Finding focus

Directors and distributors are shying away from the Hong Kong box-office this weekend because of the opening of Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. But, Hong Kong-turned-Hollywood director Peter Chan Ho-sun - back in the SAR for a visit last week - looked none the worse for wear after his head-to-head with the George Lucas extravaganza in the United States in May.

'No, I wasn't worried,' he said of the studio's decision to move his Hollywood debut, The Love Letter, up to the Star Wars weekend to create some hype for the small movie. The film was originally scheduled for release in the US and worldwide in September and October (when it opens in Hong Kong).

'In America your job satisfaction comes from finishing the movie. There you worry about how to get the movie done and more importantly, how to get the performance out of your actors. In Hong Kong, we are Jacks of all trades. The fact that we are helps, because it's a plus to you that you know what goes on, but it's also a plus that you don't need to deal with everything.' But after years of having to look after everything from casting to financing and distribution here, Chan - who moved to Los Angeles in 1997 - initially found it difficult relinquishing control, but two years on the job has slowly conditioned him to the system. 'They've got so much more experience there's no point arguing with them,' he said.

But he knows he is going in the right direction, especially after the star-studded premiere of The Love Letter which was attended by top names such as John Travolta, Warren Beatty, Annette Bening and Goldie Hawn.

'The premiere was a rather surreal experience, especially when actors you have seen on stage come up to you to congratulate you and say they want to work with you - and make no doubt about it, a director's biggest asset in Hollywood is his actors. It was a validation that this is going in the right direction.' So far The Love Letter seems to be holding its own at the box-office. In just five weeks of its release, the DreamWorks SKG project recouped about US$8 million (HK$62 million) of its 'US$10 to $15 million budget' in the US alone.

The film - which stars Kate Capshaw (Mrs Steven Spielberg), Tom Selleck, Ellen DeGeneres, Tom Everett Scott and Julianne Nicholson - is set in a New England town called Loblolly-by-the-sea (but shot on location in Rockport, Massachusetts) where Helen Macfarquhar (Capshaw) owns a bookshop.