Acting In 1980, Lau enrolled in
TVB's actor training program and graduated the next year, signing a contract with TVB. He was propelled to fame by the
TVB series
The Emissary (1982). His popularity soared the next year with his role as
Yang Guo in the TVB
wuxia series
The Return of the Condor Heroes; at the end of the year, Lau was featured in the TVB Anniversary Gala Show, alongside
Tony Leung,
Michael Miu,
Felix Wong, and
Kent Tong. Since then they were known as the "Five Tiger Generals of TVB". Meanwhile, Lau also started his film career. He made a guest appearance in one of
Susanna Kwan's music videos in 1981 and caught the eye of the manager
Teddy Robin, who gave Lau his first minor role in the film,
Once Upon a Rainbow. Lau then landed a role in
Ann Hui's 1982 film,
Boat People. TVB insisted on a binding five-year exclusive contract, which Lau declined to sign, leading to his
blacklisting by the network. In the late '80s, Lau departed from
TVB and shifted his focus towards films. He won the
Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actor award that year for
Running Out of Time. In 2004, he won the
Golden Horse Award for Best Leading Actor for his performance in
Infernal Affairs III. Since the early 21st century, Lau has started working with filmmakers from China and beyond, notably in
Zhang Yimou's
House of Flying Daggers (2004) and
Feng Xiaogang's
A World Without Thieves (2004). In 2006 he starred in the pan-Asian blockbuster
A Battle of Wits (2006), followed by a series of big-budget historical films such as
The Warlords (2007),
Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon (2008), and
Tsui Hark's
Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (2010). In 2005, Lau received the "No.1 Box office Actor 1985–2005" award of Hong Kong, yielding a box office total of
HKD 1,733,275,816 for shooting 108 films in the past 20 years. In 2007, Lau also received the "Nielsen Box Office Star of Asia" award by the
Nielsen Company (
ACNielsen). which earned him another Best Actor Award at the 37th Hong Kong Film Awards in 2018. In February 2021, Lau reunited with Tony Leung since the
Infernal Affairs series in the action film
The Goldfinger.
Film production In 1991, Lau set up his own film production company,
Teamwork Motion Pictures, which in 2002 was renamed to
Focus Group Holdings Limited. He was awarded the "Asian Filmmaker of the Year" in the
Pusan International Film Festival in 2006. The following year, he released the single "The Days We Spent Together" which topped Hong Kong's music charts and was an international hit across
Asia. The song was lauded by
Time Out which described its popularity as "practically a national anthem" and "one of the most notable hits" in Lau's career. His subsequent albums brought him further recognition spawning hit singles such as
Ice Rain (1993),
Forget Love Potion (1994), and
Stupid Fellow (1998). His popularity as a music artist was such that Lau was dubbed as one of the Cantopop
Four Heavenly Kings along with
Jacky Cheung,
Aaron Kwok, and
Leon Lai. At the
2008 Summer Olympics, Lau sang "Please Stay, Guests From Afar" alongside
Jackie Chan and
Emil Chau during its
closing ceremony. In addition, Lau, who has been supporting disabled athletes in Hong Kong for more than a decade, was appointed as the Goodwill ambassador for the
2008 Summer Paralympics. He led other performers in singing and performing the song "Everyone is No.1
" at the
Beijing National Stadium before the
2008 Paralympics opening ceremony began. He also sang the theme song
Flying with the Dream with
Han Hong during the Paralympics opening ceremony on 6 September 2008. In addition to singing in
Cantonese and
Mandarin, Lau has also sung in other languages such as English,
Japanese, and
Taiwanese Hokkien. He has held concerts in Asia, North America, Western Europe, and Oceania, and toured throughout
mainland China in summer 2024.
Bibliography Lau has written two books,
This Is How I Grew Up () (1995), an autobiography, and
My 30 Work Days (我的30個工作天) (2012), a collection of his 30 personal diaries written while working on the 2011 film
A Simple Life.
Art exhibition In 2023, Lau opened his debut art show titled the
1/X Andy Lau X Art Exhibition, which ran on 25 August at the Freespace venue located in the
West Kowloon Cultural District. The exhibit includes a sculpture which Lau designed, a projection of images from his films and concerts, paintings made by him and his daughter, and works where he collaborated with other artists, such as collaborating with Hong Kong artists Sticky Line on a statue of his character from
Running on Karma (2003), collaborating with Beijing artist Xu Zhuoer in glass covered film props from
A Moment of Romance (1990), and a collaboration with ink painter where Lau showcases his calligraphy. == Philanthropy ==