A total of 16 Hong Kong movies will be shown in what can be described as the largest Hong Kong Film Festival ever to be held in Japan.

Announcing this at a press conference in Tokyo today (September 14), Principal Hong Kong Economic and Trade Representative (Tokyo), Miss Cheung Man-yee, said the film festival would enable the Japanese audience to know more about Hong Kong movies, one of the most popular forms of culture in Hong Kong.

"This will in turn help further promote the already increasing trend of cultural exchanges between the two places," she said.

She said that with Hong Kong's unique cultural heritage of blending the best of the East and the West, the local film industry produced world-class masterpieces, brilliant stars and talented directors in the 1980's and 1990's.

Many of these producers and talents have won the acclaim of the international community and have made a remarkable contribution to the film industry worldwide.

"Even Hollywood has come under the Hong Kong spell as a whole generation of filmmakers as well as watchers are charmed by the stylist works from directors such as John Woo, Wong Kar-wai and Jackie Chan, just to name a few," he said.

The Hong Kong Film Festival in Tokyo is being organised as part of the prestigious 13th Tokyo International Film Festival. It will run from October 28 to November 3 this year.

Miss Cheung said she hoped the movies selected for the film festival would help introduce the new generation of Hong Kong film stars to Japan.

Chief Secretary for Administration, Mrs Anson Chan, will attend a reception and officiate at a premiere show at Shibuya's Bunkamura on October 30. The premiere show will feature "In the Mood for Love", which is directed by Wong Kar-wai and starring Tony Leung Chiu-wai who won the Best Actor Award at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival for his role in the movie.

Also present at today's press conference was Hong Kong movie actor Ekin Cheng whose øTokyo RaidersÓ will be shown as the opening film of the film festival on October 28.

The last time a foreign film festival was organised as part of the Tokyo International Film Festival was in 1998 when the British Film Festival was held in Tokyo.