June 27, 2003

Good evening, Ladies and Gentlemen,

On behalf of the Hong Kong Economic & Trade Office, I would like to welcome you all to the opening night of the Hong Kong Film Festival entitled "Gems from Asia's Hollywood - A Retrospect of John Woo".

Although this is the third year in a row that the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in Canada has organized Hong Kong Film Festival, this year’s festival has a much more special meaning. We are also here to celebrate the fact that Hong Kong has come to the point of victory over SARS, as the World Health Organization has announced just days ago.

Since the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region six years ago, Hong Kong has suffered from setbacks such as the Asian financial crisis and the attack of SARS. However, every time we face a difficulty which at times seems insurmountable, we fight back and prevail. The success of containing SARS in Hong Kong, which is one of the hardest hit regions in the epidemic, illustrates vividly the "Hong Kong Spirit". In the face of adversity, we rise to the challenge, use our creativity and ingenuity and come out stronger than before.

This "Hong Kong Spirit" is best represented by our film industry. Hong Kong had a rudimentary film industry back in the fifties, when low budget films were made to cater for the local audience. Gradually, audience from Southeast Asia and Taiwan became great fans of our films. Today Hong Kong is one of the world’s major production centers, and the regional hub for film trading and services. In the past few years, Hong Kong's film talents have gained international recognition in film festivals around the world.

All these did not come easy. Hong Kong's film talents have come a long way since the early days when films were made to satisfy a local audience. The journey to international recognition has been a long one. The language and cultural barriers, the different practices in overseas film production industry and the keen competition from other places have done one thing – to strengthen the resolve of our film makers to try harder and do better. Many of our movie stars and behind-the-scene professionals are Hollywood’s recent success stories.

Amongst these, John Woo is well known to be a director with strong individual style and superb skills. In this festival, we have picked his earlier works made in Hong Kong to let Canadian audience have a better understanding and appreciation of the development of this talented director, and through him, catch a glimpse of the evolution of Hong Kong from a low-budget, local film production base to a major film exporter and a city whose talents enjoy world-wide recognition.

We are delighted to welcome you to this festival, which will be held in Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver. With SARS out of the way, I hope the collaboration and exchanges between Hong Kong and Canada will resume. In fact, your presence today indicates the support you have given us and is a good start for our Relaunch Hong Kong program.

Enjoy the evening.

Thank you.