One of the most instantly recognizable faces in Asia, Chow Yun-Fat is an actor of phenomenal renown and... (Learn more)
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Chow Yun-Fat’s Milestones
| Acted in over 1,000 episodes of various soap operas | |
| Arose at 4 am each morning to sell dim sum | |
| At 16, worked in a factory, packing radios to ship overseas for $1.40 per day | |
| Enrolled in a leftist school that promoted the teachings of Mao Tse-tung | |
| Grew up on Lamma Island near Hong Kong (HK) | |
| Renegotiated contract with TVB; stayed for an additional ten years | |
| Started acting; signed a three-year contract with TVB for less than HK $500 per month | |
| Worked variously as a bellboy, office boy, postman and camera salesman | |
| 1965 | At age ten, moved with family to Kowloon, a part of Hong Kong connected by land to China (date approximate) |
| 1967 | Participated in riots as the Cultural Revolution spread to Hong Kong; transferred by his alarmed mother to a boarding school set up by the Nationalist Party Kuomintang |
| 1972 | Answered a newspaper ad inviting people to apply for "free" acting classes |
| 1972 - 1973 | Enrolled in an actor's training course at TVB, a leading HK television operation (broadcasting at home, video distribution throughout Asia) owned by the Shaw Brothers |
| 1972 | Quit school at age 17 (date approximate) |
| 1972 | Suffered a serious motor bike accident |
| 1976 | Began his 128 episode stint as the young hunk on the HK primetime soap "Hotel" |
| 1976 | Feature debut, "The Reincarnation" |
| 1976 | First film in a leading role, "Massage Girls" |
| 1980 | Increased his popularity playing a white-suited 1920s crime boss in the TV series, "Shanghai Bund" |
| 1981 | Breakthrough feature performance in "The Story of Woo Viet" |
| 1983 | Episodes of "Shanghai Bund" re-edited into two features released in January, "The Bund" and "The Bund, Part II" |
| 1984 | Won acclaim starring in the period dramatic feature, "Hong Kong 1941" |
| 1986 | Revived flagging film career and attained international superstar status as star of the landmark gangster melodrama, "A Better Tomorrow"; first collaboration with writer-director John Woo; starred in two sequels, "A Better Tomorrow II" (1987, also directed by Woo) and "A Better Tomorrow III: Love and Death in Saigon" (1989, helmed by Tsui Hark) |
| 1987 | In "Scared Stiff", played a true villain for the first (and, to date, the last) time in his HK film career |
| 1987 | Starred as an undercover cop in the popular, influential and Hong Kong Academy Award-winning crime film, "City on Fire"; first collaboration with director Ringo Lam; starred in two thematically related sequels, "Prison on Fire" (also 1987) and "Prison on Fire II" (1991) |
| 1989 | Starred in the popular action comedy "The God of Gamblers", which inaugurated a cycle of gambler films; reprised his role for "Return of the God of Gamblers" (1994) |
| 1992 | Fifth and last HK collaboration with Lam, "Full Contact" |
| 1992 | Fifth and last HK collaboration with Woo, "Hard Boiled" |
| 1995 | Last Hong Kong film (to date), "Peace Hotel" |
| 1998 | First American feature, "The Replacement Killers", executive produced by Woo; acted opposite Mira Sorvino, whose fluency in Mandarin helped immeasurably as the two co-stars could converse when Chow's English failed him |
| 1999 | Played Nick Chen, head of the NYPD's Asian gang unit, who teams with unlikely partner Mark Walhlburg, in "The Corrupter", a routine guns and mayhem picture |
| 1999 | Portrayed Siamese ruler Mongkut to Jodie Foster's English governness in "Anna and the King"; filmed in Malaysia |
| 2000 | Starred as Li Mu Bai, a noble and expert warrior looking for peace in his final days, in Ang Lee's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", a tour de force martial arts epic filmed in Mandarin dialect; subtitled for foreign audiences; debuted at Cannes |
| 2003 | Starred in title role of "Bulletproof Monk" |
| 2004 | Made a surprise cameo in the mainland Chinese indie-hit "Waiting Alone" |
| 2006 | Teamed up with Gong Li to star in "Curse of the Golden Flower" a film by Zhang Yimou |
| 2007 | Cast as Chinese pirate Sao Feng in "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" |
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