First Person: Juno Mak
Juno Mak’s singing career began almost a decade ago, when the high school dropout became a pop icon. After writing and starring in last year’s gory feature film, “Revenge: A Love Story,” Mak recently launched Kudos Films, a new production company, with talent manager and producer Willie Chan Chi-keung. Over coffee and a Marlboro, Mak talks to Hana R. Alberts about horror films and being a hermit.
I was born in Hong Kong, and I was raised in Vancouver.
There was this VHS store that was five minutes from my house, and I just went there and started renting films. At that moment a lot of 70s exploitation films inspired me. Like “I Spit on Your Grave.” That is quite, quite extreme—especially for a child to watch.
“The Last House on the Left,” Nightmare on Elm Street,” “Halloween”—all those John Carpenter and Wes Craven films inspired me a lot. There was nothing much to do over there, so I kept watching films.
I’m really interested in musical scores, and how to project and obtain the feelings and the thrilling-ness in movies. So, basically, film is what got me into doing music.
I started working when I was 18, and I became a singer… After two years I left Universal and started my own record label with my brother. It’s called Silly Thing.
I lived in Japan for half a year when I was 17, and I was learning singing, dancing and Japanese. My sensei back then was Sam, from a very popular Japanese group called TRF, and he taught me a lot.
