Along with better screenplays, they resulted in lucrative box office revenues, which in turn has seen investor confidence return, said Peter Tsi, director of the Hong Kong International Film Festival, the 2004 edition of which opens Tuesday.
"Instead of them watching DVDs, VCDs and videos, Hong Kong audiences are being lured back to the cinema and investors are more willing to invest," he said.
One of the most successful films of late was Infernal Affairs. The first movie in the three-part series grossed HK$55 million (US$7 million) in 2002, while the two sequels grossed similar sums.
Further, the rights to the film were recently snapped up by Warner Brothers for US$1.75 million and a production company owned by Hollywood heartthrob Brad Pitt and his wife Jennifer Aniston is planning an adaptation.
But while CEPA will undoubtedly offer financial benefits, the Hong Kong film festival's Tsi warns that it may also force the industry to compromise its creative integrity.
To be screened on the mainland, Hong Kong films have to pass stringent censors and the Chinese government will have the right to remove sections they deem offensive or "politically incorrect," he said.
Taboo subjects such as supernatural or superstitious beliefs, explicit sex scenes, politics and homosexual love stories are hard to get past the censors.
Infernal Affairs -- co-produced with a state-owned studio -- was shot with two different endings. In Hong Kong, the bad guy gets away with murders under the nose of the befuddled police. In the mainland version, the bad guy's cover is blown and is promptly arrested.
"That's the drawback. When you want to gain one thing, something else's got to be sacrificed," Tsi said.
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