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Chow Yun-Fat () (born May 18 , 1955 on Lamma Island , Hong Kong ) is an ethnic Chinese Actor . He is among a handful of internationally recognized screen Actor s that Hong Kong has produced, along with Bruce Lee , Jackie Chan , Michelle Yeoh and others. A charismatic actor, he has been likened to a grittier, more intense version of Cary Grant , and the Asian version of Alain Delon . EARLY LIFE Raised on the tiny offshore Island of Lamma , Chow spent his childhood in poverty. His life started to change when his actor-trainee application was accepted by the local Television Station , TVB . CAREER It didn't take long for Chow to become a household name in Hong Kong following his role in the hit series '' The Bund '' in 1983 . Although Chow continued his TV success, his ultimate goal was to become a big screen actor. However, his occasional ventures onto the big screens with low-budget Movie s were disastrous. Success finally came when he teamed up with a then relatively unknown director John Woo in the 1986 gangster action-melodrama '' A Better Tomorrow '', which swept the box offices in parts of Asia and established both Chow and Woo as megastars. Taking the opportunity, Chow quit TV entirely. With his new image from ''Better Tomorrow'', he made many more ' Gun Fu ' or ' Heroic Bloodshed ' movies, especially those directed by Woo, such as '' The Killer '' ( 1989 ) and '' Hard Boiled '' ( 1992 ). Chow may be best known, especially in the West, for playing honorable tough guys, whether cops or criminals, but he is a versatile performer. He has starred in comedies like ''Diary of a Big Man'' (1988) and ''Now You See Love... Now You Don't'' (1992) or romantic films such as ''Love in a Fallen City'' (1984) and '' An Autumn's Tale '' ( 1987 ). He brought together his disparate personas in the 1989 film '' God Of Gamblers '' (''Du shen''), directed by the prolific Wong Jing , in which he was by turns suave charmer, broad comedian and action hero. The film surprised many and turned out immensly popular, broke Hong Kong's all-time box office record, and spawned a series of gambling movies, as well as several more comic sequels starring Stephen Chow . Being one of the hottest screen commodities in Hong Kong, Chow moved to Hollywood in the mid-'90s in an attempt to duplicate his success on an international scale. His first two films '' Replacement Killers '' ( 1998 ) and '' The Corruptor '' ( 1999 ) were box-office disappointments. His next film '' Anna And The King '' ( 1999 ) did better, but the success was mostly credited to actress Jodie Foster . He returned to Asia for the ( 2000 ) film '' Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon '', and it became a winner at both the box office and the Oscars . Chow is still waiting for the type of success he once enjoyed in Hong Kong. He once admitted to a Hong Kong reporter that his ultimate goal is to win an Oscar as an actor. When asked what if it never comes true, he replied "I would just have to laugh about it..." PRIVATE LIFE Chow's favorite pastime is photography. FILMOGRAPHY
SELECTED TV SERIES
SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS
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