Hong Kong director Fruit Chan lashed out at mainland censors during the Shanghai Film Festival, claiming their "unreasonable interference" is ruining Hong Kong's reputation as a vibrant movie hub.

Chan, who is in Shanghai to promote his latest co-directed work, "Chengdu, I Love You", said the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) is dictating what topics Hong Kong directors can tackle.

"In a dozen years, there might not be any more Hong Kong signature films,” he warned during an exclusive interview with Global Times.

He blamed the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA), the 2003 free-trade agreement between the Special Administrative Region and the mainland.

He said Hong Kong films could only be imported to the mainland via CEPA, which are then approved by SARFT, which demand conservative plots and characters.

"Two of the most featured and successful film types that have made Hong Kong movies world famous are gangster and horror films,” he said.

"But SARFT dictates that every gangster film has to have a bright ending where mobsters confess to their crime and become good people, which is just nonsense,” he said.

Horror films are "completely out of the question.”

And though Hong Kong directors were traveling to the mainland to make blockbusters with "a big budget and lots of actions”, they did so by making "lots of compromises.”

"They are not making the kind of films that Hong Kong was famous for,” he said.

"It would be fatal for Hong Kong directors who are watering-down their topics to fall into line with SARFT’s tight grip on themes and topics,” he said.

In order to compete and make commercially viable films, Hong Kong directors are forced to comply with CEPA and SARFT in order to survive commercially and reach the 1.3 billion mainland audience that dwarfs Hong Kong’s seven million population, he said.

"It is inevitable that Hong Kong directors will have to work in a cooperated and more restrained way (to survive),” said Chan.

But SARFT’s priggish rules meant traditional gritty Hong Kong films were being doused before making it off the drawing board, and small budget art house films would suffer most as sanitized blockbusters, made to satisfy the mainland censors and cash-in on the mainland audience, become the norm.

Though the Chinese film industry was blooming, he suggested government officials from both sides look to the US for a compromise.

"Hong Kong and Beijing could be like New York and Los Angeles, one focusing on art-house productions while the other making blockbuster movies,” he said.

However, he claimed the Hong Kong film industry was "half dead already,” and sticking to small budget, social-realism topics would not help the industry.

The success of Ann Hui’s The Way We Were in 2008, proved this, he said. It won four major awards including best director and best leading actress in Hong Kong Film Awards, and was a huge encouragement to Hong Kong art-house directors.

"But the film was a disaster at the box office,” said Chan.

A scene from "Chengdu, I Love You"

He admitted that "Chengdu, I Love You", a film shot in three parts and co-directed with legendary rocker Cui Jian and "April Snow" Korean director Jin-ho Hur, was designed to be successfully commercial with donations going to victims of the May 2008 earthquake which shook southwest China and the city.

"After finishing the film, I cannot help but think that going completely commercial is necessary,” he said.

Big-budget movies offered better directing conditions, and with access to bigger audiences, which he found increasingly attractive, he said.

"As a director, the ultimate satisfaction is being recognized by the audience, even if this means compromising to suit the mass market,” he admitted.

Chan said he still wanted to make horror films, but the authorities would never approve the topic. Moreover, "investors no longer like a film that can only be screened in Hong Kong,” he said.

And though the five years since CEPA was introduced has witnessed an erosion in values, long term partnership might be a good thing for the Chinese film industry so long as there was improved communication between Hong Kong and mainland filmmakers, Chan said.

"I suppose the trend has to be for the Hong Kong film industry to embrace the Chinese mainland. We just need to better understand, and adjust, to each other’s needs,” he said.

(Global Times June 19, 2009)