Derek Yee's Shinjuku Incident, starring Jackie Chan, and Ann Hui's Night And Fog will open this year's Hong Kong International Film Festival (March 22-April 13) which announced its line-up today.

The world premiere of both films will take place on March 22, one night before the opening of Hong Kong Filmart, the Hong Kong Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF) and the third edition of the Asian Film Awards on March 23.

Produced by Dragon Emperor Movies, a subsidiary of Hong Kong's Emperor Motion Pictures, Shinjuku Incident follows the lives of illegal Chinese immigrants in Tokyo's gangland.

The film will open in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia at the beginning of April butwill not bereleased in mainland China. It contains several violent scenes and it's understood that the director felt too much would have to be cut in order to pass Chinese censorship.

Hui's film, Night And Fog, starring Simon Yam and Zhang Jingchu, follows an older, unemployed man and his young, mainland Chinese wife and explores the plight of Hong Kong's lower classes.

Meanwhile, Jia Zhangke's 24 City will close the festival on April 13, whileTaiwanese director Cheng Yu-Chieh's Yang Yang will be screened at the awards gala.

Gala premiere events include the world premiere of Dante Lam's The Sniper and Asian premieres of Udayan Prasad's The Yellow Handkerchief, Philippe Claudel's I've Loved You So Long, DreamWorks Animations' 3D adventure Monsters Vs Aliens, Oliver Stone's W. and Wong Kar-wai's Ashes Of Time Reduxe.

Sidebars and special programmes include 'Italian Landscape 2008', 'Finnish New Talents', tributes to Ingmar Bergman, Michelangelo Antonioni and Ichikawa Jun and a sidebar dedicated to 25 years of Hong Kong production house Film Workshop (see separate story).

The festival will also focus on the latest pan-Chinese cinema in three sections entitled Hong Kong Panorama, Chinese Renaissance and Young Taiwanese Cinema.

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