走近香港国际电影节

As the 34th Hong Kong International Film Festival kicks off Sunday, the local movie industry is re-evaluating its role in Chinese-language cinema.

Hong Kong for years has struggled against movie piracy, competition from Hollywood, a surging interest in other regional Asian films and the growing clout of mainland China. Some in the industry have rung the death knell.

But others are courageously optimistic about its ability to adapt. And Hong Kong has seen some notable triumphs over the past decade.

The 'Infernal Affairs' trilogy of 2002-03 -- a critical and commercial success -- energized the industry, winning enough international attention that Hollywood director Martin Scorsese made a version of his own, the Academy Award-winning 'The Departed.' More recently, 'Echoes of the Rainbow,' a sentimental family story from director Alex Law, won a Crystal Bear at last month's Berlin International Film Festival, judged best film by a jury of children aged 11 to 14. It was a minor award but a huge morale boost for Hong Kong's filmmakers: Amid all the blockbusters streaming in from the mainland, a quiet drama on a modest US$1.5 million budget demonstrated there still was an international audience for Hong Kong movies.

What's more, the number of Hong Kong movie productions has started to turn up following years of decline. Jack So, chairman of the Hong Kong Film Development Council, says Hong Kong produced 70 movies last year, 30% more than in 2008, and he predicts the number will increase again this year.

Hong Kong-China co-productions in many ways have helped rescue the Hong Kong movie industry because they don't fall within China's import quota of 20 foreign films a year. This collaboration is on display as the festival showcases a number of Chinese-language movies -- in Mandarin, Cantonese and other dialects -- nearly all with English subtitles.

Hong Kong movies, old and new, have a particular prominence at this year's festival. There will be world premieres for several films with a distinctly local flavor, including director Ivy Ho's opening-night romantic comedy 'Crossing Hennessy,' starring Jacky Cheung and Tang Wei. (It will share opening-night billing with art-house director Clara Law's romantic drama 'Like a Dream,' which stars Daniel Wu; though Ms. Law's roots are in Hong Kong, the film is set in Shanghai, Taipei and New York.) The festival also will give the gala treatment to the world premieres of Hong Kong-set 'Love in a Puff,' a romantic comedy from director Pang Ho-cheung, and 'Fire of Conscience,' a police drama from Dante Lam. And independent filmmaker Scud returns this year with another gay-themed Hong Kong drama, 'Amphetamine.'

And as a reminder of Hong Kong's glory days, the festival has organized retrospectives on the king of Asian action movies, the late Bruce Lee, whose global influence continues today, and Lung Kong, the groundbreaking director who dominated the screen in the 1960s and '70s.

The festival program also includes two other films from Greater China that won awards at the Berlin festival: 'Apart Together,' China-born director Wang Quanan's drama of a family divided by the Taiwan Strait, which received the Silver Bear for best screenplay; and Chinese-American director Arvin Chen's 'Au Revoir Taipei,' which won the Netpac Prize, awarded by the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema.

In conjunction with the festival, the Hong Kong International Film Festival Society puts on the Asian Film Awards, set for March 22, and the Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum, seeking to bring art and money together from March 22 to 24. The festival itself will run March 21 through April 6, screening more than 240 movies (again, nearly all English-subtitled) from nearly 50 countries; for information on times, venues and prices, visit www.hkiff.org.hk.