Chak De! India took home nine awards at Sunday's International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) awards in Bangkok, Thailand including top honours for best film, best director and best actor.

Telling the story of a Muslim hocky captain once wrongfully accused of throwing a match for religious beliefs, the film and its multiple gongs served as a reminder that Bollywood is stretching beyond the high-production musicals that put it on the map and increasingly taking on tougher topics that attract a global audience.

IIFA brand ambassador Amitabh Bachchan told Times Online in May the awards were being held in Bangkok this year in order "to try and make this a global effort; to build bridges rather than just make this another awards ceremony."

The ceremony has been held in cities across the world from London to Johannesburg since its inaugural year in 2000.

The actor Vivek Oberoi offered complementary sentiments at the ceremony Sunday.

A winner for his performance in Shootout at Lokhandwala, Oberoi noted Indian filmmakers' recent concentration on "more global concepts and ideas that reach beyond the borders of India because the viewership and the audiences have reached beyond the borders of India."

Anurag Basu's Life on a...Metro, the tale of interconnected lives some critics likened to the work of the American filmmaker Robert Altman, claimed two supporting acting honours and a screenplay gong.

Kareena Kapoor, meanwhile, won Best Actress for her portrayal of a bubbly Punjabi girl who meets her match in a depressing businessman on a sleeper train to Delhi in the romantic comedy Jab We Met.

The splash of Bollywood song-and-dance familiarity wasn't entirely ignored, however. Farah Khan's Om Shanti Om, the highest-grossing Bollywood production ever, grabbed five awards, mostly in crafts categories such as Best Art Direction and Best Costume Designing.

Ritesh Deshmukh and Boman Irani served as hosts for the ceremony, which was televised to 600 million viewers.

2008 IIFA AWARD WINNERS:

Picture: Chak De! India

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