
Tony Leung Chiu-wai

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Tony Leung Chiu-wai (, born 27 June 1962) is a Hong Kong actor and singer. He is considered one of Asia's most successful and internationally recognised actors and was named as "Small Tiger" among Five Tiger Generals of TVB. 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". Leung is widely considered the best native Hong Kong actor of his generation. 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), and "The Grandmaster" (2013). He also appeared in three Venice Film Festival Golden Lion-winning films, including "A City of Sadness" (1989), "Cyclo" (1995) and "Lust, Caution" (2007), directed by Ang Lee. Leung also stars in the Academy Award-nominated film "Hero", and the box office hits "Hard Boiled" (1992) and "Infernal Affairs" (2002). Leung was cast as the Mandarin in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" (2021).
For "In the Mood for Love", Leung earned the Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival. He is also a seven-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."
Early life.
Leung was born in Hong Kong to a family of Taishan, Guangdong ancestry. Leung's early childhood was punctuated with parents' quarrels and arguments about money. A mischievous boy in his early years, Leung's personality changed when 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 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:
Leung went to private school, but he quit at the age of 15 due to financial difficulties. He was a well-behaved teenager who was very close to his mother. During an interview on the making of "Hero", he says that he sees his mother as his definition of a "hero[ine]" 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 showroom 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 passed the training courses of television channel TVB. He played extras in several series and eventually got promoted to lead roles in series including "The Duke of Mount Deer" (1984) and "New Heavenly Sword and Dragon Sabre" (1986). Due to his boyish looks, TVB cast him as host of a children's programme, "430 Space Shuttle". Leung enjoyed comedies during his television years; it was for these he became well known. So, in the 1980s, he was named as one of "TVB's Five Tigers" (their five up-and-coming male TV stars) along with Andy Lau, Felix Wong, Michael Miu and Kent Tong.
Leung starred in the highly successful "Police Cadet" TV serial in 1984 (later named "Police Cadet 84" to distinguish it from its two subsequent sequels). He played an outgoing young man who decides to become a police officer; Maggie Cheung, who also started her career at the same time, played a shy bookworm, Leung's upstairs neighbour and love interest. Since then they have worked together on "The Yang's Saga" (1985) and in the films "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). Interviewed by Wong Kar Wai, Leung said that he considered Maggie to be his alter ego. "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 8 years with TVB, he left the network to focus on his film career with his final television drama being "Ode to Gallantry" in 1989.
Film career.
Many consider Leung's role in director John Woo's 1992 action film "Hard Boiled", in which he co-starred with Chow Yun-fat, to be his breakthrough role. However, Leung first received international attention in Hou Hsiao-hsien's 1989 film "A City of Sadness", which won the Venice Golden Lion.
Leung often collaborates with director Wong Kar-wai and has appeared in many of his films. His most notable 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 trained in wing chun for five years to prepare for his role as Ip Man in Wong's "The Grandmaster." He is considered by many to be one of the finest actors of his generation in Hong Kong. Robert De Niro and Brad Pitt are admirers of his work, and Leung has been labeled by The Times as Asia's answer to Clark Gable.
Leung also has an on-and-off Cantopop and Mandarin pop singing career and sang the theme song of "Infernal Affairs" with Andy Lau.
In addition to Cantonese, English, and Spanish, Leung speaks Mandarin and some Japanese (as heard in "Tokyo Raiders"). "Lust Caution" is the first film where he has a Mandarin-speaking role in which he used his own voice. (His Mandarin dialogue in "Hero" was dubbed by someone else.)
During the promotion of the film "Hero", some politicians and commentators in Hong Kong attacked Leung for expressing the view that the Tiananmen Square demonstration crackdown was necessary to maintain stability. Under constant political pressure and boycott threats, Leung made a single statement that he may have been quoted out of context but refused to retract his statement in the magazine. However, the movie magazine editor maintained that the original statement was not out of context and challenged people to read the complete interview.
In 2014 he was selected as a member of the jury for the 64th Berlin International Film Festival.
During the late 1990s, Leung found it difficult to break into Hollywood since he would not take any roles that would degrade his character and image in Hong Kong. Eventually in 2005, he signed with an American agent with the intention to finally appear in a Hollywood film. On July 20, 2019, it was announced that Leung was cast to play Wenwu / The Mandarin in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings", marking his Hollywood debut. The movie is directed by Destin Daniel Cretton and scheduled to hit theaters on September 3, 2021.
In Feb 2021, Leung and Andy Lau will team up in a new major action movie titled "Goldfinger", backed by Emperor Motion Pictures and mainland Chinese partners, with a reported budget of around $30.8 million (RMB200 million).
Personal life.
Relationship and marriage with Carina Lau.
Tony Leung and Carina Lau are one of Hong Kong's biggest celebrity couples. They dated for 19 years before marrying in Bhutan in 2008. They had known each other since "The Replica" in 1984, and worked on-screen together in "Replica" (1984), "Duke of Mount Deer" (1984), "Police Cadet" (1984, 1985, 1988), "The Yangs' Saga" (1985), "Days of Being Wild" (1991), "He ain't heavy, he's my father" (1993), "Ashes of Time" (1994), and "2046" (2005).
In 1990, during the filming of "Days of Being Wild", Lau was abducted for several hours. Wong Kar-wai said, "Originally, there were plans for "Days of Being Wild" I and II, and the sequence featuring Leung was meant to be the opening scene of the second movie. But two things happened, one of which was that "Days of Being Wild" didn't do well in Hong Kong, so the producers said, "No Part 2." The other reason was Carina Lau's kidnapping.
On 21 July 2008, the couple got married in Bhutan in royal fashion. The wedding created a media frenzy in Hong Kong, with companies spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to pursue the wedding party.
According to "Ming Pao Daily News", Faye Wong and her husband actor Li Yapeng had taken them to India in 2007 to visit the 17th Karmapa. The Karmapa's counsel helped them to resolve a crisis in their relationship, and he also suggested Bhutan as a wedding venue.
Religion.
Tony Leung is a Buddhist. He has donated to constructions of Buddhist institutions, performing a marriage in a Buddhist ceremony, attending Buddhist gatherings and doing the Buddhist palm greetings.