Posts Tagged ‘Josie Ho’
New Talent for 2011: Josie Ho
From Clash, December 2010:
If there’s an adjective to describe Josie Ho, it’s driven. Back home in Hong Kong, she’s an undeniable superstar: she’s starred in a multitude of successful films, hit the charts as a singer and now co-runs the 852 Films production company. Now, it seems, her focus is on replicating that success on a global level.
Ho is in London to promote the release of Dream Home, in which she stars as Cheng Lai-sheung. Cheng works two full-time jobs in order to fulfil her dream of buying an apartment on Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour. Unfortunately for her, the continued escalation of property prices makes this an impossible achievement and eventually she cracks, leaving a bloody trail of devastation in her path.
“I’m a pretty violent person,” says Ho when asked how she gets into the mindset of such a character. “Sometimes when I’m singing on stage I’m pretty violent, I like to throw things around and I get very emotional really quickly. I have a lot of anger.”
Already a cult hit on the horror festival circuit (Frightfest billed it as Friday The 13th meets Location, Location, Location), Dream Home is, at the surface, a slasher movie – albeit a particularly gruesome one which features the asphyxiation of a pregnant women and bizarre murders involving bongs and toilet basins – but its sense of anarchic energy and social satire make it a truly original experience.
Dream Home also represents both Ho’s first role as a producer and the first film from 852 Films. The company’s mission statement is, she says, to “make films that are a little bit edgy. We want to push Hong Kong’s commercial limits.” She acknowledges Edgar Wright, whose films Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz share a similar ethos to Dream Home, as a role model for the company.
Later in 2011, she’ll be seen as an unconventional love interest alongside Watchmen’s Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Mickey Rourke in The Courier, and has also landed a role in Stephen Soderbergh’s all-star cast in Contagion. “His direction was very clear, he was very efficient, very fast,” she summarises of the director who she first discovered with his film Traffic. “I think Stephen has a very sharp eye for everything.”
“I like to take chances,” she explains in regard to her choice of roles. “When a script moves me, I want to jump into it. Safe roles are kind of boring.”
Josie Ho’s 2011 film releases are Dream Home (on DVD in March), The Courier and Contagion.
Poster for the US release of Dream Home
