In a move that was widely anticipated,Hong Kong's Emperor Motion Pictures has appointed filmindustry veteran Philip Chan as head of production.

Chan, a former actor who haswritten, directed and produced more than 20 features during his 30-year career,will oversee all production activities for the company.

"Philip already has a numberof very exciting projects in development and some of them will go intoproduction before the end of the year," said EMP chief executive Albert Lee.

Chan also previously servedas CEO of Mandarin Films and in November 2003 founded his own company, EndlessIdea Management, which focused on concert promotion and feature filmdevelopment in mainland China.

EMP has not produced any newfilms over the past year although its sales arm had a busy slate at Cannes. Titles included Rob-B-Hood,produced by EMP's joint venture with Jackie Chan, JCE Movies, and independentproductions Sweet Revenge, directedby Taiwan's Ho Ping, and Susie Au's Ming Ming.

Rob-B-Hood,starring Jackie Chan, was sold to more than 10 distributors at Cannes including Italy's Minerva, Germany's Splendid and Korea's Show East.

The US$17m action comedy isscheduled for aSeptember 29 day-and-date release in China, Hong Kong and across Asia.

Just prior to Cannes, EMP also boarded action adventure Let's Steal Together as co-producer alongside Hong Kong's SundreamMotion Pictures. The film, set to star pop duo Twins, will be the directorialdebut of renowned action director Kong Tao-hoi.