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Interview with Ninja director Godfrey Ho
Cinema to buy a plane ticket 1/1 - Page 6
Info
Author(s) : Arnaud Lanuque
Date : 3/3/2007
Type(s) : Interview
 
 Intext Links  
People :
Cynthia Rothrock
John Woo
Movies :
A Better Tomorrow
 
< Previous
Page 5 : Directing Gweilos
 
 Notes  
Interview by Arnaud Lanuque in Hong Kong, March 03, 2007.

Research by the Nanarland team with additional questions by Nicolas Tavantzis.

Special thanks to Godfrey Ho for his kindness and patience.

Thanks extended to Roy Horan for his help.


HKCinemagic: You currently teach at the university.
Godfrey Ho: I've been working at the Multimedia Innovation Center of the Polytechnic University for five years and teaching the student there about filmmaking, directing, editing, lighting. Multimedia Innovation Center was later integrated with the School of Design and they wanted the lecturer to have a degree, which is not my case, so I could not teach anymore there. I left and joined Hong Kong Film Academy. Now I teach people academically, so I had to read filmmaking books. Now I know what a script writer do because I know filmmaking. Before, when I read film books, it was like: “oh, what the hell is that.” It's hard to understand. So that's what I tell to my students: “you come here, I teach you very practical filmmaking.” Not only books, no need to come here for that, you can just order them from Hollywood. There are so many. That's why when you watch academic filmmaking you don't understand what's going on. When I was ma king a movie in New York and I had an assistant director who studied filmmaking in New York University he asked me: “ Oh, Godfrey, how come the way you direct is so different from what we learned from our professors?” “ Of course, your professor is not the director, he can teach you academically but not practically.”

What I'm doing is practical techniques. Especially films with low budget. Films with big budget are easy. Low budget, the director is like a worker (laughs). I worked as a producer, a director, I had to take care of everything even the lunch, breakfast or dinner. When Cynthia Rothrock arrived from LA, I had to tell the line producer to pick her up at the airport. I had to handle this kind of stuff. So filmmaking is very challenging. You must keep your mind always on the move, to organise everything. It's not boring like a clerk (laughs). I'm very busy here and enjoy meeting young people. And everybody enjoy my teaching. I t's not simply “open your books bla bla bla,” I teach them how it is on set. I got students from Korea, Netherlands, Philippines or Hong Kong. My student from Korea graduated, he did a short film and participated in some kind of festival and got a lot of awards. And now he is working in Korea in a company planning to reproduce John Woo's A Better Tomorrow. He wants to be a director and do it here . I told him “you want to be a director? Stay in Korea !” B ecause Korean's movies are booming now. He speaks Korean, Cantonese and English. That's why, after doing movies in Korea , if an American company comes, he will be the one they will see. He has a very good future. No t in Hong Kong , Hong Kong is dead (laughs).

HKCinemagic: Do you still have some projects for yourself?
Godfrey Ho: No, not until the market gets better. Otherwise, it's just wasting time. We do movies according to the market. We like to do it for arts but we must survive too. A producer won't put one million in a production if he can't get back the money. It's easier to lose money than winning it. I could do TV-series in China but there is no creativity. You must finish one episode within 2 or 3 days. 40 - minute -video done in 2 or 3 days! It's a very tight schedule. If I was young enough, I could do this kind of work but now, for me, it's difficult and no fun. I don't want to do it anymore because I've been directing for so many years. Why I did this job? It's because, when I was young, I saw airplanes in the sky. I thought if I do this job, I can get a chance to fly, to take the plane (laughs). Because at that period of time, we were so poor, it was hard to pay a ticket. After that, I travelled too much (laughs). I enjoyed my work.
 
HKCinemagic: Would you have a final word for people from all over the world who enjoyed watching your ninja or kickboxing movies?
Godfrey Ho: I just want to thank them to have enjoyed our movies. Because, they are commercial, don't treat them as some kind of masterpiece. It's like watching a TV game. If you're looking for good artistic value, no, sorry! At that time, I was not ready to do this kind of stuff. Maybe in the future, if I do another movie, I'll pay more attention to the script and mise-en-scene so as to make a good film .
 
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