In 1973, the 18-year-old Chow responded to a newspaper advertisement for
TVB's actor training program. After a one-year training, he signed a three-year contract with the TV station and made his acting debut in soap operas. He gained recognition in such dramas as
The Killer (1976) and
Hotel (1976). He had his breakout role in
The Good, The Bad And The Ugly (1979), followed by
The Bund, a series about the gangsters in 1930s
Shanghai. The latter made Chow a star across Asia. Although Chow continued his TV success, his goal was to become a film actor. He made his film debut in 1976 after signing an exclusive contract with Goldig Films, then the third largest film company in Hong Kong. Goldig Films, founded and solely-funded by Indonesian Chinese businessman Gouw Hiap Kian, produced and distributed over 100 movies from 1972 to 1982. However, Chow's occasional ventures into low-budget films in the 1980s after ones by Goldig were disastrous. Most of Chow's movies with Goldig Films in the 1970s achieved high gross revenues of over HK$1 million per movie, which is a better box office performance than his movies in early 1980s, such as
Modern Heroes (江湖檔案),
Soul Ash (灰靈),
The Bund (上海灘),
The Bund Part 2 (上海灘續集). Success came when he teamed up with film director
John Woo in the 1986 gangster action-melodrama
A Better Tomorrow, which swept the box offices in Asia and established Chow and Woo as megastars.
A Better Tomorrow won him his first Best Actor award at the Hong Kong Film Awards. It was the highest-grossing film in Hong Kong history at the time, and set a new standard for Hong Kong gangster films. Taking the opportunity, Chow quit TV entirely. With his new image from
A Better Tomorrow, he made many more '
gun fu' or '
heroic bloodshed' films, such as
A Better Tomorrow II (1987),
Prison on Fire (1987),
Prison on Fire II (1991),
The Killer (1989),
A Better Tomorrow 3 (1990) and
Hard Boiled (1992). He won his second Best Actor award for his role in the more realistic crime thriller
City on Fire (1987), an inspiration for
Quentin Tarantino's
Reservoir Dogs. Chow may be best known for playing honorable tough guys, whether cops or criminals, but he has also starred in comedies like
Diary of a Big Man (1988) and ''
Now You See Love, Now You Don't (1992) and romantic blockbusters such as Love in a Fallen City (1984) and An Autumn's Tale (1987), for which he was named Best Actor at the Golden Horse Awards. He brought together his disparate personae in the 1989 film God of Gamblers'', directed by the prolific
Wong Jing, in which he was by turns a suave charmer, a broad comedian, and an action hero. The film surprised many, became immensely popular, broke Hong Kong's all-time box office record, and spawned a series of gambling films as well as several comic sequels starring
Andy Lau and
Stephen Chow. The often tough demeanour and youthful appearance of Chow's characters has earned him the nickname "Babyface Killer." The
Los Angeles Times proclaimed Chow Yun-Fat "the coolest actor in the world". In the mid '90s, Chow moved to
Hollywood in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to duplicate his success in Asia. His first two films,
The Replacement Killers (1998) and
The Corruptor (1999), were box office failures. In his next film
Anna and the King (1999), Chow teamed up with
Jodie Foster, but the film underperformed at the box office. Chow accepted the role of
Li Mu-bai in the (2000) film
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It became a winner at both the international box office and the
Oscars. In 2003, Chow came back to Hollywood and starred in
Bulletproof Monk. In 2004, Chow made a surprise cameo in director
Dayyan Eng's Chinese rom-com favourite
Waiting Alone; it was the first time he was in a mainland Chinese film. In 2006, he teamed up with
Gong Li and
Jay Chou in the film
Curse of the Golden Flower, directed by
Zhang Yimou. In 2007, Chow played the pirate captain
Sao Feng in ''
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End''. However, his part was omitted when the movie was shown in
mainland China, where, according to Chinese unofficial sources, government censors felt that Chow's character "vilified and humiliated" Chinese people. From 2014 to 2016, Chow reunited with his
God of Gamblers director
Wong Jing to make the
From Vegas to Macau franchise. For the part, he lost 13 kg within 10 months. In 2018, he co-starred with
Aaron Kwok in
Project Gutenberg, which earned him another
Best Actor nomination at the
38th Hong Kong Film Awards. In 2023, he became the second Hong Kong actor, after
Tony Leung, to be named Asian Filmmaker of the Year at the 28th
Busan International Film Awards. == Personal life ==