Chow Yun-fat facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Chow Yun-fat
SBS
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| 周潤發 | |||||||||||||||||||
Chow Yun-fat in 2007
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| Born | 18 May 1955 Lamma Island, British Hong Kong
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| Other names | Donald Chow | ||||||||||||||||||
| Occupation | Actor, singer | ||||||||||||||||||
| Years active | 1973–present | ||||||||||||||||||
| Spouse(s) |
Candice Yu
(m. 1983; div. 1983)Jasmine Tan
(m. 1986) |
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| Awards | Full list | ||||||||||||||||||
| Chinese name | |||||||||||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 周潤發 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 周润发 | ||||||||||||||||||
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Chow Yun-fat (born 18 May 1955) is a famous actor and filmmaker from Hong Kong. He is known for playing many different kinds of characters, from action heroes to funny guys and serious drama roles. He has won many important awards, including three Hong Kong Film Awards and two Golden Horse Awards for Best Actor.
Chow Yun-fat has been acting for over 40 years. He has appeared in more than 100 TV shows and movies. He became very popular with TV dramas like The Good, The Bad And The Ugly (1979) and The Bund (1980).
He is especially famous for his action movies with director John Woo. These include A Better Tomorrow (1986), The Killer (1989), and Hard Boiled (1992). These films made him a huge star in Asia and helped make Hong Kong action movies famous around the world.
Chow also starred in big international films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), Bulletproof Monk (2003), and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007).
Contents
Early Life
Chow Yun-fat was born on Lamma Island, a small island in Hong Kong. His father worked on a tanker ship, and his mother was a cleaning lady and farmer.
Chow grew up in a farming village without electricity. Every morning, he helped his mother sell herbal jelly and tea pudding. In the afternoons, he worked in the fields. When he was ten, his family moved to Kowloon. At 17, Chow left school to help his family. He worked many different jobs, like a bellboy, postman, camera salesman, and taxi driver.
Acting Career
In 1973, when Chow was 18, he saw an ad for an actor training program at TVB, a TV station. After training for a year, he signed a contract and started acting in TV shows. He became well-known in dramas like The Killer (1976) and Hotel (1976).
His big break came with the TV series The Good, The Bad And The Ugly (1979). Then came The Bund, a show about gangsters in 1930s Shanghai. This show made Chow a huge star all over Asia.
Even though he was successful in TV, Chow wanted to be a film actor. His movie career really took off when he worked with director John Woo on the 1986 action film A Better Tomorrow. This movie was a massive hit in Asia and made Chow and Woo superstars. A Better Tomorrow also won Chow his first Best Actor award at the Hong Kong Film Awards. It was the highest-earning film in Hong Kong at that time. After this success, Chow stopped doing TV shows to focus on movies.
He became famous for playing tough, honorable characters, often cops or criminals. He starred in many action films, sometimes called 'gun fu' movies, such as A Better Tomorrow II (1987), The Killer (1989), and Hard Boiled (1992).
Chow also showed his talent in comedies like Diary of a Big Man (1988) and romantic movies like An Autumn's Tale (1987), for which he won another Best Actor award. In 1989, he starred in God of Gamblers, where he played a charming, funny, and action-packed hero. This movie was very popular and broke box office records in Hong Kong.
In the mid-1990s, Chow moved to Hollywood to try acting in American films. His first few films there, like The Replacement Killers (1998) and The Corruptor (1999), were not very successful. However, he found international fame with the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). This film was a huge success worldwide and won many Oscars.
In 2007, Chow played the pirate captain Sao Feng in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. Some parts of his role were not shown when the movie was released in mainland China.
More recently, Chow reunited with his God of Gamblers director Wong Jing for the From Vegas to Macau film series (2014-2016). In 2018, he starred in Project Gutenberg, which earned him another nomination for Best Actor. In 2023, he was honored as the Asian Filmmaker of the Year at the Busan International Film Festival.
Personal Life
Chow Yun-fat has been married twice. In 1983, he married actress Candice Yu, but their marriage lasted only nine months. In 1986, he married Jasmine Tan from Singapore. After a sad loss of their daughter in 1991, they decided not to have children.
Even though he is famous for his martial arts moves in movies, Chow has said that he relies on stunt experts. He mentioned, "I am not like Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan".
In 2018, his wife, Jasmine Tan, shared that Chow's net worth was very high. Chow has said he plans to donate 99% of his wealth to charity.
Chow is known for living a simple life. He often uses public transportation and eats at local food stalls in Hong Kong. In November 2023, he even ran a half marathon in less than 2 hours and 30 minutes! In 2014, he showed his support for the Umbrella Movement, a civil rights movement in Hong Kong.
Filmography
Chow has appeared in over 95 films and more than 25 television series.
Awards and Nominations
Chow Yun-fat has received many awards and nominations throughout his career.
- Best Actor for A Better Tomorrow
- Best Actor for City on Fire
- Best Actor for All About Ah-Long
- Golden Angel for Best Actor in a Leading Role for Project Gutenberg (2019) at the Chinese American Film Festival
- The Asian Filmmaker of the Year (2023) at the 28th Busan International Film Festival
He has been nominated for Best Actor at the Hong Kong Film Awards 14 times and for Best Supporting Actor twice.
University Honorary Awards
- Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts – Honorary Fellow (1999)
- City University of Hong Kong – Honorary Doctor of Letters (2001)
- Hong Kong Baptist University – Doctor of Humanities, honoris causa (2021)
Images for kids
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Advertisement featuring Chow in 2019
See also
In Spanish: Chow Yun-Fat para niños
