HONG KONG (AP) — "Secret Sunshine," the South Korean story of a widow's mental breakdown, took the best-picture prize as well as best director and best actress at the Asian Film Awards.

Best actor went to veteran Tony Leung Chiu-wai for his performance in the Ang Lee spy thriller "Lust, Caution."

In "Secret Sunshine," Jeon Do-yeon plays a widow who moves to her husband's hometown to start afresh after his death in a traffic accident. Instead, she has to face the kidnapping and murder of her son.

Jeon won best actress at the Cannes Film Festival last year for her performance.

Both Jeon and director Lee Chang-dong told reporters Monday that the role was so tough she had to "recover" from it.

"I don't usually need time to recover from most of the roles I portray. But this time, because my character was so damaged, it took some time to recover from it," Jeon said through a translator.

Best supporting actress went to Joan Chen for "The Sun Also Rises" and Sun Honglei won best supporting actor for "Mongol."

In awards announced earlier, the lifetime achievement award went to Japanese director Yoji Yamada.

Organizers paid tribute to director Edward Yang by showing clips from his movies. Yang died in late June from complications from colon cancer.