions to:

Hansel And Gretel / Yim Phil-sung (Korea)

Tokyo Gore Police / Yoshihiro Nishimira (Japan)

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