Hsu Feng's brave new world of cinema

HSU Feng sat slightly forward in her chair, as she listened to the questions as they were translated into Mandarin.

She has an angular but delicate beauty and a deceptively formal demeanour in her navy suit, buttoned-to-the-neck blouse and seed pearl. But it is her manner that is arresting. Intense but unexpectedly self-depreciating. You sense that when push comes to shove this woman, who produced the Cannes Film Festival winner, Farewell To My Concubine, is not to be messed with.

Yes, she said this week, sitting in her corner office at Tomson (Hongkong) Films Co Ltd, in Pacific Place. ''The award (joint Palme D'Or for best picture at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival) was very important to me.

''Everyone says that Hsu Feng is rich. She does not need money. She can do anything. But now I have shown that I can make artistic films that are successful. I want to make the best films in the world.'' And she is not wasting much time. Post the completion of Farewell , which starred Gong Li and Leslie Cheung and has catapulted Beijing film director Chen Kaige into galactic cinematic stardom, she has three films in development and six, ''maybe seven'' directors under contract.

The first is the big one. The film of the blockbuster autobiography Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng. It will be filmed on location in China, but the filming schedule has been put back to 1994. Hsu wants to play Nien Cheng but the matter is stillunresolved, at the family level.

Her husband still has to be persuaded that it is necessary for her to spend three months away from him and their two sons, Charles, 12, and Albert, 10, next summer.