Chow Yun-Fat is an actor born on 8th May 1955, in Lamma Island, (then British) Hong Kong. Throughout Asia, he is mostly known for his co-operation with director John Woo and his heroic bloodshed films such as “A Better Tomorrow”, “Hard Boiled” and “The Killer”, and in the west he is recognized for his roles in “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End”. Among other achievements, he has won two Taiwanese Golden Horse Awards for Best Actor, and three Hong Kong Film Awards for Best Actor too.
Have you ever wondered how rich Chow Yun-Fat is? According to sources it has been estimated that Yun-Fat’s overall net worth is obver $100 million, accumulated thanks to a lucrative acting career, which he started back in the mid-‘70s. He has appeared in numerous films and TV series, and since he is still active in the entertainment industry, his net worth continues to grow.
Chow Yun- Fat Net Worth $100 Million
Chow was born into a poor family, and lived with his parents in a farming community in a house with no electricity, helpingd his mother with farming and selling on the streets. When he was seventeen, he had to leave school so he could support his family by doing various jobs, including working as a bellboy, postman and taxi driver. However, some years later, Yun-Fat replied to a newspaper advertisement and started his actor-trainee work at the local television station, then signing a three-year contract with the studio, and soon making his acting debut, appearing in soap operas which were exported world wide. One of his first appearances was in the 1980 TV series “The Bund” which dealt with the rise and fall of a 1930s Shanghai gangster, and it didn’t take long before he was recognized as a household name in Hong Kong. Despite continuing his acting success on television, Chow wanted to become a big-screen actor. Finally, his dream came true when he teamed up with filmmaker John Woo and appeared in the action-melodrama film “A Better Tomorrow”(1986); the film turned out to be a great success and established both Chow and Woo as superstars, as it brought him his first Best Actor award. His net worth was certainly well established.
After this, many more heroic films followed, next in “A Better Tomorrow 2”(1987), then successively “Prisons on Fire”, the sequel “Prisons on Fire 2”, “The Killer”(1989), “Hard Boiled”(1992) and many others. Yun-Fat also starred in comedies such as “Diary of a Big Man”(1988) and “Now You See Love, Now You Don’t”(1992), but also in romantic blockbusters like “Love in a Fallen City”(1984) and “An Autumn’s Tale”(1987), which earned him a Best Actor Award at the Golden Horse Awards. His net worth was rising steadily.
In the mid-‘90s, Chow decided to move to Hollywood in pursuit of international fame. Although his first two films weren’t successful, Chow eventually got the role of Li Mu-Bai in the “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”(2000) which became a winner at both the Oscars and the international box office. This established Chow’s career in the West and brought him other roles, including in “Bulletproof Monk”(2003), “Curse of the Golden Flower”(2006), “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End”(2007) among many others. Some of his most recent ventures include acting in “From Vegas to Macau” in 2014, and reprising his role in its sequel a year later. Chow is considered to be the second-highest earning actor in Hong Kong.
When it comes to his private life, Yun-Fat has married twice, firstly to Candice Yu, an Asian actress, but the two split after nine months. In 1986 he remarried, this time to Jasmine Tan; the couple doesn’t have any children, although Chow has a goddaughter, Celine Ng, a former child model for various companies.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Johns Hopkins University, Seoul National University, MIT Sloan School of Management, George Washington University, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Liverpool, National Cheng Kung University
Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actor, Asian Films People's Choice Award for Favorite Actor
Nominations
Hong Kong Film Award for Best Supporting Actor, Hong Kong Film Award for Best Original Film Song, Asian Film Award for Best Actor
Movies
God of Gamblers, From Vegas to Macau, A Better Tomorrow, The Last Tycoon, From Vegas to Macau II, From Vegas to Macau III, Once a Thief, Cold War 2, Curse of the Golden Flower, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, The Monkey King, Anna and the King, The Killer, Hard Boiled, Bulletproof Monk, Tragic Hero,...
TV Shows
The Bund, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, more
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Trademark
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The action superstar can be seen in most of his movies with twin guns (usually two Beretta 92s) and dark shades during a gunfight.
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Chow often is seen with a trademark toothpick in his mouth, particularly in his films with John Woo.
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Quote
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[on his Mandarin pronunciation in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)] It's awful. The first day I had to do 28 takes simply because of the language problem. That's never happened before in my life. It put me under a lot of pressure. There was a lot of dialogue in this film, more than I've ever had to speak before. It was like speaking Shakespeare.
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Working in front of the camera keeps me alive. I couldn't care less about actors' trailers and food on sets and stuff like that - I just want to act.
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As an actor we're just like workers in a factory, we provide our services to directors. But I must do my job perfectly, and I love what I do.
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If I can associate with the people very, very gently very, very friendly every day I'm happpy. If I don't pay them respect I feel terrible inside" - From an interview with Chow Yun-Fat in the Documentary Chow Yun-Fat goes Hollywood
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In the West audiences think I am a stereotyped action star, or that I always play hitmen or killers. But in Hong Kong, I did a lot of comedy, many dramatic films, and most of all, romantic roles, lots of love stories. I was like a romance novel hero.
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Fact
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Made a surprise cameo in the hit Chinese independent film Waiting Alone (2004).
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Enjoys photography. His elder sister also is a photographer.
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Attempted suicide over the break-up after 5-year (1978-1983) romance with popular TV star Idy Chan.
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After a first unsuccessful marriage with a fellow Hong Kong star actress, he fell in love and re-married the daughter of one of the richest Chinese dynastic scions from Singapore.
He helped Andy Lau in his movie career, after it almost crashed when he refused to sign a contract with TVB, which made him blacklisted from Hong Kong Television.
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Credited as Chow Anderson in the Philippines in his earlier films.
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Tri-lingual, speaking Cantonese, Mandarin, and English.
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Unusually tall by Chinese standards, he was often a head taller than his co-stars in his Hong Kong films, female or male.
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Sponsors a lot of charity events such as "National Wildlife" and many others.
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Before going to work on a movie each day, he goes to the nearest market and buys some fresh fruit.
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Chosen one of 50 Most Beautiful People by People Magazine in 2002.
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Turned down the role of Morpheus in The Matrix (1999).
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CineAsia, the Asian Theatre Owners Convention, named Chow the Star of the Decade.
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Chow Yun-Fat was born of the Hakkha (aka Ha Ka) race, an ethnic group from China that has moved from one region to another without taking up permanent residence since the ancient times. The Hakkha dialect is now the second most popular dialect in Taiwan.
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Won Asian Pacific Festival "Best Actor" Award for Hong Kong 1941, 1985.
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Won Taiwan Golden Horse "Best Actor" Awards Two Times: Hong Kong 1941, 1985. An Autumn's Tale, 1987.
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Won Hong Kong Academy "Best Actor" Awards Three Times: A Better Tomorrow, 1987. City On Fire, 1988, All About Ah Long, 1990.
$100 million
