One of the highest-paid movie stars in Asia is on the MTR. He's wearing $15 shorts and rubber flip-flops. He takes selfies with anyone who asks. He carries a Nokia flip phone until it dies. He reportedly lives on around HK$800 a month. His name is Chow Yun-fat (周潤發), and he is quietly planning to give away his entire US$700 million fortune to charity — because, in his words, "the money's not mine. I'm only keeping it safe for the time being."
From a Lamma Island Farm to Global Cinema
Chow Yun-fat was born in 1955 in a fishing village on Lamma Island — a small island south of Hong Kong most tourists visit today for the seafood. Back then, there was no electricity in his house. His father, Chow Yung-wan, worked on a Shell Oil tanker. His mother, Chan Lai-fong, was a cleaning lady and a vegetable farmer. Before school, young Chow was up at dawn helping his mother sell herbal jelly and Hakka tea pudding on the streets. Afternoons were spent in the fields.
The family moved to Kowloon when he was ten. He left school at 17 to help support his family, working odd jobs — bellboy, telephone operator, postman, camera salesman. At 18, he saw an ad for TVB's actor training programme and walked in. That decision changed Hong Kong cinema forever. Growing up scrappy in a Cantonese-speaking fishing village and then hustling on Kowloon streets gave him the exact quality that would define every character he ever played: a man who could go from tenderness to fury in one breath, and back again in the next.
The Bund, and Becoming a Household Name
In 1980, TVB dropped a 25-episode drama called The Bund (上海灘) — a story of 1920s Shanghai gangsters, love, and betrayal. Chow played Hui Man-keung. The show didn't just make him famous. It made him a household name across Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and every corner of the Cantonese-speaking world. Even today, older aunties in Vancouver and San Francisco will sing the theme song if you hum the first bar. Then came John Woo.
🎬 The Sunglasses, the Toothpick, the Trench Coat
In 1986, John Woo cast Chow as Mark Gor in A Better Tomorrow (英雄本色) — the film that reinvented Hong Kong action cinema. Chow's toothpick, matchstick-lit cigarette, aviator sunglasses, and long trench coat became a global uniform of cool. Teenagers in Hong Kong bought grey trench coats in 30-degree summer heat just to look like him. The film won Best Picture at the Hong Kong Film Awards and Chow won Best Actor — his first of three.
🎬 The God of Gamblers Who Ate Chocolate
In 1989, Chow starred in God of Gamblers (賣神), directed by Wong Jing. His character Ko Chun — slick-haired, unbeatable at cards, obsessed with a certain brand of chocolate — broke Hong Kong's all-time box office record. The film spawned a whole gambling movie genre and sequels starring Andy Lau and Stephen Chow. Every Lunar New Year for a decade, someone re-released a gambling film hoping to catch the same lightning.
🎬 Ang Lee Called, and Then Hollywood Did Too
In 2000, Ang Lee cast Chow as Li Mu Bai in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (臥虎藏龍). The film grossed over US$213 million worldwide, won four Academy Awards including Best Foreign Language Film, and pulled global audiences into a Chinese-language epic in a way no film had before. Hollywood came calling with Anna and the King, The Replacement Killers, and eventually Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, where Chow played Captain Sao Feng.
🎬 The Fortune He Refuses to Keep
Chow married Jasmine Tan in 1986. They had a stillborn daughter in 1991 and decided not to have children. He and Jasmine live modestly. He takes the MTR and the minibus, shops at wet markets, and gave up his beloved Nokia only when it died. In 2018 he confirmed he will donate his estimated US$700 million fortune to charity. "The hardest thing in life," he said, "is not about how much money you earn, but how to keep a peaceful mindset."
Why He Still Matters to the Diaspora
For the global Cantonese community, Chow Yun-fat is more than a movie star. He's proof that a boy from a Lamma Island fishing village — no English, no schooling, no connections — could stand shoulder to shoulder with Hollywood and never lose his Cantonese soul. He never left Hong Kong. He never forgot where he came from. He greets fans in Cantonese, jokes in Cantonese, refuses to play the celebrity in Cantonese. Every immigrant kid whose parents worked wet markets, factories, restaurants, or laundry shops sees themselves in his story.
A Cantonese Phrase Chow Made Famous
發哥
Faat3 Go1 — Jyutping romanisation
Meaning: "Brother Fat" — the affectionate name Hong Kong gave him.
Explanation: 哥 (go1) means "older brother." Adding it after the last syllable of a name is how Cantonese people show warm familiarity and respect. Nobody calls him "Mr. Chow." He's just Faat3 Go1 — big brother Fat — to a whole city.
The Legacy of a Man Who Just Wants to Walk
The most Cantonese thing about Chow Yun-fat is not the films. It's the way he treats his fame. He'll hike Sai Kung on weekends with a plastic bag and a bottle of water. He'll queue for a bowl of noodles in Sham Shui Po. He answers his own door. When people ask why, he laughs and says the money isn't his, the fame isn't his — none of it is. What's his is a fishing village boyhood, a mother who worked the fields, and a Cantonese heart he never spent. That, more than any film role, is why he's a legend.
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