Chow Yun Fat-Veteran Artist

Hong Kong male artist Chow Yun Fat was born in Lama Island on May 18, 1955. He left the island at 16 for the Kowloon Peninsula, where he drifted from from job to job - bell boy, waiter and many others before landing work as an extra at Hong Kong´s largest TV company, TVB. Then Chow Yun Fat enrolled in the actor´s training program, which was to lead him to appear in over 300 hours of television. The most successful of these shows was a series called Shanghai Town which was to make him a household name throughout South East Asia.

In 1977 and 1978 Chow starred in two unexceptional "gigolo style" movies for Golddig Films whilst remaining a major TV star. After churning out endless hours of comedy, drama and swordplay appearances for television, Chow was approached by critically acclaimed director Ann Hui to star in The story of Wu-Viet. It was not only a great critical success but also remains one of Chow´s own favorite pictures. Despite featuring roles in numerous movies which followed, the mass acclaim which he had gained from his television appear- ances continued to elude him in the cinema until 1986, when Tsui Hark and emerging director John Woo enlistedChow for A Better Tomorrow. It was intended to relaunch the career of Chow brother´s veteran actor Ti Lung as well as to introduce pop idol Leslie Cheung to Hong Kong´s cinema audiences. Although not first choice for the role of Mark, Tsui and Woo insisted,and Chow Yun Fat took the lead in what was to become one of the biggest box office hit in Hong Kong film history. His future, as well as that of John Woo, was established. The image that Chow projected - long black coat, Ray Bans, matchstick caught in a selfdeprecating killer´s grin - was cool, charismatic and captured the audience´s imagination. This was also the birth of the classic Chow two-gun-toting outlaw stance. Despite very healthy box office receipts, the sequel did not please John Woo, and the subsequent Proquel was directed by Tsui Hark. Chow had, by this time, been exploiting his gangster persona for other directors. He received Taiwan´s Golden Horse Award for best actor in Ringo Lam´s seminal City On Fire (1987). He became one of the East´s hardest working actors, starring in many excellent films including Hong Kong 1941 (1987); Love Unto Waste for director Stanley Kwan; Triads: the Inside Story for Taylor Wong (1988) and his own Favorite, Autumn Tale for Cheung Wun Ting. In all these films Chow´s extra ordinary dramatic range was made abundantly clear. In 1989, reunited with John Woo , Chow´s international reputation was finally secured with The Killer, an astonishing parable of violence, betrayal, vengeance and redemption which relied heavily upon the chemistry between director and leading man. Following this he took the role of idiot savant in Wong Jing´s God of Gamblers, which spawned a host of imitations. He then returned to work with Woo on Once A Thief, a dynamic action comedy, before the pair spent almost a year between 1991 and 1992 making the high-calibre shootout flick Hard Boiled, which has brought the director long overdue international recognition. While Woo relocated to Hollywood to make Hard Target, Chow rejoined Ringo Lam to make Full Contact, a grittily violent film which showed him in leaner, meaner form. The colourdrenched shootouts and explicit yet stylized violence once again rejuvenated the stagnant gangster genre. Since then Chow has starred in Treasure Hunt (1994), an odd hybrid of comedy and crime story which does see him briefly exhibit his cool, charismatic style on the right side of the law for once; and he after that completed the official sequel to God of Gamblers, directed by Wong Jing, and in 1995 he starred in the Woo produced gangster movie Peace Hotel. He is know making his American debut with The Replacement Killers (1997).