Taiwan's Hou Hsiao-hsien scooped the best director award at the Cannes Film Festival on Sunday for his slow-burning minimalist martial arts drama "The Assassin".

The 68-year-old, one of the most recognisable names in Taiwan's "New Wave" cinema, took the prize for his film starring Asian megastar Shu Qi as a female assassin in ninth-century China who is ordered to kill the man she loves.