Chow Yun-fat Biography

Chow Yun-fat previously known as Donald Chow, is a Hong Kong actor known in Asia for his collaborations with filmmaker John Woo in the action heroic bloodshed-genre films A Better Tomorrow, The Killer, and Hard-Boiled, and in the West for his roles as Li Mu-bai in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Sao Feng in Pirates of the Caribbean.

He mainly plays in dramatic films and has won three Hong Kong Film Awards for Best Actor and two Golden Horse Awards for Best Actor in Taiwan.

Chow Yun-fat Age

Chow was born on 18 May 1955, Lamma Island, Hong Kong. He is 64 years old as of 2019.

Chow Yun-fat Parents

He was born to his mother Chan Lai-Fong who was a cleaning lady and vegetable farmer, and his father Chow Yung-Wan, who worked on a Shell Oil Company tanker. Chow grew up in a farming community on Lamma Island, in a house with no electricity.

Chow-Yun-Fat with his wife Jasmine Tan

He woke up at dawn each morning to help his mother sell herbal jelly and Hakka tea-pudding on the streets; in the afternoons, he went to work in the fields. His family moved to Kowloon when he was ten.

Chow Yun-fat Education

Chow left school to help support the family by doing odd jobs including bellboy, postman, camera salesman, and a taxi driver. His life started to change after college when he responded to a newspaper advertisement, and his actor-trainee application was accepted by TVB, the local television station. He signed a three-year contract with the studio and made his acting debut. Chow became a heartthrob and familiar face in soap operas that were exported internationally.

Chow Yun-fat Married

Chow has been married twice, first was in 1983 to Candice Yu, an actress from Asia Television but the marriage lasted just nine months. Chow married Singaporean Jasmine Tan in 1986.

Chow Yun-fat Daughter

Chow with his second wife Jasmine Tan gave birth to a stillborn daughter in 1991. Chow has a goddaughter, Celine Ng, a former child model for Chickeeduck, McDonald’s, Toys’R’Us and other companies.

Chow Yun-fat Net Worth

Chow was ranked second-highest earning actor in Hong Kong, earning HK$170 million (US$21.9 million). His reported net worth is HK$5.6 billion (US$714 million).

Chow Yun-fat Height

Chow stands tall at an average height of 1.83 m.

Chow Yun-fat Video Games

• Stranglehold
• Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (video game)
• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (video game)

Chow Yun-fat Acting Career

how began his acting career at the age of 18, working for a television studio in Hong Kong. By the age of 21, Chow was already a major presence on Chinese TV and had started to segue into a movie career. He ended up staying at the studio for 14 years, completing numerous films and over 1,000 episodes in various series; acting in soap operas, dramas, and comedies.

While filming in Hong Kong, Chow was recognized many times for his performances. In ’87, ’88 and ’90 he won the Hong Kong Academy for Best Actor, the Taiwan Golden Horse for “Best Actor” in ’85, ’87, as well as winning the Best Actor award at the Asian Pacific Festival in 1985. But no matter how many awards Chow won, he would remain unknown to Western audiences.

That all changed when he met John Woo. John needed an actor who the audience could recognize as full of love, very effusive about his family, his brotherhood.” Together they made the blockbuster, A Better Tomorrow III (1989), which launched both director and actor onto an international scale, followed by The Killer (1989) and Hard-Boiled (1992) which have also become legendary. After the reunification of Hong Kong with mainland China, many filmmakers and actors moved to the U.S. Chow did the same, and in 1998, he resurfaced in the American film The Replacement Killers and The Corruptor in 1999.

For his role in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), Yun-Fat won much acclaim, and though he continues to work in Chinese films, he also makes appearances in American blockbusters such as Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End (2007).

Chow Yun-fat Book

Chow released his first photo collection in Hong Kong On 26 June 2008, which includes pictures taken on the sets of his films. Proceeds from the book’s sales were donated to Sichuan earthquake victims. Published by Louis Vuitton, the books were sold in Vuitton’s Hong Kong and Paris stores.

Chow Yun-fat Awards and Nominations

• Best Actor Nomination for Hong Kong 1941
• Best Actor Nomination for Women
• Best Supporting Actor Nomination for Love Unto Waste
• Best Actor for A Better Tomorrow
• Best Actor Nomination for Prison on Fire
• Best Actor Nomination for An Autumn’s Tale
• Best Actor for City on Fire
• Best Original Film Song Nomination for The Diary of a Big Man
• Best Original Film Song Nomination for Triads: The Inside Story

Chow Yun-fat Movies

Chow Yun-fat Charity

The Award-winning actor Chow Yun-Fat said in October that he would donate his entire net worth to charity, a whopping 5 billion yuan (around $723 million), garnering acclaim from netizens.In an interview with The Korean Daily, Chow reveals why he intends to do so. My wife supports my decision very much, he said. I cannot take the money away after death. Why not donate it to a group that needs it?

The money is not mine; I just keep it temporarily. Money is not what can truly bring you happiness. The most difficult thing in our life is not about how much money you make, but how to maintain a calm and peaceful attitude towards our life, he said in the interview.

Chow’s fame took off as a star in Hong Kong action flicks in the 1980s, and garnered international acclaim as the lead in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in 2000. Though a superstar and financially successful, Chow still enjoys taking a stroll out in public and using public transportation. He also said he uses only about 800 U.S. dollars a month.