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Roger Garcia reports on the 34th Hong Kong International Film Festival - the original Asian international film festival
that was founded in 1976. In its over 30 years of festival work, the HKIFF has introduced Asian films to the international
community, helped spawn other film festivals in Hawaii, Tokyo, Singapore, Pusan, and also re-defined the history of Hong Kong
cinema through its major retrospectives of local films and filmmakers, and especially through its Chinese and English bi-lingual
publications on the diversity and riches of Hong Kong's film industry and culture. Roger reviews
some of the films he watched in Hong Kong this year including major new works by Hong Kong scriptwriter/director Alex Law,
and pioneering independent Filipino filmmaker Raymond Red. He also interviews Ounie Lecomte on her debut feature film A Brand New Life.
 One of the HKIFF's classic and most important publications was this study of martial arts films to accompany the major
retrospective mounted by the festival in 1980. This book - in English and Chinese - introduced readers and audiences to the
work and significance of martial arts cinema with articles on the history of martial arts in literature and film, and the
work of Liu Jialiang, now acclaimed by filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino but all but ignored internationally thirty years
ago when he was making what are now regarded as his masterpieces such as Dirty Ho
and Mad Monkey Kung Fu.
Korean adoptee Ounie Lecomte was sent to an orphanage in Korea at the age of nine, and then adopted by a French family. She
grew up in Paris speaking French. Her life served as an inspiration for her first feature film A
Brand New Life which has been a celebrated success on the international circuit, including the Hong Kong International
Film Festival. Roger interviewed her in Berlin.
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The welcome return of one of Hong Kong's best screenwriters and filmmakers, Alex Law. His semi-autobiographical film
Echoes of the Rainbow tells of his early childhood and the tragic story of his elder
brother. Winner of top prize Crystal Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival, and a Hong Kong Film Awards and box office
success.
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