Chow Yun-Fat

created by Skip

(person) by jodrell (1.3 mon) (print) ? 1 C! I like it! Mon Oct 15 2001 at 9:15:16

Bacon Number: The Oracle says: Chow Yun-Fat has a Bacon number of 2:

Chow Yun-Fat was in The Replacement Killers (1998) with Frank Medrano,
Frank Medrano was in Sleepers (1996) with Kevin Bacon.

Chow Yun-Fat was born on May 18th, 1955, on the small island of Lamma off Hong Kong's Victoria Harbour. Chow is a member of the Haka (a.k.a. Ha Ka) race, an ethnic group from China that has moved from one region to another without taking up permanent residence since ancient times. His family moved to Hong Kong itself in 1965. Chow Yun-Fat identifies two childhood influences on his dramatic life: the Cantonese Opera, at yearly festivals in honour of the Goddess of the Sea, and American movies.

An early TV star in series like Hotel, in the early 1980s Yun-Fat won lasting popularity and fame as the ultra-cool gangster Hui Man-Keung, in the TVB series Shanghai Beach.

His first lead rule was in 1976, in Chi Nu (Massage Girls), playing a police officer who goes undercover in a brothel. However, his first critical success was only five years later, in the 1981 film The Story of Woo Viet, directed by Ann Hui On-Wah. This dramatic success was followed by a period of personal and occupational uncertainty: CYF's films in the early 1980s were on the whole poorly-received by critics and movie-goers alike, and his marriage with fellow actor Candice Yu (On-on Yu) broke down.

His career was revived in the mid-1980s with a series of acclaimed films. In 1985, he received a Golden Horse (Best Actor) from Taiwan, and another Best Actor from the Asian Pacific Film Festival for his performance in director Leung Po-Chi's movie Hong Kong 1941, and in 1986 the little-known director John Woo, best known for his slapstick kung-fu comedies (like Plain Jane to the Rescue), cast him as Mark Gor in the gangster movie A Better Tomorrow. The film was wildly successful, propelling both Woo and Chow into the limelight of the action-movie genre.

By 1995, when he filmed the last of his Hong Kong movies, Peace Hotel, Chow had appeared in an amazing 71 movies. His awards from this period include two Best Actor awards from Taiwan (1985, for Hong Kong 1941, and 1987, for An Autumn's Tale), and three times from Hong Kong (1987, for A Better Tomorrow; 1988, for City on Fire, and 1990, for All about Ah Long).

In 2000 Chow starred in the critically acclaimed Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, directed by Ang Lee and scored by Yo-yo Ma. Crouching Tiger, an epic fairy tale set in medieval China, won four academy awards and propelled Chow into the status of world-wide superstar, and showed Chow as more than just another Hong Kong action star.

Abridged Filmography:

Bulletproof Monk (2002) as The Monk
Wo hu cang long (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) (2000) as Li Mu Bai
Anna and the King (1999) as King Mongkut (aka Rama IV)
The Replacement Killers (1998) as John Lee
Lashou shentan (Hard-Boiled) (1992) as Yuen
Long hu feng yun (City on Fire) (1987) as Chow Yun Fat
Ying huang boon sik (A Better Tomorrow) (1986) as Mark Gor
Hong Kong 1941 (1985)

printable version
chaos

John Woo	Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon	Jet Li	Bacon number
The 1980s Hong Kong film industry	The Replacement Killers	God of Gamblers	Bulletproof Monk
Once a Thief	Haka	The Killer	Homer Simpson
Write Once, Debug Everywhere	Super Dave Osborne	A Better Tomorrow	City on Fire
MCSE	Mira Sorvino	Buckaroo Banzai	Michelle Yeoh
Keanu Reeves	Smurfette	Rush Limbaugh	Yo-Yo Ma

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