Chinese legend has it that 'the big tree will always be a magnet for the winds'. So when the Hong Kong film industry was hit by the double storm of the Asian financial crisis and rampant video piracy, there was no bigger target than the Golden Harvest studio.
Chairman Raymond Chow Ting-hsing, OBE, has come through the storm, perhaps a little ruffled but still steady on his feet. Like his heroes in 1998's swashbuckling production Storm Riders, Chow has fought his way to a brand new day.
The Asian financial upheaval of 1997, and the Hong Kong dollar's peg to the US dollar, cost the company dearly. Until then the region had been the biggest market for Hong Kong films, but suddenly those movies were too expensive for their traditional buyers. The studio's reputation, which took 30 years to build, started to take a battering. Debts mounted as box-office returns tumbled. It was sued by creditors such as Chase Manhattan Bank for 'flouting' the conditions of a $101 million loan when it sold off its library of films, and in turn sued its own debtors to recover much-needed cash. Like other film producers, video piracy robbed Golden Harvest of about 50 per cent of its income. From more than 20 movies a year, production dropped to four in 1999. Seventy staff were axed as the company closed loss-making subsidiaries such as production company Golden Harvest Private Group.
'The studio is going under,' whispered the gossips. To top it all, it lost the tender for a new film studio lot in Tseung Kwan O to a consortium headed by rival studio Shaw Brothers.
But four years on, Golden Harvest has turned itself round and is again among the leaders of the industry in Asia, with an expanding production slate and a burgeoning box office.
'There have been ups and downs,' Chow acknowledges, 'but we're very lucky. We've had more ups than downs.' Never one for the limelight, Chow has always restricted public appearances and interviews to a 'need to do' basis, which means emerging only if there is an announcement to be made. Although this interview appears to signify some relaxation of the rules, Chow still prefers to deflect the spotlight onto the company.
Though the daily running of the business now lies in the hands of his executives - 'The company has a steady course set out, there really isn't that much I need to do' - the dapper 74-year-old is still the Golden Harvest figurehead. That has been especially true since the death of Leonard Ho Kwong-cheong, his business partner since the '60s, in February 1998.