Chow Yun-Fat

Born: 18 May 1955
Where: Lamma Island, Hong Kong

An acting legend in south-east Asia, Yun-Fat is now establishing himself as a sort of thinking man's Jackie Chan in the West.

Parts in The Replacement Killers, The Corrupter and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon have established him outside his native territory.

After drifting from job to job on the Kowloon Peninsula, he was accepted on a training course for young actors at a TV station in 1972.

This led him to appear in over 300 hours of television, the most successful a series called Shanghai Beach, which was to make him a household name throughout South East Asia.

In 1986 the little-known director John Woo, best known for his slapstick kung fu comedies, cast Chow 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.

The success of Tomorrow rejuvenated both their careers, with Chow and Woo going on to collaborate on A Better Tomorrow II, Once a Thief, The Killer and Hard Boiled.

1998 saw his first American feature, The Replacement Killers, opposite Mira Sorvino - whose fluency in Mandarin helped immeasurably, as the two co-stars could converse when Chow's English failed him.

With the 1999 release of Anna And The King, English-language audiences were finally given the chance to experience the Emperor of Hong Kong Cinema's full range.

He followed this a year later with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, a fantastical historic epic from the director Ang Lee.

In 2002 he starred in comic book-based The Bulletproof Monk.