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Tony Leung Chiu-Wai (Chinese: Áº³¯‚¥; pinyin: Li¨¢ng Ch¨¢ow¨§i; Cantonese Yale: L¨¨uhng Ch¨¬uh W¨¢ih; born June 27, 1962) is a Cannes Film Festival and 5 times Hong Kong Film Award-winning Hong Kong movie and TV actor. He has been a major film star since the 1990s.
Biography

Early life

Leung is a Toisanese-Chinese born in Hong Kong, though his family came from Taishan, Guangdong, China. Leung`s early childhood was punctuated with parents` quarrels and arguments about money. A mischievous boy in his early years, Leung`s personality changed when his father, a chronic gambler, left the family when he was eight; he and his younger sister were brought up single-handedly by their mother.

Leung became a reticient, quiet child; his childhood experiences made it difficult for him to trust in marriage and paved the way for his acting career, which allow him "to express my emotions without me getting embarrassed. I can cry or smash things on the set, but no one knows that`s just acting or that`s how I am really feeling." "After my father left me when I was eight, I became afraid to talk to other people. In school, when other children talked about their parents, I would get very embarrassed. I didn`t want to mention my father, so I seldom talked to others".

His childhood has had a lasting effect on Leung`s personality. "I am very restrained, very suppressed, very quiet. I don`t like to talk too much because I don`t know what to do in front of an audience. Actually, I don`t know how to communicate with others because of my background and I am scared".
Leung`s mother worked hard to keep him attending a private school, but even so, Tony had to quit school at the age of 15 due to financial difficulties. As an adolescent he behaved himself and remained very close to his mother. During a DVD interview on the making of Hero, he says that he sees his mother as his definition of a "hero[ine]" for having brought up two children alone.

Television career

After quitting his studies, Leung worked in a variety of jobs, first as a grocer`s runner at his uncle`s shop, then a showroom salesman in a Hong Kong shopping centre. He met actor and comedian Stephen Chow who influenced his decision to become an actor and remains a good friend.

In 1982 he passed the training courses of television channel TVB. Due to his boyish looks, TVB cast him as host of a children`s programme, 430 Space Shuttle. Leung enjoyed comedies during his television years; it was for these he became well known.

Film career

Many consider Tony Leung`s role in director John Woo`s 1992 action film Hard Boiled in which he co-starred with Chow Yun-Fat, as his breakthrough role in film. However, Leung first gained international exposure through Hou Hsiao-Hsien`s 1989 film A City of Sadness, which won the Venice Golden Lion.

Leung often collaborates with director Wong Kar-wai and has appeared in many of his films. His most notable roles in Wong Kar-wai`s films include the lonely policeman in Chungking Express (1994), a gay Chinese expatriate living in Argentina in Happy Together (1997), and a self-controlled victim of adultery in In the Mood for Love (2000), for which he won the Best Actor award at Cannes.

He is considered by many to be the finest actor of his generation in Hong Kong. Robert De Niro is an admirer of his work,and Leung has been called Asia`s answer to Clark Gable.

Leung also has an on-and-off Cantopop