TONYLEUNG.INFO Today: Aug 21, 2008.   This file last modified: Apr 10, 2003

BIOGRAPHY

Tony Leung Chiu-wai - Not to be confused with Tony Leung Kar-fai (the actor who starred in Jean-Jacques Annaud's The Lover), Tony Leung Chiu-wai was born in Hong Kong on June 27, 1962. He has become the most sought-after actor in East Asia.

After completing his studies, Tony Leung worked under contract to the television channel TVB. He began by hosting a children's program, then attained popularity by appearing on several television series.

Following these career beginnings (comparable to those of other major Hong Kong stars), Tony appeared in a series of "auteur" films which soon earned him a reputation as an extremely versatile actor. Working for several of East Asia's greatest filmmakers, he has turned in outstanding performances.

It is with Wong Kar-wai that Tony has enjoyed his strongest, most durable collaboration, having appeared in five of the writer/director's seven features. Following a cameo appearance in Days of Being Wild (1991), portrayals for Wong have been a wandering knight gradually going blind (in Ashes of Time [1994], for which he won several awards); a solitary policeman in love (in Chungking Express [1994], for which he received the Best Actor award at the Hong Kong Film Awards); and a homosexual facing exile and a painful separation (in Happy Together [1997], for which he again received the Best Actor award at the Hong Kong Film Awards). For his performance in In the Mood for Love, Tony received the Best Actor award at the Cannes International Film Festival. Tony has begun work on Wong Kar-wai's next film, 2046.

His other notable films include John Woo's classics Bullet in the Head (1990) and Hard-Boiled (1992); Stanley Kwan Kam-pang's Love Unto Waste (1986); Derek Yee Tung-shing's The Lunatics (1986); Ching Siu-tung's A Chinese Ghost Story III (1991); Tran Anh-hung's Cyclo (1995); Patrick Yau Tat-chi's The Longest Nite (1998); and Hou Hsiao-hsien's City of Sadness (1989) and Flowers of Shanghai (1998).

In addition to his acting career, Tony is a very popular recording artist. Although he carefully chooses his more serious roles, he also continues to appear in farces and B-movies, making him the hardest actor in Hong Kong to pigeonhole.

To read more on Tony Leung, I wrote a tony biography in 1998 --- Days of Being Wild.

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