Tony Leung Chiu-wai is widely regarded as one of the finest actors of his generation in Hong Kong cinema, taking lead roles in the work of some of contemporary Asia's greatest filmmakers. Hou Hsiao-hsien gave him one of his best roles in City of Sadness (1989) and cast him again in The Flowers of Shanghai (1998). Tran Anh Hung cast him as "the poet" in Cyclo (1993), and John Woo entrusted him with two of the most demanding roles of his career in Bullet in the Head (1990) and Hard Boiled (1992).
But it's undoubtedly with Wong Kar-wai that Leung has had his most intense and enduring collaboration, appearing in a leading role in nearly all of the director's films. He has won numerous acting honors, including Best Actor at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival for In the Mood for Love. Born in Hong Kong in 1962, Leung worked as a children's TV show host after his studies before appearing in numerous popular television series. From these modest beginnings — a path many other Hong Kong stars have also followed — he moved into a series of art-house films and quickly earned a reputation as an extraordinarily versatile actor.
He has moved through an astonishing range of roles with apparent ease, lending each character his own particular charisma: an intellectually disabled man in The Lunatics (1986), a deaf-mute in City of Sadness, a young monk in A Chinese Ghost Story III (1991), and a corrupt, brutal police officer in The Longest Nite (1997).
Working with Wong Kar-wai added a new dimension to his range: the glamorous hero. In Ashes of Time he plays a wandering swordsman slowly going blind (a role that won him Best Actor honors in both Hong Kong and Taiwan); in Chungking Express he's a lonely policeman who falls for a singer played by Faye Wong; and in Happy Together he plays a gay man in self-imposed exile in Argentina, working through a painful breakup.
Unlike some other Hong Kong actors who became international stars, Leung never gave up his status as a beloved figure at home. Alongside his acting career, he's also a popular Cantopop singer, and despite choosing his "serious" roles carefully, he still appears in comedies and B-movies — all of which makes him one of Hong Kong's most versatile actors.
