‘Denise Ho’: Portrait of the artist as an agent for change
Cantopop aka Cantonese pop music might not be your thing. But “Denise Ho: Becoming the Song” and its courageous and principled subject will be. Hong Kong-born Ho, who grew up in Montreal, is the first openly gay singer in Hong Kong entertainment history. She returned to her homeland in the 1990s seeking a singing career. She was mentored by her heroine, a beloved cantopop diva named Anita Mui, who died of cervical cancer in 2003.
After establishing her own onstage identity a la a reallife “A Star Is Born,” Ho made hits and came out as a lesbian in 2012. Since then, she has also become an ardent pro-democracy protester and human rights activist.
Like millions of “Hongkongers,” Ho took to the streets after Beijing, a government known for its human rights abuses and oppression, ignored the 1997 treaty allowing a dual system of government and began imposing its will in Hong Kong, including “Iranian elections,” featuring hand-picked candidates only. A British colony for 150 years and one of the most densely populated areas of the world, Hong Kong was supposed to be run using a different system than the one used to govern the communist mainland.
Inspired by the 2014 Umbrella movement, Hongkongers have taken to the streets repeatedly with their umbrellas to protest Beijing’s attempt to impose laws making it possible to extradite citizens to the mainland to face charges under Chinese law. Millions of Hongkongers turn out for the proreached tests. The ghost of Tiananmen Square and the massacre there in 1989 hang heavily over the proceedings. Police brutality against mostly peaceful protesters will look familiar to many.
Ho, who frequently appears at protests with fellow cantopop star Anthony Wong, loses endorsements and contracts with companies such as Lancome, which are fearful of losing business on the mainland if they maintain ties with her.
At the same time, Ho realizes that she has already
millions with her music, which has lobbied artistically for freedom, tolerance and revolution. Ho is the embodiment of artist as agent for social change, and director Sue Williams (“Death by Design”) wisely lets Ho win you over just by being herself and by hearing her earnest pleas for freedom for Hong Kong and with her buoyant and emotional performances, accompanied on piano by her brother Harris, in some cases in stadium-sized arenas.
Williams also includes the voices of HK activist Jeffrey Ngo and politician Margaret Ng. Those stadiums become a thing of the past after Ho became a leader of a protest movement that calls for among other things the resignation of Carrie Lam, the chief executive of Hong Kong. Some of Ho’s fans feared buying tickets to her concerts after she was banned and blacklisted by China.
Eventually, Ho, who embraces Buddhism to help manage her anxiety, must face reality and seriously consider fleeing Hong Kong and the “iron hand of China” in justifiable fear of imprisonment.
In some scenes, we hear her give a speech and perform in front of a more intimate, packed venue in New York City, where some fellow former Hongkongers wave their phones in solidarity with their half-exiled hero.
(“Denise Ho: Becoming the Song” contains scenes of violent confrontation and bloody protesters.)