Hong Kong film and television actor
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Tony Leung Chiu-wai (, born 27 June 1962) is a Hong Kong actor and singer. He is one of Asia's most successful and internationally recognized actors. He has won many international acting prizes, including the Cannes Film Festival award for Best Actor for his performance in Wong Kar-wai's film "In the Mood for Love". He was named by CNN as one of "Asia's 25 Greatest Actors of All Time".
Leung is known for his collaborations with director Wong Kar-wai, with whom he has worked in seven films, including "Chungking Express" (1994), "Happy Together" (1997), "In the Mood for Love" (2000), "2046" (2004), and "The Grandmaster" (2013). He also appeared in three Venice Film Festival Golden Lion-winning films: "A City of Sadness" (1989), "Cyclo" (1995) and "Lust, Caution" (2007), directed by Ang Lee. Leung also starred in the Academy Award-nominated film "Hero" (2002), the cult classic "Hard Boiled" (1992), and box office hits "Infernal Affairs" (2002) and "Red Cliff" (2008). He later came to prominence in Hollywood with his role in "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" (2021).
Leung has an extensive list of awards that he has won in a career that began in the 1980s. For "In the Mood for Love", Leung earned the Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival. He is also an eight-time winner at the Hong Kong Film Awards and three-time winner at the Golden Horse Film Awards, holding the record for most awards in the Best Actor category. The 2002 book "East Asian Film Stars" describes Leung as "undoubtedly one of the most successful and widely-acclaimed Hong Kong actors of his generation, with a broad and diverse filmography." In 2023, he became the first male actor to win the "Grand Slam", after winning Best Actor at the three most prestigious Chinese-language film awards: the Golden Horse Awards, the Hong Kong Film Awards and the Golden Rooster Awards.
Early life.
Leung was born in Hong Kong to a family of Taishan, Guangdong ancestry. His early childhood was punctuated by his parents' quarrels and arguments about money. A mischievous boy in his early years, Leung changed after his father, a chronic gambler, left the family when he was eight; he and his younger sister were brought up by their mother.
Leung was a slightly reticent, quiet child. He has said that his childhood experiences paved the way for his acting career, which allows him to openly express his feelings:You don't know what happened, just one day your pop disappears. And from that day on I try not to communicate with anyone. I'm so afraid to talk to my classmates, afraid that if someone says something about family I won't know what to do. So I became very isolated. So that's why I love acting, because I can express all my feelings the way I couldn't for so long. I'm a quiet person. And then when I went to TV it all came out; I cried and I wasn't ashamed. The audience thinks it's the character's feelings, but really it's my feelings, all coming out in a rush.Leung went to Delia Memorial School (Broadway), but quit at age 15, in 1977, due to financial difficulties. He was very close to his mother. During an interview on the making of "Hero", he said that he saw his mother as his definition of a hero for having brought up two children alone.
Television career.
After quitting his studies, Leung worked in a variety of jobs, first as a grocer's runner at his uncle's shop, then a home appliance salesman in a Hong Kong shopping centre. Around the age of 16, he met future actor and comedian Stephen Chow, who influenced his decision to become an actor and remains a good friend.
In 1982, he graduated from television channel TVB's acting class. Due to his boyish looks, TVB initially cast him as the host of a children's programme, "430 Space Shuttle," but soon moved him to drama roles, beginning with "Soldier of Fortune" (1982). He was quickly promoted to leading man status in primetime series, including "The Duke of Mount Deer" (1984) and "New Heavenly Sword and Dragon Sabre" (1986). Leung mostly enjoyed comedies during his television years; it was for these he became well known. In the 1980s, he was named one of "TVB's Five Tigers" (their five popular young leading actors), along with Andy Lau, Felix Wong, Michael Miu and Kent Tong.
Leung starred in the popular "Police Cadet" TV serial in 1984 (later named "Police Cadet 84" to distinguish it from its two sequels). The series had an average viewership rating of 50% per episode during its original run. Leung played an outgoing young man who decides to become a police officer; Maggie Cheung, whose career started at the same time, played Leung's upstairs neighbour and love interest. Since then they have worked together on "The Yang's Saga" (1985), "Days of Being Wild" (1991), "The Eagle Shooting Heroes" (1993), "Ashes of Time" (1994), "In the Mood for Love" (2000), "Hero" (2002), and "2046" (2005). Leung has said that he considers Cheung his alter ego, and that "Maggie is a truly formidable partner—one to waltz with. We do not spend a lot of time with each other, as we like to keep some mystery between us. Whenever I see her, I discover something new about her".
After eight years with TVB, Leung left the network to focus on his film career. His final TV drama was "Ode to Gallantry" in 1989.
Film career.
Many consider Leung to be the most acclaimed contemporary actor in Greater China. He first garnered international attention in Hou Hsiao-hsien's 1989 film "A City of Sadness", which won the Venice Golden Lion. Before that he was already known in Hong Kong for his TV shows and films in the mid-1980s.
Leung's initial transition from television to film in the late '80s and early '90s is considered a low period in his career. He had won two HKFA Best Supporting Actor awards in quick succession but was struggling to establish himself as a leading man on the big screen. In 1992, when he was nominated for a third time in the Supporting Actor category for "Hard Boiled", Leung refused the nomination on the grounds that he had a leading role in the film. His protest was supported by director John Woo and co-star Chow Yun-fat. This later led the Hong Kong Film Awards to change its nomination rules to allow for multiple leading roles from the same film. Leung has also said that until "Days of Being Wild" (1990), he had lost interest in acting and considered quitting, but working with Wong Kar-wai and seeing his scene in the final film changed his mind. His career entered a new chapter when he won dual Best Actor awards at the Golden Horse Awards and Hong Kong Film Awards for "Chungking Express" (1994), becoming only the second actor to do so after Danny Lee in 1984. He repeated the feat with "Infernal Affairs" in 2003. Beginning with "Chungking Express", Leung has picked up six Best Actor wins at the Hong Kong Film Awards, three Best Actor awards at the Golden Horse Awards, as well as a Best Actor prize at Cannes. In 2023, with his win of the Golden Rooster Award for Best Actor for "Hidden Blade", he also became the first person to receive the Best Actor award from all three major Chinese movie awards.
Leung often collaborates with Wong Kar-wai and has appeared in many of his films. His roles include the lonely policeman in "Chungking Express" (1994), a gay Chinese expatriate living in Argentina in "Happy Together" (1997), and a self-controlled victim of adultery in "In the Mood for Love" (2000), for which he won the Best Actor award at Cannes. He reprised his role from "In the Mood for Love" as a new Chow Mo-wan in "2046" (2004) and trained in Wing Chun for five years to prepare for his role as Ip Man in Wong's "The Grandmaster." Wong's Jet Tone Film Production was also Leung's management agency for many years until 2018.
In addition to his works with Wong, Leung has starred in three Venice Golden Lion winning films: "A City of Sadness" (1989), "Cyclo" (1995) and "Lust, Caution" (2007), cementing his reputation in the arthouse cinema world. He also became the first Chinese actor to receive the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Film Festival. In 2014, he was a member of the jury of the 64th Berlin International Film Festival, and in 2017 he was invited to become a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 2022, Leung was named the Asian Filmmaker of the Year at the 27th Busan International Film Festival. Robert De Niro and Brad Pitt are admirers of his work, and "The Times" has called Leung Asia's answer to Clark Gable. He has also been compared to Cary Grant, or a combination of several A-list Hollywood stars.
Leung is widely believed to be a method actor. He has said that he often has trouble separating the characters from himself, beginning with his early TV roles. He usually takes long breaks after filming to recover from psychologically taxing roles, and remnants of the characters still remain within him years later. He has said that the voice of his wife Carina Lau can bring him back to reality.
Leung admits that he has a tendency to stay in his comfort zone and work with familiar teams and filmmakers. Over the course of his career, he has worked with Wong Kar-wai eight times (including "See You Tomorrow," which Wong wrote), three times with John Woo, three times with Derek Yee, and twice with Hou Hsiao-hsien. He has also worked with the creators of "Infernal Affairs" (Andrew Lau, Alan Mak, Felix Chong) on three other films: "Confession of Pain" (2006), "The Silent War" (2012), and "The Goldfinger" (2023). In recent years, Leung has become more adventurous and willing to try new things; this includes collaborating with new directors and taking on his first Hollywood role.
In an interview with "Senses of Cinema" in 2001, Leung said that he had no plans to make a Hollywood debut, but would consider it for the right project. He said, "I have many more choices on the character I can play (in Hong Kong). The role for Asian actors and actresses is very restrictive in Hollywood movies." Actors such as Chow Yun-fat and Jet Li had then made their own debuts in the 1990s. In 2005, he signed with an American agent with the intention to appear in a Hollywood film. Producer Kevin Feige announced at the 2019 San Diego Comic-Con that Leung will join the Marvel Cinematic Universe as the villain in "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings," marking his Hollywood debut"." Leung's character Wenwu is a composite character of Fu Manchu and the Mandarin. The movie was released in 2021 and his performance was universally praised.
Leung also had a successful Cantopop and Mandarin pop singing career in the 1990s, which he abandoned to focus on acting. He still occasionally sings for his films; the theme song of "Infernal Affairs" which he performed with Andy Lau is one of the Top 10 Song of 2003 and won the 22nd Hong Kong Film Awards' Best Original Film Song.
During the promotion of the film "Hero", some commentators in Hong Kong alleged that Leung expressed the view that the Tiananmen Square demonstration crackdown was necessary to maintain stability. Leung made a single comment in response that he may have been misquoted and his statement taken out of context.
Leung speaks Cantonese, English and Mandarin. "Lust, Caution" (2007) is the first film where he used his own voice in a Mandarin-speaking role (his dialogue in "Hero" is dubbed) and "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" (2021) is his first English-speaking role, despite being fluent in the language.
In 2023, Leung starred in the World War II spy thriller "Hidden Blade", directed by Er Cheng"," and the crime drama "The Goldfinger," along with Andy Lau"." "The Goldfinger" is the duo's first collaboration since "Infernal Affairs III" in 2003.