Hello, my name's Justin the Clued. I'm here today with Will Sloan, and you're listening to

the Important Cinema Club. And today, we're talking about smooth, creamy Milky Way Image.

Milky Way Image is a Hong Kong film production and distribution company that is, I guess, since the 1997

handover, the reunification of Hong Kong and mainland China that marked the end of the

golden age of Hong Kong cinema, has been the sort of artistic standard bearer of popular

Hong Kong film. Would that be fair to say? I absolutely agree with you.

And I think that if anybody is even a little bit curious about Hong Kong cinema and has

seen any movie post-97 from there, they've probably seen the Milky Way image logo because

it's a company that was co-founded by Johnny Toe.

So in the late 90s, a perfect storm of conditions led to the decline of Hong Kong's film industry.

An economic recession in Asia, rampant piracy, heavy competition from American blockbusters, like Jurassic Park, for example.

Also, a lack of new young talent to make up for all of the aging star actors and directors

who, many of whom were relocating to Hollywood.

What are you talking about?

Ekin Chen was still around the twins.

Edison Chen.

Oh, well, we don't talk about him.

People look that up if you want to know the controversy behind Edison Chen.

There was, of course, also a huge sense of anxiety surrounding the 1997 reunification of

Hong Kong and the mainland.

Some Hong Kong companies during this period sought to chase audiences with bigger spectacle

and ballooning budgets.

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