Stephen Chow Sing-Chi is a Hong Kong scriptwriter,film director,producer and actor.Chow is a well-known,top-tier comedian and superstar of Hong Kong entertainment.
If Hong Kong has a Charlie Chaplin,Stephen Chow is it.He was born on June 22,1962 in Hong Kong as the only boy of his family and grew up in Shanghai,along with his three sisters.He has grown up as a Bruce Lee fan and a martial arts addict.Though his formal martial arts training was brief,combined with continued aerobic and flex training,he has ably integrated martial arts action into many of his comic film roles,for which he is best known.After growing up impoverished in a working-class family,he tried to break into acting at age 19 by auditioning for a training course run by TVB.He got a job co-hosting a popular children's TV show with future art-film icon Tony Leung and the show started becoming popular.The six-year sentence he spent amusing kiddies was not wasted.Children's shows proved an ideal outlet for his brand of "mo lei tau" (nonsense) talk and toilet humor.
Chow worked his way into other TV roles and then his first movie part in the 1988 film Final Justice,for which he won the Best Supporting Actor honor at Taiwan's Golden Horse Awards.This led to a series of mostly dramatic film and television roles.He had his first starring role in 1990 and started excelling in the comedy genre.His success grew exponentially as he headed into the 1990s.His films continued to attract both critical praise and box office success.After a two-year break,Chow returned with the idea of combining kung fu action with the world's most popular sport.In Shaolin Soccer,a new twist was the incorporation of the latest digital effects technology that made much of the film's outrageous action scenes possible.Kung Fu Hustle,his record-breaking comedy/kung fu masterpiece,is another great success.Chow chose Eva Huang (born and brought up in Shanghai,but graduated from Beijing Film Academy) to shoot a dumb girl in the movie and Huang became famous afterwards.At that time,she was an actress belonging to Chow's agent company.In 2005 she shot a collection of sexy pictures for a magazine without informing the company and "destroyed her chaste image".The company cancelled all of her performances and activities.Later Huang decided to terminate their contract and was sued by Chow's company.But on a recent news conference,Huang said she had forgotten the unhappiness and decided to welcome a whole new tomorrow.Still she feels thankful to Chow,because "she would still be a nobody without his guidance".
Chow's interest in working behind the camera began to grow in the mid-1990s.Known for his outlandish style of humor and rubber-faced facial expressions,actor,director and producer Chow has become a martial arts powerhouse on the Hong Kong cinema circuit.
