Hong Kong filmmaker Lau Ho-leung was thrilled when he was invited to direct a movie based on real criminal cases that took place on the Chinese mainland in the 1980s.

As with leading directors from the United States such as Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino, Lau finds villains fascinating.

Lau is following in the footsteps of a treasured tradition in Hong Kong cinema - the gangster film genre.

He is drawn to such films by the confrontation between good and evil, which often entails action, suspense and the unraveling of mysteries.

Lau has written film scripts for Hong Kong and Chinese mainland productions for more than 15 years.

He made his directorial debut with the 2015 film Two Thumbs Up, an action comedy about a gang of criminals who dress as policemen to commit a robbery.

The success of Two Thumbs Up caught the attention of Han Sanping, 65, a veteran film producer and former chairman of China Film Group Corp. At the end of 2017, Han offered Lau the chance to direct a true crime film based on criminal cases from the 1980s.

Han presented Lau with numerous criminal case histories. Lau immersed himself in them, read news reports from the time and viewed documentaries that could give him greater insight into the cases.

He chose the most dramatic elements of the cases, from which he formed a storyline.

Three months later, Lau submitted his outline for a cat-and-mouse chase, staged over the course of a decade, as a quick-witted police officer pursued a cunning gang leader in a city in southern China. The outline was quickly approved and Lau continued to work on the film, titled Caught in Time.

The movie, which stars US-born Hong Kong actor Daniel Wu Yin-cho and mainlander Wang Qianyuan will hit the big screen later this year.

Hong Kong filmmakers such as Lau have found a wealth of career opportunities on the mainland for more than a decade. With a huge market and big budgets, adept storytellers from the city have given full play to their skills, enabling them to continue the tradition of Hong Kong cinema.

At the 38th Hong Kong Film Awards last month, Project Gutenberg, a film coproduced by Shanghai Bona Culture & Media Co, Emperor Film Production Co and Shanghai Alibaba Pictures Co, was the big winner, sweeping seven awards including Best Film, Best Director and Best Screenplay.

Released in September, it has earned 1.27 billion yuan ($183,770), according to Chinese box-office tracker Maoyan.

The film, with 17 nominations, became the second most-nominated movie in the history of the awards. Only Bodyguards and Assassins, another Hong Kong-mainland coproduction, had more nominations, with 19 in 2009.

From 2016 to last year, 73 films were coproduced by Hong Kong and mainland filmmakers, contributing 18 percent of the Chinese box-office takings, according to entertainment research company Entgroup.

Among the 73, the action war movie Operation Red Sea, directed by Dante Lam Chiu-yin, earned 3.65 billion yuan last year, surpassing Stephen Chow Sing-chi's 2016 coproduction The Mermaid as the then highest grossing film in Chinese motion picture history.

These success stories demonstrate the quality of Hong Kong filmmakers' work. As the mainland has grown to become the second-largest film market globally, a group of Hong Kong filmmakers is writing a new chapter in the city's cinematic history by using the greater resources available on the mainland.

The Hong Kong way

As a Hong Kong native, Lau had little knowledge of socioeconomic conditions on the mainland in the 1980s, but that did not bother him.

"What we are talking about is human nature, and that is shared by all human beings in different places through different ages," he said.

Lau approached Caught in Time, which is yet to be released, as a costume drama.

He consulted mainland police officers who started their careers in 1980s, asking them to share their experiences. He also turned to other writers and scholars.

Lau feels it is essential to understand how people think through the challenges they face, and this is his formula for telling a good story.

Throughout the filming, he could feel his characters grow. Lau met with his production team and the actors to come up with new twists to the original plot. It was "very Hong Kong-style", he said.

Lau learned his craft from mentors such as director Johnnie To Keifung, screenwriters Yau Nai-hoi and Felix Chong Man-keung - all big names who have created classic Hong Kong crime films since the 1990s, such as The Mission and Infernal Affairs.

Lau described his method of filmmaking as "using the Hong Kong way to tell a story on the mainland".

He moved to Beijing in 2007, where he signed on to write films such as Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon and Painted Skin. Last year, he spent six months in Jiangmen, Guangdong province, producing Caught in Time.

Lau has made the mainland his place of work, like many Hong Kong filmmakers.

Fung Wing, general secretary of the Hong Kong Film Development Council, said most Hong Kong filmmakers have a basic understanding of Chinese history, culture and society.

"As long as they find stories that make them feel connected, they can make good films," he said.

He cited Operation Red Sea, based on the 2015 mission to rescue Chinese citizens in Yemen, as an example, saying that Dante Lam was the perfect choice of director because of his rich experience in helming war and action films in Hong Kong.

In recent years, more Hong Kong filmmakers such as Lam and Lau, who have mastered skills in storytelling and project management, have presented good films with Chinese cultural and political backgrounds, such as Operation Red Sea and Caught in Time.

Fung said this is a win-win situation for the industry. Hong Kong filmmakers can control the quality of such films, and at the same time access more resources and higher budgets to make movies.

Wider reach

Given the limited size of the domestic market, the Hong Kong film industry relies on overseas revenue.

Fung said the city's cinema has a tradition of collaborating with other parts of the world.

He started his career 30 years ago as a producer at Cinema City Enterprises, a major film company in Hong Kong at the time.

Fung said sophisticated local filmmakers sought to widen their reach in the 1980s to Southeast Asian countries and regions such as Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia, and then to Japan and Taiwan.

This enabled Hong Kong films to become established in Chinese communities worldwide, bridging the cultural gap with audiences from other countries.

While working in different parts of the world, Hong Kong filmmakers have continued to improve their production standards, learning from partners in various regions.

The mainland has become a vital market for the city's movies.

Derek Yee Tung-sing, 61, chairman of the Hong Kong Film Awards, has witnessed the transformation in investment on the mainland along with the boom in its film industry over the past decade.

He said many Hong Kong film investors have abandoned Southeast Asia, the US and Europe to embrace the sheer volume of the mainland market.

According to Fung, leading players in the industry have set up studios in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, and other mainland cities to take advantage of the investment available and the low labor costs.

Last month, the State Film Administration announced new measures to support the Hong Kong film industry, under which more performers from the city will be allowed to appear in mainland films. Many other limitations related to mainland plotlines have been lifted.

Hong Kong screenwriter Philip Lui Koon-nam said the measures have helped lift burdens on other screenwriters.

Lui said it was difficult for a mainland actor to play a character growing up in Hong Kong. Under the old rules, plotlines had to be twisted to comply with the regulations and still make sense, he said.

Fung said the new policies will help to promote the film industry both in Hong Kong and the mainland.

They mean more opportunities for Hong Kong filmmakers. The mainland film industry also benefits, as its filmmakers are granted broader choices on plotlines, actors and production staff members, he added.

Initiative launched

"Keep rolling" was the theme for this year's Hong Kong Film Awards. Noting the aging issue confronting the movie talent pool, Yee, the awards chairman, said the industry hopes to nurture new talent.

Hong Kong film producer and screenwriter Manfred Wong Man-Chun, 62, is confident about the city's young filmmakers, saying they possess "special DNA".

Wong was among the first group of Hong Kong filmmakers who went to the mainland to produce movies in the 1990s. He has worked with many young filmmakers from both the city and the mainland.

Wong said young people growing up in Hong Kong are exposed to foreign culture, and the city's distinctive culture and history offer more possibilities for creative story lines.

In 2013, the Hong Kong government launched the First Feature Film Initiative to support new directors and nurture young filmmakers. Yee, Wong and Lau are all mentors in the program.

Under the initiative, young talent with dreams of making films can submit screenplays and production proposals to a competition committee. If their work stands out from that of their peers', the government will provide the production fees to help them make their first films.

The budget provided is lower than the market level, but many teams have managed to complete high-quality films.

One of the movies, Mad World, directed by the first-year winner Wong Chun, was selected in 2017 as the Hong Kong entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 90th Academy Awards.

Another movie, Weeds on Fire, released in 2016 and based on the Shatin Martins, the first baseball team from Hong Kong to win a league championship, earned commercial success and critical acclaim.

Meanwhile, many stars such as Carina Lau Kar-ling and Shawn Yue Man-lok, joined such low-budget productions even though the pay was poor. Sometimes they even worked for free.

Fung, from the Hong Kong Film Development Council, said the actors are not working for the money, but want to help young filmmakers get started and to keep the industry going.