Production report: HK strives for pan-Asian appeal

The running joke at the Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum in April was that the only Asian country producing films of a lower quality than Hong Kong was Macau. The huge success at the Hong Kong box office this year of Nakata Hideo's Japanese psycho-horror Ring ($4m) and Kang Je-gyu's Korean blockbuster Shiri ($750,000) has forced the industry to accept that Hollywood is not the only threat to local product.