For Amanda and Alexandre Mille, the brand their father built is a meeting point for their meandering personal journeys – and now they embark on a new adventure, hand in hand.

There are heirs apparent. Then there are Amanda and Alexandre Mille. The eldest and third of Richard Mille’s children, respectively, the siblings have lived a life far from the world of luxury. They never saw the powerhouse their father built as a place where they would someday belong. “We grew up very separate from this side of our father’s world. In fact, I was oblivious to the significance of the brand before I started working in the company,” recalls Alexandre, who wore G-Shocks and Flik Flak watches in his youth. The watchmaking company was simply Dad’s “secret garden”, in Amanda’s words. “He never spoke about it while we were spending time together.”

“We were lucky,” says Amanda. She has seen how the burden of legacy weighs on others. “The brand was never waiting for us, and we weren’t waiting for the brand. Our involvement just happened naturally.” In the first instance, Amanda was carving out her own career in various areas of the hospitality trade by the time her father founded the company in 2001. Despite being the eldest, joining – let alone leading – the company never crossed her mind. Alexandre, who holds a degree in law and political science, went to film school, inspired by the films of Stanley Kubrick to specialise in directing.

Their separate journeys leading towards the management of their father’s eponymous company – with Amanda as the brand and partnerships director, and Alexandre as the brand director – are not directed by a lust for power or wealth. “We were encouraged to live our own lives, discover more about ourselves, and find out what we want in life – what makes us happy,” shares Alexandre. And it is precisely this pursuit of happiness that brought them, albeit in a roundabout way, to their father’s company.

Come As You Are

With a ready and radiant smile, her most eye-catching accessory, Amanda exudes reassuring warmth and a magic ability to make all problems dissipate over a dish fresh from the oven. Indeed, care and nurture are roles this mother of four plays in her private life, including at family gatherings, where she is often to be found cooking and feeding everybody. But the family she manages professionally extends far beyond those with whom she shares a surname.

Amanda handles the company’s growing network of over 80 partners, spanning trailblazers in sports to Hollywood royalty. The relationships also go beyond merely transactional: she talks to each member of this extended family directly and personally. She knows their spouses and their children. “I love to be around people and look out for them – though it’s by no means easy! But it’s these one-to-one relationships, and this human part of our business that I am the happiest to be involved in.”

A career in hospitality and services has given her a deep insight into the power of human connection. Thus, in 2014, when her father approached her about helping to engage female consumers in the Middle East, the role made sense. “I realised that there was something I could bring to the brand and that I was not joining the company simply because of my family name – something we never wanted.” In fact, Amanda and Alexandre continue to introduce themselves by their first names only, even in work situations.

After growing the women’s share of the Middle East market from 4 per cent to 30 per cent during the three years she was based in Dubai, Amanda returned to Paris in 2018 to manage the brand’s growing network of partners, alongside initiatives such as the creation, in 2020, of the first 100 per cent female motorsport team in the LMP2 category to compete the World Endurance Championship. Currently, she is on a mission to take the Rallye des Princesses Richard Mille, an all-women open-road race of collector cars, out of France and into the world, with the first US edition of the event coming in 2024.

Like his eldest sister, Alexandre’s road towards the Richard Mille brand was a winding path guided by passion and chance. The director was working at a production company that created 3D videos broadcast during a Swiss watch fair formerly known as the Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie (SIHH). Then, in 2013, his father tapped his expertise to create a video division for the brand, designing and directing tutorials to help sales staff understand the complexity of the watch mechanisms, and filming brand partners such as the McLaren F1 team and polo player Pablo Mac Donough.

Drawn deeper into the world of haute horology by the technical complexities and artistry of the craft, which appealed to both his creative side and analytical nature, Alexandre went on to join the brand’s business partner, John Simonian, in charge of the Americas. There, his experiences ran the gamut from internal and external relationship building to inventory management, distribution and training. In 2018, he began overseeing management and sales at the brand’s head office. Since 2023, he has been based in Switzerland and manages commercial operations from the Richard Mille manufacture in Les Breuleux.

If Amanda is fire with her unreserved radiance, Alexandre is water with his duality and quiet power. This duality also translates to a versatility that he applies to his work. He has a deep interest in the arts, yet he is also the numbers person in the company. “I always loved the arts – and I love analysis. In fact, I am always over-analysing everything, from paintings to firms to shapes and forms,” he shares. “Then my dad told me that the thing with numbers is that they all tell a story. With that perspective, I am able to analyse them and see the flow behind the data, and the solutions that they can lead to.”

“I always loved the arts – and I love analysing it. In fact, I am always over analysing everything, from paintings to firms to shapes and forms.” – Alexandre Mille

There is an enigmatic element to his brilliance, especially his myriad inspirations and ideas. For him, the uber-minimalist, the ultra-thin 1.75mm RM UP-01 produced in collaboration with Ferrari is the most significant model to date. It wasn’t just because the piece held the world in awe for its technical breakthroughs, but that it “surprised everybody who thought it was going to be a chronograph with a tonneau shape.”

The Talisman Origine created for the Only Watch charity auction also deserves mention here. It’s a neck-worn tourbillon watch with ancient tribal aesthetics, accompanied by a fantastical meta-story of a shaman relic discovered in Switzerland’s Jura Mountains. The teams wove an entire universe out of pure imagination, one that yielded a material object, adding to the sum of existence. “Just as an artist pours himself into his work, the watches my father brought forth were a product of his mind: all his sources of inspiration, how he digests and interprets them, and how he translates them into the timepieces. They are everything that he is,” observes Alexandre. Given how he injects every bit of his multifaceted self into the latest Richard Mille projects, it appears that some things just run in the family.

Sibling Revelry

Certainly, Richard Mille remains a family-owned business. Apart from the duo, Alexandre’s older brother Dimitri managed and developed the company’s brand identity for many years until 2020, while another sibling, Guillaume, has spent almost a decade at the company and now works on its brand videos. Turning to Richard Mille’s longstanding associate, Dominique Guenat, he, too, has his family to succeed him. His daughter Cécile heads up creation and development and his son Maxime serves as a general director. Both are based at the manufacture in Les Breuleux.

Since the initial release of the RM 001 Tourbillon in 2001, the creations from the Swiss factory in Les Breuleux have been hailed as nothing short of revolutionary. From their modernist aesthetics to the radical technologies and innovative use of avant-garde materials, each uncompromising release is a rebellious disruptor with a seismic effect on the horological universe.

The ripples of this deep impact reach even further due to the extraordinary figures who wear these pieces. Engineered for extreme performance and supreme lightness, Richard Mille is the first brand to be worn by elite athletes in action. Think Formula 1 race driver Felipe Massa, a brand partner since 2006, and legendary tennis pro Rafael Nadal, brand partner since 2010. Nadal is a person with countless rituals and cautious of anything that might mar his performance on the court – that is, until he encountered the featherlight RM 027 Tourbillon.

The wristwatches’ association with grit and greatness gives them an epic quality that resonates with an even wider audience, from the multi-discipline artist Pharrell Williams to best actress Oscar-winner Michelle Yeoh. Beyond their cultural significance: the 5,300 units produced annually, an increase of 5 per cent per year, generate estimated annual revenues of 1.3 billion Swiss francs (S$1.95 billion) according to Morgan Stanley’s latest annual report on the Swiss watch industry.

This makes the 23-year-old company the sixth-largest luxury watchmaker in the world, just after centuries-old Patek Philippe. Says Amanda about her relationship with her brother, “Our superpower is that not only do we know and trust in each other’s skills, we think about the same things, at the same time. It’s been that way forever.”

Working under the patriarch’s wings for close to a decade is what has fully aligned their vision. Perhaps, as their father’s children, the family values they have inherited are strong enough to steer the duo towards unanimous decisions without, by their own admission, ever getting into an argument. Perhaps they are old souls who have known each other for countless lifetimes. Perhaps their shared commitment to upholding a legacy of innovation and daring has attuned them to the same frequency.

“Our superpower is that not only do we know and trust in each other’s skills, we think about the same things, at the same time. It’s been that way forever.” – Amanda Mille

“It is easy to make decisions when you have a good overview of every aspect of the business, from marketing to finance to events and social media” explains Alexandre.

The privilege of steering the company alongside family who share similar experiences, values and vision further allows Alexandre and Amanda to keep the brand nimble and in a class of its own. “Keeping it in the families allows us to make decisions fast and be adaptable. That is the superpower of the brand,” says Alexandre.

Family Trust

To clarify, family is each and every person involved in making Richard Mille what it is today. “My father has always trusted his intuition with people, and we surround ourselves with genuine people and trust in them,” shares Alexandre. Their partners do not have contracts that dictate when, where, and how often they need to show up with their watch. “We’re not satisfied just checking boxes with assistants, managers and lawyers – the actual person has to be a good fit,” Amanda confesses. More than exposure, Richard Mille seeks a connection that lasts beyond contractual clauses.

“It is not easy to find somebody who is genuine, who has no ego, and is as passionate as we are. It is not about who is trendy. In fact, we are there for our partners throughout the ups and downs of their careers, and that makes us stronger as a family with a real, honest and beautiful relationship.”

For this extended family, they have even built a new home in Singapore: St. Martin. Opened in October 2023 in a location that sits between the prime lifestyle belt of Orchard Road and the exclusive Nassim Road residential enclave, it is the first such Richard Mille concept in the world. Just as a home tells the story of one’s life and identity, the 700sqm venue, with interconnected spaces as diverse as a hidden library and a sports bar, is an invitation to deep-dive into the world of Richard Mille.

Behind the high-end design – some 30 specialists and artisans worked on the spaces, while French visual artist William Amor provided the sculptural work of an olive tree – the inspiration for St. Martin came from the humble kitchen. “Our Paris office has an amazing kitchen, and that’s where we spend most of our time, with a cup of tea or over a good meal,” shares Amanda. “The same is true of our own house, coming from a big family. And it occurred to us that a communal place like this is where people can create new worlds among themselves.”

Thus, the true heart of St. Martin is perhaps not the impressive open crafting space, where the art of watchmaking is on display thanks to the brand’s four Singapore-based watchmakers. Rather, it is the sports bar. “This was Dad’s idea,” shares Alexandre. “To have a cosy place like a traditional sports bar, where you can watch a race or a competition on TV while eating a burger and fries in comfortable clothes. A place where you have a good time around shared passions.”

“To have a cosy place like a traditional sports bar, where you can watch a race or a competition on TV while eating a burger and fries in comfortable clothes. A place where you have a good time around shared passions.” – Alexandre Mille on Richard Mille St. Martin

This grounded people-focus has been at the heart of business right from the beginning, with Richard “taking it to the extreme”. He remains absolutely faithful to those who helped him at the very beginning, and all those who are somehow characters in this unfolding story, Alexandre reveals. “In everything he did, my father behaved as a dad would for his family. He never took his business decisions from reading marketing books. He did it with his heart, trusting in the people who believed in us 23 years ago when we were this crazy project – and who still trust and follow us today.”

So, it is with their hearts that the siblings are guiding the company into the future. “The pressure of legacy is largely on those who isolate themselves, worrying about who is going to back-stab them,” says Alexandre sagely. Far from hoarding responsibility, he and Amanda are proud to share the burden of carrying the brand forward with the 650 shoulders working in the company – people who would go through fire and water for them, people they trust to keep them humble, just like family.

Fashion Direction: JOHNNY KHOO
Art Direction: AUDREY CHAN
Photography: WEE KHIM
Fashion Styling: JACQUIE ANG
Hair: RICK YANG/ARTISTRY STUDIOS, using KMS HAIR
Make-Up: KEITH BRYANT LEE, using CLÉ DE PEAU BEAUTE
Photography Assistance: IVAN TEO
Fashion Assistance: SIT SHI JIE

For more Richard Mille stories, click here.

The post Amanda and Alexandre Mille: The Heirs of Richard Mille Embark on a New Adventure appeared first on Prestige Online - HongKong.

From teammates to now business partners, Olympic swimmers Stephanie Au and Camille Cheng open up – with no holds barred – about their struggles with mental health and how they want to give back beyond the swimming pool. 

Photography and Creative Direction Ricky Lo    
Styling Bhisan Rai
Hair Jean T
Make-up Jovy Chai 
Photography Assistants Kelvin Sim, Jason Li and Chung Sun
Styling Assistant Serene Cheung

The stars really aligned for us to bring together Stephanie Au and Camille Cheng for our cover shoot. Between intense training schedules and physiotherapy appointments, and with flights to catch and charity swims to prepare for, by a miracle we whisked Au and Cheng off to a remote beach location one sunny, breezy afternoon to photograph them. The next time we chat, it’s over a video call, as Cheng dials in from an altitude camp out in Arizona.

Earlier in the week, she’d just completed a 45km relay marathon swim with Splash Foundation around Hong Kong Island, which raised more than HK$3 million to benefit the charity’s free learn-to-swim programme. It was Cheng’s second round-Hong Kong relay, as she’s supported Splash since 2018. At that time, she was completing her master’s degree at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, finishing her thesis and looking into the psychological benefits of learning how to swim, while Splash Foundation co-founder Simon Holliday was running a programme teaching domestic helpers how to swim for free. 

“I got in touch with Simon,” Cheng says, “and as part of my research I went to Splash classes and got to see the power of swimming, the community they built and the joy in all their faces. These women, mostly Filipino in their forties and fifties, had all grown up surrounded by water but never had the opportunity to learn how to swim. I saw them overcoming their anxiety of swimming and being able to swim a lap at the end of the programme, and to see what that meant to them.”

It was also a time when Cheng was struggling with her sport, and it reminded her that swimming was so much more than just rankings and times. We’re often led to believe that to become a full-time athlete, you have to really, really love the sport to devote your life to it. But like anything else in life, it’s never just about love. Au chips in: “People always ask me questions like, do you really love swimming? And it’s always a tough question to answer. Because it’s a love-hate relationship. Swimming has brought me so many great memories, it’s brought me so many life experiences and opportunities, and I’ve made friends for life because of it. But it’s also brought me a lot of traumatic moments. It’s a whole package.”

Both Cheng and Au began training as children. Cheng had fallen in love with the water, and when she moved to Beijing at the age of nine her school’s swimming coach, a Greek Olympian, saw her potential and started training her to swim competitively. Au has a funny story about how she first got into swimming. Her father had apparently joked that if she and her mother fell into the sea one day, he’d save her mum first. “I remember that because I was so offended,” Au says, laughing. “He said my mother was the love of his life. He meant it as a joke, but still!” But after she began, there was no turning back. Even before she qualified for her first Olympics in 2008, Au was already one of Hong Kong’s rising star swimmers with multiple local records under her belt.

Over the years, Au and Cheng’s paths crossed many times. Au waslso born and raised in Hong Kong, attending a local high school. A year younger, Cheng was also born in Hong Kong, the eldest of three daughters to a Taiwanese father and a French mother, before her family moved to Beijing. Both often took part in the same races when growing up, and both were accepted by the University of California, Berkeley, where they swam in the same team.

But they didn’t become friends until after graduation. In fact, Au says that before college, all she knew about Cheng was that she was a strong swimmer who wore a choker even during races.

“We had this mentorship programme on the team at Cal and our coach paired us up because we were both from Hong Kong and I was a year above Camille,” says Au.

“We were good teammates,” says Cheng. “All the international student athletes hung out together, but we didn’t become close until after we’d both moved back to Hong Kong and begun our professional careers as athletes.”

In fact, what neither fully appreciated during their college years was the struggles each was going through and the difficulties they faced in adapting to new school and living environments.

“My biggest struggle was the cultural shock,” says Au. “I didn’t even know this term before I went to Berkeley and I experienced it really badly. I guess I’d never spent significant time outside of Hong Kong. I had no relatives and no friends, and I had to speak English all the time. Everything was new. It was really difficult for me and I felt I didn’t have the skill set to define who I was. I felt I had to find this new Stephanie to present to people and I was just scrambling to survive going to school, going to practice, eat, sleep and repeat.”

“When I showed up as a freshman in 2011,” Cheng recalls about joining the UC Berkeley team, “I didn’t really understand what I was getting myself into because I’d never trained with so many people who wanted to achieve such high goals.” Seeing her competition – teammates who’d already gone to multiple Olympics and won medals – left her with an imposter syndrome. “In my first year, I definitely struggled with being homesick,” she says. “Eventually I had a big mindset shift. If I had this opportunity to learn from the best, then why not take this opportunity to see how good I can be?”

In her final year, Cheng became joint captain on the team, but before graduating with a degree in psychology, she made the pivotal decision to take a year off, focus on swimming and give herself the chance of making it on to the Olympics team. In December 2015, she made the Olympic A time in 200-metre freestyle and the next year took part in the Games in Rio de Janeiro.

But their experiences at Cal and the professional careers they since embarked have forged a lifelong bond. From teammates to friends and now business partners, as they start up a mental health platform called Mind the Waves, Au and Cheng are like family. So who’s the big sister in their relationship? I ask.

“Camille,” Au says immediately. “I’m a struggle bus and I need help all the time. Camille is so capable and so hands-on when it comes to work. As teammates in swimming, we’re equals. Swimming is such an individual sport, so I do my own thing and she does her own thing and we respect each other. But since we started Mind the Waves half a year ago, it’s been such a different experience between us and I’m so thankful to be doing this together with Camille and I’m learning so many life skills from her. So, she’s my big sister.”

Laughing, Cheng cuts in. “That’s funny because I’d say Stephanie is the big sister. When I decided to move back to Hong Kong in 2016, my family was no longer living in Hong Kong. I remember Stephanie would always message me and ask if I wanted to hang out. She’s always saying, ‘Oh, it’s so hard that you’re here without your family.’ So I felt like, even though we didn’t see each other every day, I knew I could always count on her. It’s interesting because it probably comes from her experience of being in culture shock and homesick, so she was able to empathise with people going through the same thing. She definitely helped me when I first moved back.”

We always look up to athletes as being stronger, faster, and fitter. But while this may be true on the surface, what Au and Cheng demonstrate is that there’s so much going on behind the scenes that the world doesn’t see. “One big thing about athletes is that they have to be very positive,” says Au. “And that’s simply not true, because if you’ve never had any negativity and you’ve never experienced the hard times, then how do you know how to be positive? I feel like it’s because of all the bad times that I’ve been through, and all the experiences that I’ve had that gave me hope and taught me about positivity. It’s a big lesson to learn and it takes time.”

For Cheng, another big misconception is that athletes were just that – athletes. “There’s a lot of pressure to be positive and strong,” she says. “Sometimes I think people forget that athletes are also human. We have other things in our life that can be stressful and give us anxiety, which aren’t related to our sport.”

Cheng has dealt with her fair share of anxiety, and being confident about who she is and what she’s achieved is still, in her words, “a work in progress”. She’s also her own biggest critic. “I have to work on being kinder to myself,” she confesses. “Growing up, I wanted to prove myself and a big part of that was also to get my dad’s approval. He pushed me a lot to help me excel, with swimming and holding me to a high academic standard. Even when I got to go to the Olympics I didn’t have a lot of self-love or appreciation of myself.

“I remember doing this exercise in therapy about meeting this two-time Olympian who went to a great university and got her master’s and was doing all these things. It was really hard for me to be like, ‘Well yes, she’s pretty cool’,” says Cheng with a sheepish smile. “It’s so easy for me to be a cheerleader for other people. But when it comes to myself, I have a hard time.”

As for Au, she’s Hong Kong’s only four-time Olympian and is working towards number five at next year’s 2024 Paris Olympics. Her struggles pertain to her identity and her capabilities beyond the swimming pool. She says she still argues with her therapist over this, who constantly reminds her she’s good at other things besides swimming. “I think if I don’t swim well then people won’t like me or think I’m not worthy,” Au says. “But my therapist reminds me that it’s not about how fast I swim. Besides, one race at one point of time doesn’t paint the full picture either.”

Au has had to endure her fair share of online criticism over the years, which feeds her insecurities. “Critics,” she says, quietly. “I was quite affected when I first tried to do things outside of what we think athletes typically do. I got criticised so much. I could choose not to look at all the comments, but I did, and it’s hard to read how negative they were. A lot of them were saying the same thing. ‘Oh, you’re so ugly,’ or, ‘Why are you doing this? You’re too buff,’ even though I was really skinny at that time. They’d tell me to go back to the pool. Times have changed now but it was so tough at that time.”

Hardly anyone could be braver than Au then, who despite the backlash, continued to model, appear in ad campaigns and generally do things she enjoyed. “It still hurt me,” she says. “But it felt very surreal and I felt a bit numb towards it. It wasn’t going to stop me from doing what I wanted to do.”

Crying has helped. “My coach back in college once told me that crying is a sign of vulnerability and vulnerability is power,” Au reveals. “So I used to just cry it all out and let it go. When I’ve cried everything out, I get a bit of energy from doing that and I can go on believing in myself and to do what serves me.”

And today, that includes being one of Hong Kong’s longest-serving professional swimmers, an Olympian and a fashion model, as well as a mental-health advocate. Alongside Cheng and fellow Tokyo Olympic swimmer Jamie Yeung, Au launched Mind the Waves six months ago, to openly talk about their struggles and advocate mental wellbeing not just for athletes, but young people. And women. And anyone who has a hard time dealing with expectations and comparisons.

“I used to be made fun of for my shoulders; people would call me the Hulk,” says Cheng. “And when you’re young, that’s not really something you take well. But now I’m like, well, these are the shoulders that got me to the Olympics and I’m actually proud of that. Whether you’re an athlete or not, a lot of things people struggle with now in their mental health stem from when they were younger.

“So it’s not just about athletes and their mental health. It’s about young people – and where’s the support for them? Because if the things we hear from today’s youth are what we went through when we were young, it means nothing has really changed since our time. It’s really kind of where we were, like, hey we need to do something about it.”

The seed for Mind the Waves was planted in Tokyo in 2021, when the three swimmers had finished their races and were hanging out in the Olympic Village. “We were sitting by the water and just having a life chat,” recalls Cheng. “It was a very reflective period, because we were all kind of unsure of what’s after the Olympics. It’s such a big deal and it’s once every four years and we’re just thinking about what’s next. And at this point we talked about how we wanted to give back beyond just the swimming pool, and one of the ideas was to start a youth camp where we can create a space for them to come together and talk about the challenges we struggle with and still struggle with, and to give young people more opportunities to normalise these conversations and to find their community.”

Although they weren’t business-minded, a year later the three athletes still felt strongly that they were meant to do something together. “It got to the point where we were like, OK we can keep talking about this forever and never do anything, or we can start somewhere. Let’s start with something that can reach people,” Cheng says.

Mind the Waves started out as a series of podcasts that Au, Cheng and Yeung could record online, wherever in the world they happened to be, and talk about things that mattered to them and bring experts in to discuss topics the community was keen to hear about. “We had so many ideas but that was the first thing we decided to focus on, taking into consideration our own expectations and what we could manage,” says Cheng, who was aware that she and Au both have the Olympics on the horizon yet again – possibly their last.

Au brings up the fact that many people have asked her what she plans to do after she hangs up her cap for good. “I tell them about Mind the Waves and they’d say, mental health isn’t for everybody,” Au says incredulously. “But everyone should take care of their mental health.”

For her, a huge personal goal at Mind the Waves would be to change the Cantonese speaking population’s perspective. Ever since they started, Au has realised there isn’t enough in the Chinese vocabulary to describe mental health. “I wanted to help the local community, because we know the culture. And by that, I mean we know how stigmatised the whole topic still is around mental health. One of the biggest challenges we came across was that it’s hard to translate a lot of the terminology. Even with emotions, there aren’t that many Cantonese words that can be used to describe how you’re really feeling.

“But we’re in a new era,” she adds. “Kids these days are willing to talk about it. We started a mentorship programme and when we met with our mentees, they already knew all about using the Apple Watch for tracking, they’re very aware about the causes of anxiety and how to practice breathing. Sometimes, I feel like I’m learning something from them too. And when we started doing conferences and events, we’d meet these kids with their parents – and they’ve told their parents about Mind the Waves and what we do. I realised that kids these days are so self-aware, which makes me feel as if we’re really on the right track.” 

The post Staying Afloat with Stephanie Au and Camille Cheng appeared first on Prestige Online - HongKong.

After selling out his first run of solo concerts in July, Mirror member and Prestige 40 Under 40 honouree Anson Lo talks about his love for his family, his passion for performing and how the past five years have transformed his life beyond his imagination.

Creative Direction and Photography Karl Lam
Styling Bhisan Rai
Hair Denny Ku     
Make-up Rainbow Cheung     
Styling Assistant Serene Cheung    
Production Assistant Gary Lee, John Yan   

Wherever Anson Lo – or even just an image of him – appears, you’ll find hordes of fans with phone cameras at the ready. The 28-year-old Hong Kong native has risen to stratospheric levels of stardom not just in this city but around Asia – and all within the span of five years. So when I sit down with Lo in a St Regis Hong Kong suite to learn about his journey, there’s a sense of pressure I’ve seldom felt.

But given his kind, polite and honest demeanour, far removed from the popular image of a superstar, my nerves dissipate fast. There’s an aura about Lo, one that immediately makes you feel connected with him. Some would call it charm, but from my experience speaking with him that evening it’s to do with deeper and more personal values.

Lo was raised in what he says is “a loving family that provided anything and everything he needed”, with a mother who, though an accountant by profession, was a caregiver by nature. Madonna, Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears and Ariana Grande may all have been idols for the Mirror member, but his greatest source of inspiration remains his mum.

“Ever since I was a child, she’s been my role model,” Lo reflects. “She’s strong and independent, she’s well-mannered and she’s responsible. She strikes a great work-life balance, so I look up to that. Whenever I consider my relationships with my friends or co-workers or other members of Mirror, I always think about the values my mother instilled in me. Whenever I need constructive criticism for my work, I always turn to her.”

Their relationship continues to flourish today but, as in most families, there were challenges along the way. When Lo decided to drop out of university to become a dance instructor, his decision caused a rift between him and his favourite person in the world.

“Thinking back now, it really was a bold decision,” Lo admits. “I was in the first term of my third year in university when I decided to pursue dancing full time. I was struggling a lot internally, but when exam time came, I just decided not to go. The first thing I did after that was call my mum to tell her I’d decided to drop out. She went quiet for a whole minute.

“Our home stayed quiet for the next two to three months because my parents were quite disappointed about my decision. Years later, they told me they were really just worried for me, because being a dance instructor wasn’t really a job that demanded a lot of respect, especially in Hong Kong. They were also worried about me being able to earn a regular income.”

But all that changed after the airing of Good Night Show – King Maker. Following stints as a back-up dancer for Aaron Kwok, Kelly Chen and Coco Lee, Lo was scouted by industry veteran manager AhFa Wong, who convinced him to join the reality-TV show. It wasn’t an easy task though, as Lo says he didn’t really want to sacrifice teaching time to practice for a talent competition because it would have meant less income.

“When AhFa reached out to me, I hesitated for sure, because at the time, I never thought about entering the entertainment industry,” he says. “I never thought about being an artist and being in the spotlight. I was content with being a dance instructor. When I was invited to join the competition, it meant losing a lot of time teaching, which affected my income, so I was very hesitant. In the end I decided to give it a try, not because I wanted to enter the entertainment industry but honestly just to gain some exposure. I thought it might help my dance-instructing career.”

And help his career it did. Although he only made it as far as the top 30 contestants, Wong never lost faith in him, and when the boy group Mirror was proposed in late 2018, Lo was one of the first to be invited. This time, there was little hesitation.

“I jumped at the opportunity,” Lo tells me with a laugh. “It was after I’d lost the King Maker competition, which made me realise I really wanted to join the entertainment industry. So when the opportunity came, I was ecstatic. I knew there was no guarantee we’d succeed, but being a part of Mirror allowed me to pursue my dream, so I said yes straight away.”

Lo might have thought there was no guarantee of success, but that word doesn’t even begin to describe the cultural phenomenon Mirror has become in Hong Kong. Billboards, brand ambassadorships, record and film deals, sold-out concerts and music awards have come flooding in over the past three or so years. Lo built strong relationships with his fellow members, like Keung To, fellow 40 Under 40 honouree Edan Lui and, most importantly, Jeremy, with whom he says he says he shares the most chemistry. But the first two years? Those weren’t so easy, Lo admits.

“I never imagined it would become what it is now,” he says. “When Mirror and I first made our debut, the media, internet users, and even family and friends around me would make fun of me or praise me ironically. They thought it was a circus act, dancing around and singing. But I ignored all those comments and kept my head down. So back then, I never imagined I’d have the amount of fans and support that I do now.”

With a level of support most can’t even fathom, it was time for Lo to make his solo debut, and in 2020, he released his first single, “A Lifelong Mission”, while his first solo concerts were held earlier this year to sold-out stadiums. Within the same year of his solo debut, he won the Best Newcomer Bronze Award at the 2020 Ultimate Song Chart Awards Presentation, and the Best New Artist Gold Award at the 43rd RTHK Top 10 Gold Song Awards in January the following year. But perhaps his biggest accolade yet – and the one that’s moved him the most emotionally – was winning Best New Asian Artist Award (Mandarin) at the respected 2021 Mnet Asian Music Awards (MAMA), which marked his first international break.

“It was so unexpected. Even though I entered the industry, I never thought my name would come up in relation to MAMA, so when I won the award, I had to question whether I was dreaming or not,” he says. “My family was so happy for me, and looking back at the past three years, I was very proud of the work and effort I put in. Every piece of art I release, I pour my heart and soul into it. There’s a lot of things behind the scenes that people don’t see, but I keep those memories in my heart, so when I win awards like these, it means even more to me. That night, my mother wept, which never happens.” What a far cry from the night when Lo told her he was dropping out to pursue dancing.

With singing and dancing mastered, it was time for him to dive into acting, which he says he’s now learned to love. “I actually didn’t enjoy it at all when I first started,” he admits. “I thought I had no talent and I’d never studied it properly. When I was in We Are the Littles, I finally had a proper character to play, but it turned out to be one of the darkest periods of my career so far.

“Every day, I felt insecure about my performance. I felt so unnatural and that I didn’t belong there. Other crew members would joke about how robotic I was and I’d receive a lot of criticism from the director and producers. But eventually I reached a stage where I started feeling more comfortable on set, and the first time I actually fell in love with acting was when I starred in Ossan’s Love. I made sure I did a lot of prep work to understand the script and the character. After that experience, I fell in love with acting.”

Singing, dancing and acting puts your face on almost every wall and surface in the city, and Lo’s rise to fame over the last five years has been extreme to say the least. For a natural performer like him, though, who’s known he wanted to become an entertainer since appearing in his first musical play in secondary school, adjusting to it didn’t prove too difficult. What’s been tough, however, has been keeping up with his fans’ expectations.

“I was very excited at the start. It’s hard not to be happy when you see your image on billboards. My dad saw an ad with me on it and texted me saying, ‘You made it!’ So I was very happy. But after a while, the pressure sets in. When more and more people pay attention to you and get to know you, expectations begin to build, and it becomes ever harder to impress them. You need to constantly surprise people with new work, and that’s difficult to maintain, no matter who you are.”

The post Dreams and Reflections with Anson Lo appeared first on Prestige Online - HongKong.

There was never anyone quite like Fan Bingbing before her and, truth be told, there’ll be no one quite like Fan after her.

Photography Issac Lam
Styling Kim Bui Kollar
Art Direction Ip Siu
Assistant Art Director Kumi Tong
Hair Eda Lee    
Makeup Bonnie Hu    
Manicurist Mei mei Yeung    
Project Management Alex Loong    
Photography Assistants Jason Li, Kiano    
Styling Assistants Anna Lam, Mason Wong    
Hair Assistants Eki Ho    
Photography Producer Hidi Lee    
Art Team Naomi Chui , Karina To, Joan Leung    
Gaffer Hsiao, TK, Fei Lung    
Production Assistant MK Suen , Alvin Chu    
Artist Management Jersey Chong

Before I ever saw Fan Bingbing onscreen, I’d seen her on the red carpet and in the front row of fashion shows. She’s a regular at the Cannes Film Festival, always impeccably dressed in the most exquisite haute couture gowns. Her first red carpet appearance was in 2010, at the 63rd Cannes festival. Fan was virtually unknown internationally at the time, though she was already a huge star in China. She was wearing a dramatic Laurence Hsu one-shoulder couture gown fit for an empress, embroidered with dragons, waves and traditional auspicious clouds on a golden backdrop. Her beauty captivated the world: cameras flashed at lightning speed and publications clamoured to put her on their best-dressed lists. So beloved was the dragon robe that Mattel would later immortalise the look in a Barbie doll, making Fan the first Chinese celebrity to get a Barbie version of herself. Laurence Hsu’s dress was later reproduced for London’s V&A and remains part of its permanent collection, while the original now belongs to Madame Tussaud’s wax museums. It was a moment in history, and the world recognised it. 

Fan still relishes every single moment on the red carpet. She tells me, “I love hearing the rapid-fire camera shutters clicking away.”

She knew how to – and loved – to stand out.

At the age of 12, Fan was already determined to become an actress. She was born in 1981 and raised in Yantai, a port on the Yellow Sea, to a family of performers. Her father was a navy-troupe singer and her mother a dancer. They initially wanted Fan to attend music school and though she had other ideas, she says her parents were always supportive. “I fell in love with acting really early on and I worked really hard to achieve this goal. I just enjoy the feeling of acting.”

She attended Shanghai Xie Jin Star’s School and, after graduation, joined the acclaimed Shanghai Theatre Academy. At 16, she landed a role as a maid in the period television drama My Fair Princess, which turned out to be more than just a promising start for a young and ambitious teenager. The show was an instant hit – it eventually became the most commercially successful Chinese-language series
in history – and Fan became a household name. 

A box-office darling, Fan’s work often garnered critical acclaim. She may look like a fairy-tale princess but the roles she picks often reflect the complex and hidden struggles of the contemporary woman. She took risks, which paid off. Her breakout role was, of course, Cell Phone in 2003. She has a knack for working-class roles, such as in Lost in Beijing (2007) and I Am Not Madame Bovary (2016), but she’s equally convincing as a disgruntled youth in Buddha Mountain (2011) or ruling with an iron fist as Wu Zetian in the TV drama The Empress of China (2014). Fan switches easily between roles. “I’ve filmed so many different roles over the years,” she says. “Big or small, they’ve continued to shape me into who I am today.”

In 2015, Forbes ranked Fan Bingbing as the world’s fifth highest-paid actress, ahead of Julia Roberts and Charlize Theron. Widely respected by the Chinese media, her success and work ethic earned her the nickname Fan Ye (it translates as Master Fan). She was the perfect image of a powerful woman who walked her own path. She didn’t need a man to be rich, famously saying, “I don’t need to marry into a wealthy family. I am my own wealthy family.” And when those envious of her beauty say she’s nothing but a vase, she snaps back: “If I am one, it’s a precious one, which can’t be put just anywhere.”

Her fame soon piqued the interest of Hollywood producers, who were keen to commission Fan for minor roles and cameos. Disney had commissioned then cut Fan from a scene in Iron Man 3, but she’d later appear in Fox’s X-Men: Days of Future Past as teleporting mutant Blink (she had only one line, but her fight scenes were extremely cool). Small as these initial roles were, she soon landed a part in The 355, an international spy movie with an ensemble cast including Jessica Chastain, Penélope Cruz, Diane Kruger and Lupita Nyong’o. It was all set to be a major moment for Fan, who one year earlier, in 2017, expressed a desire to land a leading role in a Hollywood production within 10 years. The 355, which was filmed in Paris and London between June and September 2018, beat all her expectations.

The stars were aligned – and then they weren’t.

The story of Fan’s fall from grace has been widely covered, with any reports on the star after 2018 talking of little else. Shortly before the release of Cell Phone 2, in which she plays a television host’s mistress, she was accused of tax evasion after contracts reporting different salaries were leaked online. The allegations toppled Fan from her pedestal – projects ground to a halt, brand deals fell through and she was slapped with a hefty fine. The reverberations of the scandal would impact not just Fan, but the entire Chinese film industry, as other stars, fearful of a similar fate, disclosed their earnings and the government laid down new rules that would cap a celebrity’s salary to 40 percent of a film’s total budget.

Months later, Fan broke her silence and expressed her remorse in a public statement. When her detention ended, she was quoted as saying she’d have been nothing “without the party and the state’s good policies”. After she laid low for several years, the media began writing about Fan’s cinematic comeback; and after further delays due to Covid, The 355 eventually premiered in 2022. Another film, the Sean McNamara-directed fantasy The King’s Daughter, in which she played a mermaid, also premiered. And as Fan resurfaced, so too did questions about her years in the dark.

But these days, Fan guards her own image closely and is understandably careful with her words. The media’s many attempts to pry her deepest secrets from her have often led nowhere, with rigorously scripted answers about her past. “No one’s life will always be smooth sailing,” is her favourite reply. If she refuses to dwell on her past, nor should we. 

But if we’re inclined to think Fan was leading a quiet life during her hiatus from making movies, we’d be mistaken. Long before the word influencer entered the lexicon, Fan Bingbing was already one. Whatever she did, people followed.

With her porcelain skin, almond-shaped face, large doe eyes and jet-black hair that tumbles to her waist, Fan Bingbing is a vision of beauty – everyone wants to look like her and be like her, which a quick scroll through Chinese social media platforms only confirms. Her beauty was untouchable and couldn’t be denied, even in the aftermath of scandal. She’s known for her good looks and her high maintenance upkeep. It’s reported that she uses two masks a day, one for moisturising and the other for whitening, and that she goes through 600 sheet masks a year. At the height of her career, an e-commerce website crashed after she posted about a face mask she liked.

Fan is also a smart businesswoman, and therein lay an opportunity to further extend her reach. “I have a lot of opinions about skincare and I love sharing my experiences with my viewers so they can take better care of themselves,” she says. She set up Fan Beauty in 2018, a beauty line sold solely through e-commerce. Those questioning whether the brand was capitalising on Fan Bingbing’s popularity without delivering genuine quality were soon quashed: the brand thrived and established a loyal customer base.

“I’m deeply involved in the research and development process of all my products, because I insist on trying them all myself,” Fan reveals. “I only recommend products to our customers if I’ve personally found no issues with them. This makes my customers feel at ease. Our products are selling well. The most popular item is probably still the Seagrape Hydrating Mask, because the moisturising effect is one of the best on the market.

“After all,” Fan says, laughing, “I can claim this because I’m the one who’s tried out every single type of sheet masks.” Before her work trips her colleagues often pack her bags to the brim with tester products: in August, Fan shared a behind-the-scenes clip on Little Red Book of a long table covered with beauty products. “Look at how much my team packed for me,” she says, slightly shocked, in the video. “I’m only away for 10 days!”

Evidently, she’s back in the swing of things.

Early this year, Fan Bingbing made headlines after appearing at the Berlin International Film Festival to promote her new film, Green Night. In the high-octane chase thriller directed by Han Shuai, she plays an exploited Chinese migrant worker who finds herself embroiled in crime, violence and death in Seoul’s dark underworld. Fan co-stars with Korean actress Lee Joo Young and in the movie, has more than a few lines in Korean, which, Fan tells me, “wasn’t too bad a challenge; everyone helped me out a lot”.

On working with Lee, Fan says, “It’s quite comfortable working with her. Obviously we had a bit of a language barrier, but we often relied on body language and understood each other implicitly. It was very memorable shooting with her.”

She often picks projects that speak to her on a deeper level, which is exactly what Green Night’s script did: it was a project she cared about a lot. She tells me that, when it comes to choosing a script, she’ll often look at the bigger picture.

“Green Night is actually a story about leaving,” she tells me. “In the script, our characters strive to live the life they want and it’s about gradually gaining the courage to face all the unknowns. I hope it can give strength to people who are in the same predicament. It was a work that really spoke to me.”

Fan Bingbing was also back on the Oscars champagne-coloured carpet this year, channelling Old Hollywood glamour in a Tony Ward couture gown dripping in crystal embellishments with a cinched waist and a plunging neckline, finished with dramatic green sleeves and a cape. At Cannes this year, she walked the red carpet 16 times. Asking her about her style elicits obvious answers.

“Have you always had a strong sense of fashion?”

“Without question. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“What has been your favourite red carpet look?”

“My next one!”

“Do you think you’ll be a good fashion designer?”

“I think I can be anything I want to be.”

I try a different question. “What are your biggest fears?” “I don’t have any. I believe in myself and I have nothing to fear.”

Fan is back big time, confidence, wit and all. She’s working on new projects that she’s not allowed to share yet, but tells us to look forward to them. “I don’t want to set limits for myself anymore and to keep trying and challenging myself. I’m very interested in getting involved in new things, experiencing new things and going beyond my comfort zone,” she says.

If this is Fan Bingbing’s new era, we’re up for it. “I am me,” she says. “I’m very comfortable in my own skin now, whether as an actor, a business owner or whatever. No matter what my identity is, I know I’m able to make people remember me.” 

The post Fan Bingbing: One in a Million appeared first on Prestige Online - HongKong.

It seems every time we talk to Cindy Chao, we get the feeling this woman, who’s never wavered from her passion for creating works of art with jewels, was predestined to be where she is today.

Photography OSCAR CHIK
Styling ALEX LOONG
Hair SAM LO
Make-up IAN LI
Set Design VICTOR WONG
Set Assistants ERIC CHAN and BRIAN LOO

Cindy Chao has often credited her father and grandfather as being the two most influential people in her life, who shaped her to becoming who she is today, but it was her mother, she tells me, who pushed her into the direction of jewellery. 

“She really encouraged me to study jewellery design back then, because she was a jewellery lover,” Chao says. “Initially, I aspired to follow in my grandfather’s footsteps and become an architect, but my mother, who’d seen her father work intensely, gave me a push then to use my creative talents in a profession she felt was more feminine. So instead of stones and timber, I chose precious gemstones and metals.”

She laughs about the memory. “My mother was the one who regretted it the most in the end. She said, ‘Why did you choose the most expensive material to be an artist?’” Chao says, chuckling. “But I found beauty in gemstones. It’s part of nature and you can see life in them. I grew to love gemstones more and more, and I was able to bring my family background in architecture and sculpture, and this essence of nature into my creativity.”

So Chao didn’t become an architect like her grandfather or a sculptor like her father. She became a jewellery artist. But she realises the training she’d receive. d from both of them in her earlier years was equally applicable in the art of jewellery-making.

“My grandfather trained me to think outside the box and to always think three-dimensionally,” she says. “He’d show me his blueprints and ask me to point out the main entrance of a building, and he’d say, ‘What might be the main entrance for you could well be the side or back door from another’s perspective.’ He taught me that a holistic view always originates from the ability to view things with a three-dimensional mindset.”

As for her father, Chao remembers most of their father-and-daughter time spent together in the studio. “He’d give me a piece of clay from his big sculpture and assign a topic for me to sculpt. Although it was an attempt to keep me quiet while he worked, I became very good at imbuing life into sculptures, especially flowers and other natural forms,” says Chao. 

And so, through play, Chao trained. She saw the world in a structural and spatial way, and she held sculpting tools as deftly as we might wield a pair of chopsticks. “I didn’t get a Barbie doll until I was in junior school,” she says. 

And ironically, though her mother had thought jewellery making was a more feminine pursuit, in reality it was far from it. As Chao lugged a suitcase filled with wax sculptures around Europe and France, on her way to meet artisans and show them what she was capable of, she felt herself to be an unlikely young Asian woman in a sea of males. If, in her own words, it was “extremely challenging”, to others it seems an impossibility. The French are notoriously protective of their savoir-faire, and to allow an unknown outsider into their circle was almost sacrilegious. And the gemstone suppliers Chao dealt with were mostly very conservative and religions people who “aren’t allowed even to shake a woman’s hand”, she’s said. As the only female in the room, she had to be tougher than the rest of them. She’s experienced it all – doubt, disdain, rejection – but rather than let that get her down, she persisted. She knew she had something different to offer. 

“My grandfather once said to me that persistence and courage are two crucial elements to create an art piece. Life is infinite, our passage on Earth is finite, but our soul and legacy last forever. The art we create are the evidence of our existence,” Chao says. “I always keep his philosophy to heart and every time when I face challenges this serves as a reminder. Just be brave and persevere.”

Chao believes it was “the mind of an architect from my grandfather and the hands of a sculptor from my father, that became the components to impress even the proudest and the most experienced French craftsmen.” Slowly but surely, she built a rapport and credibility among the craftsmen in Europe. 

Those who once doubted her have become her closest allies. Chao’s creative process always begins with transforming her ideas into wax sculptures – just like her father taught her – and then together with her craftsmen, they experiment with innovative materials, including titanium, aluminium, maple wood, ebony, and, lately, ox horn, to produce works of jewellery art. Almost 20 years after she established her brand, Chao is now supported by her suppliers with the best and rarest gemstomes and, from a place of mutual trust, her craftsmen are as passionate and innovative as she is, working alongside her to redefine jewellery art. 

Chao established her eponymous brand CINDY CHAO The Art Jewel in 2004 with the opening of her first showroom in Taipei. And when the praise and the credentials began to roll in, she was more assured than ever about her vision of making jewellery art.

The western art critics began to call CINDY CHAO a brand that was “ushering in a new era of Nouveau Art Nouveau”, Chao recalls. She had collectors scattered in all four corners of the globe and successes that ranged from invitations to exhibit at the prestigious TEFAF to being inducted into museums. She’s proud of them all, but there were two moments in particular that were profoundly pivotal to her career.

The first was in 2010, when Chao’s second Annual Butterfly, the 2009 Royal Butterfly Brooch, was inducted into the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, which marked an unprecedented milestone as it was the first time the museum collected a piece from a contemporary Asian designer. Chao remains immensely grateful for the curator’s words about the piece. “When he was asked about the rationale behind this induction, his response resonated deeply within me,” Chao says. “He articulated the museum’s responsibility to collect [those things that can best] represent the era for future generations. This imbued me with the sense of responsibility, fuelling my aspiration to create artworks that transcend temporal boundaries.”

Her contribution to the arts was further recognised when the French government bestowed upon her the Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres in 2021, an honour reserved only for a select few – only 200 are awarded the Chevalier medallion in a year, and Chao is the first Asian jeweller to have been awarded this distinction. She calls it “a great honour” – France was the birthplace of jewellery art, after all.

Next year marks the brand’s 20th anniversary, a milestone that really excites her. “My team and I aim to make substantial growth in the next decades to come, and to become one truly globalised brand with Asian heritage.”

Chao has talked about her life and career in its different stages before, how the first 10 to 15 years marked her beginning, and how she’s in the second phase of her journey now. It’s funny, because while many might have thought it was her accolades that would define the brand’s trajectory, Chao tells me it’s her son who dictates it. Chao, a single mother, was raising a young boy around the same time she established her brand. She sent him to boarding school when he was nine. “It was the right decision,” she affirms. “My son and I are so close today and he thanks me for the sacrifices I made to send him to the best boarding school.”

With two male role models in her life, Chao thinks there’s a certain toughness to her character already. But being a mother gave her the strength she never thought she had. “In the first stage of my career, I didn’t even think about giving up, because as a single mother, you’re the whole unit. I’m the mother and the father. If I fail, it means my son would fail too,” she says, emotion cracking through her voice. “I used to describe my life as if I was a horse with my eyes covered, so I didn’t look at others. I just went for it.

“Now looking back, I always want to thank my son, because he was my main drive. My only motivation was to make sure we survived and that I could give him the best education,” she continues. “So that’s why when he graduated, I was like, ‘OK, congratulations to you, but also congratulations to me too. Now I can create for creation’s sake.’”

Is her son primed to become Cindy Chao’s apprentice one day? “No,” Chao quickly interjects with a smile. “My son doesn’t even know how to draw a circle.” He studied business at Wharton, and it could be a good combination, she muses. But it really depends on whether he’s passionate about it.

But watching her son graduate and step into the real world had a great effect on Chao, who says she has become much braver and freer as an artist. I can’t imagine Cindy Chao ever compromising her art for the sake of commercial success, but what could a braver and freer Cindy Chao possibly mean?

She tells me her latest Annual Butterfly is her most technically challenging piece yet, created with advancements Chao has never yet used. Cindy Chao jewellery is exquisitely rare and exquisitely exclusive. The Black Label Masterpieces are already reserved for top clients only. The Annual Butterfly, even rarer so – the pieces aren’t something money, or even connections, can buy. They’re a part of Chao herself. She describes them as an embodiment of the ongoing metamorphosis of herself as an artist, and the advances in her techniques and craftsmanship. While they’re named annual butterflies, the last one she’s made came out in 2019. But the wait is over. This year, CINDY CHAO is releasing its 10th Annual Butterfly, the Amour Butterfly, in a public exhibition for the first time. The tour kicks off in Shanghai at the Long Museum West Bund, before stopping in Hong Kong and Taipei to showcase the brand’s superb craftsmanship. In Hong Kong, the Amour Butterfly will be shown at the Opera Gallery.

“This butterfly is special because it’s a custom order from a few years ago from a pair of collectors whom I have a strong relationship and friendship with,” Chao says. “I met them in 2007 when I was really a nobody at the time. I wasn’t famous. But the couple, a husband and wife, saw my talent and they were really supportive from the beginning. Over the years, they became more than just collectors to me, they became my mentors.”

At a dinner gathering five years ago, the collector pair brought up the fact that, after all these years, they still didn’t own an Annual Butterfly. Chao quickly sought to rectify that. “They gave me 100 percent of their trust. It’s a beautiful story of love and friendship. If you’re of Chinese descent, the butterfly is always associated with a love story.”

Becoming more established hasn’t made her work easier, just in case that’s what people are thinking. “I wouldn’t call it a challenge, but I’ll say it’s more responsibility,” says Chao after some thought. “When you’re not that well known, you need to prove yourself in many ways – your creativity, your know-how, everything. But I feel much lonelier now compared to before, because my problems are also bigger than before and I can’t find people to talk to.” 

She laughs heartily. It’s not unusual that powerful women often find being at the top a solitary place to be. But her team’s dedication reminds her of how far they’ve come, and how much support she has to accomplish her vision. “We had an internal workshop recently and I was very touched to find that a third of my team members have been with me since the beginning,” she says. “Which means they’ve been working with me for 19 years. Can you imagine? I would say I am a perfectionist, who is very strict at work but I’m also generous. I’m willing to teach and to give, and though it’s not an easy journey, I realise I have a lot of loyal people around me and that’s something I really want to celebrate.” 

And what does she want people to remember her for? “I don’t have an answer so far,” she ruminates. “I’m curious about what kind of impact Cindy Chao will have on this industry in the future. A century from now, how would people define what Cindy Chao is doing now?”

Pure jewellery art, I venture, with an East-meets-West sensibility that transcends borders, languages and cultures. Jewellery art that presents the finest European craftsmanship with an aesthetic that’s uniquely Cindy Chao, born from a love for architecture and sculpture. Jewellery art that we’ll see enshrined in museums, treasured by collectors. And worn? Only if you want to.

Something utterly extraordinary. 

The post Cindy Chao Makes Her Biggest Artistic Statement Yet appeared first on Prestige Online - HongKong.

As she celebrates 30 years in the entertainment business, Karen Mok talks about the crucial moments that led to her success, what the past three decades have meant to her, and why she might – at least on the surface – seem to be slowing down.

Photography Isaac Lam
Styling Kim Bui Kollar
Hair Derrick Ng
Makeup Ling Chang
Photography Assistants Jason Li, Ivan Ngai
Set Design Owen Lo
Gaffer and Lighting TK, Chung
Project Manager Alex Loong
Set Assistant Lai Tsz Chung, Haydn Yu
Management Earth Entertainment

What does it take to be hailed Queen of Asia? For someone like Karen Mok, who over the course of just one afternoon demonstrated to me her evident passion for showmanship and her singular determination to perfect it, perhaps a 30-year career filled with numerous accolades might suffice.

The truth is, Mok has long been celebrated as one of Asia’s leading female stars, her elevation to the ranks of entertainment royalty happening at a relatively early stage in her career. To those who’ve followed her throughout the past three decades and beyond, it comes as no surprise that the singer, actress and all-round entertainer had set her sights on show business as far back as childhood.

“I knew when I was three that I had to become a performer,” she tells me. “I didn’t know what it meant at the time, but I just knew I had to get up on stage in front of people and do something, whether it’s singing, acting, prancing around or whatever it is.” And that she did. While a student at Hong Kong’s Diocesan Girls’ School, she excelled not only academically, but also jumped at every chance she got to get up on stage.

“I’d perform all kinds of things, even as a small kid,” she tells me. “Throughout my school days, I took all kinds of opportunities to just perform. I was always participating in speech festivals and singing at music festivals. I’d play oboe with the school orchestra, I studied drama and Shakespeare – everything, you name it. I was outgoing in that way, and I just wanted to have fun.”

Her passion later earned her a scholarship to the incredibly scenic United World College of the Adriatic, near Trieste in Italy, where she took the opportunity to build a connection with the country and its people before heading for further study to the city that’s today her home base, where she completed her higher education at Royal Holloway, University of London. Back then, her prodigious talents had already established her as the go-to demo lead singer for Mark Lui, one of Hong Kong’s most celebrated Cantopop composers and producers.

During her university years, Mok’s love for performing spurred her to audition for a West End musical, which led to one of the most important decisions of her career. “One of the most defining moments I’d say would be even before I started in show business,” she recalls. “I was studying in London and my mind was set to go into showbiz. I thought because I was in London, maybe I should try my luck in the West End, so I auditioned for Miss Saigon. I ultimately decided not to go through with the role and came back to Hong Kong to sign a record deal, and I think I made the right choice. I felt, being Asian, there’d probably be more opportunities back here.”

How Mok’s career would have played out had she taken the role in the West End we’ll never know, but it’s hard to believe any other path would have taken her as far as she’s come today. Over the past three decades, she’s recorded more than 30 albums, starred in over 50 films and holds the Guinness World Record for performing a live solo concert at the highest altitude ever (a height of 3,650 metres, when she performed in front of 13,000 fans in Lhasa). Her many accolades include being the first Hong Kong artist to win Taiwan’s esteemed Golden Melody Award – she went on to win two more – and her movies span from Hong Kong household staples to Hollywood blockbusters.

But while she’s forged ahead full-throttle for the past 30 years, Covid has granted her a rare opportunity to step back and reflect on her priorities, which she tells me have now shifted – gratefully, she emphasises – towards her family.

“I’ve slowed down a little bit; I’ve forced myself to take it a bit easier,” she explains after looking back at the past three years that had very much put the world on hold. “It’s important to have some space for yourself and for your family. When Covid broke out I was already back in London with my husband. We figured, ‘OK, we might as well just stay put for a while.’ We stayed in England for nearly a year, and it was kind of refreshing for me to be able to sit back and relax for a change.”

As a reward for herself, she even took a whole year off in 2022, something you’d never have imagined the star doing before the pandemic. “Last year was amazing, because we were still in and out of lockdown, and we had this discussion for a long time about doing a road trip in Europe, so we figured it was the right time to do it,” she tells me with a gleam of excitement in her eyes. “We drove all around Europe for the whole year – it was amazing! So I’m glad I forced myself to just do something else rather than always working away.”

Although there’s no doubt Covid gave Mok the opportunity to enjoy a much-needed break, reassess her priorities and recalibrate her work-life balance, one can’t help thinking she hasn’t slowed down so much as simply become more efficient at doing what she does. Ask her about her plans to celebrate her 30th career anniversary and you learn about the myriad projects she currently has on her plate.

“Every day is like a celebration. I keep telling people this year is my 30th in showbiz – and every time I say it, it’s hard to wrap my head around it. That’s crazy – it all just seems like yesterday!” she says before telling me about shooting her latest reality show in the mainland. “I just did a TV show in China, Sheng Sheng Bu Xi, and it was really fun because the theme for this season is Taiwan. Of course, I was part of this period in Mandarin pop when everything was taking off and it was a very relevant force for the whole Chinese community across the globe. I was very fortunate to be part of that period, and so doing this show felt amazing. It felt like reliving a lot of the moments I had when my career was taking off in Taiwan, and I sang a bunch of my old songs, sang a lot of other people’s huge hits and collaborated with some of my friends. It felt really good.”

Television aside, she’s worked on a new feature film – to the delight of her fans, who haven’t seen her on the big screen since 2016 – and has plans for another live show, though she’s been told to keep her lips sealed regarding the details, as both projects are still at an early stage. Of course, there are also some new songs on the way, which she says should be released this summer alongside a multimedia exhibition, both in physical and digital form, that showcases some of her earlier work, as well as including never-before-seen photographs she took for a personal album. While she has no concrete plans for now, Mok tells me she also hopes to one day write and produce a musical, a format that’s eluded her since turning down the role for Miss Saigon.

“I still do love musicals, so the ultimate goal now for my career is to create an original musical from scratch dedicated to the Chinese audience and beyond,” she explains, after telling me her first love had always been music – though it must be on stage and live. “That’s why eventually I have to do a musical. Doing a musical really has it all: you’re acting, dancing, singing and you’re doing it live. That’s the ultimate thing for me.”

Outside of her creative endeavours, there’s also no shortage of roles Mok has taken on. Aside from her work with Unicef, the SPCA, the Animals Asia Foundation and Care for Children, she’s also recently become the cultural ambassador for the Chinese Italian Cultural Society, a responsibility she happily accepted given her affinity for all things italiano. She’s also joined the likes of Hins Cheung, Eason Chan and Niu Niu by becoming the latest artist to support the First Initiative Foundation (FIF).

“I wanted to support FIF because it’s all about promoting art and culture, which, being an artist myself, I think is immensely important,” she says. “It’s of utmost relevance, I also think, for a place like Hong Kong, which many have called a cultural desert and criticised for not having culture – and as I don’t agree with those sentiments at all we should be doing more to change people’s mindsets. For youngsters especially, it’s not always just about academics. It’s about developing as a person as a whole, and art and culture are very important in this regard. If I can give some support in this respect, I think I definitely should.”

After devoting three decades to mastering the art of performance in all its forms, there’s little question why someone as decorated and accomplished as Mok would want to wind down the pace at which she once so vehemently operated, and instead commit more of her time to her loved ones. But to suggest Mok’s momentum has slowed significantly would be a gross misstatement: she’s simply bloomed into a maestro of her domain, which she rules over with ingenious
efficiency.

(Header image: Dress, Self Portrait, Shoes, Jimmy Choo, Rings, Carnet)

The post Slow Dancing With Karen Mok appeared first on Prestige Online - HongKong.

As he celebrates 20 years in showbusiness, Hins Cheung talks about his affinity for the past, his own path to stardom and his desire to help other aspiring artists make the same journey.

Photography Isaac Lam
Styling Alex Loong
Hair Ritz La
Makeup Cyrus Lee
Photography Assistants Ivan, Jason, Kiano
Set Design Owen Lo
Lighting TK, Chung
Styling Assistants Anna Lam, Hedy Tsai
Set Assistant Lai Tsz Chung

In an age of instant gratification, where access to all the information you need, the people you love and the songs you play on repeat are just a few keyboard taps away, 20 years can seem like a lifetime. But for Hins Cheung, who celebrated the 20th anniversary of his prolific career just last year, the past two decades have gone by in the blink of an eye. Sure, he’s recorded 17 studio albums and performed for millions of fans in more than 10 concert runs, and his walls are lined with more accolades – including dozens of best male singer awards across Asia – than seem fathomable, but to the singer, producer, actor and all-round entertainer, whose heart (and physicality) seemingly remain forever young, he’s not ready to be defined by what he’s achieved thus far.

“I still treat myself as a newcomer in the industry, because I want my work to be fun and enjoyable,” Cheung confides after ruminating on his career. “Many artists who find success in the industry become blinded or jaded, but that’s not why we wanted to succeed in the first place. We wanted success because it gives you more choices. We want to be free, not caged by our success. So when I look back at all my achievements, I don’t let them weigh me down and limit who I can be.”

Of course, for someone as established as Cheung, it’s hard to imagine he’s still at the beginning of his journey. To start a career, especially in entertainment, with the network, support and deserved reputation that the Guangzhou native now has seems almost too generous a head start and, unsurprisingly, Cheung never had these luxuries himself 20 years ago.

Although music has flowed through his veins from as far back as he can remember – thanks to his musically-inclined father who continues to perform with his flute, hour upon hour and day after day, for his TikTok fans – Cheung initially hadn’t considered it a career option, especially as his mother, a stern businesswoman, made it clear that she’d prefer her son to pursue a more traditional profession. But as the itch intensified, he compromised by studying Chinese opera and dabbling in numerous classical instruments until he eventually enrolled in school to prepare for a future in accounting. His fate with numbers was short lived, however, when his mother discovered Cheung had been performing at restaurants and bars throughout his high-school years – for a mere $80 a night, he tells me – a secret he’d kept for years with the help of his father.

By the age of 19, he was leading his own department at a Guangzhou recording studio, learning the ropes of music production before his mother finally caved in. She gave him her blessing, along with $50,000 to kickstart his career, and in return he promised he’d go back to accounting if this final push for his dream of becoming a singer failed to take off. But take off it did. Within two years of his first, self-produced album Hin’s First, the golden opportunity to move to Hong Kong – then the Mecca of Cantopop – presented itself, and that, Cheung considers, was the defining moment of his career.

“It was October 15, 2002,” he reminisces. “I received a phone call from Universal Music Hong Kong saying they wanted to sign me, and I almost thought it was a prank or a scam. In many ways, I’m very similar to the younger generation in Hong Kong right now. Many people are afraid to dream big because they don’t want to be disappointed. Back then, I avoided failure by simply not trying. But I really want to thank my parents for this – especially my mother who was an orphan herself – they taught me I had nothing to lose. So when I got the call, that’s how I felt. I told myself I’d go to Hong Kong and see if I could succeed and, if not, I’ll just go back to Guangzhou. And all the milestones I’ve hit since then all trace back to that day.”

While he’s unwilling to be confined by those milestones, Cheung isn’t afraid of looking back. In fact, the past is something the singer-songwriter cherishes deeply, this sense of sentimentality awakening at a time when the momentum of his stardom appeared unstoppable. For years, he lived in the stunning heritage home, Old Alberose, and fans of his will be familiar with both his preservation of Hong Kong’s celebrated Avon Recording Studios, which first opened in 1983, and the resurrection of Junon, the French fine-dining restaurant established more than half a century ago.

“When I was younger, I never really identified as an old soul or felt this affinity to vintage things,” he says. “Now I try very hard to preserve these historical gems, because to me, everyone can be a writer of history. There are many who create legacies, but a city that develops as quickly as Hong Kong can easily bury these stories.”

His voracious desire to preserve Hong Kong’s heritage is understandably bolstered by the fact that Cheung knew very little about his own. “I feel that every living soul deserves to be remembered, especially by their family. I can only trace my roots back to my grandfather and grandmother. Beyond their generation, I know nothing, and so I want to preserve the history of other people and things. I believe history greatly influences who we are as a person and gives us personality. It shapes us. In a way, all these places made Hong Kong the place it is now. I hope to be a doorman for a time portal, who can unlock doors for those interested in learning about our history and our past.”

That Cheung’s reflections have influenced and sculpted his creative process over the years is self-evident, but only as much as his desire to constantly move forwards and cross unfamiliar landscapes, whether through collaborations with producers and songwriters, expanding the genres of his music, or taking on new roles in feature films. While he continues to write and produce many of his own songs, he’s also worked with exceptional talents in the city, household names such as Wyman Wong, Albert Leung and Anthony Lun, who all feature on his album credits.

“It’s all about curiosity. Curiosity is crucial,” Cheung says with unconcealed excitement. “Every time I finish writing a song, no matter how well it does on the charts, to me it’s a finished process and I move on. It’s in the past. My curiosity takes me to another project, and when you start to want to create more and change what you create, you naturally gravitate towards other creatives, especially ones even more courageous or daring than you. For me, my creative process is an adventure and I never stand still.”

But standing still is what the city did for the three years when Covid wreaked havoc on our daily lives. Naturally, that period left Cheung gasping for air. For someone who’s dedicated more than half of his life creating, performing and flourishing, to be frozen in time tormented him. “Covid caused a lot of very complex emotions within me that I’ve never experienced before in my life,” he admits, sombrely. “I was here in Hong Kong for Sars and some of my friends were actually on the frontlines at the time, so I thought everything would be OK. We’ve been through this before. But eventually, it became apparent that things weren’t OK.”

Managing to set his emotions aside, Cheung looked instead for solutions – and it didn’t take long. “I never imagined a city that ran 24/7, like Hong Kong, would lock down, and it wasn’t just here: Tokyo, London, New York – they all faced the same predicament. The world was changing and that left us with two options. Either we adapt and survive, or we remain stubborn, and society leaves us behind. I didn’t want to be the latter.”

Once again, and thanks to his upbringing, Cheung found the determination to keep Covid from holding him prisoner, looking internally for strength. “I thought to myself, when things are at their most chaotic, how can I thrive? I grew up without siblings, so all the pressures I had to face when I was growing up – whether it was from my parents or my studies or anything else – I had to face alone,” he recalls. “So it was just the same with Covid: I knew I had to dig deep inside myself and find a way to adapt.”

Between 2020 and 2023, he held three separate concert series, one of which ran for 26 consecutive nights, setting a record for any artist during the pandemic era and teaching him an invaluable lesson. “It taught me that when life gets difficult, don’t flip the table, or smash your phone. Look for solutions, think about your next steps, and adapt.

“When I was younger and things were difficult, I’d feel very emotional for extended periods of time,” he adds, “and of course I still do if they’re revolving around things very important to me, like my family and friends, but with work struggles I now immediately look at solutions. This is what Covid taught me.”

After 20 years in the industry, the lessons learned and the wisdom accumulated has placed Cheung at the forefront of the Cantopop scene. But what makes him one of this city’s most respected talents isn’t simply due to his stardom and success, but his willingness to share that wisdom with other singers and actors. He understands the transience of fame and popularity and, much like his desire to keep history alive, hopes to pass on his hard-earned knowledge so that Hong Kong’s music industry can continue to grow and thrive.

“Twenty years ago, we never imagined we’d have talents like Terence Lam, Tyson Yoshi or even Mirror. And regardless of what awards I’ve won, the crown on your head comes and goes,” he tells me with a modesty rarely seen in established pop stars. A few years ago, that humility led him to set up a fund – with $2 million from his own pocket – in support of up-and-coming artists, and now he’s taken another step forward by becoming the First Initiative Foundation’s art and culture ambassador.

Founded in 2010 by Michelle Ong, the FIF is the local charity focused on promoting the arts and culture in our city, through fundraisers, educational workshops and collaborations with internationally renowned performers. Its ambassadors and representatives include artists such as Eason Chan, Jackie Cheung, Carina Lau, Lang Lang and Niu Niu – and given Cheung’s own journey it’s no surprise why he decided to take on the role.

“With my position as arts and culture ambassador, I hope I can use my experience as an artist to help and support local groups or even those overseas,” he says. He tells me the stories of his father, who dreamed of becoming a musician but never had the means to do so, instead retreating to a desk job for the rest of his working life, and his own experience of being offered an album deal while still a teenager, only to have the person turn out to be a fraudster who absconded with his money after a week.

“There’s a certain barrier of entry into the arts, and our job is to help them get past that barrier,” Cheung says. “For me, Hong Kong is such an incredible place, because the talent can lie anywhere. Maybe it’s just a child who grew up in government housing, but he might develop into a superstar one day. So it’s not hard to find someone who has the drive and desire to become an artist, but not many of them will have the financial means of achieving their dreams. This is why we need the FIF.”

From singing at bars for less than $100 a day to superstardom, and being a newcomer himself to becoming a mentor for aspiring artists, the last 20 years for Cheung have been as transformative a journey as anyone could imagine. But for the 42-year-old, it’s enough that the past two decades have proved just one thing: that he was worthy of his dream.

“I now see that my perseverance and tenacity through all those years was worth it,”Cheung says. “And the next 20 years? Let’s start from zero.”

(Header image: Outfit, Bottega Veneta, Bag and pens, Montblanc, Rings, Messika, Chair, Vitra from Lane Crawford)

The post Keeping Time with Hins Cheung appeared first on Prestige Online - HongKong.

Jung Ryeo-won as captured the hearts of viewers at home and abroad with her smile and her talent, but the South Korean actress wants to be known for more than just that. She sits down with Prestige for her first-ever English-language interview and the most honest conversation she’s had yet.

Photography Shin Sun Hye
Celebrity Stylist Lee Yun Mi, Ko Jeong Eun
Styling and Project Management Alex Loong
Hair Lee Sun Chul @Soosoo
Makeup Noh Han Gyeol
Photography Assistants Kim Min Seok, Kwon So Hyun, Baek Bi Oh
Coordinators Park Sang Suk, Kwon O Sung

Korean pop music these days is filled with English lyrics, but turn the clock back 18 years and it was unusual for any songs or dramas to have more than a cursory phrase or two in a foreign language. This is what makes the scene between Jung Ryeo-won and Daniel Henney in My Name is Kim Sam-soon all the more memorable – the actress, who was raised in Australia, and American-born Henney have an entire scene in English. They were supporting characters in the drama, but audiences around the world shipped them.

My Name is Kim Sam-soon ended up becoming one of the greatest Korean dramas of all time. Kim Sun-a was already a huge star, and it propelled then-newcomers Hyun Bin, Henney and Jung to stratospheric stardom. The show’s incredible success came as a surprise to everyone working on it, and Jung herself reveals what a nerve-wracking experience she had on the show.

“It was my first mini-series ever,” she says. “I’ve shot other dramas before, short ones, but My Name is Kim Sam-soon was my first mini-series and I didn’t have that headspace, and I was so scared. I didn’t want to make mistakes or burden my fellow actors, so thinking back, I had a great time, but I was also just constantly nervous.”

In fact, she adds, the entire cast was nervous because they were all so new to it. “We didn’t know what the expectations were, but I guess we pulled it off. Kim Sun-a was such a great actress and so amazing, and I learned a lot from her. And Hyun Bin and Daniel Henney … everybody was a big help. I was very lucky to have worked with them.”

When Jung first stepped into entertainment, she started out in a girl band but quit soon after to focus solely on acting. Growing up, Jung says she never had any real dreams about becoming anything until she tried acting. “Some people are blessed and when they’re young they already know what they want to do,” she says. “I didn’t really have a dream until I was acting in a morning series in 2002. I was 22, and
I was like, ‘Man, I really like this! Gosh!’ It was the only thing that made me feel alive.”

There was once a time when Jung reportedly almost gave up her career for love. We broach the subject tentatively, but Jung was extremely open about the experience and about the advice her own mother gave her on television: “We can’t beg for love.”

“I snapped out of it when I heard that from my mum,” Jung shares candidly. “It took me three years to get out of that love and I’m no longer a beggar for love. But yes, I think it has its side effects. You become more cynical. If you’re not a hopeless romantic, you’re a cynical lover. So maybe I’ll fall for someone but I won’t say it out loud now.”

She laughs, mostly at herself, and continues, “I’ll tell myself, ‘You’re not in love, you’re just… it’s just the situation. Everything seems good right now but it may not be! So don’t be fooled by the …’” she struggles to find the right word and confers with her translator. “Bun-wigi. The mood! Yes!”

She laughs hard at this. “Don’t be fooled by the bun-wigi. It’s not the guy, it’s the bun-wigi!”

To Jung, now 42, her career is everything these days. She has a mantra she repeats to herself just before the cameras start rolling. “I love my job,” she’ll whisper to herself and throw herself into her work. “I think acting will be my first priority until the day I die,” she says. “As I get older I may not be as busy or as active as I used to be, and I find acting more precious because of that and I’m more thankful because of that.”

Jung’s latest role is in the film Woman in a White Car, a thriller mystery that takes place in a snowy rural town in South Korea. The trailer for the movie opens with a clearly distraught and frazzled-looking Jung, whose character – Do-kyung – cradles a blood-soaked woman and is screaming for help. Acting alongside her is detective Hyun-ju, played by Lee Jung-eun of Parasite fame, who finds flaws in all the witness accounts and discovers that the unconscious woman that Do-kyung brought in isn’t her sister, as she claims. It’s a classic Rashomon intrigue, brought to life on screen by the magnetic performances of both Jung, who is refreshingly raw and unpredictable, and Lee, who’s stellar as a competent yet conflicted policewoman trying to piece together the mystery at hand.

In fact, the role of Do-kyung seems quite unlike Jung’s usual repertoire of romantic comedies and legal dramas. Audiences have loved her turn as charismatic prosecutors on dramas such as Witch at Court, and fawned over her chemistry with fellow co-stars in the delightful Bubble Gum and Wok of Love.

But the actress gleefully claims, “I love thrillers.” She just never found the right partners and the right script before Woman in a White Car came along. “I was always kind of timid and scared about being challenged in a project like this, because I didn’t know if I could pull off the acting. But this time, I knew it would be OK, because the director and the staff were close friends of mine and I knew I’d be comfortable with them when I heard about the project,” says Jung. “And then when I read the script, Do-kyung had various sides to her, which I liked. She wasn’t one-sided – she had wildly different personas and was quite colourful. So I thought it would be a good challenge for me to do this when, especially, I’m around people I trust. It was great and I loved it.”

The film, which was voted the Best International Feature at the San Diego Film Festival in 2022, was directed by newcomer Christine Ko. It was Ko’s directorial debut, and it also marked the first time Jung had worked with a female director and an almost all-women cast. But it was because of this that she felt protected and welcomed, and it gave her the space to give in to the character, as different as she is to the real Jung. 

Playing a schizophrenic patient wasn’t more challenging than any other character she’s embodied before. According to Jung, all roles come with their challenges. Shooting Woman in a White Car was just a different kind of challenge, as she was filming the web series May It Please The Court concurrently. “I was a lawyer one day and a schizophrenic the next day. There were days when I’m like, “Where am I?” That was the only thing, but the character itself wasn’t too difficult.”

The vastly different plot, the sets and the make-up helped her transition from Do-kyung one day to Noh Chak-hee the next. “Do-kyung was in trainers and rags, and Chak-hee wore Chanel suits and heels. Do-kyung had dirt on her face and hands, and Chak-hee had full-on make-up. So that helped me a lot. The environments were so different.”

What’s harder, in fact, is when a character is almost a mirror-image of herself. “I think Kim Haeng-ah from Bubble Gum was the closest to my own personality, and I had a hard time interacting because it felt like I was seeing my face every day,” she confesses.

“I like to play characters who are totally the opposite of me, because back then,” she pauses, trying to find her words, “I didn’t really like who I was, so I didn’t want to show the real me. I always wanted to
show someone totally different, someone elegant, straightforward and assertive, you know, like a powerful career woman. I wanted to play that because I’m not that. I’m a huge softie and I’m playful and curious, and I don’t know why but I didn’t like that about myself. So I enjoyed hiding myself in the shell of another character.”

But Jung plays these characters so well. She was outspoken and fearless as a prosecutor in the legal drama Witch at Court, for which actor Yoon Hyun-min quips, when prompted at an awards show to describe his co-star, that “the only thing that’s similar is that they’re pretty.” And the differences? “Prosecutor Ma Ideum is a strong and ambitious woman,” he tells the awards host. “I think that’s different
from how she actually is.” To which Jung, stifling her laughter to his left, replies, “He’s right.”

But maybe Yoon didn’t quite fully grasp how powerful his co-star could be. Jung won the award for Top Excellence in Acting that same night at the KBS Drama Awards in 2017 for her portrayal of the unstoppable Ma Ideum in Witch at Court. And in her acceptance speech, she was unstoppable herself. Uncharacteristically compared with most thank-you speeches, Jung took her chance on the stage to shine a light on sex crimes, which her character takes on in the show.

Emotional yet determined, Jung told the audience, “The drama Witch at Court covered sex crimes, which is a pretty heavy subject. It’s common, like the flu, but the victims are hidden. Through this drama, we hope that stricter laws will be enacted to punish those who have committed such crimes and give courage to the victims that they can speak out. The truth is, many victims of sexual crimes rarely speak up for themselves because they feel ashamed. I hope our drama gives them comfort. With that goal in mind, our staff members and all the actors worked really hard on this drama.”

Witch at Court changed Jung completely and gave her a new purpose. Her drama had just been released a few months before Me Too erupted in the United States and she quickly became an advocate in Korea for the movement.

“I wasn’t always interested, or aware,” Jung says. “But whenever I turned on the TV and heard about these sexual harassment cases, it was always the small voices that were fading away in the background that caught my attention. And so I became interested in the topic. The role I played in the drama was also sexually harassed and while reading the script and memorising my lines, I really felt what the victims were feeling and I got really engaged to the role. It changed me.”

The laws in Korea surrounding sex crimes are still complex. Many victims would rather not report them to the police for fear of being shamed in public trials – and even when they do find the courage to do so, often those who are convicted receive sentences that seem far too lenient for the crimes they committed.

It’s a situation that still infuriates Jung. “It’s like a guilt trip and they make you feel like a victim,” she says. “What I really want is for there to be a simpler process for the victims to come forward and tell their story without asking them to go back again and again into the painful memories.”

After Witch at Court, Jung developed a penchant for legal dramas, and to bring up issues that might have been buried in the past. “In real life, there are a lot of problems or crimes that remain unsolved and are left as mysteries,” she explains. “But in dramas, we can write a solution for them, or highlight incidents that have been forgotten. I can act it out, and feel like justice could be made through drama, when in real life it’s not always possible. So I like to talk about things that are unjust. I like to talk about things on behalf of people who don’t have a voice.”

It’s where she sees the next step of her career. Jung has great support from her company H & Entertainment, which has agreed to look into filming rights to books she’s interested in and stories she wants to bring to the world. In a book she’s currently engrossed in, themed around survival, the characters are dealt cards but have to act in the opposite way to what the cards say. “It’s an interesting premise,” says Jung. “So I want to look into turning that story into a film.”

But with all the emotionally consuming dramas she’s just wrapped up, her next project is a more light-hearted one, focusing on the daily life of two ordinary friends who live together. There’s no slated release date yet as it’s still in its infancy. 

Jung would like to make movies and television series on all the most pertinent topics – issues she finds important, which include animal rights, sexual trafficking and labour rights. It’s a fine balance between entertainment and activism that she’s trying to achieve.

“I like stories based on real events, but they can often be a bit too heavy, especially considering that people who come home from work want to turn on the TV and watch something entertaining,” she says. “My ultimate goal is to gain trust from the audience by giving them stories that are enjoyable, I want people to watch my dramas because they’ve seen and loved my previous work. And then, at the end of the day, I want to highlight these unheard, untold stories that I think should be told. I’ll never stop looking for those stories. But for now, I’m gaining the audience’s trust.”

And trust in Jung we will. 

(Header image: Jung Ryeo-won wears Alexander McQueen.)

The post Keeping it Real with Jung Ryeo-Won appeared first on Prestige Online - HongKong.

To mixed martial arts fighter Choo Sung-Hoon, age isn’t just a number, it’s a challenge.

Words JOEY WONG
Creative Direction and Styling ALVIN GOH
Photography REUBEN FOONG
Hair SING TAM at Artify Lab
Photography Assistants OSCAR, KING WU
Styling Assistants VICTORIA, HEBE

The Long Game

Legend has it, there once was a king who cheated death. Angry as the gods were – and they were known for their wrath – they bored into him an eternal sentence: to push, with all his might, a boulder up a mountain … only to have said boulder cursed from ever reaching the top. For when it nears the precipice, it’s jinxed to roll backwards down … down … down, back to where it started. Every time this happens, the king is compelled to follow, to return to the foot of the mountain and restart, all over again. And again. And again. And so, the king who cheated death was thus condemned to an afterlife of toiling, laborious effort that leads somewhere. Then, all at once, nowhere.

This was the curse of Sisyphus.

“Whoa.”
“No way.”
“It is him!”
“We’re screwed.”

Appropriately, a cacophony of gasps fills the arena when Choo Sung-Hoon, with his signature bronzed skin, signature pressed suit and signature wayfarer shades, strides on to the set of Netflix’s Physical 100. As excited contestants scurry, one after another, to Choo for handshakes – a “crazy calloused” handshake, so says wrestler Jang Eun-sil – a pecking order is thus established before the competition has even had its first quest: Choo is the one to beat.

It has to be so. Choo, who became a world- champion judoka at age 26; who then retired from competitive judo to compete in mixed martial arts at age 29; who received the nickname “Sexyama” while squaring off in Ultimate Fighting Championship’s octagonal cage; who has since vowed to fight until his 50th birthday, is the show’s most recognisable, most decorated and most venerable athlete. And, at age 47, he’s also the oldest.

When Netflix first contacted me [about Physical 100], I actually declined the offer,” he recalls. He can hold his own against a younger, possibly stronger opponent in speedy five-minute mixed-martial-arts rounds, no problem. But 99? He takes pause. “After some thought, I thought this might be the opportunity of a lifetime. I’m almost 50 now. I realised I wanted the world to see middle-aged people like me win… and know that it’s still possible to win.” So, he said yes. He’ll be there.

Upon reflection, it seems entirely out of character for Choo to have had that wisp of doubt, that errant inkling to refuse a chance to be challenged so. After all, he’s only ever wanted this, to be challenged in the face of arduous physicality. He’s always felt he had to, as “studying was just not for me”, Choo sheepishly admits, hoisting his left arm overhead. “That’s where my grades for phys-ed were. And everything else,” his right palm slices, hovering near his hip, “here.”

Choo, who has fond memories of being shuttled to the dojo since the age of three – his father was a judo instructor – has long seen the sport as something of an education. It’s taught him manners. Taught him respect for his opponent. Taught him discipline. Taught him seiryoku zen’yō – prioritising technique over brute force.

“Because to me, strength means …” Choo starts. He’s trying to come up with the right word, resorting to whipping out his phone for a translation app.

“Kindness,” Siri chirps.

“Yes,” he continues, “kindness.”

“Sportspeople are naturally competitive,” Choo says, “it’s what drives us. For a winner to be crowned, it means there has to be a loser. And in [Physical 100’s] case, there has to be 99 losers.”

Choo’s run on Physical 100 started with a whimper. The preliminary task saw the hundred-strong contestants suspended mid-air, hanging squarely by the strength of their grip. Choo was confident he could make it into the top 10 of his division. To his disappointment, he placed 27 in his cohort of 50.

“I’ll show you this middle-aged man’s strength,” Choo teases, when younger mixed-martial-arts fighter-cum-firefighter Shin Dong-guk chooses him as his challenger for a one-to-one face-off the following quest: the loser will be eliminated. “Don’t you underestimate me.”

“I’ll never get an opportunity like this again,” Shin says, lowering his head. His choice to choose Choo was widely lauded as sportsman-like; he’d wanted to fight the strongest person in the arena, despite all the reasons at present to pick a weaker opponent.

“As a fighter,” Choo admits, humbled, “I was very grateful. I think he chose well.”

The fight begins. The objective is to secure a medicine ball at the end of three minutes. But Shin, who wants to fight Choo on his own merits, proposes mixed-martial-arts rules. Choo accepts.

With every jab, every dodge, every flesh-on-flesh impact that sounds like it hurt, it’s patently obvious: Choo has met his match. But, in the nick of time, the 47-year-old exits mixed-martial-arts stance and dives, landing torso-first atop the very object they’re meant to be tussling over. Choo wins. Shin, despite having lost, does nothing but grin. “It was such an honour.”

Choo, who proceeds, goes on to win across the board for his next two group challenges where he is, naturally, appointed leader.

“Pulling the ship was my most memorable,” he remembers of the two-tonne task. “It was much heavier than we anticipated and it required a lot of teamwork. It’s the type of task that necessitated much more than strength and raw power. There was a lot of strategy involved. We were separated into three teams and we weren’t able to see how the other teams got on. We were just led to the scene of the quest and presented with the task … ‘Ta-da!’”

Indeed, Choo, who mostly fights in the slighter Welterweight division, has never had the density of pure brawn on his side. And when the motions of the quest he’s next slated to enter, named the Punishment of Sisyphus, is revealed, Choo is nervous.

“When I entered the arena, the slope was steeper than I’d thought,” he says. “Just climbing there was already hard, so how was I going to do this with a 100-kilogram rock?”

He goes slowly. Steadily. He pushes the boulder, the height of his hip, with both hands, in the rhythm of his steps. The boulder then falls, with gravity, down the other side of the makeshift slope. He trots down, turns, shakes out his arms and readies himself for a second uphill thrust. He pants. His shirt comes off. Then a third thrust. A fourth.

Imperceptibly, Choo loses pace against the remaining two challengers.

“The last bit at the top, that’s the hardest part,” he says. “That’s when you’re out of energy.”

Against chants of “Sexyama, you’ve got this!” and “You’re doing good,” Choo sweats and rams and just makes it past the precipice– but it’s too late.

“It’s such a shame, yeah. But my stamina and energy dropped and I couldn’t push anymore. But everyone who lost were so encouraging, some even stayed behind to cheer on others that hadn’t yet been eliminated … I think that was what touched me the most,” he says.

This preternatural display of exemplary sportsmanship, though, isn’t to say losing is easy. It almost never is. “I wanted to win,” Choo says plainly. He’d have given the 300-million-won cash prize to his mother. “Success only comes with failure and with every success, failure will follow. So, I don’t think failure is something to be upset over.

“But, of course, failing in competition is devastating,” he reiterates. “Of course it is. And of course I’d want a rematch, always, in an ideal world. But I have no regrets. If I didn’t try my absolute hardest, then I’d be feeling guilty and upset right about now. But that wasn’t the case [with Physical 100].”

And so, a loss. A Sisyphean destiny come true. It doesn’t matter so much, though, as Choo still manages to accomplish exactly what he set out to do: to inspire someone, somewhere, be it a fellow middle-aged man who’s an encouraging word away from trying something new, something challenging. Or a younger person who wanted to witness an unrelenting display of pure tenacity. “If I can do it, anyone can,” Choo says, again and again; it might as well be tattooed across his chest.

The one person he hasn’t managed to inspire? “My daughter is really not a competitive person,” he says, his face lighting up with any mention of his almost-teenaged offspring Choo Sarang. “Maybe it has something to do with having a mixed-martial-arts fighter dad and a mother who’s a model – which in itself is also quite competitive – but she has no interest. I’ve asked her if she wanted to try sports before, definitely. But she’s not into anything competitive. So, she’s probably not going to go into my line of work.

“My family actually didn’t watch the show,” Choo reveals. “Sarang refuses to, even though she loves Netflix. My wife hasn’t seen it either.”

These days, Choo finds himself at the foot of several new Sisyphean mountains. He’s busy dipping toes into fashion and design with his athleisure brand SUNG 1975. He’s also busy with something he’s admittedly not so great at. “Golf,” he says, adamantly refusing to comment on his current handicap, “is extremely difficult. That’s why I love it. I can’t love anything easy. It’s just my personality. Golf is difficult, so I want to keep challenging myself and conquer it.”

It’s a hobby-turned-passion Choo discovered seven or eight years ago. “But I play it so sporadically I haven’t improved much since,” he self-deprecates. “I’d probably have been a better golf player than I am now if I’d started earlier, but I only got into playing after the age of 40 because it’s such an expensive sport.” He counts on his fingers. The clubs, expensive. The courses, expensive. The coaches, expensive. “Everything about golf is hard,” he goes on. “You need a high level of concentration, but at the same time, you have to relax. You need to find this right balance between concentrating and relaxing. And the game takes such a long time. Fighting, a match might be five, 10 minutes, so you only have to tune your attention for that amount of time. But with golf, it’s completely different – it’s an entire day of concentrating. But that’s why it’s challenging – and why it’s so fun.”

Choo, who schemes in decades, has a goal in mind. Well, of course he does. “When I retire from mixed martial arts,” he says, “I want to play golf every day until I’m 70. And when I’m 70, I want to play Tiger Woods.”

He beams big as he voices this pipe-dream of an ambition – “I’m the same age as Woods!” – and yet, even in jest, it doesn’t feel at all improbable that this might be an entirely possible future. Because if there’s anyone that’d make a playoff with Tiger Woods happen, it’d probably be Choo – he’d have practiced enough times to accept the challenge by then – and it’d probably be exactly on schedule, too.

Because to Choo, he’s a walking billboard of achievable dreams.

Even the Richard Mille watch that adorns his wrist, the jingle-jangle of diamond-encrusted bling that encircles his other, he explains, are lessons in grit. He’s once yearned for such luxuries, flipped through the glossy magazines and dreamed. So, he’s gone and done it, earned it. And, therefore, so can you. (Choo, who’s a bit of a magpie for watches, admits to selling a timepiece with every loss. Physical 100 cost him, painfully, a Patek Phillipe.)

For every morning he wakes before he really wants to squeeze in a 45-minute bodyweight workout; for every MMA fight that’s taken him away from his family; for every lesson his late father taught him, in judo and in life, that he still holds near and dear … every sacrifice he’s ever made is a boulder, heavy in his palms. And every success, as far as he’s concerned, is just the same boulder half-shoved up a never-ending mountain. “The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart,” surmises philosopher Albert Camus. “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”

And Choo, easy with a grin, is patently so. On to the next.

The post Choo Sung-Hoon’s Long Game appeared first on Prestige Online - HongKong.

Actress-singer-director-scriptwriter Sylvia Chang would really love it if you’d stop pressing the “continue watching” button on Netflix and head straight to a cinema. Now.

Words JOEY WONG
Creative Direction and Styling ALVIN GOH
Photography REUBEN FOONG
Retouching XU PENG
Make-up ANNIE G CHAN
Hair KIKI SIN at La Biosthetique
Photography Assistants KO PO LUN, CLIFF CHIK
Styling Assistants VICTORIA, HEBE

Leave The Light On

Sylvia Chang doesn’t want to say goodbye. Not yet. Possibly not ever. It’s the same forlorn predilection that torments Heung, a mourning widow Chang plays in her latest film, A Light Never Goes Out, who grapples with the death of her late husband by trying to keep his critically endangered neon trade alive.

The loss is similar to the one that plagues Chang herself, as she accepts her third Best Actress Golden Horse for the role – and likens, at the brink of tears, the lure of mass-produced LEDs to the siren call of smaller screens, fearing the imminent disappearance of the cinemas she’s so very fond of.

Yet with a career as multifarious and exceedingly chameleonic as Chang’s, it seems as if farewells would be something she’s intimately familiar with. An expected if slightly devastating occupational hazard, especially when her medium of choice has always been given a lease of life that hovers at departure near 90 minutes of run-time. Not so. “Well, I’d still love to maybe perform as a singer one day,” Chang wonders out loud, assiduously leaving each door she’s once traversed through swung a nudge ajar. She might just come back to it.

At 16, Chang was a radio host in Taiwan with dreams of becoming a singer. Competing in televised singing competitions landed her record deals – her Mando-pop ballad “The Price of Love” continues to be a karaoke mainstay – and, spoiler alert, her very first film part. It was a fortuitous meet-cute that would define the rest of her career and, with it, the rest of her life.

“With singing, it was just my hobby,” she says. “I love singing, but that wasn’t really my main interest. With film, I just knew. Immediately. I found this endless, this unlimited … thing that I could really dig into. That it’s something I want to work on for the rest of my life.”

A promise Chang has diligently kept in the 50-or-so years since her screen debut in The Flying Tiger, film has been an ever-looming, ever-loving constant. She’s kicked and fought in martial-arts flicks. She’s pulled guns and acquiesced to being slapped, for real, by Karl Maka in Aces Go Places. Again. And again. And again. She’s watched, in abject horror, as Chow Yun-fat went aflame in All About Ah-Long’s shocking ending … and reunited with Chow almost three decades later in Office. She’s played jilted lovers, played cloying mothers. And she’s screamed, scoffed and guffawed in screwballs and slapsticks. But most ardently, she’s cried. Oh, how she’s cried.

Yet, like all love affairs – and Chang, who’s something of a weepie savant, knows a thing or two about love affairs – it hasn’t always been easy; at times, it’s been difficult. Early on, she was switched out for Brigitte Lin twice over; the first, in Eight Hundred Heroes, after director Ting Shan-hsi practically promised her the female lead. The second, in The Dream of the Red Chamber, for the dashing role of Jia Baoyu Chang so desperately wanted.

And, other times, still, it’s been downright impossible.

At the helm of delivering her directorial debut, Once Upon a Time, Chang recalls crying – she cries! – through a press junket. She’d just won her first Best Actress Golden Horse earlier that same year for My Grandfather when she accepted this directing gig. It felt like a timely gear shift.

“I was 20-some years old when I directed my first film,” she says. “I had so much interest in writing, and I wasn’t really thinking about directing. I was just very keen to get behind the camera. And, actually, I wasn’t ready, but then this opportunity came. And I just grabbed at the chance and went along with it. And I found I knew very little about directing.”

The opportunity was already inopportune at inception; Chang was substituting for the original director, Tu Chung-Hsun, after a car wreck that proved tragically fatal. “I got really drunk,” she says, “and I told the press I did a bad job.”

“But that gave me a chance to go back as an actress as a beginner,” she says. “And if I wanted to direct again, I knew I had to work harder, and I’d have to learn.”

Learning, for Chang, didn’t happen within the rigidity of classroom walls nor by perusing film school syllabi. She learned by doing: by watching films alongside dubbing veterans as they worked; by fully immersing herself in the thick of it. Even if it meant flying to Korea and waiting on-set for director King Hu to then cut her second-long scene. Even if it then meant spending six-plus months on the very same set fiddling with liquid nitrogen, styling extras, helping with make-up, attending to the tasks of a production assistant as a budding star actress.

“I think I have more freedom,” she says, her lack of a formalised acting-directing education never something she feels had held her back. “I feel freer to do what I think should be done. And as long as I provide what I feel in here,” she gestures at her heart, “and if the director accepts and it touches people, then I think it’s good.”

Being good, for an actor on this side of the Pacific, has often meant going West. But Chang, who’d split time between Taiwan, Hong Kong and the United States in her youth, had already gone west … and come home. “So I didn’t do this project with Robert DeNiro …” Chang rattles on, “ … I even met Madonna and Sean Penn when they were doing Shanghai Surprise. And I just walked out because I really thought that wasn’t a very good script.” Her voice darkens, conspiratorially.

She’s recalling the flower-vase girls that bored her so as a young actress signed to Golden Harvest at the start of her career, delegated to no more than pretty window dressing between hulking, sulking men. It’s the only time she’s ever wondered about her future in the industry. And these would be the roles she’d be offered, tokenised and backgrounded, opposite international film stars she supposed would be exciting to work with.

“I just couldn’t go back to being the BS flower vase,” she concedes.

In the years since, Chang says, Hollywood has made strides. “There’ll be more coming up, which is quite exciting,” she says, Michelle Yeoh’s historic triumph a happy inflection. “But at the same time, I also wish there’s more we can do from here in Asia. That even our Chinese-speaking films can go abroad and be acceptable.”

To wit, she mentions an interview she’s read online, of Scottish director Charlotte Wells who spoke of sobbing, inconsolable, through Murmur of the Hearts, a film Chang directed. Chang, whose faith also lies heavily upon her own tear ducts, was honoured. And incredulous.

“I was very surprised where she got to see the film,” she exclaims. “I just feel that there must be a channel or there must be something that we all feel in common. We have something we can all share together. I always believe in emotions about love, about family. About relationships. There must be something we all have in common.”

This universality Chang speaks of is what drives her, what motivates her. And what, ultimately, moves her. “When you read a script, you have intuition about how it hits you, where it hits you,” she says. “It hits me in the heart. And whenever I talk about it, whenever I even think about it, there are tears in my eyes. And I just want to know, what is it like? I want to dig deep into every character. What happened to them, at that time, for them to make that decision? Did they make a mistake, or did they make a judgment? What happened?”

As Chang asks rhetorical question after rhetorical question at rapid-fire speed, as though saying out loud what must have rumbled inside her mind as she penned her scripts, it’s absolutely clear why she’s a superlative storyteller. She’s curious. She’s curious about the characters on her page. She’s curious about the ways she can make them real, make them complex, difficult. Make them human.

And she cares.

Whereas Tsui Hark was mercurial – he’d change the screenplay at a moment’s notice – Edward Pang was detail-oriented, meticulously so. Johnnie To had myriad ideas but never a completely written screenplay.

“All these directors,” Chang starts, “they all have very, very strong personalities. And the one thing they’ve told me is you’ve got to have your own language as a creator. And even though I complained about it sometimes, that’s just the way they work.”

“I think I’m very gentle,” she surmises of her own directorial style. “I’m very observant. And I like to see what everybody can provide, especially when I’m on a set. I believe in good talent, of people who care about their own work. Because that’s what I want. I want people to give me more, more than what I can think of, what I can imagine.

“Especially for melodramas, you need to have a good cameraman who not only has good eyes, but understands what drama is,” she insists. “And they also need to be very observant about what’s going on, not only through the lens but outside of the lens.”

She generously calls out one frequent collaborator, the Taiwanese cinematographer Mark Lee. “He’s quite unique as a master of his own work,” Chang enthuses, “because he’s always looking at the camera with both eyes open. Usually, you see cameramen with one eye open and the other eye closed, but he always has both eyes open. The other eye is looking at what’s going on beyond the lens, and if he sees anything – even without telling me as a director – he’d pan over to capture it, instinctively.”

Chang’s first Golden Horse nomination for directing would arrive a mere five years after the junket fiasco that first ruined her directorial confidence. In the years since, her rolodex of nominations and awards would pile up, and pile high in categories well beyond acting. And had she been asked 10 years ago, she’d have said receiving accolades for directing, out of everything she’s been gold-starred for, would feel the most gratifying.

“Because directing is actually more difficult,” she says. “But now, I just don’t think it’s only directing. Because I do find directing, scriptwriting and even producing difficult. They’re all difficult, but they’re all exciting. And they’ve all given me so many good memories.”

These days, Chang is marvellously busy. She’s turning 70 this summer and not at all worried about the wrinkles scored ever so gently through the planes of her face, her hands. She’s now three decades past the age she once set as the limit for “good roles”; it didn’t matter, she wrote new roles – directed them, too. She’s defiantly vexed at being asked about retirement. She’ll work, she says, as long as there’s work coming along that’s interesting, that’s challenging.

She’s currently in rehearsals with the Shanghai Orchestra Symphony for a performance of Midsummer Night’s Dream, for which she plays narrator. She’s working on a script that’s 10 years in the making about the air force (she’s keeping mum about the details, but her father, who died when she was just one year old, was in the military). She’s worried about the newer cadre of filmmakers’ reliance on “post”, she air-quotes. She’s designing curriculum for the annual Artistic Creation summer camp she helped set up for students in Taiwan interested in the arts. She’s watching old Japanese black-and-whites and almost through a book on breathing techniques. And she’s doggedly not watching Netflix.

“Everyone stays home and watches Netflix,” Chang says, groaning. “They say, ‘Oh, which episode are you on?’

“I always remind people that going to the theatre is totally different from staying home and watching television series. The problem nowadays is that all the big theatres have closed down. We’re left with small houses. And a small house is becoming so small it’s very much like home now. So what’s the difference? Of going to small-house theatres than to stay home and watch?

“Theatres should always have a screen that’s bigger than the TV at home, and have distance,” she sermonises, passionately. “And it’s completely dark and you have other people sharing with you. Watching TV series is home entertainment. But going to the theatre is going out. It’s social entertainment. It’s totally different. Would you sit at home and eat popcorn? Not really, right? You might drink a beer but you wouldn’t eat popcorn. But at the theatre, you always want to buy popcorn. All these things … all these little things make going to the theatre to watch a film different.”

It’s different. And important. And rarefied. For the price of entry, it’s Plato’s Cave, a darkened instance shared between strangers sitting, shoulder to shoulder, suspending, if only for a mere moment, the ails of the real for the utter magic of the reel. Where oversized neon signage can still be erected in an image of Hong Kong we still remember. Where love can be lost and miraculously found in the run-time it takes to traverse meaningfully through three narrative arcs. Where a bark of a laugh might just prompt yours; an errant sniffle might just remind you, you with the wet eyes and the wet nose, that we’re not so different. That we’re not so alone, after all.

Then, the credits roll.

The music swells.

The theatre lights flicker on.

The post Sylvia Chang Wants Us to Go to the Movies appeared first on Prestige Online - HongKong.

The universe – and how art might save it – according to one remarkable Japanese billionaire, Yusaku Maezawa.

We pinch ourselves as we walk into the home of Japanese art collector, Space adventurer, entrepreneur and philanthropist extraordinaire, Yusaku Maezawa, the man whose exploits blazed in klieg lights for the majority of 2022.

After all, when wasn’t he headlining our news cycles? Halfway through the year, he sold a Basquiat at Phillips auction house in New York, on the premise that more people would be able to see it, and by December, was announcing on his digital platform, dearMoon, the crew he’d finalised for his week-long flyby of the Moon this year on Elon Musk’s inaugural SpaceX Starship rocket. But this isn’t just some joy-riding, showboating space jolly, whereby Maezawa’s riding on the coattails of his 12-day stay on the International Space Station in 2021. This is a “space art” voyage. Consider it like a supreme expression and manifestation of Japan’s hugely experimental Gutai art movement, as Maezawa and his self-curated crew of eight photographers, artists and filmmakers will make their liberated way into the galaxy and attempt to make art within the relative constraints of space travel. “It’s an exciting ride,” he says. “We have no idea what will happen. It’s like a journey into the unknown.” But right at this moment, honoured and humbled guests that we are, Space can wait.

You Might Also Like…

Cover Story: T.O.P is Back – A Star Reborn

People

TOP Joins SpaceX Expedition to Become the First South Korean Civilian to Visit the Moon

People

There’s a festoonation of art to marvel at from the get-go. Almost immediately we pass a Duane Hanson Security Guard (1990) just inside the door, the hyper-realistic sculpture catching us by surprise, as they always do, in that “is-he-or-isn’t-he-alive” state. Maezawa grins. The veracity of Hanson’s work often provokes interaction with living people and his work anticipated the likes of Italian impresario Maurizio Cattelan. Going downstairs, we find above us, suspended from the ceiling, an Alexander Calder – Mobile suspendu avec deux croissants (1940) – in painted metal and steel wire. Calder always carried wire and pliers with him so that he could “sketch” as he moved around, a technique that became known as “drawing in space” – which seems an apt description given Maezawa’s pending art mission on the SpaceX Starship. Before we’re even seated, both pieces have alerted us to the playful yet perspicacious nature of Maezawa’s collecting habits.

Casually accoutred in a hoodie and shorts, Maezawa beckons us to take a seat, but in his world that means not just any seat. We settle in a distinctive playful red couch that turns out to be by French interior designer Jean Royère and was first called the Ours Polaire (polar bear) sofa when designed in 1947. Maezawa, it transpires, is as committed to collecting furniture and design pieces as he is to more traditional art, and he later shows us a series of Jean Prouvé chairs, the earliest the Cité (1938), a bookcase by Charlotte Perriand (1958), floor lamps by Jean Royère and a pair of Diego Giacometti low tables from the 1940s. Not everything is a “work” though. While the expansive and tall white rooms have the feel of a gallery space, there are bookshelves with myriad titles, mostly art- or design-related, and model aircrafts, vases and pots, and an impressive array of crystals standing like stalagmites. There are also quirky curios, such as personal message cards with drawings from Jonas Wood and various photographs of his other-worldly life spent aboard the ISS.

But the longer we gaze and appraise, the more it’s nigh on impossible not to be distracted by the gilt-edged array of premium (and unlikely) pieces on show in the two floors of the house that we walk through. There’s a gritty, fabulous – and early – Bruce Nauman neon (1941); On Kawara’s quietly declarative Nov 22, 1975, which is Maezawa’s birthday – in fact there’s so much On Kawara the house feels like something of a mini-shrine to the artist; Ed Ruscha’s simple, conceptual, Dada- influenced Peach (1964), and Lace Leaves (2022) by newly covetable Polish artist Ewa Juszkiewicz (represented by Gagosian and Almine Rech, followed by Cindy Sherman, and tipped as one of three female artists to watch by Katy Hessel in last year’s best-seller, The Story of Art Without Men). Maezawa recently shared the work on his Instagram.

OK. Confession time. We went into this rare meeting with the former online fashion retail tycoon thinking in matters of art we’d mostly be discussing: his predilection for Jean-Michel Basquiat and how, in 2017, he set the art world a-twitter with his US$110.5 million purchase of the artist’s blue-infused Untitled at auction in New York. And how, just last year, he sold another Basquiat Untitled, which he’d bought in 2016 amid a surge in the artist’s prices. How wrong we were. In reality, there’s way more to Maezawa than meets the eye in just about everything his interests cover – and that’s one cosmically wide expanse of commitment. He collects and encourages emerging and established artists across the board, it transpires, and even took a work by one, Ida Yukimasa’s L’Atelier du peintre, to the ISS, “like a bunch of flowers to brighten up the very bland and very austere nature of the interior”. But before we broaden our discussion, he stops to highlight his affinity for Basquiat and that work: the blue one.

Maezawa was a drummer in a Japanese hardcore punk band, while a decade or so earlier, Basquiat had played for a New York punk-rock band called Gray. “Basquiat is not only an artist or just a painter, but also a musician. And I always found his passion very cool. So I found him to be a well-rounded artist. And I like his lifestyle,” Maezawa tells us. But not all of it. “That’s not to say I like every single piece of his work. There are works he’s done that I don’t feel really attracted to at all, and which I think are not great,” he declares. We suggest to him, somewhat sheepishly, that a little bird had told us he’d cried upon first seeing the “blue Basquiat”. Was that so? The room holds its breath; the only thing that moves is the Calder above us. He pauses at the recognition, which, given his expression, still appears to resonate. “I was really touched and overwhelmed by the experience of being there in person, and just had this amazing feeling of a kind of personal connection. It just seemed to shine. But not only is the work and its aura so very powerful; I also thought it a little bit sad and even transient as well.” Moment. Outside of that, Maezawa explains that separate artworks spark distinct feelings in him. “Generally, I invest in art which I have strong feelings towards, but there are always different reasons each time for why I might buy. Sometimes an artwork is just powerful, like Ed Ruscha’s. It has not any sadness to it.” We concur. It’s feel-good-factor work of high order.

And then we make a silver bullet of a discovery about his first-ever art purchase, a highly stylised Roy Lichtenstein portrait of an overpoweringly beautiful blonde with headband (think Marilyn-ism) in bold outlines with Ben-Day dots mimicking a newspaper or comic. It’s top-tier Ultra Pop and shot through with visual seduction. “At that time,” Maezawa explains, “I used to like Pop Art but only had posters. And this was the first painting that I decided to buy; it’s quite a big piece. A dealer in Japan reached out to me and asked if I was interested. It cost just over US$1 million, which was a big purchase for me, and it was also a bold decision to buy an American work.” A wide, satisfied smile illuminates his face. “From then on, there’s been no stopping me. I can’t stop.”

“The first painting I decided to buy; it’s quite a big piece… it’s also a bold decision to buy an American work. From then on, there’s been no stopping me”

Yusaku Maezawa

And with that, we fasten our seatbelts for Maezawa’s ride, or rides – because why do it once when your aspiration demands more? – into Space. And, once again, his methods surprise. For a man who inhabits the HyNW (hyper-net-worth) elite, his modus operandi is welcoming and engaging, yet also the result of some serious grunt work on his part. Witness his trip to the International Space Station in December 2021, and the training he underwent, which necessitated time in America, Russia, Germany and Japan. It’s all viewable on digital because Maezawa made it so, none of which was a shoe-in given he needed clearance from separate international space agencies and their galactic loads of bureaucracy – in matters of protocol, legality and security – in discerning what he was able to post and show and share and how. “When you’re on the ISS, when you go to different sections, we do need approval and each section has its own manners and rules, and you need to comply with them,” he says. “So in order to be able to enter different sections, you have to get approval from different space agencies,” he explains. “So I went to NASA, ESA and JAXA – at least I didn’t need my passport to travel through different sections in the ISS,” he says with a grin.

He becomes especially animated and enthused when recollecting ISSisms. “The first and second day are always tricky because you get Space sick, quite dizzy and queasy. And everyone gets sick; civilians and astronauts alike. You can replicate the experience by sitting in a chair on Earth and turning it around fast for about 10 minutes. And whether you move from side to side or lurch forward, you still feel sicker. There’s no way to alleviate the feeling. One month before we went to Space they would make us do that every single day in the morning. So, the feeling I had on the Space chair on Earth was pretty much exactly what I felt when I was in Space.” Mercifully he didn’t throw up. “But there’s a vacuum you can use when you’re up there, if you need to. And lots of medication. But after two days, you get used to it.”

And different challenges arose. “I couldn’t really sleep. It wasn’t like you wake up thinking ‘good morning’.” He explains that the sun rises and sets 16 times a day on ISS as it orbits Earth. “The sleeping bag was too warm, but not using one meant floating around the cabin and bumping into things. And there’s noise constantly while you’re up there; with maximum ventilation and air-conditioning and the hum of all the computers on the ISS.” And the return wasn’t any easier. “When I got back to Earth, I kept dropping lots of different things: my smartphone, my toothbrush. And at first, I couldn’t walk because my body felt so heavy. And I would feel sick again. And my brain felt heavy after floating for 12 days. So I went to Space and I came back loving Earth even more. And, honestly speaking, being in Space is not all that comfortable.”

“When I got back to Earth, I kept dropping lots of different things, my smartphone, my toothbrush. And at first I couldn’t walk because my body felt so heavy”

Yusaku Maezawa

As a result of Maezawa’s tireless endeavours, he’s documented the most complete existing archive available of such an undertaking. And as much as it’s an experience to follow his private mission to become “space-ready”, it’s also an education in contemporary space tourism and the rigours of travelling to such an environment, which while not exactly hostile is hardly the most welcoming. Maezawa even spread and shared the cosmic love with aspiring young wannabe space travellers by reaching out digitally and asking followers to assign him 100 tasks to achieve on ISS, which ranged from washing his hair to shaving. Maezawa, a man with a seeming Midas touch for intuiting consumer and cultural vibes, has become the cosmos’s content creator and educator par excellence. Having noticed he’s got a Joseph Albers Homage to the Square [Solemn] on the wall behind us – oh, and was that Chameleon beyond the Hanson a Christopher Wool [it was, and is, from 1990]? – and before we get to some questions concerning his SpaceX art voyage and relationship with Elon Musk, there’s another matter to discuss first. About money. And certain people’s lack of it. And how it’s a corrupting force “polluting people’s souls”. Because this man who’s partial to blue Basquiats is also a humanitarian and philanthropist. So before we get ideas above, ahem, our international space station, and talk Musk and humans as a multi-planetary species, we ask him about his pilot scheme for basic income in Japan, which we’ve heard about. Almost subliminally, Calder’s croissants seem to shift in recognition.

It’s like a social experiment. Maezawa sees basic income – a system that allows citizens to receive money unconditionally on a regular basis – as a key to greater happiness and one that can empower people to make better and more inspired choices than are currently available to them. He enlisted a small team of professors from leading universities in Tokyo to monitor the Basic Income Social Experiment. One thousand individuals in Japan have each received one million Japanese Yen, and the team will study how a life with Basic Income affects them over the course of a year. Moreover, he’s often given away money on his Twitter account – he has the highest following (10 million and counting) of any Twitter user in Japan – to followers in Japan.

People can be happier if they receive Basic Income,” says Maezawa. “If people were given money needed for an adequate living, wouldn’t they have the freedom to enjoy work, [which would] therefore increase people’s labour productivity?” Furthermore, he likens the one-million-yen to a depiction of chance. That is, a chance for people to challenge themselves. “Wouldn’t this change people’s lives for the better?” he proclaims. “Of course, this is just an idea of mine, but why think when you can act? And I hope this social experiment will guide us to a better future.”

In espousing such a plan, Maezawa follows in the footsteps of leading philosophers, from Thomas More and Bertrand Russell to Thomas Paine and John Stuart Mill, all of whom believed a form of basic income might alleviate poverty. More thought it would discourage theft, while Mill believed that money should be given to all, irrespective of their capability to work or not; the American economist Milton Friedman championed the idea, as did US President Richard Nixon in the ’60s. Today, governments in Canada, Finland, the Netherlands, Italy and the UK – and even the folk in Silicon Valley – appear poised to institute some form of Universal Basic Income. The subject has become newly popular in advanced economies such as Japan, with concerns about stagnant trade flows, growing economic inequality, slow productivity gains and, pertinently, automation-driven job losses. One curious aspect of the Maezawa phenomenon in Japan is that some regard him as a self-promoting, self-interested svengali, whose ambitions go little beyond himself. Yet, his latest venture with Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starship, which Maezawa has christened “dearMoon”– and much of what we were party to – suggests the opposite. When Maezawa bought his way on to Musk’s inaugural Starship lunar flyby idea in 2018, he commandeered the entire vessel. Already foreseeing a grandiose art project, he then extended an invitation across the globe asking would-be voyagers to submit short videos and films of their most envelope-pushing and boundary-breaking ideas, as to how they might create art in space, were they to be accepted as crew on the trip.

The response was overwhelming. More than one million people from 249 countries and regions applied, and he and a team of judges assessed the aesthetic credentials of each, over a 20-month period, before announcing the crew last December. Maezawa will thus fund (as yet no date for the trip has been set, though it’s been provisionally pencilled in for 2023) a coterie of artists, photographers, videographers and filmmakers to accompany him, along with DJ Steve Aoki, brother of model and actress Devon, and his best pal, BIGBANG member and art collector, TOP. Despite the latter’s close friendship with Maezawa, TOP still had to apply the same way everyone else did – online and via forms.

One of the projects Maezawa singles out for artistic potential is 38-year-old Irish photographic artist and writer Rhiannon Adam. “She’s a photographer, but she uses Polaroids and one of her ideas is to use this very low-tech technology to capture Space.” Maezawa explains that the majority of photographs taken in space are super high-res using cutting-edge, state-of-the-art technologies. “But her idea is one you probably would never expect to have, in which she will just use the ‘natural’ light.” As for K-Pop king extraordinaire T.O.P, the singer is working on music themed around the Moon, which he tantalisingly promotes on his Instagram, but with no sound.

Remarkably, Maezawa didn’t approach SpaceX; rather, they came to him. “You know, the space community is a lot like the art community; both pretty small, everybody knows each other and word travels fast,” Maezawa tells us. Hence why SpaceX was on to him like a, ahem … moonshot. And with good reason. “So, SpaceX contacted me and made a proposal. We met and they took me to their factory in Hawthorne, LA. I also watched the launch of the first flight of Falcon Heavy at Cape Canaveral. And we gradually built a relationship based on trust. And that’s why we decided to sign the contract. There’s a lot of trust.”

With good reason. To the “non-thrillionaire” or layperson, most striking about Maezawa’s recollection is just how “prototype” the proposition he signed on to with SpaceX was. “Back then, there wasn’t really any kind of seating capacity decided, and they hadn’t really decided how to sell the seats either, so they didn’t have a price chart saying what it would cost,” he says. “I just told him that I was thinking of going with a couple of people and then he came back to us and said, ‘What about 10 to 15 people?’”

How to catch a star? Chiba-born Maezawa, like most children, was fascinated by stars and recalls “seeing Halley’s Comet when I was around 10. You could see it from Earth and I remember watching and thinking how nice it would be to go to Space but, of course, that seemed more like a dream. Now, times have changed and we can go. But I wasn’t one of those kids who wanted to be an astronaut. I was just very curious about Space.”

And what was his first impression of Musk? “Frankenstein,” he says, smiling, by which we assume he means the doctor rather than his iconoclastic alter ego. “With him being an engineer, I’d imagined he’d be very quiet and sensitive, and on the whole he was. Even though we had drinks, the entire time he was more on the quiet side. I think that’s also because he’s got so many other things on his mind all the time.”

Much like Maezawa. It’s clear from spending time with Maezawa that his commitment to art and its practitioners – especially Japanese – is total. And as the founder of the Contemporary Art Foundation, which stages two annual exhibitions annually, and both its annual CAF Awards, given to students since 2014, and the CAFAA Award residency programme for mid-career artists that began in 2015, he’s discovered young artists such as Kota Hirakawa, Sakae Ozawa, Yukimasa Ida, Etsu Egami, Akio Onishi and Kota Arai. He’s also been planning to build a private museum in his hometown of Chiba, just outside Tokyo, which is currently still a work in progress.

Meanwhile, he says the Starship voyage into Space may be his second and last. Now he wants to head South, specifically the Mariana Trench, the deepest place on Earth, one that fewer humans have visited than Space. And probably less physically arduous than blasting towards the heavens. He only sees one catch, pun intended, “With the deep, there’s the problem that you can’t really see much there, but I thought, you know, since I can go there, why not?” However, one motivating factor, as against Space, “is the greater chance of discovering a new life form
in the ocean, which can then be named after its discoverer”. There’s also the practical reality that with the “retirement” of the ISS this decade, fewer civilians or private astronauts will have the chance to stay in Space, with low-Earth orbit flights and lunar flybys taking precedence.

Surprising to the last, Maezawa then delivers something of an epiphany. “Well, I’ve gone to Space and I’m going to the deep sea. So, outside of myself, there’s not much else to see.” He pauses. “So, the next journey will be to look inside myself. I turn 50 soon, and after that I’d be looking at myself more internally. That makes sense. It makes a lot of sense.” He lets the thought breathe. “I’m going to start pottery. I’m seeking spiritual enlightenment, so I want to actually pour my soul into the soil.”

There speaks a pioneer, discoverer and visionary, who’s looked down upon Earth from on high while docking with the ISS, and seen the fleeting wonder of our existence. “When you look at Earth, it looks relatively small and covered only by a thin layer of atmosphere. It’s fragile.” Hence why he feels the need to pour his soul back into the soil and replenish our greatest work of art. In doing such, is he a beacon of hope for not just our planet, but our youth as well? He’s not presumptuous enough – and indeed he’s too modest – to assume as much, but proffers the following: “For the longest time, I’ve been trying to get my message out there that dreams can come true, and I hope that feeling can resonate with some people.” Has being in Space changed his view of art? “One is purchasing an experience, the other is about ownership. But, in either case, both are very impressive and emotional, and have contributed to my personal growth.” Which is still ongoing.

“For the longest time, I’ve been trying to get my message out there that dreams can come true, and I hope that feeling can resonate with some people”

Yusaku Maezawa

In the big picture of the world there are still many things we don’t understand – and one we understand least about is ourselves. For Maezawa, it’s time to discover the space inside our heads, the space of our thoughts, and expedite the potential that courses through the infinite portals of our minds. Soil, clay, pottery, spirit, soul. Art happens, a Calder sways overhead, our universe calls.

Words STEPHEN SHORT
Creative Direction and Styling ALVIN GOH
Photography REUBEN FOONG
Grooming CHIHARU YADA

The post Yusaku Maezawa on His Space/Art Odyssey appeared first on Prestige Online - HongKong.

Singer and actor Josie Ho talks about finding all three while making movies and music – and relentlessly exploring new directions – during the pandemic.

Words JON WALL
Creative Direction and Styling ALVIN GOH
Photography REUBEN FOONG
Make-up ALVIN GOH
Hair styling KEN HONG @Evolve Salon
Manicure PINKY HO
Photography Assistants TYLER YEUNG and DEREK LI
Styling Assistants VINCY LEE, ZOE and CANDY CHUNG
Videographer ZAYNE OTHNIEL

Joy, Bliss and the Godbomb

There aren’t many performers in Hong Kong quite like Josie Ho. Come to think of it, there aren’t any.

Born into one of this city’s wealthiest families, in her late teens Ho flies in the face of convention – which, in a deeply conservative place like this, can be as confining as a straitjacket – not to mention the entrenched opposition of her father, Macau casino magnate Stanley Ho, by deciding to embark on a career as a singer. This she quickly follows – though, by the norms of our local entertainment industry, somewhat more conventionally – by becoming an actor.

But then, true to form, she also turns out not to be your typical Hong Kong singer or actor either, increasingly taking control of her career and her persona by pivoting from sweet songstress to a more uncompromising style better suited to her husky, contralto voice and, on screen, by seeking out roles at society’s edges that include prostitutes and lesbians and, along the way, earn her career-affirming awards and accolades. After marrying actor and producer Conroy Chan some 20 years ago, the pair set up their own production company, 852 Films, with the avowed aim of serving as a bridge between East and West; roughly at the same time, Ho teams up with a bunch of local musicians to form the band Josie & The Uni Boys, which is still going strong 15 years later. Her cinematic roles and projects, many with the involvement of 852, span an enormous breadth from comedy to post-apocalyptic horror and often veer towards the indie and avant garde; musically, she and the Uni Boys tread that cacophonous and sometimes angry path between searing hard rock and punk; in person, Ho is refreshingly spontaneous and direct, her words a rippling stream of fun, self-deprecation and openness that occasionally appear to surprise her almost as much as the listener – and make her such an entertaining interview subject.

Given her background of enormous privilege, there are some who might be inclined to dismiss her experimentations and appetite for the offbeat as those of a dilettante, someone not to be taken entirely seriously – indeed, I put this to her during a long conversation over afternoon tea (during which, full disclosure, my voice recorder turns out not to have been working and she, graciously and cheerfully, agrees to go over the same ground all over again. “Don’t worry,” she tells me kindly, my face reddening with embarrassment, “it’s just a machine.”).

“They never did [take my talent seriously],” she says, answering my question. “They never did. And even now – after how many years have I been in the industry? Since 1992 – they just felt that I was having fun and that I could drop out at any time. It really hasn’t changed and it will never change in Hong Kong.” She laughs, which she does often and infectiously, more playful pixie than the intimidating, spike-haired and dark-eyed Goth of her onstage image. “I can’t do anything about it. So I do what I’m doing, I go abroad to look for collaborations – and I’ve found people who understand me and want to work with me.”

Had she indeed been a dilettante, she might well have done little more over the past three years of Covid than sit on her backside and complain loudly of her inability to work. Not so. During this time, she’s been involved in no fewer than five new film projects: Rajah (or as it’s also been known, Edge of the World), an international co-production recounting the true and remarkable tale of James Brooke, the first White Rajah of Sarawak; the comedy thriller Habit; a starring role in the J-horror outing Onpaku; the suspense thriller Mother Tongue, currently in post-production, which is set in Los Angeles but was filmed in Hong Kong under celebrated British director Mike Figgis (best known for Leaving Las Vegas and Internal Affairs); and Finding Bliss: Fire and Ice, a documentary recounting a visit to Iceland made by Ho and a group of Hong Kongers at the height of the pandemic. There are tantalising hints of other projects in the pipeline, too, linked to names such as French director/producer Luc Besson (La Femme Nikita, Transporter, Taken) and British filmmaker Tony Kaye (American History X), though as they’re still at the discussion stage she can’t say much about them.

In spite of the pandemic, Ho was also able to visit several festivals around the world where her films were being shown. In November last year, she picked up a Lifetime Achievement Award for her cinematic and musical endeavours at the Hawaii International Film Festival, where her movies Dream Home (852’s first production from 2010, for which she was nominated for Best Actress at the Hong Kong Film Awards), Onpaku and Finding Bliss all formed part of a Spotlight on Hong Kong programme. “I totally appreciate that kind of attention and recognition,” she tells me. “It’s almost like a green light for me to move on and do more – to make more surprising movies, surprising roles and way crazier stuff.

“The movies that are shooting in Hong Kong are generally big blockbuster films,” Ho explains. “There was a niche market for smaller productions and indie productions, but we just felt it might not be enough for my appetite. I’d been working with my agent for so long, hoping to bring something new to my career, and I was also looking for more green lights in world cinema. Luckily, some of my films were invited to festivals where I got to watch a lot of new films and discover some future directions. Which totally moved me and showed me that my way is not a lunatic’s way, hahaha! Because at first, when I started doing cult films, I thought that maybe it was just my interest. That maybe there were some voices in town saying, ‘Oh, she’s just doing whatever she likes, because she’s from such and such a background,’ and blah, blah, blah. So yeah, that’s why I went to Hollywood and I knocked on a lot of doors. And people told me I was going in the right direction. And I went to film festivals and got the message, right?”

Indeed, though Ho readily acknowledges the support she’s received in Hong Kong, she admits she’s never been a perfect fit in the local entertainment industry. “It’s partly because of my face,” she says. “My family comes from a crazy mixed-blood background. When one of my sisters had her DNA checked for fun, she found out she’s Persian, Chinese, she had some Jewish blood and German blood, Irish and English – a lot of things going on that most probably all had to do with the Silk Road.

“I felt that, yeah, when I worked in Hong Kong – I don’t know, it’s like this taboo that was told to me by the CEO of the record company when I started out in singing. He said, ‘Eurasians never make it, Josie. Look at the history of Hong Kong cinema. No Eurasians made it, yet they were all beautiful. So, you’re beautiful, but you’re not gonna fit into the film business because you look too different. You don’t look like you’re related to anyone.’” She chuckles at the absurdity.

“I’ve generally felt more sincere feedback from the people overseas. Of course, I got a lot of support from Hong Kong, but when I go to China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Japan or even London, they find me much more interesting.”

As for her decision to start filming on Mother Tongue, most of which was shot in 2021 at the height of Covid, Ho says she was inspired by Hollywood director Steven Soderbergh (with whom she’d worked on the remarkably prescient medical thriller Contagion, partially filmed in Hong Kong and released in 2011). “We already had a script when I heard the news from the Directors Guild of America that Soderbergh had started work again [on the movie No Sudden Move], but with a medical team on the set. Although it meant a little more budget, I just felt that could be an idea.

“So I invited Mike Figgis to come over because I was more confident about the pandemic in Hong Kong – at that time we didn’t have high numbers – so I felt it was really applicable to shoot the film here, because I understood that everybody was afraid of the pandemic. So we started out with a medical team basically testing everybody.
It took us almost two months to shoot the movie on set, though Mike was here for more than five months.”

Which brings us to the documentary Finding Bliss: Fire and Ice, a response to the depredations of Covid and a labour of love that Ho says, laughing, “is one of the most important things I’ve accidentally done! It was because of the pandemic and a lot of things – like the start of recession, and the fact there were a lot of unhappy people around and the general vibe of Hong Kong was low. I had friends who’d jumped off a building – suicides – who were so young and so talented, and I just felt I should do something about it.

“All I could do was go back into my memory and try to dig up the happiest moment – like complete happiness, a completely blissful moment – in my life. Aside from being a member of my family and getting married, that was actually when a clown teacher called Philippe Gaulier came to Hong Kong; he’s taught Sasha Baron Cohen, Emma Thompson, Helena Bonham Carter and lots of actors around the world.

“I took that class, which was organised by Jim Chim, who’s one of Gaulier’s biggest protégés and a famous clown himself. So I decided to knock on Jim’s door and try to start a project about getting him to teach a bunch of very introverted friends of mine, musicians and music students, people who are very passionate but don’t show it in their daily lives, very timid, very shy, very honest people who at that time weren’t happy either. We put all these people on a plane and flew them to Iceland for 10 days to do a lot of, well, I can’t really call it acting lessons, it was more kind of experimental, and see what went on.”

Ho chose Iceland because it’s “a dream destination for many people in Hong Kong”, though time considerations meant they were only able to visit during Chinese New Year, when daylight lasts only a few hours. “The Icelandic music scene is also really interesting to musicians,” she says, “which was why they wanted to come in the first place. They just didn’t know about the course, which everybody had to attend for six hours a day. We’d travel around to scenic areas where we were all blindfolded. We’d get off the van and go to the tip of a mountain or a cliff edge or in front of a waterfall, and they’d hear huge, huge noises and kind of guess what it was, but they weren’t sure. It was really windy and icy, and when we took the blindfolds off they were astonished. Oh my God, for some people who’d never seen a waterfall like that, it’s the Godbomb, motherfucker!”

The search for unbridled joy among a sub-Arctic wilderness of waterfalls and volcanoes may seem a million miles from the gloomy confines of a run-down and apparently deserted Japanese love hotel, but the latter is the setting for the surreal J-horror Onpaku, in which Ho stars as a woman whose visit to Japan to buy an investment property quickly goes wrong – and scarily. I’m curious as to whether her Goth stage persona and the fact she’s appeared in several movies of that genre mean she has a penchant for horror.

“I have this Goth consciousness, but I’m really afraid of the dark, and of any kind of spirits and ghosts,” she says. “I swore to myself I’d never ever do a horror film again, because I had an incident many years ago, while shooting a horror film, when I had a ghost in my house. It took a lot of effort to open myself to the ritual world. I’d respected all the gods before, but I wasn’t really with any kind of religion. And then I suddenly had to find a religion for myself just to find a proper exorcist to help me send that ghost back. The exorcist told me I used to go by myself and party too much – I’d always go to rave parties and disco parties and just park my car on the road. She said there were a lot of ghosts who were jealous of my fun, so they came along with me. So I had to quit going out at night on my own! But luckily,” Ho says, laughing, “I got married!”

An 852 Films co-production, Onpaku was made on an unusually low budget. “So low,” says Ho, “you won’t believe it! And I couldn’t believe the things that they could do with it. Everything was very minimal. We had three lights on the set, just three big lights, and that was enough. I was like, ‘Really? Three lights. What’s going on? What are you guys doing?’ And they’re like, ‘Josie, those guys won the Best Gaffer Award for 20 years in Japan’s equivalent to the Oscar awards.’ Now that I’ve got to watch the film, I’m really impressed with the director, Shugo Fujii. He’s crazy talented. We also worked with a producer from [the J-horror classic] Tokyo Sonata, but by the time the film was in post- production he’d passed away. I really cherished the time we had together – a very hard-working dude.”

She applies the same epithet to Michael Haussman, the director of Rajah, who, says Ho, “was so hard-working he was running around like he was on steroids. He never sits down – I’ve never seen that! But I’m so happy with Rajah, because 852 Films was constantly looking for stories like that. We’d turned down other stories pitched to us by Hollywood because the production costs would be too high for us. We could only manage small, indie, occult-type fantastic films. So I’m happy they could make it and that the story was so well written – by Rob Allyn, who was also the producer.”

Shot on location in Borneo, the film stars Irish actor Jonathan Rhys-Myers, who brings a matinee-idol aura to the role of James Brooke, as well as to a tale of adventure so marvellously old-school and swashbuckling that it’s hard to credit the story is actually true. “Jonathan was so perfect,” says Ho. “I don’t want to call him a method actor, but he was so into the film and so into his role every day that he kept it up throughout the whole shoot.

“It was so beautifully done, because Michael Haussman is also a photographer, and I’m so glad I finally got a role in a period piece. Even though I didn’t have a lot of lines I was so proud of it.”

And then, of course, there’s Ho’s music career with Josie & The Uni Boys, who not only recently passed the important milestone of 15 years but also blew everyone away by tackling ’70s disco, soul and funk when they threw their Flash Back Now Party at KITEC last September. “It was about throwing a party instead of having a concert during the pandemic,” she says. “At that time we were having a better moment in Hong Kong and everyone was sort of healing. That’s why I didn’t want to spend that time singing about my own news – I mean, we’ve all been bored for a couple of years so let’s have a party, something that makes us happy.

“I got inspiration for the concert when I went to New York for the Asian Film Festival. I was walking around and went into Nordstrom, where I saw a lot of sequins on the men’s and ladies’ fashions. I was pretty sure it was about the disco era, so I thought I just had to practice a few dance moves. I think we got like 160 glitterballs, small ones, big ones, and we had some lasers too.”

So which of her various roles – singer, actor or investor – does Josie Ho prefer, if indeed it’s possible for her to separate them? “Well, I hate being an investor, I hate to produce, because it drives me nuts, but I have to do it,” she says. “You know, when you’re a singer or an actor, you’re just responsible for yourself, but once you’re a producer you’re responsible for somebody’s money!

“I’m not a people-managing person, I fail at it, though when it comes to promotions and marketing I’m very gung-ho. But I do like teamwork, just like team sports at school, I really enjoy it – I really enjoy working with people. I also love to be in the moment, which is why I can’t decide whether I prefer singing or acting.”

In closing, after she’s told me of her delight at Michelle Yeoh’s recent success in the Golden Globes – they’re close and share the same management – I can’t help asking Ho what her siblings think of her artistic and creative endeavours, and she replies with characteristic candour. “They’re more on the practical side of things,” she says. “But I think that Pansy and Lawrence really, really sort of understand what I’m doing. And for Daisy and Maisy, it’s kind of like, ‘OK, are you done, are you done yet?’ Because, you know, sometimes a film takes a long time to make back all the capital and it’s not the kind of business model they like. So it’s kind of like, you know, ‘You had your dream and you succeeded in your dream job, but it’s about time to say goodbye to it – because, you know, you’re not making the most money.’ I get pressured. But I stand strong on my direction.

“Because it’s the only thing that actually gives me joy, aside from being married and in my family and having all my friends – and I guess it’s the only thing I know how to do. It’s not like you’ll ever see me working at the office, right?”

The post Joy, Bliss and the Godbomb: Josie Ho on Relentless Transformation appeared first on Prestige Online - HongKong.