For more than three decades, Josie Ho has moved through Hong Kong’s cultural landscape on her own terms. Wether as actress, musician or producer, she has built a career around choices that resist easy categorisation — from punk and rock to cult cinema, from unsettling characters to independent filmmaking. With 852 Films, founded with her husband Conroy Chan, she has helped create a space for films that exist outside the logic of the mainstream, embracing the strange, the provocative and the culturally specific. As Hong Kong continues to negotiate its place between local identity and global culture, Ho remains interested in the spaces in between: between commercial and independent, East and West, performance and production. Now, as 852 Films enters its 20th anniversary year and The Mage opens a new chapter for the company, we meet Ho to talk about rebellion, creative independence and  the enduring power of genre — and why staying different might be one of the most radical choices an artist can make.

Jose Ho: I think the film industry of Hong Kong has no expectations from me or 852, Films Ltd. When we opened 852 Films Ltd, every local studio were shooting blockbusters in which 852 Films cannot afford to make. Therefore, we focus on cult/indie or fantastic films which are more spontaneous to ourselves. Anyhow, since Conroy snd I had opened the company, no otger company had offered us any jobs any more. We felt that we weren’t competitive to the industry at all, so I don’t get why whichever HK studios or 852 would be on better moral high ground. We are only doing our own things….

SB: You came into an entertainment industry with very established ideas about how women should look, behave and progress professionally. How much of your career has been about refusing those definitions of femininity?

JH: Hong Kong is a modern looking city and was once had very liberated minds. When I entered into the music industry I’ve had received encouragement from my record company head to be more free and a bit wild on stage. I believe my record company head and our workers are all thinking to be more Westernized , it was going well, I was receiving Best New Comer awards at that moment. But when our big shareholder saw that I’m not the most money making machine, the huge shareholder fired the whole team of cultured and tasteful staff and terminated my contract too. In Hong Kong at the mid 90’s, the best sellers are always “The Virgin Like” female image, girls with straight long hair, nude make up, suppressed their outfits and demeanor and not allowed with any sex appeal. In my opinion, it was sexually perverted and an oppressed city. I had just graduated from high school then from Canada, I was very North Americanized. I was culture shocked and confused. Well, it hit me very hard, I thought I was never going to be hired again. It wasn’t fair for me! This was a huge lesson I’ve learnt from the society after returning from high school. That, there is never any fairness or any moral justifications in the business. A good old lesson that I’ve not learnt from my parents or school. Supppp fxxkin’ peen!!! Hard work means nothing, work smart is the true method. I guess I’m the real dumb Virgin in this case.

JH: Being on the outside you get to see things in a different perspective not like being in the center. I came from an era from HK show business where there are lots of bullying, body shaming fat shaming, name shaming from our Tabloid and paparazzi being 70% of the whole media world. Tabloids had made the show biz and HK a living hell to live in. Ask another HK artist, everyone had depression and anger management problems. The tabloids were obsessively intrusive, they climb into people’s houses and shamed people’s privacy. They had ruined numerous jobs for me because they body shamed me walking into a a convinient store with my husband. They’ve had caused artist to suicide. Times were hard in HK, Huge thanks to the leader of China, he ordered to reduce it. All artist was living in fear before. It was like I strike a post on stage as a Pop star and they immediately body shamed, me. I’ve lived through it. Therefore, I had been working on more universal projects always maybe that’s how you recognized me in some ways untamed. I had lived through those times. And I’m so glad that I survived till you’ve acknowledged my work. I do have a drive to spread my work outside, I hope to live in peace.

SB: Your relationship with Iman began in a completely different context before you eventually recognised him as an artist. What did you see in him before he could necessarily see it in himself?

JH: Iman has a very mature mind and have very good work ethics when I met him through a hospital in US, Iman was a war trauma surgeon, he was recommended to me to help look out for my husband Conroy. I’m very impressed with his professional ethics. I’ve invited Iman to return home with me to look out for my Conroy. Iman is a poet who recites online. The most important factor was that Iman really wants to become a performer, what I’ve noticed was that Iman’s perfect features, his eyes only spreads love and generosity, he is 6 ft tall and athletic. Lots of people in our industry praises Iman for having the perfect symmetrical features or have a golden ratio. He fits into all high fashion and street fashion clothes, has a model figure, it will be my lost if I didn’t’ sign him up. He yearns for training in performing arts, music, singing, instrument playing.
He speaks softly and has a genuine point of view of everything, if Iman doesn’t become an actor, then I don’t know if I even fit the role myself. he is highly disciplined. He can read a book in one day and entirely understands all the context, he is interested to learn about world history and civilization. So, how can 852 not favour him. He is like a dream to come true for every director and photographer, artist manager. Iman deserves to be a successful artist, so humble and thoughtful. Who on earth can be better than him in 852’s mind? He gives me a lot of positive influence to me. Nobody should ignore such a human being.

SB:  The Mage is travelling internationally through festivals while remaining rooted in an Asian cinematic context. When you bring a film like this to an international audience, how conscious are you of translating its cultural codes — and how much do you deliberately leave untranslated?

JH: Why leave anything untranslated? The whole reason I make films is to communicate. I want to connect with people I’ve never met, from places I’ve never been. That’s my idea of having fun in life , crossing borders through people, stories and curiosity. The Mage is deeply connected to ancient Chinese beliefs and rituals. But these subjects were once very alive in Hong Kong cinema, especially in the 1980s. Somehow, we stopped making enough of those films. Then festival programmers started telling us, “We want to see Hong Kong make this kind of cinema again.” That stayed with me. So we made The Mage. Not because we wanted to resurrect the past, but because sometimes you have to go backwards to find something that cinema has forgotten.