Bacon Number: The Oracle says: Chow Yun-Fat has a
Bacon number of 2:
- Chow Yun-Fat was in The Replacement Killers (1998) with Frank Medrano,
- Frank Medrano was in Sleepers (1996) with Kevin Bacon.
Chow Yun-Fat was born on
May 18th, 1955, on the small island of
Lamma off
Hong Kong's
Victoria Harbour. Chow is a member of the
Haka (a.k.a.
Ha Ka) race, an ethnic group from China that has moved from one region to another without taking up permanent residence since ancient times. His family moved to Hong Kong itself in 1965. Chow Yun-Fat identifies two childhood influences on his dramatic life: the
Cantonese Opera, at yearly festivals in honour of the
Goddess of the Sea, and
American movies.
An early
TV star in series like
Hotel, in the early 1980s Yun-Fat won lasting popularity and fame as the ultra-cool gangster
Hui Man-Keung, in the TVB series
Shanghai Beach.
His first lead rule was in 1976, in
Chi Nu (
Massage Girls), playing a police officer who goes undercover in a brothel. However, his first critical success was only five years later, in the 1981 film
The Story of Woo Viet, directed by
Ann Hui On-Wah. This dramatic success was followed by a period of personal and occupational uncertainty: CYF's films in the early 1980s were on the whole poorly-received by critics and movie-goers alike, and his marriage with fellow actor
Candice Yu (
On-on Yu) broke down.
His career was revived in the mid-1980s with a series of acclaimed films. In 1985, he received a
Golden Horse (Best Actor) from
Taiwan, and another
Best Actor from the
Asian Pacific Film Festival for his performance in director
Leung Po-Chi's movie
Hong Kong 1941, and in 1986 the little-known director
John Woo, best known for his slapstick
kung-fu comedies (like
Plain Jane to the Rescue), cast him as
Mark Gor in the gangster movie
A Better Tomorrow. The film was wildly successful, propelling both Woo and Chow into the limelight of the action-movie genre.
By 1995, when he filmed the last of his Hong Kong movies,
Peace Hotel, Chow had appeared in an amazing 71 movies. His awards from this period include two
Best Actor awards from
Taiwan (1985, for
Hong Kong 1941, and 1987, for
An Autumn's Tale), and three times from Hong Kong (1987, for
A Better Tomorrow; 1988, for
City on Fire, and 1990, for
All about Ah Long).
In 2000 Chow starred in the critically acclaimed
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, directed by
Ang Lee and scored by
Yo-yo Ma. Crouching Tiger, an epic
fairy tale set in medieval China, won four
academy awards and propelled Chow into the status of world-wide superstar, and showed Chow as more than just another Hong Kong action star.
Abridged Filmography: