Chow Yun-Fat began his acting career at the age of 18, working for a television studio in Hong Kong. By the age of 21 he was already a major presence on Chinese TV and had started to segue into a movie career. He ended up staying at the studio for 14 years, completing numerous films and over 1,000 episodes in various series; acting in soap operas, dramas and comedies. During this time he began a long time romance with another TV performer Idy Chan Yuk-Lin. By the looks of the article to the left he had various actresses linked to him. Some of them were Cora Miao, Cherie Chung, and Carol Do Do Cheng. The 5 year romance with popular TV star Idy Chan Yuk-Lin ended and Chow Yun-Fat found himself in a hospital after an attempted suicide over the break-up (as he tells the story). Soon after he married the beautiful actress Candice Yu On-On in 1983.
It was a marriage puzzling to friends and it only lasted less than a year. Soon after he met his present wife Jasmine Tan (Chan Wui-Lin).

Although Chow Yun-Fat went on not only to be in TV, but also the movies, he was not always a success. He said in an interview that he was considered box office poison for many years. It was after he married Jasmine who was not only a wife, but also his business manager, and he met John Woo things began to change. He gives much of the credit to his wife for the success at this time in his career. In 1986, Tsui Hark and emerging director John Woo enlisted Chow for A Better Tomorrow. It was intended to relaunch the career of Chow brother´s veteran actor Ti Lung as well as to introduce pop idol Leslie Cheung to Hong Kong´s cinema audiences.

Although not first choise for the role of Mark, Tsui and Woo insisted,and Chow Yun Fat took the lead in what was to become one of the biggest box office hit in Hong Kong film history. His future, as well as that of John Woo, was established. The image that Chow projected - long black coat, Ray Bans, matchstick caught in a selfdeprecating killer´s grin - was cool, charismatic and captured the audience´s imagination. This was also the birth of the classic Chow two-gun-toting outlaw stance. Despite very healthy box office receipts, the sequel did not please John Woo, and the subsequent Proquel was directed by Tsui Hark. Chow had, by this time, been exploiting his gangster persona for other directors. He received Taiwan´s Golden Horse Award for best actor in Ringo Lam´s seminal City On Fire (1987)

He became one of the East's hardest working actors, starring in many excellent films including Hong Kong 1941 (1987), Love Unto Waster for director Standley Kwan, Triads: the Inside Story for Taylor Wong (1988) and his own Favourite, Autumn Tale for Cheung Wun Ting. In all these films Chow´s extra ordinary dramatic range was made abundantly clear. In 1989, reunited with John Woo , Chow´s international reputation was finally secured with The Killer, an astonishing parable of violence, betrayal, vengeance and redemption which relied heavily upon the chemistry between director and leading man. Following this he took the role of idiot savant in Wong Jing´s God of Gamblers, which spawned a host of imitations. He then returned to work with Woo on Once A Thief, a dynamic action comedy, before the pair spent almost a year between 1991 and 1992 making the high-calibre shootout flick Hard Boiled, which has brought the director long overdue international recognition.

The job of getting a Hollywood movie was not an easy one for Chow Yun-Fat. Parts for Asian leading men in films were not plentiful. Would he take a small part as a gangster or bad guy as so many Asians were forced to do? It took years for it to finally happen, but when The Replacement Killers was made the box office figures were so low that most Americans still didn't know Chow Yun-Fat. The story suited his Hong Kong reputation as a good/bad guy, and he was the star. Chow Yun-Fat had to remain in America longer than he wanted and missed Hong Kong, especially his mother, and probably the food. The language was difficult and the promotion for the film was not always something he enjoyed. Fortunately his wife Jasmine is from Singapore and speaks English. In 1999 he made 2 more films The Corruptor and the beautiful Anna and the King. Because of this film he was asked to be a presenter at the 2000 Academy Awards. He followed those two films by making the successful Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Again he was asked to be a presenter at the Academy Awards in 2001 when CTHD won many awards. Bulletproof Monk was his next movie in 2003.

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