Hong Kong's Filmko Entertainment will put aside up to HK$70 mn this year for five productions including Pang Ho Cheung's Exodus and Law Chi Leung's Kidnap, both currently in post-production, according to president Dominic Yip.

Exodus, featuring Simon Yam and Annie Liu as husband and wife, revolves around how men stumble upon the secret plot of women to destroy the opposite sex. Pang, whose Isabella won the Silver Bear for best music at Berlin last year, has a new project Now Showing selected for HAF this year.

In Kidnap, writer-director Law, whose previous credits include Inner Senses, focuses on a female cop whose young son has been mistakenly kidnapped for a millionaire's son. The cast includes Rene Liu, Karena Lam and Cheung Chi Lam.

Also on Filmko's slate are two previous HAF projects including Chinese director Liu Fengdou's Part Ocean, Part Flame. The story about love and redemption, adapted from Chinese writer Wang Shuo's novel, is due to start production in April.

Ann Hui's At the World's End, which won the 2005 HAF award, is about a family tragedy of a mainland Chinese girl and her Hong Kong working class husband who live in Tin Shui Wai, a Hong Kong new town which has become an enclave of Chinese mainland immigrants.

Filmko will also back Barbara Wong's 6th Floor Front Flat, a follow-up to her youth comedy Truth or Dare: 6th Floor Rear Flat. Shooting is expected to start around August, as is At the World's End. The cast will be announced later.

Last year, the company boarded Roger Spottiswoode's historical drama The Children Of Huang Shi, starring Chow Yun Fat and is responsible for the sales of eight Asian territories excluding Japan and Korea.

The company also co-produced Chinese director Zhang Yang's Getting Home with Fortissimo Films. The road movie about a migrant worker who carries the corpse of his friend home premiered in Berlin this year.

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