Film rebates can revive Hong Kong’s movie industry and boost the economy

With big productions increasingly filming only where rebates and subsidies are offered – such as Vancouver, Atlanta and London – Hong Kong is missing out on the action, when its once-proud movie industry and battered economy could do with a boost

Byron Mann

Published: 9:00am, 2 Mar 2020

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In the autumn of 2017, I co-starred with Dwayne Johnson (of The Rock fame) in the Universal Pictures film Skyscraper . The story was set entirely in Hong Kong with a production period spanning eight months, including four months of principal photography. When I signed on, I was told we would do two weeks of principal photography in Hong Kong, and the rest in Vancouver, Canada. As we got closer, the two weeks became one week, then one week became none at all.

A US$150 million Hollywood summer blockbuster film set in Hong Kong ended up shooting entirely in Vancouver. The reason? Vancouver has a film rebate of roughly 40 per cent of all local expenditure, whereas Hong Kong offers none.

On January 9, director of the central government’s liaison office Luo Huining set forth four tasks for the Hong Kong government, one of which was to further improve the economy and people’s livelihoods. In February last year, the central government unveiled its vision for the Greater Bay Area. The creative industry is a key pillar in the promotion of the Greater Bay Area – and that, of course, includes the film industry.

During the Hong Kong film industry’s heyday from the 1980s to the early 1990s, it was making up to 400 films a year. Last year, it made 57 films.

The multifaceted factors include stricter content control on mainland China and less available financing for films, but the glaring reason is simply that Hong Kong offers no film rebate or subsidy. In today’s filmmaking landscape, a day that goes by that a location does not offer a film rebate or subsidy is a day more in which that location is not considered for filming.

Simply put, film rebates or subsidies return a percentage of what a film, television, animation, commercial or documentary production spends in the location that it chooses to shoot in.

Today, Hollywood productions will only consider shooting where film rebates or subsidies are offered. Locations such as Vancouver, Toronto, Atlanta and London provide stable film rebates and, as a result, are the busiest film hubs in the world. Local governments understand that foreign productions with big budgets create jobs and inject massive amounts of cash into their local economy whenever they shoot in their cities.

To be clear, any film rebates introduced in Hong Kong will benefit local productions too. In fact, local productions featuring local creative talent will probably get additional rebates over and above foreign productions. This way, film rebates will not only create jobs for crews based in Hong Kong, but also spur increased activity within the local film industry. It would be a win-win situation for everyone.

Studies have shown that wherever film rebates are implemented, the economic multiplier effect in that region ranges from 12 to 20 times, significantly increasing in the region’s gross domestic product and its retail, tourism and job creation. Australia, which introduced film rebates in 2007, has an industry that added A$3 billion (US$2 billion) to the local economy for the 2014/2015 year, and created more than 25,000 full-time jobs, according to a report commissioned by Screen Australia.

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Most neighbouring Asian countries now offer some form of film rebate, and up to 40 per cent in some instances. For example, Thailand introduced film rebates in 2017; last year, at least 462 foreign productions were shot in the country, injecting around US$117 million into the local economy.

In Taiwan, film subsidies were introduced about 10 years ago. Since then, 5,000 film and TV shows have been shot in the country, including 750 international projects. These include Ang Li’s Life of Pi, Martin Scorsese’s Silence, and Luc Besson’s Lucy. In Malaysia, film rebates were introduced in 2013. Since then, it has attracted major Hollywood productions such as Crazy Rich Asians, Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, and Netflix’s Marco Polo to name a few.

Once film rebates are implemented, Hong Kong is poised to resume its position as a filming hub in Asia. With its rich filmmaking history, Hong Kong has clear advantages: skilled and bilingual film crews, an abundance of post-production facilities, a wide variety of filming locales which include a modern cityscape, tropical rainforests, picturesque beaches and islands, freedom in filmable subjects, intellectual property protection afforded by its legal system, and first-class transport.

To be clear, this is not a government handout or a bailout. This is an opportunity for the Hong Kong government to put into motion a proven policy that will attract a steady stream of foreign productions with massive budgets to shoot in Hong Kong, which translates immediately to significant cash injections into the local economy, creating jobs for locals, revitalising the hotel, food and beverage, and tourism industries, sustaining and developing the local film industry, and, perhaps most pertinent of all, rehabilitating Hong Kong’s international image.

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Imagine if, instead of shooting in Australia or Atlanta, the next series of Marvel movies are shot in Hong Kong – how big a boost that would be for our city.

With the recent virus outbreak and social unrest, Hong Kong’s economy has ground to a halt. This is an opportunity for the Hong Kong government to get things back on track and create jobs for its people immediately, not to mention the opportunity to reestablish Hong Kong as the filmmaking capital of Asia. All that needs to happen is for the Hong Kong government to say yes. The time to act is now.

Born and bred in Hong Kong, Byron Mann has starred in close to 70 feature films and television series in Hollywood, Hong Kong and mainland China

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