Chow Yun-Fat (Actor)

"Hong Kong needed a new kind of hero. The young people, they were kind of a lost generation, and a lot of people had lost their morality and values. They needed to see someone who was about friendship and family and honor. In his real life, Chow Yun-Fat stood for all those things." --John Woo quoted in US, March 1998.

"I was blown away by him. Watching him in action was an education for me. He improvises with the physical action, he has an incredibly graceful physique and control over his movements. He's the Baryshnikov of gunslinging." --Mira Sorvino on her "Replacement Killers" co-star, in Premiere, March 1998.

"In Hong Kong, the audience talks to you right on the screen. If they really enjoy it, they want to jump into the screen. You and the audience are very close. Ordinary people in Hong Kong treat me like a friend. I did TV for 14 years. They watched me every day. When I laugh, they laugh, when I cry, they cry. They never treat me like a movie star." --Chow Yun Fat quoted in "The Way of Chow Yun-fat" by David Chute from the notes for "The Criterion Collection" laserdisc version of John Woo's "The Killer"

"Quentin Tarantino, the red-hot young writer-director of the blood-soaked 'Reservoir Dogs,' can barely contain himself.

"After I saw 'A Better Tomorrow', he says during an interview at the Montreal World Film Festival, 'I went out and bought a long coat, and I got sunglasses, and I walked around for a week dressing like Chow Yun Fat. And to me, that's the ULTIMATE compliment for an action hero--when you want to dress like the guy.'"

--From "New Gun in Town" by Joe Leydon, Los Angeles Times, January 3, 1993.

"You can see his soul in his face. It's a rare thing. Even when you see him blasting away with two guns you can feel that he's a new kind of hero, and people want to root for him." --"The Replacement Killers" director Antoine Fuqua on Chow to Detour Magazine, February 1998.

About working with Jodie Foster in "Anna and the King": "She first gave me a strong impression that Yun-Fat is the most lucky man on Earth. The first time I met her I felt she was lovely and down-to-earth. She gave me a lot of power and passionate energy in front of the camera.

"The first day we were filming in Anna's house on the riverside, it was after lunch. We sat under the tree in the sun and saw people with a marching band come through the forest and they were waving a big banner, 'Welcome Our King Fatty'. It was her idea. It was a very special gift for Yun-Fat." --Chow Yun Fat quoted by Stephen Schaefer in Boston Herald, December 16, 1999

Regarding the failure of "The Replacement Killers": "We Chinese, we Buddhists, have this philosophy: always keep your life in the middle path. Don't be too happy, don't be too upset. Besides, critics have their jobs. This is the land of freedom of speech!" --Chow Yun Fat quoted in Movieline, December-January 2000

When Chow was a small child selling dim sum on the streets of Lamma Island, customers called him Gao Tsai ("Little Dog"). He knew no other name until he registered for grade school.