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A series of nine of the best Hong Kong movies produced in the last five years will be shown at the 'City at Light Speed: Hong Kong Cinema after 1997' from tomorrow (June 7) to June 19 at the Jackman Hall of Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto.

Sponsored by the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office (Canada) (HKETO) and organized by Cinematheque Ontario, the 'City at Light Speed: Hong Kong Cinema after 1997' film festival is the first of the series of events that HKETO organizes in June to mark the 5th anniversary of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) since its reunification with China in July 1997.

"5th anniversary is an important milestone. Since 1997, Hong Kong has overcome many challenges and has achieved world recognition in different sectors, one of which is its film industry. This collection represents the best works by talented professionals and some of the finest films made in the last five years," said Mrs Rosanna Ure, Director of the HKETO.

Shelly Kraicer, the festival's programmer, said: "This series features some of the best, most artful films to emerge from Hong Kong in the last five years. Spanning both arthouse essays like Yu Lik-wai's 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' and popular genre movies like Johnnie To's 'The Mission', City at Light Speed showcases the exciting creativity and vitality of the Hong Kong film industry today."

All screenings of 'City at Light Speed: Hong Kong Cinema Since 1997' are held at the Art Gallery of Ontario's Jackman Hall (317 Dundas Street West). Jackman Hall box office opens 30 minutes prior to the first screening of the day. All screenings are restricted to individuals 18 years of age or older, unless otherwise noted.

The nine films to be screened at 'City at Light Speed: Hong Kong Cinema Since 1997' are:

DURIAN DURIAN

Fruit Chan's Durian Durian is an infectiously bouncy, implausibly beautiful tale of two cities. A double story, set in sweltering Hong Kong and China's frigid north-east, it sports two styles - Hong Kong-electric and P.R.C.-sublime - in which diverse people and situations are linked by a durian, that famously odiferous "King of Fruits".

EIGHTEEN SPRINGS

Directed by Ann Hui, Eighteen Springs starts with the elements of those 1930s melodramas that defined Shanghai's "golden age" of film: sumptuous costumes, breathtaking cinematography and iconic performances. With one startling difference: this film recasts both urban culture and melodrama as women's experience, through women's eyes.

LITTLE CHEUNG

Little Cheung, another Fruit Chan production, offers a ground-eye view of Hong Kong that's as sophisticated as it is affectionate. Shot entirely on location with amateur actors, it's an exquisitely detailed look at a scruffy Mongkok street - its restaurant owners, coffin makers, petty gangsters, Cantonese-opera obsessed grannies - focusing on the preternaturally expressive Little Cheung and his friend Fan.

THE MISSION

A gangsters and gunplay film, The Mission is nothing short of sublime. Johnny To's version of Hong Kong minimalism is stillness at full speed. That might sound like a contradiction, but To can pull it off, with wit, panache and the crackling sound of tension released like a gunshot. "Johnnie To has rhythm in his bones" (Laure Charcossey, Cahiers du cinˆmma).

LOVE WILL TEAR US APART

Director Yu Lik-wai's attempt to combine elements of "European-style" art-house cinema with the luminously photographed, carefully-paced style of Hou Hsiao-hsien is convincing, and yields a haunting portrait of a floating world: Hong Kong as fin de siˆocle urban space, poised somewhere between a nostalgic lost past and a dimly perceived future. Its moments of hothouse eroticism are all the more powerful for being predominantly verbal.

GLASS TEARS

Carol Lai became the first woman director from Hong Kong in 20 years to be represented at the Cannes Film Festival when this first feature was invited there last year. A stunningly photographed drama - with strikingly "unbalanced" framings and a stark, brilliant lighting design - Glass Tears is essentially a rather unlikely buddy film.

LAN YU

"Kwan expertly weaves the personal and the political" (Jason Anderson, Eye) in this remarkable gay love story, shot clandestinely in Beijing. Stanley Kwan has been one of the most important directors of art film in Hong Kong. In the last five years, he has begun directly addressing homosexuality in his films: Lan Yu is the best of these features to date.

TWELVE NIGHTS

Writer Aubrey Lam directs her first film, a pop-romance for grownups, with style and polish. Twelve Nights observes the progress of an affair between two twenty-something Hong Kong yuppies. No soft-centred ideology of romance here: the exquisitely observed details of falling in and out of love are carefully catalogued, remorselessly analyzed.

JULIET IN LOVE

A return to the kind of mixed-genre film that represents Hong Kong cinema at its most exuberant, Juliet In Love is a gangster-romance that plays with and subverts both genres. Director Wilson Yip synchronizes every tool at his disposal - screenplay, cinematography, music - to construct a uniquely Hong Kong-style quasi-surreal form of expression.

Other events in the 5th Anniversary programme include an investment seminar on "Hong Kong - Your Fast Track to China" on June 21 at the Living Arts Centre, Mississauga, a special "HKSAR Champion Race" on June 22 and 23 at Toronto Centre Island and an urban planning seminar on June 24, as well as a large-scale photo exhibition on Hong Kong's infrastructure development from June 24 to 30. The last two events are held at Toronto City Hall.

End/Friday, June 7, 2002

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