Veteran American filmmaker Sue Williams should be applauded for this fascinating documentary which will introduce the remarkable gay Chinese/Canadian performer and activist Denise Ho to the rest of the world. Ho maybe bigger than Madonna in Hong Kong and China but she is still sadly little known outside of Chinese communities.
Now 41 years old, Ho was born in HK but grew up in Montreal when her family moved there in 1988 when she was just 11 years old. With ambitions to be a performer Ho returned to HK in 1996 to enter a singing contest, which to her surprise she won. It kick-started her career into what would eventually make her the most successful cantopop singer of her generation.
After the competition she managed to become a protege of the legendary Anita Mui, an old-school canto-pop diva and the queen of Hong Kong movies. Ho worked with other HK musicians but it was her working relationship with Mui that helped create her music and define her style, When sadly Mui died of cancer in 2003, Ho assumed her mantle.
Although being a disciple of the whole canto-pop genre Ho started to create her own music that reflected her own slant on life, and became the means to eventually come out of the closet as gay. Ho used her sexuality to not just define who she was but as a reason to become active in both the LGBT struggle, and the fight that everyone in HK would be part of when China insisted on taking away part of their democracy.
When Margaret Thatcher as British PM negotiated the handover for Hong Kong back into China’s ‘ownership’ in 1985, very few people believed that the Chinese would honor their part of the Agreement for HK to remain self-governed. They were very quickly proved right.
in 2014 when the Chinese Government were trying to impose their own nominees to run HK, almost the entire population turned out in the streets in what became known as the Umbrella Movement. They shocked everyone by occupying the streets in makeshift tents for almost 90 days.
Ho was a staunch supporter of the movement, and was later arrested when the police cleared the protest camps. She was too high profile a figure for the Chinese Government to make her mysteriously ‘disappear’ like so many other activists. However, they did the next best thing by blacklisting her and banning her from performing in China, which literally cut off the bulk of her income overnight.
Ho’s International sponsors such as Lancome were quick to drop her to safeguard their business in China. So when she came to mount her next big stadium concert in 2016 in HK , 300 small businesses collectively stepped into Lancome’s shoes. The concert was a big success but afterwards Ho was banned from renting any other venues in HK because of pressure from the Chinese Government.
The disarmingly charming Ho is completely fearless despite the fact that her public stances place her in a great deal of danger. She is adamant about showing her support as publicly as possible, but still insisting on no favourable treatment when being arrested. Her attitude and her genuine commitment really sets her apart from other ‘pop’ celebrities who just seem to endorse the ’cause of the day” .
In 2019, Ho became an active speaker in international human rights forums. She participated in Oslo Freedom Forum, a global platform for human rights defenders to share their stories. When Hong Kong’s proposed Bill to allow Extradition To China arose, Ho got worldwide media coverage due to her active participation in the anti-bill movement.
Then on 8 July, she attended the United Nations Human Rights Council‘s meeting in Geneva. She asked the United Nations and the international community to protect the people of Hong Kong from infringements on their freedoms, saying that human rights were under “serious attack” in Hong Kong, and called on the UN to remove China from the Human Rights Council.
If there is one fault in William’s film it is the lack on any information on Ho’s personal life. It would have been nice to know if the woman who spends most of her time making the world a better place for everyone, actually had someone at hime to do the same for her.
The documentary is being released to mark the 23rd Anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong, and is being streamed globally on Kino Lorber’s Virtual Cinema online from July 1st
