Stephen Chow graduated from high school in 1982 and auditioned for an acting school run by TVB, a Hong Kong television station where he was rejected. His friend 'Waise' Lee Chi-Hung (The Legend of the Swordsman, John Woo's 'A Better Tomorrow') helped him out and he was allowed to take night classes. He graduated in 1983 and was hired to host a children's television program called 'Space Shuttle 430' alongside future star Tony Leung Chiu Wai, even though he wasn't fond of children. This didn't stop him from carrying on his duty as he developed an off-beat rapport with co-stars of the show that audiences loved, which led the program to run for five years. During the show's final run in 1988, he broke into dramatic roles in numerous television programs and went on to star in his first feature film where actor 'Danny' Lee Sau-Yin (City on Fire, John Woo's 'The Killer') cast him in 'Final Justice' which earned him an Award for Best Supporting Actor at the 25th Annual Taiwanese Film Awards.

In 1988, Stephen Chow was approached by Danny Lee Sau-yin who cast him in Final Justice, for which Chow won Best Supporting Actor at the 25th Annual Taiwanese Film Awards. This led to a series of mostly dramatic film and television roles. Chow's humorous side finally broke out to great acclaim with the success of All For the Winner in 1990 which parodied God of Gamblers, starring Chow Yun-fat. The success of this film led to starring roles in two sequels to God of Gamblers and the favorable status of consistently dominating the box office. The only other actor who had compared in popularity and success is Jackie Chan and added up, Chow's films surpass Jackie's in revenue. All For the Winner also established an important trend in Hong Kong's pop culture begun by Chow, known as 'Mou Lei Tau,' translated as 'nonsense' or 'meaningless talk.' In most of his subsequent films, characters would frequently exchange seemingly incomprehensible dialogue loosely akin to 'Monty Python speak' where utter absurdity is traded for laughs, though mostly by local audiences better equipped to comprehend obscure references.

Recent films have begun to focus on comedic action and special effects sequences instead of verbal humour, to appeal to a wider international audience. The film which launched him in the West is Shaolin Soccer (2001), which makes heavy use of CGI and is directed by Chow himself. Kung Fu Hustle (2004) is also directed by Chow and in February 2005 went on to surpass Shaolin Soccer as the highest grossing domestic movie in Hong Kong.

Finally, Hollywood took support of Chow's comedic skills and Miramax Films bought the distribution rights to 'Shaolin Soccer' and released it internationally in 2003. Following the success of 'Shaolin Soccer' Columbia Tristar released his next kung-fu comedy project, 'Kung Fu Hustle', on which he collaborated with another legendary action choreographer, Yuen Wo-Ping, to create some hard-hitting martial arts sequences, for which Wo-Ping has been famous since the '70s in Hong Kong.

Stephen Chow's creativity of action and comedy continues to find new audiences and his work will continue to entertain viewers around the world for years to come.

Extras

Films Of Stephen Chow	Stephen Chow Collection: Period/Fantasy	Stephen Chow Collection: 92-01	Stephen Chow Collection: 88-91	Kung Fu Hustle [Korean Ultimate Edition]
A Grand Collection Of 'God Of Gamblers II'	Fight Back to School Series [DTS Digitally Mastered]	Kung Fu Hustle [Premium Limited Edition]	My Father's Son (TVB TV Series)	Shaolin Soccer (Extended Version)

Related links

Jackie Chan
Bruce Lee
Jet Li
Michelle Yeoh
Chow Yun-Fat
Andy Lau
Tony Leung
Zhang ZiYi
Gong Li
Maggie Cheung
Shu Qi

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