Over 800 people were attracted to the colloquium 'Conversing about Xiao Hong' on 8 October to listen to film director Miss Ann Hui (centre) and Prof. Xu Zidong (left) on writer Xiao Hong (1911–1942) and her life. Although there has been considerable controversy over the physical dissimilarity between the leading actor of The Golden Era and the real-life Xiao Jun, Miss Hui said casting was not so much about physical resemblance as about 'having the eyes of a romance film actor'. Another speaker, Prof. Wong Nim-yan (right), expressed her fondness for the film: 'The best part is not the romance, but the comradeship of the literati and the details of their lives.' Professor Xu gave his penetrating opinion as to what a golden era is: 'When Xiao Hong wrote in Japan that her golden age was spent “in a cage”, she meant it ironically. But when we look back on her life, that period was indeed her golden era. She had had a hard time before that, and even harder afterwards. The time when she was with Lu Xun and writing her Battlefield of Life and Death was her best days, but she didn't know.' Professor Xu went on to address the audience: Perhaps in 20 years when we look back on how we gathered today to talk about Xiao Hong, films and literature, we would realize that this was Hong Kong's golden era.