Top 20 Actresses in Hong Kong Cinema History
#1 Maggie Cheung
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Maggie Cheung was born on September 20, 1964, in Hong Kong, and moved at the age of eight with her family to England. After finishing secondary school, she returned to Hong Kong, where she began modeling and appearing in commercials. In 1983 she participated in the Ms. Hong Kong pageant, winning first runner-up, which proved not to be a detriment since she went on to become a star of both Hong Kong television and film.- Brigitte Lin is a Taiwanese actress. She is regarded as an icon of Chinese language cinema for her extensive and varied roles in both Taiwanese and Hong Kong films. Lin was born in Chiayi, Taiwan. She was scouted in 1972 on the streets of Taipei by a film producer after she finished women's high school and was preparing for university.
- Cherie Chung was born on February 16, 1960 in Hong Kong. She was third runner-up in the 1979 Miss Hong Kong Pageant and entered the film industry afterward, becoming one of Hong Kong's most popular and beautiful actresses.
Chung would go on to appear in dozens of comedy and drama movies, most notably starring along side actor Chow Yun-Fat in a host of films, including the award-winning An Autumn's Tale (1987). She also dabbled in a few action, horror and fantasy films, including that of Sister Yuen in Sammo Hung's ghost comedy The Dead and the Deadly (1982) and Hsiao-Hsueh in Eric Tsang's Golden Swallow (1987).
In 1991, Chung retired from show business and married advertising guru Michael Chu in the United States. He was known for his achievements in the Hong Kong advertising industry; he passed August 24, 2007 from stomach cancer.
Since her marriage, Chung has been active in promoting environmental protection and ran a furniture store in Hong Kong. - Actress
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Michelle Yeoh was born in Ipoh, Malaysia. She's the daughter of Janet Yeoh & Kian Teik Yeoh. She's of Hokkien descent, speaking English and Malay before Chinese. A ballet dancer since 4, she moved to London to study at the Royal Academy as a teen. After a brief dance career, she won the Miss Malaysia beauty pageant title in and the Miss Moomba beauty pageant title in Melbourne, Australia in the early 1980s. Her first on camera work was a 1984 commercial with martial arts star Jackie Chan. In 1985, she began making action movies with D&B Films of Hong Kong. She was first billed as Michelle Khan, then Michelle Yeoh. Never a trained martial artist, she relied on her dance discipline and on-set trainers to prepare for martial arts action scenes.
She uses many dance moves in her films and does most of her own stunts. In 1988, she married wealthy D&B Films executive Dickson Poon & retired from acting. Even though they divorced in 1992, she's close to Poon's second wife and a godmother to his daughter. When she returned to acting, she became very popular w/ Chinese audiences. She later became known to Western audiences through role in the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) and in the phenomenally successful Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). She turned down a role in a sequel to The Matrix (1999).
She has her own production company, Mythical Films. She trained with the Shen Yang Acrobatic team for her role in The Touch (2002), an English-language film she both starred in and produced. She hopes to use her company to discover and nurture new film-making talent. She also aspires to act in roles that combine both action and deeper spiritual themes.- Rosamund Kwan was born on 24 September 1962 in Hong Kong. She is an actress, known for The Head Hunter (1982), This Thing Called Love (1991) and Millionaires' Express (1986). She was previously married to Pierre Chen and Guosheng Wang.
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With a career that began in her early childhood, Anita Mui is the queen of Hong Kong's pop-music industry. After she won a singing contest in 1982, her life in the limelight began. In the early stages of her career her image was a little bit tomboy-ish and sexy (which was the reason she was called the "Madonna of Hong Kong"), and some of her songs were considered too risqué, with one of them, "Bad Girl", actually being banned from airplay due to its suggestive content. She started her acting career at about the same time, often starring with Anthony Chan, including Huai nu hai (1986) and One Husband Too Many (1988). Other acting partners included Jackie Chan and Leslie Cheung. Both her singing and acting careers were a success. She won an enormous number of "Best Female Singer" and "Most Popular Female Singer" awards in the 1980s, and her acting career's climax was winning "Best Actress" awards (Golden Horse Award and the inaugural Golden Dragon Awards in Taiwan, Hong Kong Film Award, and the Pan-Asia Pacific Film Festival) in 1987 for Stanley Kwan's "Rouge" Rouge (1987). In the early 1990s she announced her "half" retirement from the singing industry. However, by popular demand, she continued to record albums and to act in movies, and by 1994, she engineered a full comeback to great critical and popular acclaim.
She passed away from cervical cancer on December 30th, 2003. Many of her friends were with her in her last hours.- Carina Lau moved to Hong Kong with her family at the age of 14 and at the the time could not speak the local Cantonese and was often teased by other people the "Mainland Girl". She would eventually gave her best effort to learn the language and then was re-accepted at the TVB actors training program when she had improved her speaking ability. It was 1983 the year when she had graduated from the program and launched her acting career as contract basic actress for TVB, and her now boyfriend Tony Leung (Happy Together) was graduated one year earlier. Her acting career for TVB was limited to playing ornamental parts in series for the first several years and she didn't get a major challenging starring role until the hit series Looking Back in Anger. That series had established her status as a strong leading lady, but she was aiming to abandon the small screen for films.
She had been in tabloid headlines for her near-marriage romance with a handsome billionaire in the late 80s, and she was considering giving up acting to marry him but the wedding got cancelled the last minute, and Carina was devastated. Shortly after she started dating Tony after partnering to do a stage play called "Happy Lemon Husband". It was "I Am Sorry" (a low-budget dramedy) that first garnered her the HK best actress nomination in 1989, and she had previously been sent out by TVB to do some films but nothing significant enough to turn her into a film star. Since leaving TVB, she had been approached by film jobs consistently. She found the dream role when Wong Kar Wai let her play a sexy and volatile showgirl in Days of Being Wild opposite Leslie Cheung and Maggie Cheung, and she was in the spotlight and became the "It" girl of the year during film festivals and awards. She once told the press that it was WKW who taught her how to bring out the best of her acting skills and how to use body language to convey emotions.
Over the course the 90s, Carina was constantly working mostly on dramas and comedies and had many box office hits. She subsequently chose very daring dramatic roles and she has a reputation for playing troubled women and prostitutes very well. For instance, her bisexual role in Intimates was one of the most challenging roles of her career and it was very provocative that it was entirely accepted by mainstream audiences. Towards the late 90s, she cut reduced her working in films since there was lesser good scripts and the industry was in decline. She even participated in a period dramatic series in Taiwan and a HK theatrical play when films didn't excite her. With more than 60 starring roles in films, TV series and plays, she was not desperate to work just for work, so the recent years she's still one of the highest earning actress in Asia because she's the spokesperson for numerous big fashion and cosmetic labels. It was unfortunate that her five year involvement in making the most lavish sci-fi epic 2046 had reduced her to a supporting role. She was frustrated that she didn't know what she was playing since Wong Kar Wai had not issued a script and was working from his head the whole time. Finally, a fellow actor recommended her to read a script called Curiosity Kills the Cat, a low-budget Chinese thriller, and insisted that she should do the film because it was clear that the leading role was perfectly suitable for her and she's never played anything like it before. Her performance garnered her the best reviews of her career. In this film, she turned in a multi-layered and unpredictable performance and for the first time she was willing to be made up to look very middle-aged and unattractive, and she was welling to do 3 takes of paint splattering all over her like Sissy Spacek in Carrie. - Actress
Maggie Siu was born on 27 February 1965 in Hong Kong, China. She is an actress, known for Election (2005), PTU (2003) and Eye in the Sky (2007).- Actress
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Sandra Kwan Yue Ng is widely considered as the most bankable actress in Hong Kong. With over a hundred films to her credit, including several collaborations with the "King of Hong Kong Comedy" Stephen Chow, Ng is crowned "Queen of Comedy" by many.
Ng entered show business in the 1980s, the golden period of Hong Kong's film industry. Her funny, quirky and irreverent persona quickly landed her countless comedic roles in films like All's Well End Well (1992), which also starred Stephen Chow and Maggie Cheung. Ng made herself a household name through hugely successful comedy franchises such as The Inspector Wears Skirt series and broke open raunchy comedy to women. Two recent comedies she starred in, Monster Hunt (2015) and Jian Bing Man (2015), garnered a box office total of RMB 3.5 billion, cementing Ng's status as the highest grossing Hong Kong actress to date.
Ng nabbed her first Best Actress win in the Hong Kong Film Awards for her performance as a lesbian triad leader, Sister 13, in Portland Street Blues (1998). Ng came to be known as a serious actress and went on to take on ever more challenging roles, including that of an underdog prostitute in Golden Chicken (2002), which won her Best Actress in the Golden Horse Awards. Her performance as a bisexual woman trying to reunite with her ex-lover in All About Love (2010) won her Best Actress in the Asian Film Festival of Rome. Her 2010 tear-jerking family drama Echoes of the Rainbow won the Crystal Bear Award at the Berlin International Film Festival and earned Ng another Best Actress nomination in the Hong Kong Film Awards. In 2014, she was awarded the Star Asia Award in the New York Asia Film Festival.
The recent years see Ng's career expanding into producing and directing. This began with her producing credit Golden Chickensss (2014), which reaped over HK$40 million in Hong Kong, and was the year's highest grossing Chinese language movie in Hong Kong. Goldbuster (2017) is witness to Ng's latest breakthrough as her directorial debut and proves her as an artist of many hats.- Actress
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Joey Wang grew up in her native Taiwan, where she was spotted by a talent scout for a modeling agency. Her height and delicate beauty made her one of the most popular Taiwanese models, and Wang went on to have a successful film career. Her ethereal elegance was used to great effect by director Ching Siu-tung in A Chinese Ghost Story (1987) and its sequels. Wang has also appeared in dozens of contemporary feature films, including 'God of Gamblers' starring Chow Yun-Fat, and 'City Hunter' opposite Jackie Chan.- Actress
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Vivian Chow was born on 10 November 1967 in Hong Kong. She is an actress, known for Heart to Hearts (1988), Stoneman (1992) and Angel Hunter (1992). She has been married to Joe Nieh since 6 January 2009.- Actress
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Sharla Cheung Man is of Shanghainese origin. She was discovered by Jing Wong, who cast her in many of his productions in the early 1990s. After appearing in God of Gamblers (1989), Cheung was propelled to stardom for her role in the Stephen Chow smash hit All for the Winner (1990). She soon became a highly popular Hong Kong actress and immediately found herself working almost non-stop.
"All for the Winner" also launched Stephen Chow's career, and the two were subsequently paired in many early 90's comedies, in which Cheung usually starred as Chow's love interest. Her pairings with Stephen Chow were huge box office hits such as God of Gamblers II (1990), the Fight Back to School (1991) trilogy, Royal Tramp (1992), and King of Beggars (1992). They teamed up for about 10 films, however their collaboration came to an end in 1994 with Hail the Judge (1994). Another frequent co-star was Andy Lau, alongside whom she appeared in such films as God of Gamblers (1989), God of Gamblers II (1990), Dances with Dragon (1991), the Lee Rock (1991) trilogy, and Handsome Siblings (1992).
Cheung is known for the many fantasy/martial arts films she's starred in, that include several adaptations of Louis Cha's novels, such as King Hu's The Swordsman (1990) (as Ren Yingying, the beautiful Sacred Maiden of the Sun-Moon Sect), Royal Tramp (1992) (as the Divine Lady of the Dragon Sect posing as the Empress Dowager), Kung Fu Cult Master (1993) (opposite Jet Li, as a beautiful and mysterious Mongolian princess), The Sword Stained with Royal Blood (1993) (opposite Biao Yuen, as a princess posing as a thief), The Sword of Many Lovers (1993) (alongside Leon Lai), and The Maidens of Heavenly Mountains (1994) (as a semi-godess, alongside Brigitte Lin and Gong Li). Other notable roles include Holy Weapon (1993) (as a spider ninja, along with Michelle Yeoh and Maggie Cheung), Flying Dagger (1993) (as 'Tony Leung Ka Fai''s rival), Legend of the Liquid Sword (1993) (along with Aaron Kwok), and the "Wong Fei Hung" serial's parody Last Hero in China (1993) (as Jet Li's love interest).
After an impressive body of work in the early 1990s (she starred in about 50 films between 1990 and 1995), Sharla Cheung moved into producing in 1995 with Yat chin ling yat yeh ji mung jung yan (1995), which starred 'Tony Leung Ka Fai' and Chien-Lien Wu. However, she was unhappy with it and remade the film as Romantic Dream (1995). The films were commercial failures, and Cheung subsequently retired from the film industry to focus on various business interests.
In the early 2000s, Cheung made a comeback in acting with Leung go duk lap bau jong dik nui yan (2003), a modern urban drama about women facing difficult romantic choices. She also turned to television and portrayed Diao Chan, one of the Four Beauties of ancient China in Diao Chan (2002), opposite Ray Lui. She subsequently starred in such TV shows as Feng man lou (2005) alongside Nicky Wu, and Fan fu da yuan (2006) along with Honglei Sun.- Chingmy Yau was born on 16 May 1968 in Hong Kong. She is an actress, known for Naked Killer (1992), Hold You Tight (1998) and The New Legend of Shaolin (1994). She has been married to Karwai Shum since 31 October 1999. They have three children.
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Wu Chien-Lien was born on July 3, 1968 in Taipei. Inspired by Fame (USA 1980) she entered the Taipei National University of Art after finishing high school she earned tuition money during the summer by singing commercial jingles and back-up vocals. Famous actress Sylvia Chang happened to come across a striking photograph of her at the record company where Wu worked and sent it along to Johnnie To, who was casting for a new movie. That movie was, the now classic A Moment of Romance (1990), which launched Wu into stardom across Asia. Over the next few years Wu continued with her studies while appearing in few films here and there. In 1994, she was nominated for a HKFA Best Actress Award for her performance in the UFO horror film The Returning, appeared in Ang Lee's acclaimed Eat Drink Man Woman (TAIWAN 1994), and also made her debut as a singer. Though blessed with a serene face and slender frame she has effectively been cast against type as cold-blooded killers in the Milkyway films Beyond Hypothermia (1996) and Intruder (1997). Her most acclaimed role to date is that of an ill-fated but determined young woman in Ann Hui's Eighteen Springs (1997), for which she garnered a HKFA Best Actress nomination and took home the Hong Kong Critics Society Best Actress Award. She most recently took on the role of tragic 30s actress Ruan Ling-Yu in a Mainland TV series. Since 1998 Wu has worked in China, Singapore, and even in Korea, where many people still remember her fondly from A Moment of Romance. In general, Wu has managed to keep a low profile and has avoided the usual celebrity relationship gossip for much of her career. Wu has reportedly insisted that she has no intentions of retiring from acting when or if she gets married.- Actress
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Rene Liu was born on 1 June 1969 in Taipei, Taiwan. She is an actress and writer, known for Us and Them (2018), A World Without Thieves (2004) and The Personals (1998).- Actress
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Her mother (now deceased) was a singer and her father a mining engineer. They moved with her older brother to Hong Kong when she was 18 and she began to take singing lessons. Her teacher introduced her to Cinepoly Records, where she first recorded under the name Wong Jing Man and was given the English name Shirley Wong for three albums. She sang predictable Cantopop and was unsatisfied with her career and eventually left for New York to carve her own identity, returning several months later. Given more creative freedom, she favoured the sounds of R'n'B in her new releases and also started writing her own songs. Her quirky sense of fashion and on-stage antics were often compared to Bjork's. In 1994 she reclaimed her real name and released the self titled "Faye Wong". The album had no cover but a blank white casing and booklet. It cemented her attitude towards music & media, Wong was all about music and did not care for frills and publicity. Her cover of "Dreams" by The Cranberries set her aside from the ballad-crooning Cantopop industry dominated by male singers. In 1995 she released "Restless", with 8 original works by Wong and 2 in collaboration with the Cocteau Twins. This album is widely considered by fans and Wong herself as her best work and most artisically ground-breaking as one song is purely instrumental and 4 sung in a jibberish language invented by Wong. She left Cinepoly in 1997 and was signed to EMI for a record amount. She worked with Cocteau Twins again, who wrote two songs for her first EMI release, "Faye Wong". After 5 albums with EMI she is currently signed with Sony Records. Her first Sony release "To Love" has earnt her nominations in Best Album, Best Female Artist, Best Song, Best Producer, Best Lyrics and Best Arrangment.
She married Dou Wei, the former lead singer of Black Panther, one of China's first successful metal groups. They had a daughter but subsequently divorced. She has been romantically linked on and off again with Nicholas Tse Ting-fung, the bad boy of Cantopop 11 years her junior, since June 2000. Their first breakup was in March 2002 when Tse paired off with Cecilia Cheung Pak-chi, but he and Wong reconciled four months later. Other big Hong Kong entertainments names have been mentioned, including Anita Mui Yim-fong in May 2003, Mui's agent Marianne Wong in November 2003, and on Wong's part, fellow Beijing native and Hong Kong superstar Leon Lai Ming.
Wong is known for being aloof with media and fans, skipping out awards ceremonies, and can be considered the Björk of Asia with regards to both her singing and acting careers. She won the Best Actress award at a Swedish film festival for her role in Chungking Express, her first major feature film. in 2003 she won the Best Actress award in Hong Kong for Chinese Odyssey 2002. She will appear in Wong Kar-Wai's next Cannes Film entry "2046". Unlike most Asian entertainers, acting is a secondary vocation compared to her unique pop sensibilities, becoming successful with both Chinese and non-Chinese audiences, singing primarily in her native Mandarin.- Actress
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Karen Mok was born on 2 June 1970 in Hong Kong. She is an actress, known for Fallen Angels (1995), Around the World in 80 Days (2004) and Black Mask (1996). She has been married to Johannes Natterer since 1 October 2011.- Michelle Reis was born on 20 June 1970 in Macao [now Macao SAR, China]. She is an actress, known for Fallen Angels (1995), Wicked City (1992) and The Legend (1993). She has been married to Julian Hui since 23 November 2008. They have one child.
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Gigi Lai Chi, is a Hong Kong actress under contract to the TVB television channel. Gigi is very well known for her beautiful image and her love of beauty, the Hong Kong media has dubbed her the nickname "Goddess of Beauty." In the past, Gigi would turn down roles if they affected her appearance on screen. But now Gigi has changed, placing greater emphasis on acting opportunities rather than the need to appear beautiful on screen.
After entering th entertainment industry, Gigi first started out as a singer, she released many albums during the 1990s, in both Cantonese and Mandarin. Gigi has made several box office hits, especially for her role as the innocent and stuttering "Smartie" in the popular Young and Dangerous movies.
She won the TVB Most Popular Actress Award in 2004 for her portrayal of a scheming and conniving concubine in the hit series "War and Beauty". Gigi has since become very popular with fans from Hong Kong and mainland China and many overseas countries.- Actress
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Sammi Cheng was born on 19 August 1972 in Hong Kong. She is an actress, known for Infernal Affairs (2002), Love on A Diet (2001) and My Left Eye Sees Ghosts (2002). She is married to Andy Chi-On Hui.- Actress
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Charlie Yeung was first cast to star in a jewelry commercial with pop idol Aaron Kwok in 1993, and thus began her versatile career. Within a year, she appeared in various movies including acclaimed director Kar-Wai Wong's Ashes of Time, and released her first album which won her The Most Promising Newcomer award.
In the following four years, while continuing to release albums both in Hong Kong and Taiwan, Charlie further developed her acting career by working with various directors, including The Lovers (1994) (aka Butterfly Lovers) by 'Tsui Hark', Intimates (1997) (aka Intimates) by 'Chi Leung 'Jacob' Cheung', and once again worked with 'Wong Kar-Wai on the film Fallen Angels (1995) (aka Fallen Angels).
Charlie Yeung's achievement in fame and success in just a span of four years created a phenomenal following. However, just when she reached the peak of her career, Charlie decided to take a break to pursue her real interests---Image Consulting. While busy developing her business, she had never forgotten about acting, she provided her voice for both Hark Tsui's animation A Chinese Ghost Story: The Tsui Hark Animation (1997) and Disney's Tarzan (1999).
She has returned to the big screen, she is recently seen in 'Jackie Chan''s latest box-office hit, New Police Story (2004) (aka New Police Story).- Actress
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Gigi Leung was born on 25 March 1976 in Hong Kong. She is an actress and producer, known for Turn Left, Turn Right (2003), A War Named Desire (2000) and Tempting Heart (1999). She has been married to Sergio Crespo Gutes since 3 October 2011. They have one child.- Actress
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Born in Taiwan, Qi Shu has won the prestigious Golden Horse Award in Taiwan (regarded as the East Asian Oscar) for Best Supporting Actress in 1998. She has also received a Golden Horse Award for Best Leading Actress in 2005. She appeared with Jackie Chan in the romantic comedy Gorgeous (1999) ("Gorgeous"). Her name is spelled in a variety of ways, including Hsu Qi, Hsu Chi, Qi Shu, and Shu Kei, and there are quite a few other variations on her name on foreign V.C.D.s, D.V.D.s, and internet sites.- Actress
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Margaret Denise Quigley was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to a father of Polish and Irish descent (originally based in New York) and a Vietnamese mother. Her parents met during the Vietnam War. Maggie has two older half-siblings from her mother's previous marriage, and two older sisters. The family moved to Hawaii and settled in Mililani.
Maggie dreamed of becoming a veterinarian, but modeled and found herself bursting onto the Hong Kong movie scene - eventually becoming a full-fledged superstar in Asia. She changed her name to the easily pronounceable "Maggie Q" (for the Chinese audience). She had a cameo in the Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker smash hit Rush Hour 2 (2001) and is part of the supporting cast in Mission: Impossible III (2006), starring Tom Cruise.- Actress
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Cecilia Cheung (Cecilia Cheung Pak-Chi) was born in Hong Kong to a Cantonese father and a half Cantonese-half British mother. Her parents divorced when she was little after which she was sent to Australia for studies. She graduated from RMIT Holmes College.
Her career began in 1998, when she was offered to appear in a TV commercial advertising lemon tea. She caught the attention of Stephen Chow after shooting the ad. Later, Cheung made her film debut as a young nightclub hostess in Stephen Chow's King of Comedy (1999), followed soon after by Fly Me to Polaris (1999). The latter role earned her the award for Best Newcomer at the Hong Kong Film Awards. In the same year, Cheung launched her singing career with her first Cantopop album Any Weather (1999).
For Derek Yee's romantic drama Lost in Time (2003), Cheung won the award for Best Actress at the 2004 Hong Kong Film Awards. She played a young woman who lost her fiancé to a traffic accident which left her as a grieving single mother struggling to make ends meet.