Hong Kong’s Leading Stars Hit the Road With High Hopes to Rejuvenate Film Industry

Hong Kong’s beleaguered film industry is looking to rekindle the passion for its movies that once reached fever pitch across Asia during its glory days, with a series of high-profile “gala presentations” that are sharing the city’s stars — and its box office successes — with the region.

Wilfred Wong, chairman of the Asian Film Awards Academy and chairperson of the Hong Kong Film Development Council — two of the initiative’s partners — said the time had come for Hong Kong to explore its “future market,” given falling box office receipts and declining production numbers within the city itself.

“We think that in the future, our movies are not just local. You need to go global and extend to markets within Asia in particular,” said Wong, who this past week took the road show to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

He added: “So, let’s not go as far as the US and Europe. There, it’s a very different culture. But Asian culture, we are akin to each other. So there is a chance for us here.”

A recent Thursday night saw hundreds of fans gather at the Galaxy Cinema on the third floor of the sprawling Thiso Mall Sala in HCMC for a screening of the Soi Cheang-directed action romp Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In (2024), the $111 million Hong Kong hit that also earned a surprisingly strong $1.9 million from Vietnam.

Other films screened over three days included Stuntmandirector Herbert Leung’s paean to the unheralded heroes of martial arts movies, Robin Lee’s extreme sports documentary Four Trailsand the romance Last Song for You from Jill Leung. The gala presentation initiative has already staged similar events in Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Phnom Penh and Jakarta.

“While in other places people are being distracted by streamers, in Southeast Asia, people are just starting to enjoy cinema, and therefore there is a future for good movies being shown and released here,” said Wong. “But unless we come back and tell the people, distributors won’t look at the Hong Kong movies. We need distributors, and that’s one of the purposes of these trips going everywhere.”

Two of the stars of Twilight of the WarriorsLouis Koo and martial arts legend Sammo Hung, were on hand in Ho Chi Minh City — and they were mobbed, so the signs were certainly positive. Another initiative was a “Directing Stories Across Hong Kong and Vietnam” seminar that saw Leung and Vietnam’s Tran Thanh Huy (Rom) dig into a discussion of action movies and the influence Hong Kong’s filmmakers have had across the region over the years.

“For many years, Hong Kong films have been submerged for a long time,” said Koo, who’s become a major Hong Kong player in his own right through his One Cool Group production house.

“By showing these films we hope to restore the confidence of our friends in Vietnam or friends from South Asia around the world in our Hong Kong films, and slowly we can stand up again.”

Through the heyday of Hong Kong — and Cantonese — cinema from the 1970s to the 1990s, such nights were a common sight across Asia, reflecting the city’s position as the “Hollywood of the East,” when commercial cinema in neighboring population centers was still in its relative infancy. Part of that was due to the quality of regional hits such as John Woo’s classic A Better Tomorrowpart of it to sheer volume — with Hong Kong at its peak producing around 300 movies a year — and another part to the vast Shaw Brothers studio operation, which owned cinemas as far afield as Singapore and Malaysia.

All that has changed, of course. While Hong Kong in 2024 recorded its worst box office receipts in 13 years (even excluding the pandemic), totaling $172.5 million, Vietnam saw an all-time high of $185 million. While Hong Kong has seen 18 cinema closures in the past two years, Vietnam now has 83 cinemas with 478 screens operated by Korea’s CJ CGV, which only entered the market in 2011.

So while the event was a spectacle for locals, there was no escaping the fact that it was being driven by economic necessity. And Wong vowed his team was only just getting started.

“We’re also looking at festivals,” said Wong. “Previously, when Hong Kong filmmakers showed up at a festival, they brought their own stars at their own expense. Now we’re saying, no, let’s organize the Hong Kong contingent. We’ll pay for it. If there’s a good movie, we bring the top stars. So now, in major festivals, we always have a “Hong Kong Night.” We want people to say, ‘Hong Kong is still here.'”