THE PAST YEAR should have made Derek Yee Tung-shing a very happy man. Using his own money, he made two movies that raked in more than $10 million each - one of which, 2 Young, was recently shown in art house cinemas across Britain. Yee was also the big winner at this year's local film awards, bringing home best director and best screenplay gongs for last year's One Nite in Mongkok.
His view of 2005, however, is surprisingly downbeat. What concerns the filmmaker is not his own success, but the recession that's undermining the local film industry.
'My pessimistic streak has grown in the past year,' says Yee. 'In 2005 we were all trawling depths. I'm not trying to sound like a doomsayer, but things don't bode well for people in our trade - it will be tough in the Lunar New Year.'
Yee doesn't need a crystal ball to support this. According to figures released by the Hong Kong, Kowloon and New Territories Motion Picture Industry Association (MPIA) last week, the number of local films hitting the screen last year is at an all-time low: not counting Jeff Lau Chun-wai's A Chinese Tall Story and Alan Mak Siu-fai's Moonlight in Tokyo - both of which opened after the statistics were tallied - only 55 Hong Kong-produced films were screened here this year. It's a further dip from last year's 64, and a drastic fall compared to the 1980s, when audiences could expect an average of 200 to 300 new local films every year.
Not that those 'golden days' should be taken as a sign of the film industry's rude health - those who have witnessed the glut of third-rate movies filling cinemas in the 80s know how volume didn't always translate into quality. The sharp decrease in the number of films being made, however, threatens to drive away a new generation of directors, screenwriters and art designers.
'If there aren't enough projects floating about - which means bankable practitioners getting all the jobs - how are we going to train the up-and-coming youngsters? Who's going to take up our mantle when we retire?' Yee says. There are fears among stalwarts that the local film industry will see a brain drain in the next few years, with established but underworked crew members moving to the mainland to seek new opportunities.