Tag Archives: Actor

George Clooney

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

George Timothy Clooney (born May 6, 1961) is an American actor, director, producer and filmmaker. He is the recipient of three Golden Globe Awards and two Academy Awards, one for acting in Syriana (2006) and the other for co-producing Argo (2012). In 2018, he was the recipient of the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award.

Clooney made his acting debut on television in 1978, and later gained wide recognition in his role as Dr. Doug Ross on the medical drama ER from 1994 to 1999, for which he received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations. While working on ER, he began attracting a variety of leading roles in films, with his breakthrough role in From Dusk till Dawn (1996), and the crime comedy Out of Sight (1998), in which he first worked with director Steven Soderbergh, who would become a long-time collaborator. In 1999, he took the lead role in Three Kings, a well-received war satire set during the Gulf War.

In 2001, Clooney’s fame widened with the release of his biggest commercial success, the heist comedy remake Ocean’s Eleven, the first of what became a trilogy, starring Clooney. He made his directorial debut a year later with the biographical spy comedy Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, and has since directed the historical drama Good Night, and Good Luck (2005), the sports comedy Leatherheads (2008), the political drama The Ides of March (2011), and the war film The Monuments Men (2014). Clooney won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the Middle East thriller Syriana (2005), and subsequently earned Best Actor nominations for the legal thriller Michael Clayton (2007) and the comedy-dramas Up in the Air (2009) and The Descendants (2011). In 2013, he received the Academy Award for Best Picture for producing the political thriller Argo. He has been nominated for Oscars in six different categories, a record he shares with Walt Disney.

In 2009, Clooney was included in Time’s annual Time 100 as one of the “Most Influential People in the World”. He is also noted for his political and economic activism, and has served as one of the United Nations Messengers of Peace since January 31, 2008.Clooney is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is married to human rights lawyer Amal Clooney.

Early Life


Clooney was born on May 6, 1961 in Lexington, Kentucky. His mother, Nina Bruce (née Warren), was a beauty queen and city councilwoman. His father, Nick Clooney, is a former anchorman and television host, including five years on the AMC network. Clooney is of Irish, German, and English ancestry. His maternal great-great-great-great-grandmother, Mary Ann Sparrow, was the half-sister of Nancy Lincoln, mother of President Abraham Lincoln. Clooney has an older sister named Adelia (known as Ada). Cabaret singer and actress Rosemary Clooney was an aunt. Through Rosemary, his cousins include actors Miguel Ferrer, Rafael Ferrer, and Gabriel Ferrer, who is married to singer Debby Boone.

Clooney was raised a strict Roman Catholic but said in 2006 that he did not know if he believed “in Heaven, or even God.” He has said, “Yes, we were Catholic, big-time, whole family, whole group.” He began his education at the Blessed Sacrament School in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky. He attended St. Michael’s School in Worthington, Ohio; then Western Row Elementary School (a public school) in Mason, Ohio, from 1968 to 1974; and St. Susanna School in Mason, where he served as an altar boy. The Clooneys moved back to Kentucky when George was midway through the seventh grade. In middle school, Clooney developed Bell’s palsy, a medical condition that partially paralyzes the face. The malady went away within a year. In an interview with Larry King, he stated that “yes, it goes away. It takes about nine months to go away. It was the first year of high school, which was a bad time for having half your face paralyzed.” He also described one positive outcome of the condition: “It’s probably a great thing that it happened to me because it forced me to engage in a series of making fun of myself. And I think that’s an important part of being famous. The practical jokes have to be aimed at you.”

After his parents moved to Augusta, Kentucky, Clooney attended Augusta High School. He has stated that he earned all As and a B in school, and played baseball and basketball. He tried out to play professional baseball with the Cincinnati Reds in 1977, but he did not pass the first round of player cuts and was not offered a contract. He attended Northern Kentucky University from 1979 to 1981, majoring in broadcast journalism, and very briefly attended the University of Cincinnati, but did not graduate from either. He earned money selling women’s shoes, insurance door-to-door, stocking shelves, working in construction, and cutting tobacco.

Career


Early work, 1978–1993

Clooney’s first role was as an extra in the television mini-series Centennial in 1978, which was based on the novel of the same name by James A. Michener and was partly filmed in Clooney’s hometown of Augusta, Kentucky. Clooney’s first major role came in 1984 in the short-lived sitcom E/R (not to be confused with ER, the better-known hospital drama, on which Clooney also co-starred a decade later). He played a handyman on the series The Facts of Life and appeared as Bobby Hopkins, a detective, on an episode of The Golden Girls. His first prominent role was a semi-regular supporting role in the sitcom Roseanne, playing Roseanne Barr’s supervisor Booker Brooks, followed by the role of a construction worker on Baby Talk, a co-starring role on the CBS drama Bodies of Evidence as Detective Ryan Walker, and then a year-long turn as Det. James Falconer on Sisters. In 1988, Clooney played a small role in the comedy-horror film Return of the Killer Tomatoes. In 1990, he starred in the short-lived ABC police drama Sunset Beat. During this period, Clooney was a student at the Beverly Hills Playhouse acting school for five years.

Breakthrough, 1994–1999

Clooney rose to fame when he played Dr. Doug Ross, alongside Anthony Edwards, Julianna Margulies, and Noah Wyle, on the hit NBC medical drama ER from 1994 to 1999. After leaving the series in 1999, he made a cameo appearance in the 6th season and returned for a guest spot in the show’s final season. For his work on the series, Clooney received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in 1995 and 1996. He also earned three Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Actor – Television Series Drama in 1995, 1996, and 1997 (losing to co-star Anthony Edwards).

Clooney in 1995

Clooney began appearing in films while working on ER. His first major Hollywood role was in the horror comedy-crime thriller From Dusk till Dawn, directed by Robert Rodriguez and co-starring Harvey Keitel. He followed its success with the romantic comedy One Fine Day with Michelle Pfeiffer, and the action-thriller The Peacemaker with Nicole Kidman. Clooney was then cast as Batman in Joel Schumacher’s Batman & Robin, which was a modest box office performer, but a critical failure (with Clooney himself calling the film “a waste of money”). In 1998, he co-starred in the crime-comedy Out of Sight opposite Jennifer Lopez, marking the first of his many collaborations with director Steven Soderbergh. He also starred in Three Kings during the last weeks of his contract with ER.

After ER, 2000–2010

After leaving ER, Clooney starred in the commercially successful films The Perfect Storm (2000), a disaster drama; and O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), a Coen brothers adventure comedy. In 2001, he teamed up with Soderbergh again for the heist comedy Ocean’s Eleven, a remake of the 1960s Rat Pack film of the same name, with Clooney playing Danny Ocean, originally portrayed by Frank Sinatra. It is Clooney’s most successful film with him in the lead role, earning $451 million worldwide (he appeared, but did not star, in Gravity, which has a $723 million worldwide box office). The film inspired two sequels starring Clooney, Ocean’s Twelve in 2004 and Ocean’s Thirteen in 2007.

George Clooney at the premiere of The Men Who Stare at Goats in the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival

In 2001, Clooney and Soderbergh co-founded Section Eight Productions, for which Grant Heslov was president of television. Clooney made his directorial debut in the 2002 film Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, based on the autobiography of TV producer Chuck Barris. Though the film did not do well at the box office, critics stated that Clooney’s directing showed promise.

In 2005, Clooney starred in Syriana, which was based loosely on former Central Intelligence Agency agent Robert Baer’s memoirs of his service in the Middle East. Clooney suffered an accident on the set of Syriana, which caused a brain injury with complications from a punctured dura. The same year he directed, produced, and starred in Good Night, and Good Luck, a film about 1950s television journalist Edward R. Murrow’s famous war of words with Senator Joseph McCarthy. At the 2006 Academy Awards, Clooney was nominated for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for Good Night, and Good Luck, as well as Best Supporting Actor for Syriana. He won the Oscar for his role in Syriana.

George Clooney cast his hands and shoes in the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in 2007.

Clooney next appeared in The Good German (2006), a film noir directed by Soderbergh that is set in post-World War II Germany. In August 2006, Clooney and Heslov started the production company Smokehouse Pictures. In October 2006, Clooney received the American Cinematheque Award, which honors someone in the entertainment industry who has made “a significant contribution to the art of motion pictures”. On January 22, 2008, Clooney was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for Michael Clayton (2007) but did not win. Later that year, he directed his third film, Leatherheads, in which he also starred. On April 4, 2008, Variety reported that Clooney had quietly resigned from the Writers Guild of America over a dispute concerning Leatherheads. Clooney, who is the director, producer, and star of the film, claimed that he had contributed in writing “all but two scenes” of it, and requested a writing credit alongside Duncan Brantley and Rick Reilly, who had worked on the screenplay for 17 years. Clooney lost an arbitration vote 2–1, and withdrew from the union over the decision. He became a “financial core status” non-member, meaning he no longer has voting rights, and cannot run for office or attend membership meetings, according to the WGA’s constitution.

He next co-starred with Ewan McGregor and Kevin Spacey in the war comedy film The Men Who Stare at Goats, which was directed by Heslov and released in November 2009. Also in November 2009, he voiced the title character in Wes Anderson’s animated feature Fantastic Mr. Fox. The same year, Clooney starred in the comedy-drama Up in the Air, which was initially given limited release, and then wide-released on December 25, 2009. For his performance in the film, which was directed by Jason Reitman, he was nominated for a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild Award, BAFTA, and an Academy Award. 2010 saw the release of The American, based on the novel A Very Private Gentleman by Martin Booth and directed by Anton Corbijn. Clooney played the lead role, and was a producer of the film.

2011–Present

As of 2011, Clooney is represented by Bryan Lourd, co-chairman of Creative Artists Agency (CAA). In 2011 Clooney starred in The Descendants as a husband whose wife has an accident that leaves her in a coma. He earned critical praise for his work, and won the Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama. Also, he was nominated for the Screen Actors Guild for Best Actor, the BAFTA Award for Best Actor, and the Academy Award for Best Actor. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for the political drama The Ides of March. In 2013, Clooney won the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture – Drama, the BAFTA Award for Best Picture and the Academy Award for Best Picture for producing Argo. He is the only person in Academy Award history to be nominated for Oscars in six different categories: Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Adapted Screenplay.

Clooney co-starred with Sandra Bullock in Gravity (2013), a space thriller directed by Alfonso Cuarón. He co-wrote, directed and starred in The Monuments Men, an adaption of The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History by Robert M. Edsel. Clooney also produced August: Osage County (2013), an adaptation of the play of the same name. The film stars Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts. His next film was Tomorrowland (2015), a science fiction adventure film in which he played Frank Walker, an inventor. Later in the year, he was featured as himself in the Netflix Christmas musical comedy A Very Murray Christmas, starring Bill Murray.

Hail, Caesar!, a comedy from the Coen brothers set in the Hollywood film industry in the 1950s, premiered in February 2016. Clooney portrayed Baird Whitlock, a Robert Taylor-type film star who is kidnapped during the production of a film. Josh Brolin co-starred as fixer Eddie Mannix. Clooney reunited with Julia Roberts for the Jodie Foster-directed thriller Money Monster (2016), playing the host of a television show that investigates conspiracies on commerce and Wall Street, who is taken hostage by a bankrupt viewer given a bad tip.

In 2013, Clooney co-founded Casamigos Tequila with Rande Gerber and Michael Meldman. It was sold to Diageo for $700 million in June 2017, with an additional $300 million possible depending on the company’s performance over the next ten years. According to Forbes annual ranking, he was the world’s highest-paid actor for 2017-2018, earning $239 million between June 1, 2017 and June 1, 2018.

In October 2017 his directorial project Suburbicon a 1950s-set crime comedy was released. It stars Matt Damon, Julianne Moore, and Oscar Isaac, from a script written by the Coen brothers in the 1980s, that they had originally intended to direct themselves.

He received the 2018 AFI Life Achievement Award on June 7, 2018.

Activism and Public Advocacy


Political views

Clooney is a supporter of gay rights. He supported both of Barack Obama’s 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns. Clooney endorsed Hillary Clinton for the 2016 presidential election.

Clooney in Abéché, Chad, in January 2008 with the U.N

Humanitarian work

Clooney is involved with Not On Our Watch Project, an organization that focuses global attention and resources to stop and prevent mass atrocities, along with Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, David Pressman, and Jerry Weintraub. In February 2009, he visited Goz Beida, Chad, with New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof. In January 2010, he organized the telethon Hope for Haiti Now, which collected donations for the 2010 Haiti earthquake victims.

In March 2012, Clooney starred with Martin Sheen and Brad Pitt in a performance of Dustin Lance Black’s play, ‘8’—a staged reenactment of the federal trial that overturned California’s Prop 8 ban on same-sex marriage—as attorney David Boies. The production was held at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre and broadcast on YouTube to raise money for the American Foundation for Equal Rights. In September 2012, Clooney offered to take an auction winner out to lunch to benefit the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). GLSEN works to create a safe space in schools for children who are or may be perceived to be gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender.

Darfur

Clooney has advocated a resolution of the Darfur conflict.[82] He spoke at a 2006 Save Darfur rally in Washington, D.C. In April 2006, he spent ten days in Chad and Sudan with his father to make the TV special “A Journey to Darfur” reflecting the situation of Darfur’s refugees, and advocated for action. The documentary was broadcast on American cable TV as well as in the UK and France. In 2008, it was released on DVD with the sale proceeds being donated to the International Rescue Committee. In September of the same year, he spoke to the UN Security Council with Nobel Prize-winner Elie Wiesel to ask the UN to find a solution to the conflict and to help the people of Darfur. In December, he visited China and Egypt with Don Cheadle and two Olympic winners to ask both governments to pressure Sudan’s government.

Clooney discusses Sudan with President Barack Obama at the White House in October 2010.

On March 25, 2007, he sent an open letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, calling on the European Union to take “decisive action” in the region given the failure of Sudan President Omar al-Bashir to respond to UN resolutions. He narrated and was co-executive producer of the 2007 documentary Sand and Sorrow. Clooney also appeared in the documentary film Darfur Now, a call-to-action film released in November 2007 for people all over the world to help stop the Darfur crisis. In December 2007, Clooney and fellow actor Don Cheadle received the Summit Peace Award from the Nobel Peace Prize Laureates in Rome. In his acceptance speech, Clooney said that “Don and I … stand here before you as failures. The simple truth is that when it comes to the atrocities in Darfur … those people are not better off now than they were years ago.” On January 18, 2008, the United Nations announced Clooney’s appointment as a UN messenger of peace, effective January 31.

Clooney conceived of and, with John Prendergast – human rights activist, co-founder of the Enough Project, and Strategic Advisor for Not on Our Watch Project – initiated the Satellite Sentinel Project (SSP), after an October 2010 trip to South Sudan. SSP aims to monitor armed activity for signs of renewed civil war between Sudan and South Sudan, and to detect and deter mass atrocities along the border regions there.

Clooney and John Prendergast co-wrote a Washington Post op-ed piece in May 2011, titled “Dancing with a dictator in Sudan”, arguing that:

President Omar al-Bashir has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for genocide, is escalating bombing and food aid obstruction in Darfur, and he now threatens the entire north-south peace process … the evidence shows that incentives alone are insufficient to change Khartoum’s calculations. International support should be sought immediately for denying debt relief, expanding the ICC indictments, diplomatically isolating the regime, suspending all non-humanitarian aid, obstructing state-controlled bank transactions and freezing accounts holding oil wealth diverted by senior regime officials.

On March 16, 2012, Clooney was arrested outside the Sudanese Embassy for civil disobedience. He intended to be arrested when he planned the protest. Several other prominent participants were also arrested, including Martin Luther King III. Clooney has been described as one of the most strident critics of Omar al-Bashir.

Armenian Genocide

Clooney supports the recognition of the Armenian Genocide. He is one of the chief associates of the 100 Lives Initiative, a project which aims to remember the lives lost during the event. As part of the initiative, Clooney launched the Aurora Prize, which awards to those who risk their lives to prevent genocides and atrocities. Clooney had also urged various American government officials to support the United States’ recognition of the Armenian Genocide. Clooney visited Armenia to commemorate the 101st anniversary of the event in April 2016.

Syria

In May 2015, Clooney told the BBC that the Syrian conflict was too complicated politically to get involved in and he wanted to focus on helping the refugees. In March 2016, he and his wife, Amal Clooney, met with Syrian refugees living in Berlin to mark the fifth anniversary of the conflict, before meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel to thank her for Germany’s open-door policy.

Gun Control

In 2018, following the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, the Clooneys pledged $500,000 to the March for Our Lives and said they would be in attendance.

LGBT Rights

On March 28, 2019, Clooney wrote an open letter calling for the boycott of the Sultan of Brunei’s hotels over a new law that comes into force on April 3, 2019 that will punish homosexual sex and adultery with death by stoning. Clooney lists 9 hotels including The Dorchester, 45 Park Lane, Coworth Park, The Beverly Hills Hotel, Hotel Bel-Air, Le Meurice, Hotel Plaza Athenee, Hotel Eden and Hotel Principe di Savoia and asks readers to consider how “we are putting money directly into the pockets of men who choose to stone and whip to death their own citizens for being gay or accused of adultery.”

Personal Life


Relationships

Clooney dated actress Kelly Preston (1987–1989). Clooney was married to actress Talia Balsam from 1989 to 1993. He also had a relationship with actress Ginger Lynn Allen. Clooney dated French reality TV personality Céline Balitran (1996–1999). After meeting British model Lisa Snowdon in 2000, he had a five-year on-again, off-again relationship with her. Clooney dated Renée Zellweger (2001) and Krista Allen (2002–2008). In June 2007, he started dating reality personality Sarah Larson, but the couple broke up in May 2008. In July 2009, Clooney was in a relationship with Italian actress Elisabetta Canalis until they split in June 2011. In July 2011, Clooney started dating former WWE personnel Stacy Keibler, and they ended their relationship in July 2013.

Clooney and Alamuddin at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival in Germany in 2016

Clooney became engaged to British-Lebanese human rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin on April 28, 2014. In July 2014, Clooney publicly mocked the British tabloid newspaper the Daily Mail after it claimed his fiancée’s mother opposes their marriage on religious grounds. When the tabloid apologized for its false story, Clooney refused to accept the apology. He called the paper “the worst kind of tabloid. One that makes up its facts to the detriment of its readers.” On August 7, 2014, Clooney and Alamuddin obtained marriage licenses at the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea of the United Kingdom. Alamuddin and Clooney were officially married on September 27, 2014, at Ca’ Farsetti. They were married by Clooney’s friend Walter Veltroni, the former mayor of Rome. In 2015, Clooney and Alamuddin adopted a rescue dog, a bassett hound named Millie, from the San Gabriel Valley Humane Society. On February 9, 2017, it was reported by the CBS talk show, The Talk, that Amal was pregnant, and that they were expecting twins. On June 6, 2017, Amal gave birth to a daughter, Ella, and a son, Alexander.

Real Estate

Clooney has property in Los Angeles. He purchased the 7,354-square-foot (683.2 m2) house in 1995 through his George Guilfoyle Trust. His home in Italy is in the village of Laglio, on Lake Como, near the former residence of Italian author Ada Negri. Clooney also owns a home in Los Cabos, Mexico, that is next door to the home of Cindy Crawford and Rande Gerber. In 2014, Clooney and his new British wife Amal Alamuddin bought the Grade II listed Mill House on an island in the River Thames at Sonning Eye in Oxfordshire, England at a cost of around £10 million.

Motorcycle Accidents

On September 21, 2007, Clooney and then-girlfriend Sarah Larson were injured in a motorcycle accident in Weehawken, New Jersey, when his motorcycle was hit by a car. The driver of the car reported that Clooney attempted to pass him on the right, while Clooney said that the driver signaled left and then decided to make an abrupt right turn and clipped his motorcycle. On October 9, 2007, more than two dozen staff at Palisades Medical Center were suspended without pay for looking at Clooney’s medical records in violation of federal law.

On July 10, 2018, Clooney was hit by a car while riding a motorcycle to a film set in Sardinia. He was hospitalised with minor, non-life-threatening injuries.

Sports

Growing up around Cincinnati, Clooney is a fan of the Cincinnati Bengals and Cincinnati Reds. He tried out to be a Red in 1977.

In the Media


Clooney has appeared in commercials outside the U.S. for Fiat, Nespresso, Martini vermouth, and Omega. Clooney was named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2007, 2008, and 2009. He is sometimes described as one of the most handsome men in the world. In 2005, TV Guide ranked Clooney No. 1 on its “50 Sexiest Stars of All Time” list. The cover story in a February 2008 issue of Time magazine was headlined with: “George Clooney: The last movie star”.

He was parodied in the South Park episode “Smug Alert!”, which criticizes his acceptance speech at the 78th Academy Awards.[citation needed] Clooney has also lent his voice to South Park as Sparky the Dog in “Big Gay Al’s Big Gay Boat Ride” and as the emergency room doctor in South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut. Clooney was caricatured in the American Dad! episode “Tears of a Clooney”, in which Francine Smith plans to destroy him.

Director Alexander Cartio made his debut feature film, Convincing Clooney, about a Los Angeles artist who, faced with rejection as an actor and screenwriter, concocts a master plan to get Clooney to star in his first-ever low-budget short film. The movie was released on DVD in November 2011.

Publications


Articles

“The Key to Making Peace in Africa”. Co-authored with John Prendergast. Foreign Affairs, Vol. 97, No. 2, March 14, 2018.

Awards and Nominations


Throughout his career, Clooney has won two Academy Awards, one for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Syriana and one for Best Picture as one of the producers for Argo, as well as a BAFTA and a Golden Globe. For his role in The Descendants, he won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for an Academy Award, BAFTA Award, Satellite Award, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards: Best Lead Actor and Best Cast. On January 11, 2015, Clooney was awarded the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award.

The following is a list of awards and nominations received by American actor, singer, comedian, dancer, screenwriter, director, independent filmmaker, model and producer George Clooney throughout his career. Clooney has received eight Academy Award nominations, winning two—Best Supporting Actor for Syriana (2005) and as co-producer of Best Picture winner Argo (2012). He is the second person to be nominated in six different Academy Award categories (Best Picture; Best Director; Best Original Screenplay; Best Adapted Screenplay; Best Lead Actor; Best Supporting Actor), following Walt Disney.

Awards

Academy Awards

British Academy Film Awards

Empire Awards

Golden Globe Awards

MTV Movie & TV Awards

Primetime Emmy Awards

Satellite Awards

Saturn Awards

Screen Actors Guild Awards

Miscellaneous

Filmography


George Timothy Clooney is an American-Canadian actor, producer, screenwriter, and director. He is one of the highest-grossing actors of all time with over $1.9 billion total box office gross and an average of $61.7 million per film. He has been involved in thirteen films that grossed over $200 million at the worldwide box office.

Clooney has appeared in the television series ER (1994–99), The Facts of Life (1985–87), Roseanne (1988–91), Bodies of Evidence (1992–93) and Sisters (1993–94). Early in his career, Clooney also appeared in a number of low-budget film roles like Return to Horror High (1987), Combat Academy (1987 television movie), Return of the Killer Tomatoes (1988), Unbecoming Age (1992) and The Harvest (1993). His role as doctor Doug Ross on ER earned him Golden Globe and Emmy Award nominations.

In the 1990s Clooney appeared in the films From Dusk till Dawn (1996), One Fine Day (1996), with Michelle Pfeiffer, The Peacemaker (1997) with Nicole Kidman, Batman & Robin (1997), and Out of Sight (1998) opposite Jennifer Lopez. The new millennium saw Clooney in the film O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), which won him a Golden Globe Award, as well as Empire Award and Satellite Award nominations. In 2001, he teamed up again with Soderbergh for the star-studded caper film Ocean’s Eleven, alongside Matt Damon, Brad Pitt and many others. The film was followed by two sequels starring Clooney, Ocean’s Twelve in 2004 and Ocean’s Thirteen in 2007. He has also appeared in Solaris (2002), Welcome To Collinwood (2002), Intolerable Cruelty (2003), Syriana (2005), for which he was rewarded with an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, The Good German (2006), Michael Clayton (2007), Burn After Reading (2008), Up in the Air (2009), for the latter earning an Academy Award nomination. Clooney also directed and starred in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002), Good Night, and Good Luck (2005), Leatherheads (2008) and The Ides of March (2011).

In 2011 Clooney starred in Alexander Payne’s The Descendants, earning a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama and an Academy Award nomination. In 2013, he co-starred opposite Sandra Bullock in the space thriller Gravity. He directed, co-produced, co-wrote, and starred in The Monuments Men, originally scheduled for release in 2013, but pushed back until 2014. He next starred in Brad Bird’s science fiction film Tomorrowland, released on May 22, 2015.

Film


Acting Roles

Films Directed

Films Produced

Television


As Producer

Antonio Banderas

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

José Antonio Domínguez Bandera (born 10 August 1960) is a Spanish actor, director, singer, and producer. He began his acting career with a series of films by director Pedro Almodóvar and then appeared in high-profile Hollywood movies, especially in the 1990s, including Assassins, Evita, Interview with the Vampire, Philadelphia, Desperado, The Mask of Zorro, Take the Lead, The Expendables 3 and Spy Kids. Banderas also portrayed the voice of “Puss in Boots” in the Shrek sequels and Puss in Boots as well as the bee in the US Nasonex commercials.

Opera Snapshot_2017-12-07_012313_en.wikipedia.org

Contents
1 Early life
2 Career
2.1 Early work, 1982–1990
2.2 Breakthrough, 1991–1994
2.3 Worldwide recognition, 1995–present
3 Business activities
4 Personal life
5 Filmography
6 Theatre

Early Life


José Antonio Domínguez Bandera was born on 10 August 1960, in the Andalusian city of Málaga, to José Domínguez Prieto (1920-2008), a police officer in the Civil Guard, and Ana Bandera Gallego (1933-2017), a school teacher. He has a brother, Francisco Javier. Although his father’s family name is Domínguez, he took his mother’s last name as his stage name. As a child, he wanted to become a professional soccer player until a broken foot sidelined his dreams at the age of fourteen. He showed a strong interest in the performing arts and formed part of the ARA Theatre-School run by Ángeles Rubio-Argüelles y Alessandri (wife of diplomat, writer and film director Edgar Neville) and the College of Dramatic Art, both in Málaga. His work in the theater, and his performances on the streets, eventually landed him a spot with the Spanish National Theatre.

Career


Early work, 1982–1990

Banderas began working in small shops during Spain’s post-dictatorial cultural movement known as the La Movida Madrileña. While performing with the theatre, Banderas caught the attention of Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar, who cast the young actor in his 1982 movie debut Labyrinth of Passion. Five years later, he went on to appear in the director’s Law of Desire, making headlines with his performance as a gay man, which required him to engage in his first male-to-male onscreen kiss. After Banderas appeared in Almodóvar’s 1986 Matador, the director cast him in his internationally acclaimed 1988 film, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. The recognition Banderas gained for his role increased two years later when he starred in Almodóvar’s controversial Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! as a mental patient who kidnaps a porn star (Victoria Abril) and keeps her tied up until she returns his love. It was his breakthrough role in Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, that helped spur him on to Hollywood. Almodóvar is credited for helping launch Banderas’s international career, as he became a regular feature in his movies throughout the 1980s.

Breakthrough, 1991–1994

In 1991, Madonna introduced Banderas to Hollywood. The following year, still speaking minimal English, he began acting in U.S. films. Despite having to learn all his lines phonetically, Banderas still managed to turn in a critically praised performance as a struggling musician in his first American drama film, The Mambo Kings (1992).

Banderas then broke through to mainstream American audiences in the film Philadelphia (1993), as the lover of AIDS-afflicted lawyer Andrew Beckett (Tom Hanks). The film’s success earned Banderas wide recognition, and the following year he was given a role in Neil Jordan’s high-profile adaptation of Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire, sharing the screen with Brad Pitt.

Worldwide recognition, 1995–present

He appeared in several major Hollywood releases in 1995, including a starring role in the Robert Rodriguez-directed film Desperado and the antagonist on the action film Assassins, co-starred with Sylvester Stallone. In 1996, he starred alongside Madonna in Evita, an adaptation of the musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice in which he played the narrator, Che, a role played by David Essex in the original 1978 West End production. He also made success with his role as the legendary masked swordsman Zorro in the 1998 film The Mask of Zorro. In 1999 he starred in The 13th Warrior, a movie about a Muslim caught up in a war between the Northman and human eating beasts.

In 2001, he collaborated with Robert Rodriguez who cast him in the Spy Kids film trilogy. He also starred in Michael Cristofer’s Original Sin alongside Angelina Jolie the same year. In 2002, he starred in Brian De Palma’s Femme Fatale opposite Rebecca Romijn and in Julie Taymor’s Frida with Salma Hayek. In 2003, he starred in the last installment of the trilogy Once Upon A Time in Mexico (in which he appeared with Johnny Depp and Hayek). Banderas’ debut as a director was the poorly received Crazy in Alabama (1999), starring his then wife Melanie Griffith.

Antonio_Banderas_June07 (1)

Banderas in June 2007

In 2003, he returned to the musical genre, appearing to great acclaim in the Broadway revival of Maury Yeston’s musical Nine, based on the film 8½, playing the prime role originated by Raúl Juliá. Banderas won both the Outer Critics Circle and Drama Desk awards, and was nominated for the Tony Award for best actor in a musical. His performance is preserved on the Broadway cast recording released by PS Classics. Later that year, he received the Rita Moreno HOLA Award for Excellence from the Hispanic Organization of Latin Actors (HOLA).

Banderas’ voice role as “Puss in Boots” in Shrek 2, Shrek the Third, and the last film in the Shrek franchise, Shrek Forever After, helped make the character popular on the family film circuit. In 2005, he reprised his role as Zorro in The Legend of Zorro, though this was not as successful as The Mask of Zorro. In 2006, he starred in Take the Lead, a high-set movie in which he played a ballroom dancing teacher. That year, he directed his second film El camino de los ingleses, and also received the L.A. Latino International Film Festival’s “Gabi” Lifetime Achievement Award on 14 October.

He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on 6801 Hollywood Blvd. in 2005.

Audiencia_a_actores_de__Los_33__(19638685423)

Banderas pictured with the cast of The 33, on 1 August 2015

In 2011, the horror thriller The Skin I Live In marked the return of Banderas to Pedro Almodóvar, the Spanish director who launched his international career. The two had not worked together since 1990 (Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!). In The Skin I Live In he breaks out of the “Latin Lover” mold from his Hollywood work and stars as a calculating revenge-seeking plastic surgeon following the rape of his daughter. According to the Associated Press Banderas’ performance is among his strongest in recent memory. He again lent his voice to Puss in Boots, this time as the protagonist of the Shrek spin-off prequel, Puss in Boots. This film reunited Banderas with Salma Hayek for the sixth time.

Business Activities


He has invested some of his film earnings in Andalusian products, which he promotes in Spain and the US. He owns 50% of a winery in Villalba de Duero, Burgos, Spain, called Anta Banderas, which produces red and rosé wines.

He performed a voice-over for a computer-animated bee which can be seen in the United States in television commercials for Nasonex, an allergy medication, and was seen in the 2007 Christmas advertising campaign for Marks & Spencer, a British retailer.

He is a veteran of the perfume industry. The actor has been working with fragrance and beauty multinational company Puig for over ten years becoming one of the brand’s most successful representatives. Banderas and Puig have successfully promoted a number of fragrances so far – Diavolo, Diavolo for Women, Mediterraneo, Spirit, and Spirit for Women. After the success of Antonio for Men and Blue Seduction for Men in 2007, launched his latest Blue Seduction for Women the following year.

Personal Life


461px-Antonio_Banderas-Melanie_Griffith-2010

Banderas with Melanie Griffith at the Shrek Forever After premiere in May 2010.

Banderas married Ana Leza in 1986 or 1988 (sources differ) and divorced in 1996. Banderas met and began a relationship with actress Melanie Griffith in 1995 while shooting Two Much. They married on 14 May 1996 in London. They have a daughter, Stella del Carmen Bandera (born 24 September 1996), who appeared onscreen with Griffith in Banderas’ directorial debut, Crazy in Alabama (1999). In 2002, the couple received the Stella Adler Angel Award for their extensive philanthropy. Griffith has a tattoo of Banderas’ name on her right arm.

In 1996, Banderas appeared among other figures of Spanish culture in a video supporting the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party lists in the general election. He has a daughter, Ariely Garcia Banderas, with Sonnia Gomez.

A longtime supporter of Málaga CF, he is also an officer (mayordomo de trono) of a Roman Catholic religious brotherhood in Málaga and travels during Holy Week to take part in the processions, although in an interview with People magazine, Banderas had once described himself as an agnostic.

In 2009, Banderas went under surgery for a benign tumor in his back.

In May 2010, Banderas received an honorary doctorate from the University of Málaga in the city where he was born. Banderas received an honorary degree from Dickinson College in 2000.

Banderas has always struggled with the pronunciation of certain English words, as he mentioned in a 2011 article with GQ Magazine. “The word that really gets me is animals, I just can never say it properly, whenever it is in a film I have to get it changed for a synonym.” “In Zorro I had a line changed from ‘You look like a bunch of animals’ to ‘you look like a collection of beasts’ it worked much better, so I don’t care”.

In 2013, he called on Europe and the United States to emulate Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and nationalize big corporations as a solution to the global economic crisis.

In June 2014, Griffith and Banderas released a statement announcing their intention to divorce “in a loving and friendly manner”. According to the petition filed in the Los Angeles Superior Court, the couple had “irreconcilable differences” that led to their separation. The divorce became official in December 2015.

In August 2015, Banderas enrolled in a fashion design course at Central Saint Martins.

Filmography


Opera Snapshot_2017-12-07_012356_en.wikipedia.org

Theatre


Opera Snapshot_2017-12-07_012429_en.wikipedia.org

Vincent Zhao

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 

Mo-Ma-A-still-from-the-Master-of-Tai-Chi

Vincent Zhao Wenzhuo (born 10 April 1972), sometimes credited as Vincent Chiu or Chiu Man-cheuk, is a Chinese actor and martial artist. Zhao is best known for playing the Chinese folk hero Wong Fei-hung in the Once Upon a Time in China film and television series.

VINCENT ZHAO

Opera Snapshot_2017-12-05_180403_en.wikipedia.org mHDq7KDiNKP71hHmaQY9cfWVyvQ

Contents
1 Early life
2 Career
2.1 Fong Sai-yuk
2.2 Once Upon a Time in China
2.3 1997–1999
2.4 2000–2010
2.5 2011–present
3 Personal life
4 Filmography
4.1 Film
4.2 Television

Early Life


Zhao was born in Harbin, Heilongjiang, China, as the youngest of three sons. His father was a martial arts practitioner, and his mother was a professional sprinter, who broke the record for being the fastest female sprinter of Harbin. Under the instruction of his father, Zhao attended martial arts lessons at the age of eight but he never completely devoted himself to his lessons as he was more interested in singing. In the early 1980s, Zhao was sent to a martial arts academy in Harbin and began to train vigorously, where he started to love the sport. He soon became the youngest member of the Harbin wushu team, which was established in 1985. Trained in various wushu techniques, Zhao mastered t’ai chi ch’uan, especially the Chen and Yang styles.

Zhao maintained high academic standards, and in 1990, he was accepted by Beijing Sport University to study martial arts. Throughout his university career, he joined many national championships, winning first place titles and gold medals for the National Junior Championship, the National All-Around Championship, and also the National Martial Arts Championship. He was also qualified to be in China’s national martial arts team, and his classmates gave him the nickname, “Kungfu King”.

Career


Fong Sai-yuk

In 1992, Hong Kong film producer Corey Yuen went to Beijing Sport University to find a martial artist to play the role of the antagonist for his 1993 film Fong Sai-yuk. Yuen found Zhao through the latter’s instructor and was immediately impressed with Zhao. Initially, Zhao was uninterested, but Yuen insisted on offering him the role because he had “the skill and looks.” After further encouragement from peers and mentors, Zhao accepted the offer and shooting began in the same year. Zhao was often teased for looking too nice and young for the role of the villain, the Governor of Kau-man, but under the instruction of Yuen and other directors, he learned the easiest way to “look evil”. He said,

“The director told me: Chiu Man-cheuk, when you look at people, don’t look at them like how you usually do. You must look at them from the corner of your eyes with your profile facing them. That way, you will look evil.”

During filming, Zhao also enrolled in acting classes for three months. Fong Sai-yuk was released in March 1993 and became a box office hit in Hong Kong, grossing HK$30,666,842.

Once Upon a Time in China

After only a month into the filming of Fong Sai-yuk, contract problems between Tsui Hark and Jet Li caused Li to back out from the fourth installment of the Once Upon a Time in China saga. Tsui met Zhao on the set of Fong Sai-yuk and was impressed with Zhao’s performance that he quickly recruited Zhao to replace Li in playing the role of Wong Fei-hung. Tsui also encouraged Zhao to sign a three-year contract to be a full-time actor, but Zhao rejected the offer, stating that he felt that his education was more important. Zhao continued to devote himself to filming during school vacations for Green Snake (1993) and Once Upon a Time in China IV (1994). During filming for Green Snake, Zhao was hung high up in the air during a stunt with two steel wires supporting him but during an incident one of the steel wires broke and Zhao stated that if the other wire were to also break that he could have lost his life as well. Zhao was ultimately very frightened especially after filming this scene. During the filming of one of the Wong Fei Hung movies, he seriously injured his ankle to the point where it hadn’t healed until the year 2012. He stated that some of the bones in his ankle still hasn’t healed yet and that before this injury he was okay with doing the majority of his stunts even jumping from third or second story high buildings. The injury has also affected his flexibility as well.

Although Once Upon a Time in China IV grossed less in the box office than the first three installments, it was significant enough to continue the franchise with a fifth installment, Once Upon a Time in China V (1995). While shooting a scene, Zhao slipped during a fighting sequence and injured his head. He was rushed to the hospital and got stitches. He recovered quickly and shooting continued after several weeks. Once Upon a Time in China V was Zhao’s last role as Wong Fei-hung in the films, as Jet Li returned for the sixth and last installment, Once Upon a Time in China and America (1997).

Zhao continued playing Wong Fei-hung in the television drama Wong Fei Hung Series, also produced by Tsui Hark. The series was aired on ATV in Hong Kong for two years and received high ratings (although Wong Fei Hung Series: The Final Victory only had moderate ratings).

1997–1999

In 1997, Zhao signed a management contract with China Star, a Hong Kong talent agency, after which he began to work on more films, such as The Blacksheep Affair (1998), Body Weapon (1999) and Fist Power (1999–2000). Many considered him as “the next Jet Li”.

GreenSnake+1993-2-b

2000–2010

Zhao’s contract with China Star ended in 1999, and he decided to turn his focus to the mainland Chinese market in hope of making more money (probably due to economic differences), working on television series and films such as The Sino-Dutch War 1661, Wind and Cloud and Seven Swordsmen. In 2006, Zhao returned to Hong Kong and began working on The Master of Tai Chi, produced by TVB.

During an interview concerning his career and the transition from movie actor to television actor. He said tactfully “at the beginning of the transition, my heart felt like it was in a uncomfortable state.”

Reviews for Zhao’s performance in television series were mixed, and many criticized him for giving up big productions and the silver screen. Zhao explained:

“I never took professional acting classes. The only thing I could do back then were sports and martial arts. In order to train myself, I must accept more television series to touch up my acting.”

While working on The Master of Tai Chi, Zhao was given a script for a new martial arts film and he accepted the lead role. Zhao signed with Hollywood agency CAA in 2006 with help from Jackie Chan. He was originally selected to play the lead villain in Rush Hour 3, but the role was eventually given to Hiroyuki Sanada. After spending one year and a half in America, Zhao returned to Beijing and went into an obvious physical breakdown. In September 2008 he returned to Beijing to prepare for his next film, True Legend. True Legend opened up to mixed reviews and was a failure at the box office. In April 2010 Zhao joined Sacrifice’s star-studded cast and was only given a minor role.

20140801_Vincent_GV

2011–Present

Zhao starred alongside Yang Mi, Louis Fan, Xu Jiao and Dennis To in the 2012 martial arts fantasy film Wu Dang that was directed by Patrick Leung, written by Chan Khan, and action choreographed by Corey Yuen.

On 19 January 2012, in a press conference held in Beijing, it was announced that Zhao would be starring with Donnie Yen in the film Special Identity. However, on 29 February, Zhao was kicked off the set after having conflicts with Yen.

For the first time, Zhao is acting in an Indian film, Kabali, as antagonist for Indian super star Rajini Kanth.

Since March 1, 2017, Zhao is employed as Health Qigong ambassador.

images hqdefault

Personal Life


Zhao graduated from Beijing Sport University in 1994 and decided to remain there as a martial arts instructor. However, due to his busy filming schedule, he only taught classes for three months before resigning.

During his time at Beijing Academy, Zhao signed on for two months of dancing classes and won the National College Dance Championship Competition.

He was once linked with Anita Mui in early 1995 but the pair broke apart in 1996.

Zhao married his girlfriend Zhang Danlu whom he met in 2002 on June 2006, and their daughter, was born in September 2007. In November 2007, Zhao brought his family back to Beijing. At the airport, when interviewed, Zhao said his daughter is named “Rosita”, Chinese name “Zhao Ziyang” (赵紫阳). His daughter shares the same name as the late politician Zhao Ziyang, whose name has been a taboo subject in China since 1989. On 15 July 2011, Zhao’s wife gave birth in Hong Kong to their second son, who is named “Zilong” after the courtesy name of Zhao Yun, a famous general of the Three Kingdoms period.

Zhao also has a son from a previous relationship with a Shanghai college student studying in Canada and a reported pianist at that time. His son, named “Zhao Yuanda” (赵元达), English name “Joseph”, was born in August 2002. The reason for their break up is unknown. In 2004 Zhao Yuanda and his mother moved back to Beijing, where she opened a yoga center in the luxury apartments of Beijing Suburbs.

Filmography


Film

Opera Snapshot_2017-12-05_175653_en.wikipedia.org

Television

Opera Snapshot_2017-12-05_175718_en.wikipedia.org

Sammo Hung

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

SAMMO HUNG

Sammo Hung (born 7 January 1952), also known as Hung Kam-bo (洪金寶), is a Hong Kong actor, martial artist, film producer and director, known for his work in many martial arts films and Hong Kong action cinema. He has been a fight choreographer for other actors such as Jackie Chan, King Hu and John Woo.

Hung is one of the pivotal figures who spearheaded the Hong Kong New Wave movement of the 1980s, helped reinvent the martial arts genre and started the vampire-like jiangshi genre. He is widely credited with assisting many of his compatriots, giving them their starts in the Hong Kong film industry, by casting them in the films he produced, or giving them roles in the production crew.

Jackie Chan is often addressed as “Da Goh” (Chinese: 大哥; pinyin: dà gē), meaning Big Brother. Hung was also known as “Da Goh”, until the filming of Project A, which featured both actors. As Hung was the eldest of the kung fu “brothers”, and the first to make a mark on the industry, he was given the nickname “Da Goh Da” (Chinese: 大哥大; pinyin: dà gē dà; Jyutping: daai6 go1 daai6), meaning, Big, Big Brother, or Biggest Big Brother.

Opera Snapshot_2017-12-05_173143_en.wikipedia.org 450px-SammoHung

Contents
1 Early years
2 Film career
2.1 1960s and 1970s
2.2 1980s
2.3 1990s
2.3.1 Film
2.3.2 Television
2.4 2000s
2.4.1 Film
2.4.2 Television
2.5 Future
3 Filmography
4 Film production
4.1 Gar Bo Motion Picture Company
4.2 Bo Ho Film Company Ltd
4.3 D&B Films Company Ltd
4.4 Bojon Films Company Ltd
5 Personal life
6 In popular culture

Early Years


Hung’s ancestral hometown is Ningbo, Zhejiang. Born in Hong Kong, both of his parents worked as wardrobe artists in the local film industry and guardianship was thrust upon his grandparents. His grandmother was archetypal martial art actress Chin Tsi-ang and his grandfather was film director Hung Chung-Ho.

Hung joined the China Drama Academy, a Peking Opera School in Hong Kong, in 1961. He was enrolled for a period of seven years, beginning at the age of 9, after his grandparents heard about the school from their friends. The opera school was run by Master Yu Jim Yuen and as was customary for all students, Hung adopted the given name of his sifu as his family name whilst attending. Going by the name Yuen Lung, Hung became the foremost member of the Seven Little Fortunes (七小福) performing group, and would establish a friendly rivalry with one of the younger students, Yuen Lo. Yuen Lo would go on to become international superstar Jackie Chan. At the age of 14, Hung was selected by a teacher who had connections to the Hong Kong film industry to perform stunts on a movie. This brief foray into the industry piqued his interest in film and he took particular interest in the operation of film cameras. As the eldest of the troupe, Hung would give his opera school brothers pocket money from his earnings, endearing him greatly to his young friends. Shortly before leaving the Academy at the age of 16, Hung suffered an injury that left him bedridden for an extended period, during which time his weight ballooned. After finding work in the film industry as a stuntman, he was given a nickname after a well-known Chinese cartoon character, Sam-mo (三毛; Three Hairs).

Many years later, in 1988, Hung starred in Alex Law’s Painted Faces, a dramatic re-telling of his experiences at the China Drama Academy. Among the exercises featured in the film are numerous acrobatic backflips, and hours of handstands performed against a wall. Despite some of the more brutal exercises and physical punishments shown in Painted Faces, Hung and the rest of the Seven Little Fortunes consider the film a toned-down version of their actual experiences.

Film Career


1960s and 1970s

Hung appeared as a child actor in several films for Cathay Asia and Bo Bo Films during the early 1960s. His film debut was in the 1961 film Education of Love. In 1962, he made his first appearance alongside Jackie Chan in the film Big and Little Wong Tin Bar, followed by a role in The Birth of Yue Fei, in which he played the ten-year-old Yue Fei, the historical figure from the Song Dynasty who would go on to become a famous Chinese general and martyr. The majority of Hung’s performance was alongside another actor portraying Zhou Tong, Yue’s elderly military arts tutor. In 1966, at the age of just 14, Hung began working for Shaw Brothers Studio, assisting the action director Han Yingjie, on King Hu’s film Come Drink with Me. Between 1966 and 1974, Hung worked on over 30 wuxia films for Shaw Brothers, progressing through the roles of extra, stuntman, stunt co-ordinator and ultimately, action director.

In 1970, Hung began working for Raymond Chow and the Golden Harvest film company. He was initially hired to choreograph the action scenes for the very first Golden Harvest film, The Angry River (1970). His popularity soon began to grow, and due to the quality of his choreography and disciplined approach to his work, he again caught the eye of celebrated Taiwanese director, King Hu. Hung choreographed two of Hu’s films, A Touch of Zen (1971) and The Fate of Lee Khan (1973).

In the same year, Hung went to South Korea to study hapkido under master Ji Han Jae.

Also in 1973, he was seen in the Bruce Lee classic, Enter the Dragon. Hung was the Shaolin student Lee faces in the opening sequence.

In 1975, Hung appeared in The Man from Hong Kong, billed as the first Australian martial arts film.

Toward the late 1970s, Hong Kong cinema began to shift away from the Mandarin-language, epic martial art films popularised by directors such as Chang Cheh. In a series of films, Hung, along with Jackie Chan, began reinterpreting the genre by making comedic Cantonese kungfu. While these films still strongly featured martial arts, it was mixed with a liberal dose of humour.

In 1977, Hung was given his first lead role in a Golden Harvest production, in the film Shaolin Plot. His next film, released the same year, was also his directorial debut, The Iron-Fisted Monk, one of the earliest martial art comedies.

In 1978, Raymond Chow gave Hung the task of completing the fight co-ordination for the re-shoot of Game of Death, the film Bruce Lee was unable to complete before his death in 1973.

In 1979, Hung directed his second film, the comedy Enter the Fat Dragon, for H.K. Fong Ming Motion Picture Company, also playing the lead role Ah Lung; a character who idolises and impersonates Bruce Lee. Hung has impersonated Lee on film twice more – in the final fight scene against Cynthia Rothrock in Millionaire’s Express (1986), and throughout the 1990 Lau Kar Wing film Skinny Tiger, Fatty Dragon.

After Jackie Chan’s success with Drunken Master (1978), Hung was scheduled to make a similar film featuring Drunken Master’s “Beggar So” character played by Yuen Siu Tien (aka Simon Yuen). As his elder, Sammo’s films were expected to surpass Chan’s in popularity. The film was Magnificent Butcher (1979), which Hung co-directed with Yuen Woo-ping. However, during filming Yuen Siu Tien died of a heart attack. He was replaced by Fan Mei Sheng and Yuen’s absence may have led to low ticket sales.

1980s

As Hung’s fame grew, he used his newly found influence to assist his former China Drama Academy classmates, as well as the former students of “rival” school, The Spring and Autumn Drama School. Aside from regular collaborations with Chan, others such as Yuen Biao, Yuen Wah, Lam Ching-ying and Mang Hoi also began to make regular appearances in his films.

In 1978 and 1981, Hung made two films that contain fine examples of the Wing Chun style. The first, Warriors Two was the most significant role to date for South Korean super kicker Casanova Wong, who teamed up with Hung in the final fight. The second film was The Prodigal Son, in which the Wing Chun fighting was performed by Lam Ching-Ying. The release of The Prodigal Son, along with another film directed by and co-starring Hung, Knockabout (1979) also shot his fellow Opera schoolmate Yuen Biao to stardom.

Hung’s martial arts films of the 1980s helped reconfigure how martial arts were presented on screen. While the martial arts films of the 1970s generally featured highly stylised fighting sequences in period or fantasy settings, Hung’s choreography, set in modern urban areas, was more realistic and frenetic – featuring long one-on-one fight scenes. The fight sequences from several of these films, such as those in Winners and Sinners (1982) and Wheels on Meals (1985) came to define 1980s martial arts movies.

In 1983, the collaboration between the triumvirate of Hung, Jackie Chan, and Yuen Biao began with Chan’s Project A. Hung, Chan and Yuen were known as the ‘Three Dragons’ and their alliance lasted for 5 years. Although Yuen continued to appear in the films of Hung and Chan, the final film to date starring all three was 1988’s Dragons Forever.

Hung was also responsible for the Lucky Stars comedy film series in the 1980s. He directed and co-starred in the original trilogy, Winners and Sinners (1983), My Lucky Stars (1985) and Twinkle, Twinkle Lucky Stars (1985). These first three films featured Chan and Biao in supporting roles. Hung also produced and played a supporting role in the fourth film, Lucky Stars Go Places (1986), and made a cameo appearance in the sixth and final film, How to Meet the Lucky Stars (1996).

During the 1980s, Hung was instrumental in the creating the jiangshi genre—a “jiangshi” being hopping re-animated corpses – a Chinese equivalent to Western vampires. Two landmark films, Encounters of the Spooky Kind (1980) and The Dead and the Deadly (1983) featured jiangshi who move in standing jumps towards their victims, as well as Taoist priests with the ability to quell these vampires (and at times, each other) through magical spells and charms. Hung’s jiangshi films would pave the way for films such as the popular Mr. Vampire (1985), which he also produced, and its sequels. He revitalised the subgenre of female-led martial art films, producing cop films such as Yes, Madam a.k.a. Police Assassins (1985), which introduced stars Michelle Yeoh and Cynthia Rothrock.

1990s

Film

After some relatively poor performances at the domestic box-office, Hung had a dispute with studio head, Raymond Chow. Hung had produced the thriller Into the Fire (1989), but Hung felt Golden Harvest had withdrawn the film from cinemas too soon. The disagreement led to Hung parting company with Golden Harvest in 1991, after 21 years with the company.

Whilst continuing to produce films through his own company Bojon Films Company Ltd, Hung failed to equal his early successes. His fortunes improved somewhat as the helmer of Mr. Nice Guy (1997), a long-awaited reunion with Chan.

In 1994, Hung coordinated the fight sequences in Wong Kar-wai’s wuxia epic, Ashes of Time.

Television

In 1998, US television network CBS began to broadcast Martial Law (1998–2000) on Saturday nights, an action-drama built around Hung. The hour-long shows were a surprise success and installed Hung as the only East Asian headlining a prime time network series. The television series was executive produced and occasionally directed by Stanley Tong, and co-starred Arsenio Hall. Hung reportedly recited some of his English dialogue phonetically.

2000s

Film

During 2000–2001, Hung expressed interest in creating a film adaptation of the video game Soulcalibur. The production agreement for the film was made around April 2001 with an estimated budget of $50 million. Hung had the idea of producing a martial arts epic with Chen Lung Jackie Chan in the lead role, but the film was never made. Hung’s plans were detailed on his website, but after a year the announcement was removed. The film rights have since been acquired by Warren Zide, the producer of American Pie and Final Destination.

Hung found renewed success in Hong Kong film industry in the 2000s, beginning with The Legend of Zu (2001), the long-awaited sequel to the 1983 hit Zu Warriors from the Magic Mountain. In 2004, Stephen Chow’s Kung Fu Hustle was released. Though Yuen Woo-ping was credited for the martial arts choreography on Kung Fu Hustle, Hung actually did the preliminary work but left the film midway through, and Yuen filled in to complete it. Because of his departure from the film, there was tabloid speculation that he and Chow had strong differences over the film, resulting in their separation. Chow has since responded that Hung left for personal reasons and not because of speculated tensions. In 2004, Hung again worked with Jackie Chan, in a brief but notable appearance in Disney’s Around the World in 80 Days as the legendary folk hero Wong Fei Hung, a character played by Chan in the Drunken Master series.

In 2005, Hung was involved in Daniel Lee’s Dragon Squad and Wilson Yip’s SPL: Sha Po Lang (aka Kill Zone). In the latter, Hung played a villain for the first time in over 25 years, and had his first ever fight scene against Donnie Yen. One of the key relationships in SPL had been Hung’s role as the adoptive father of Wu Jing’s character. However, these scenes were dropped from the final film as the director couldn’t find a way to fit them into the film. In response to this, a prequel film was planned. Hung appeared alongside Wu Jing again in 2007’s Twins Mission with stars, the Twins. In early 2008, Hung starred in Fatal Move, in which he and Ken Lo played a pair of rival triad gang leaders. He also starred in, and performed action choreography for, Daniel Lee’s Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon, with Andy Lau and Maggie Q. The film, was based on the book Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

Antony Szeto’s film, Wushu, which stars Hung premiered in Beijing in October 2008. The film was unveiled by Golden Network at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival. Jackie Chan was the film’s executive producer, and worked on the film in an advisory capacity, assisting with marketing and casting. Hung then worked again with director Wilson Yip and star Donnie Yen, as the action director for the 2008 film Ip Man.

In 2010, Hung was given a lifetime achievement award at the New York Asian Film Festival, where four of his films were shown. Hung appears in and choreographed Ip Man 2 (2010). His role is that of a Hung Gar master who challenges Yip Man.

Television

In between films and special appearances, Hung has appeared in several East Asian television series. In 2003 he was in two mainland Chinese series – Undercover Cop with Fan Bingbing, followed by The Valley of Lost Vengeance (aka End Enmity Hollow). More recently, he played a master con-artist in the Taiwanese series Coming Lies and Wing Chun master Wong Wah-bo in Wing Chun, reprising the role he played in The Prodigal Son over 20 years earlier. He co-starred in the series alongside Yuen Biao, Nicholas Tse and his youngest son, Sammy Hung. And was in an episode of Waker Texas Ranger. Hung appeared as a guest judge on the China Beijing TV Station reality television series The Disciple, which aired in mainland China and was produced by, and featured, Jackie Chan. The aim of the program was to find a new star, skilled in acting and martial arts, to become Chan’s “successor”, the champion being awarded the lead role in a film. It concluded on 7 June 2008, with the series winner announced in Beijing.

In another mainland Chinese television series, The Shaolin Warriors, set during the Ming Dynasty, Hung played Big Foot, a Shaolin warrior monk joining General Qi Jiguang’s marines to help defend the nation against Japanese pirates. Sammy Hung also has a role, as Big Foot’s disciple.

Future

Forthcoming film roles for Hung include starring roles in another Daniel Lee film, entitled Duel and in Vincent Kok’s horror comedy, V for Vampire. These will be followed by a co-starring role alongside Bruce Liang in He Who Would Be King produced by Ju Long’s new film studio and Kevin Munroe’s War Monkeys for Dark Horse Indie, a branch of Dark Horse Entertainment. Hung is also expected to work once again with Stephen Chow, playing a role in the director’s forthcoming wuxia comedy film. The film is currently in the script-writing phase and is as-yet unnamed.

Hung has also directed and starred in another martial arts epic entitled Howling Arrow. According to Hung’s official website, it stars Aaron Kwok, Wu Jing, and Zhou Xun and was filmed for Tsui Siu-Ming’s Sundream Motion Pictures. Filming was supposed to begin in 2007, but the film appears to have been delayed indefinitely.

Filmography


Hung has starred in 75 films, and worked on over 230, beginning as a child actor whilst still attending the China Drama Academy. Upon leaving the opera school, he worked as an extra and stuntman, and progressed through other roles including fight choreographer, stunt co-ordinator, action director, actor, writer, producer and director.

Hung’s is starred in the most recent historic action film God of War (2017).

Film Production


Gar Bo Motion Picture Company

In 1978 Sammo Hung formed Gar Bo Motion Picture Company, a subsidiary of Golden Harvest, with director Karl Maka and former actor-choreographer Lau Kar Wing (brother of actors Lau Kar-leung and Gordon Liu). The company’s name consists of the “Gar” sound from Lau Kar Wing and Karl Maka (Mak Kar), and “Bo” from Hung Kam Bo.). The company disbanded in 1980, when Maka moved on to form Cinema City & Films Co. with Raymond Wong and Dean Shek. Gar Bo released two films, both starring Hung and Lau:

  • Dirty Tiger, Crazy Frog (1978)
  • Odd Couple (1979)

Bo Ho Film Company Ltd

1980 saw Raymond Chow pull one of Hung’s films from local cinemas after just two weeks. Hung responded by starting his own production company Bo Ho Film Company Ltd, allowing him to have greater control to produce Hong Kong films. Whilst Bo Ho produced, Golden Harvest still operated as distributors. In all, 40 films were released by Bo Ho, several of which starred Hung:

  • Encounters of the Spooky Kind (1980)
  • Long Arm of the Law (1984)
  • Pom Pom (1984)
  • Hocus Pocus (1984)
  • Mr. Vampire (1985)
  • Heart of Dragon (1985)
  • Those Merry Souls (1985)
  • Lucky Stars Go Places (1986)
  • Millionaire’s Express a.k.a. Shanghai Express (1986)
  • Paper Marriage (1986)
  • Righting Wrongs a.k.a. Above the Law (1986)
  • Rosa (1986)
  • The Strange Bedfellow (1986)
  • Mr. Vampire Part 2 (1986)
  • Eastern Condors (1987)
  • Mr. Vampire Part 3 (1987)
  • The Final Test (1987)
  • The Happy Bigamist (1987)
  • My Cousin, the Ghost (1987)
  • Scared Stiff (1987)
  • Sworn Brothers (1987)
  • To Err is Humane a.k.a. To Err is Human (1987)
  • China’s Last Eunuch a.k.a. Lai Shi, China’s Last Eunuch (1988)
  • Mr. Vampire Saga 4 (1988)
  • On the Run (1988)
  • Picture of a Nymph a.k.a. Portrait of a Nymph (1988)
  • One Husband Too Many (1988)
  • Blonde Fury (1989)
  • Three Against the World (1989)
  • A Fishy Story (1989)
  • Doctor’s Heart (1990)
  • Her Fatal Ways (1990)
  • Mortuary Blues (1990)
  • Shanghai, Shanghai a.k.a. Shanghai Encounter (1990)
  • She Shoots Straight a.k.a. Lethal Lady (1990)
  • Queens Bench III (1990)
  • The Top Bet (1991)
  • Lover at Large (1992)
  • Scorpion King a.k.a. Operation Scorpio (1992)

D&B Films Company Ltd

In 1983, Hung co-founded another production company, D&B Films Company Ltd (“D&B” being short for “Duk-Bo”), with Dickson Poon and John Shum. The company operated until 1992 and produced a total of 77 Hong Kong films:

  • Hong Kong 1941 (1984)
  • The Owl vs Bumbo a.k.a. The Owl vs Bombo (1984)
  • The Return of Pom Pom (1984)
  • The Island (1985)
  • It’s a Drink, It’s a Bomb (1985)
  • Mr. Boo Meets Pom Pom (1985)
  • Yes, Madam a.k.a. Police Assassins (1985)
  • Night Caller (1985)
  • Dream Lovers (1986)
  • Silent Love (1986)
  • Passion (1986)
  • Legacy of Rage (1986)
  • My Family (1986)
  • Pom Pom Strikes Back (1986)
  • Conduct Zero (1986)
  • In the Line of Duty a.k.a. Royal Warriors (1986)
  • Brotherhood (1986)
  • From Here to Prosperity (1986)
  • The Lunatics (1986)
  • Caper (1986)
  • Devoted to You (1986)
  • On the Red (1986)
  • Where’s Officer Tuba? (1986)
  • Kiss Me Goodbye (1986)
  • It’s a Mad Mad World (1987)
  • Porky’s Meatballs (1987)
  • The Wrong Couple a.k.a. The Wrong Couples (1987)
  • Wonder Women (1987)
  • Magnificent Warriors a.k.a. Yes, Madam 3 (1987)
  • You’re OK, I’m OK! (1987)
  • The Final Victory (1987)
  • Easy Money (1987)
  • The Gang Don’t Shoot Straight a.k.a. The Goofy Gang (1987)
  • An Autumn’s Tale (1987)
  • In the Line of Duty 3 a.k.a. Yes, Madam 2 (1987)
  • Sapporo Story (1987)
  • Heart To Hearts (1988)
  • It’s A Mad Mad World 2 (1988)
  • Tiger Cage (1988)
  • Fury (1988)
  • Classmate Party a.k.a. Student Union (1988)
  • In the Blood (1988)
  • Double Fattiness (1988)
  • Vengeance is Mine (1988)
  • Keep on Dancing (1988)
  • Bless This House (1988)
  • Women’s Prison (1988)
  • Darkside of Chinatown (1989)
  • Happy Together (1989)
  • In the Line of Duty 4 a.k.a. In the Line of Duty a.k.a. Yes, Madam 4 (1989)
  • Mr. Fortune (1989)
  • Unfaithfully Yours (1989)
  • It’s A Mad Mad World 3 (1989)
  • The Nobles (1989)
  • Funny Ghost (1989)
  • You Bet Your Life (1989)
  • A Bite of Love (1990)
  • Love is Love (1990)
  • Middle Man (1990)
  • Tiger Cage 2 (1990)
  • Heart into Hearts (1990)
  • BB 30 (1990)
  • Brave Young Girls (1990)
  • Look Out, Officer! (1990)
  • Perfect Girls (1990)
  • Vampire Settle on Police Camp (1990)
  • Forbidden Arsenal (1991)
  • The Perfect Match (1991)
  • The Plot (1991)
  • Sea Wolves (1991)
  • Dreams of Glory, A Boxer’s Story (1991)
  • Tiger Cage 3 (1991)
  • Black Cat (1991)
  • His Fatal Ways (1991)
  • Will of Iron (1991)
  • Black Cat 2 (1992)
  • Heart Against Hearts (1992)
  • KillZone (2005)

-The Martial Law(Star Sports)

Bojon Films Company Ltd

In 1989, Hung formed a new production company, Bojon Films Company Ltd. The company produced 5 films, all of which starred Hung:

  • Pedicab Driver (1989)
  • Encounters of the Spooky Kind 2 (1990)
  • Pantyhose Hero a.k.a. Pantyhose Killer (1990)
  • Slickers vs. Killers (1991)
  • Don’t Give a Damn a.k.a. Burger Cop (1995)

800px-Sammo_Hung,_Avenue_of_Stars

Hung’s star, hand prints and autograph on the Avenue of Stars

Personal Life


  • Hung’s grandmother was martial-arts actress Chin Tsi-ang who starred in almost 80 films between 1941 and 2002. His grandfather, a film director and writer, Hung Chung Ho, directed over 40 films between 1937 and 1950.
  • Hung’s younger brother, Lee Chi Kit, has worked on almost 40 films, many of which Hung was also involved with. Lee also worked on Hung’s Martial Law series. He works primarily as a supporting actor and action director.
  • He has three sons and a daughter, Tin-Ming “Timmy” Hung (洪天明; born 1974), Tin Cheung “Jimmy” Hung (洪天祥; born 1977), Tin Chiu “Sammy” Hung (洪天照; born 1979) and Chao Yu “Stephanie” Hung (洪煦榆; born 1983) with Jo Eun-ok (曹恩玉), whom he grew up with in martial arts training school. He divorced Jo in 1994 and married model and actress Joyce Godenzi in 1995. Godenzi appeared in several of his films including The Haunted Island, Eastern Condors (both 1986), and Paper Marriage (1988) prior to the pair becoming a couple. She also appeared in Mr. Nice Guy (1997).
  • Timmy Hung has appeared alongside his father in SPL: Sha Po Lang, Legend of the Dragon, and Kung Fu Chefs, as well as having a recurring role in Sammo’s series, Martial Law.
  • Sammy Hung appeared as the nemesis to Nicholas Tse’s character in the 2007 television series Wing Chun, a remake of the original series broadcast in 1994, and the subsequent film Wing Chun. The series also starred Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao. Sammy also appeared alongside his father in the film Choy Lee Fut.
  • Hung is one of the celebrities honoured on the Avenue of Stars, Hong Kong.
    Hung is known for his large frame. Despite this, he is a surprisingly agile and formidable martial artist.
  • He has a circular scar on the right side of his face, just above his lip. In the early days of his film career, Hung was involved in a street fight outside a Kowloon nightclub, and was stabbed with a broken cola bottle.
  • On 5 August 2009, Hung became ill during the filming of Ip Man 2 in the Guangdong province of Foshan. He was admitted to hospital and underwent a heart surgery operation. He was discharged and returned to work within days. He cited a combination of his weight, his love of cigars and long filming hours resulting in fatigue and irregular meals as the cause.

In Popular Culture


  • A pop band from Wales named themselves Sammo Hung after the actor.
  • Master Elehung Kinpo, from Juken Sentai Gekiranger, is named after him. Coincidentally, Yū Mizushima, the voice actor for Elehung Kinpo, did the dubbing for Sammo Hung.
  • A martial artist named Samohan Kinpou is frequently referred to in the anime Negima?!

Billy Chow

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

maxresdefault

Billy Chow (born Chow Bei-lei August 24, 1958 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada), (also credited as Billy Chau and Billy Chow Bei-lei) is a Hong Kong film actor, kickboxer, martial artist, and entrepreneur and is also a keen Boxing and Muay thai practitioner. Chow is the former WKA world kickboxing champion. Chow is perhaps best known for his roles as General Fujita in the 1994 film Fist of Legend, and Wong, Great Kick of the North in the 1996 film Tai Chi Boxer.

Opera Snapshot_2017-12-05_171854_en.wikipedia.org

Contents
1 Kickboxing career
1.1 World Kickboxing Association
2 History and early career
2.1 Acting
2.2 Retired from acting
3 Business
4 Filmography
4.1 Movies

Kickboxing Career


World Kickboxing Association

In the 1980s, Chow was the WKA super welterweight kickboxing champion of the world from 1984 to 1986. His final match on November 20, 2007, in which he lost via decision to Akarn Sanehha of Thailand.

Opera Snapshot_2017-12-05_171921_en.wikipedia.org 1646173260_1_3_aAJAEqYg

History and Early Career


Acting

In the 1980s, Chow played an elite soldier in the 1987 film Eastern Condors alongside Sammo Hung, Yuen Biao and Yuen Woo-ping. Chow played thugs in two Jackie Chan movies: Dragons Forever in 1988, and Miracles in 1989.

In the 1990s, Chow had roles in three Jet Li movies: Fist of Legend in 1994 as General Fujita, Meltdown in 1995 as Kong, and Dr. Wai in “The Scripture with No Words” in 1996 as Chan / Japanese Embassy Guard. Chow played Jade Tiger’s Brother in the 1995 film Iron Monkey 2 along with Donnie Yen. Chow played Wong, Great Kick of the North in the 1996 film Tai Chi Boxer along with Jacky Wu.

Retired from Acting

On August 26, 2006, Chow retired from acting at the age of 48, after his final film, Dragon in Fury.

Business


Chow currently trains fighters out of Billy’s Gym in Hong Kong, and Frank Lee’s Muay Thai in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

Filmography


Movies

Opera Snapshot_2017-12-05_171813_en.wikipedia.org

Chow Yun-Fat

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 

Chow Yun-fat

680645b4-119e-427b-84f0-194bce388f32_t

Chow Yun-fat, SBS (born 18 May 1955), previously known as Donald Chow, is a Hong Kong actor. He is best known in Asia for his collaborations with filmmaker John Woo in the heroic bloodshed-genre films A Better Tomorrow, The Killer and Hard Boiled; and in the West for his roles as Li Mu-bai in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Sao Feng in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. He mainly plays in dramatic films and has won three Hong Kong Film Awards for Best Actor and two Golden Horse Awards for Best Actor in Taiwan.

In 2014, Chow was the second-highest earning actor in Hong Kong, earning HK$170 million (US$21.9 million).

Opera Snapshot_2017-12-05_131413_en.wikipedia.org 3ea38d89-e282-4b97-9cce-540767ac8f35

20160521-fb-chowyunfat

Contents
1 Personal life
2 Career
3 Book
4 Filmography
5 Video games
6 Awards and nominations
7 Wealth

aed65a2f6b91909900a692519bc15f45

Personal Life


Chow was born in Lamma Island, Hong Kong, to a mother who was a cleaning lady and vegetable farmer, and a father who worked on a Shell Oil Company tanker. Chow grew up in a farming community on Lamma Island, in a house with no electricity. He woke up at dawn each morning to help his mother sell herbal jelly and Hakka tea-pudding on the streets; in the afternoons he went to work in the fields. His family moved to Kowloon when he was ten. At seventeen, he left school to help support the family by doing odd jobs including bellboy, postman, camera salesman and taxi driver. His life started to change after college when he responded to a newspaper advertisement and his actor-trainee application was accepted by TVB, the local television station. He signed a three-year contract with the studio and made his acting debut. Chow became a heartthrob and a familiar face in soap operas that were exported internationally.

Chow has been married twice; first in 1983, to Candice Yu, an actress from Asia Television; the marriage lasted nine months. In 1986, Chow married Singaporean Jasmine Tan. The couple have no children, although Chow has a goddaughter, Celine Ng, a former child model for Chickeeduck, McDonald’s, Toys’R’Us and other companies.

Career


quote-working-in-front-of-the-camera-keeps-me-alive-chow-yun-fat-62-83-71

When Chow appeared in the 1980 TV series The Bund on TVB, it did not take long for him to become a household name in Hong Kong. The series, about the rise and fall of a gangster in 1930s Shanghai, was a hit throughout Asia and made Chow a star.

553bb456393bf90f71259a03680d65291d50499a-thumb-860xauto-61907

pof192

God-of-Gamblers

Although Chow continued his TV success, his goal was to become a big-screen actor. However, his occasional ventures into low-budget films were disastrous. Success finally came when he teamed up with director John Woo in the 1986 gangster action-melodrama A Better Tomorrow, which swept the box offices in Asia and established Chow and Woo as megastars. A Better Tomorrow won him his first Best Actor award at the Hong Kong Film Awards. It was the highest-grossing film in Hong Kong history at the time, and set a new standard for Hong Kong gangster films. Taking the opportunity, Chow quit TV entirely. With his new image from A Better Tomorrow, he made many more ‘gun fu’ or ‘heroic bloodshed’ films, such as A Better Tomorrow 2 (1987), Prison on Fire, Prison on Fire II, The Killer (1989), A Better Tomorrow 3 (1990), Hard Boiled (1992) and City on Fire, an inspiration for Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs.

Chow may be best known for playing honorable tough guys, whether cops or criminals, but he has also starred in comedies like Diary of a Big Man (1988) and Now You See Love, Now You Don’t (1992) and romantic blockbusters such as Love in a Fallen City (1984) and An Autumn’s Tale (1987), for which he was named best actor at the Golden Horse Awards. He brought together his disparate personae in the 1989 film God of Gamblers (Du Shen), directed by the prolific Wong Jing, in which he was by turns suave charmer, a broad comedian and an action hero. The film surprised many, became immensely popular, broke Hong Kong’s all-time box office record, and spawned a series of gambling films as well as several comic sequels starring Andy Lau and Stephen Chow. The often tough demeanor and youthful appearance of Chow Yun-Fat’s characters has earned him the nickname “Babyface Killer”.

421px-Chow_Yun_Fat_2

Chow Yun-fat at the premiere of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End in 2007

The Los Angeles Times proclaimed Chow Yun-Fat “the coolest actor in the world”. In the mid ’90s, Chow moved to Hollywood in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to duplicate his success in Asia. His first two films, The Replacement Killers (1998) and The Corruptor (1999), were box office disappointments. In his next film Anna and the King (1999), Chow teamed up with Jodie Foster, but the film suffered at the box office. Chow accepted the role of Li Mu-Bai in the (2000) film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It became a winner at both the international box office and the Oscars. In 2003, Chow came back to Hollywood and starred in Bulletproof Monk. In 2006, he teamed up with Gong Li in the film Curse of the Golden Flower, directed by Zhang Yimou.

Crouching_tiger_hidden_dragon_poster20000710_400GodofGamblersReturnHard-boiled-film-posterTheMonkeyKing

In 2007, Chow played the pirate captain Sao Feng in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. However, his part was omitted when the movie was shown in mainland China, where government censors felt that Chow’s character “vilified and humiliated” Chinese people.

In the poorly received film Dragonball Evolution, Chow Yun-fat played Master Roshi.

In 2014, Chow returned to Hong Kong cinema in From Vegas to Macau. For the part, he lost 13 kg within 10 months.

In October 2014, Chow supported the Umbrella Movement, a civil rights movement for universal suffrage in Hong Kong. His political stance eventually resulted in censorship by the Chinese government.

In February 2015, Chow reprised his role as Ken in the sequel From Vegas to Macau II. He was paid 5 million USD (39 million HKD) for the film.

Book


On 26 June 2008, Chow released his first photo collection in Hong Kong, which includes pictures taken on the sets of his films. Proceeds from the book’s sales were donated to Sichuan earthquake victims. Published by Louis Vuitton, the books were sold in Vuitton’s Hong Kong and Paris stores.

Filmography


Chow has appeared in over 121 films and 24 television series.

Film

Opera Snapshot_2017-12-05_132754_en.wikipedia.org

Television Series


Opera Snapshot_2017-12-05_132834_en.wikipedia.org

Video Games


  • Stranglehold
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (video game)
  • Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (video game)

Awards and Nominations


Hong Kong Film Awards

  • Best Actor Nomination for Hong Kong 1941
  • Best Actor Nomination for Women
  • Best Supporting Actor Nomination for Love Unto Waste
  • Best Actor for A Better Tomorrow
  • Best Actor Nomination for Prison on Fire
  • Best Actor Nomination for An Autumn’s Tale
  • Best Actor for City on Fire
  • Best Original Film Song Nomination for The Diary of a Big Man
  • Best Original Film Song Nomination for Triads: The Inside Story
  • Best Actor Nomination for God of Gamblers
  • Best Actor for All About Ah-Long
  • Best Actor Nomination for Once a Thief
  • Best Actor Nomination for Treasure Hunt
  • Best Actor Nomination for Peace Hotel
  • Best Actor Nomination for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
  • Best Actor Nomination for Curse of the Golden Flower
  • Best Supporting Actor Nomination for The Postmodern Life of My Aunt

(13 Best Actor nominations, 2 Best Supporting Actor nominations, 2 Best Original Film Song nominations)

Wealth


As of 2016, Chow’s net worth stands at US$80 million. Chow also said he would donate 99% of his wealth to charity via setting up a foundation to help the needy.

Stephen Chow

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

qpJWj6MI6VLRt9bGbJVZtmFvqWw

Stephen Chow Sing-chi (Chinese: 周星馳, born 22 June 1962) is a Chinese film director, actor, producer, political adviser of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and martial artist.

477122

Eva Huang, also known as Huang Shengyi, plays a mute girl whom Sing tries to help when they were both children.

Opera Snapshot_2017-12-05_042431_en.wikipedia.org kungfuhustleaKDwKQ1_700b

Contents
1 Film career
2 Filmography
3 Awards

Film Career


Chow began his career as a temporary actor on television. He graduated from TVB’s acting classes in 1982. Chow began to find some success with the children’s programme 430 Space Shuttle. In 1987, Chow entered the movie industry through the film Final Justice, which won him the Taiwan Golden Horse Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Chow shot to stardom in The Final Combat (1989) and All for the Winner (1990). Fight Back to School (1991) became Hong Kong’s top-grossing film of all time. In 1994, he began directing films, starting with From Beijing with Love. In the later half of the 1990s, China began to warm to Chow’s films and he became a pop-culture phenomenon.

In 2001, his film Shaolin Soccer grossed over US$50 million worldwide. Chow won Best Director and Best Actor at the 2002 Hong Kong Film Awards, and the film went on to garner additional awards including a Blue Ribbon Awards for Best Foreign Language Film and the Golden Bauhinia Award for Best Picture and Best Director.

In 2004, his film Kung Fu Hustle grossed over US$106 million worldwide. Chow also won Best Director at the Taiwan Golden Horse Awards and Best Picture of Imagine Film Festival as well as twenty international awards.

Chow’s film CJ7 began filming in July 2006 in the eastern Chinese port of Ningbo. In August 2007 the film was given the title CJ7, a play on China’s successful Shenzhou manned space missions—Shenzhou 5 and Shenzhou 6. CJ7 became the highest-grossing film of all time in Malaysia.

In 2013, Chow’s film Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons became the highest-grossing Chinese film of all time.

In 2016, his new film The Mermaid broke numerous box office records: Biggest opening day, biggest single day gross after its seventh day of release, biggest opening week of all time in China. On February 19th, it became the highest grossing film of all time in China.

The Mermaid was released in Vietnam on February 10th, 2016. On March 14th, it became the 3rd highest grossing film of all time in Vietnam. It has now grossed over US$555 million worldwide and is the highest grossing movie of all time in Asia.

Stephen Chow became the ninth top-grossing Hollywood Director of 2016.

KungFuHustleHKposter CJ7_(movie_poster)

ShaolinSoccerFilmPoster From_Beijing_With_Love

Filmography


Opera Snapshot_2017-12-05_042527_en.wikipedia.org

Awards


Opera Snapshot_2017-12-05_042606_en.wikipedia.org

Opera Snapshot_2017-12-05_043852_www.google.comOpera Snapshot_2017-12-05_043917_www.google.com

Unknown Facts About Kung Fu Hustle


While casting Sing’s love interest Fong, Chow stated that he wanted an innocent-looking girl for the role. Eva Huang was chosen from a pool of 8,000 girls.

Eva-Huang-in-Kung-Fu-Hustle

Eva Huang, also known as Huang Shengyi, plays a mute girl whom Sing tries to help when they were both children. Huang was a TV actress until then and Kung Fu Hustle was her film debut. When Chow was asked why he cast her, he replied that he enjoyed working with new actors and he “just had a feeling about her.” Huang chose not to have any dialogue so that her character could stand out through her gestures and body language.

The name “Pig Sty Alley” is a play on the name of the Walled City of Kowloon in Chinese. The city was a Chinese enclave in Hong Kong and well-known as a breeding ground of crime, slums, and disorder through most of the 20th century.

Kowloon-Walled-City

The Walled City was originally a Chinese military fort and became an enclave when China leased the New Territories to Britain in 1898. During World War II following the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, the city’s population dramatically rose, becoming 50,000 residents within 2.6 hectares (6.4 acres) by 1990. From the 1950s to 1970s, the Walled City had high rates of prostitution, drug abuse, and gambling and was controlled by local triads. The Hong Kong government announced plans to demolish it in January 1987. Following a laborious eviction process, demolition began in March 1993 and ended in April 1994. It was turned into Kowloon Walled City Park which opened in December 1995.

Kung Fu Hustle surpassed Chow’s previous film, Shaolin Soccer, becoming the highest-grossing movie made in Hong Kong in 2005. It was also the highest-grossing foreign language film in North America, even gaining a cult following.

download

After opening in Hong Kong on December 23, 2004, Kung Fu Hustle earned HK$ 4,990,000 on its opening day. It stayed on top until early 2005 grossing a total of HK$ 61.27 million. In the US, it initially released as a two-week theatrical run in New York City and Los Angeles. After its success, it was soon released in 2,503 cinemas, the highest number of cinemas ever for a foreign language movie. Though not a blockbuster, Kung Fu Hustle became the highest-grossing foreign language movie in North America in 2005.

“Pig Sty Alley” was inspired by Chow’s own childhood memory of crowded apartment complexes in a Hong Kong slum neighborhood where he lived.

Pig-Sty-Alley-and-Early-Sketch

In the movie, the “Pig Sty Alley” is an impoverished place where you find all kinds of characters including retired Kung Fu masters who took up humble jobs to get on with life. Designing the alley was Stephen Chow’s first priority as it was the main location in the film. In an interview with the Observer, he stated that he was inspired by his own childhood memories of crowded, Hong Kong, slum neighborhoods.

Stephen Chow is a self-trained Kung Fu practitioner. He is a great fan of Bruce Lee and learned martial arts by imitating what he saw in the movies.

Stephen-Chow-Inspired-by-Bruce-Lee

Stephen Chow credits Bruce Lee for inspiring him to become a martial arts practitioner and an actor. Though he did attend Kung Fu classes in school for a short time, he couldn’t continue it because of his financial situation. So, instead, he would watch Bruce Lee’s movies and imitate the moves and exercises. Like Bruce Lee, he picked Wing Chun style.

Ti Lung

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

black-magic-ii-ti-lung

ti-lung

Tommy Tam Fu-Wing (born 19 August 1946), better known by his stage name Ti Lung, is a Hong Kong actor, known for his numerous starring roles in a string of Shaw Brothers Studio’s films, particularly The Blood Brothers,The Avenging Eagle, Clans of Intrigue, The Duel, The Sentimental Swordsman and its sequel, and in the classic A Better Tomorrow.

ti

Opera Snapshot_2017-12-04_204224_en.wikipedia.orgc98756e67848c103c7356cf18ae88c96--fun-movies-action-movies

Contents
1 Background
2 Career
3 Personal life
4 The origin of the stage name “Ti Lung”
5 Filmography
5.1 Television

Background


Tam Fu Wing (Ti Lung) was born on 19 August in 1946 in a family with 4 members including parents, a younger sister and him in Guangdong Province, China . When he was 4 years old, the whole family moved to live in Hong Kong. He educated at Eton school in Hong Kong. But after his father’s dead, he had to terminate his study at the age of 18 to support his family.Initially, he was a deliver boy at a grocery shop where he often delivered milk, newspapers and groceries. At 24 years old,he trained as a tailor and studied Wing Chun of the master Jiu Wan to protect himself against street gangs.

Career


In 1968 Ti Lung responded to an advertisement placed by the Shaw Brothers after college, and applied at Shaw Acting Course, and upon completion was awarded a minor role in Chang Cheh’s Return of the One-Armed Swordsman starring Jimmy Wang Yu. Chang Cheh immediately recognized his potential and offered him the lead in his next production Dead End opposite Golden Chan Hung-lit, a role which would launch his career as one of the best known faces in classic Wuxia film. At that time, he continued to study Wing Chun under the martial arts master Jiu Wan who described him as having advantages of a strong body, intelligent, good footwork, and he also practices diligently. Besides, he was also taught other techniques such as: Judo, Muya Thai, Takewondo, Wushu… and riding horse. He became a common face associated with David Chiang, Alexander Fu Sheng, Ku Feng, Chen Kuan-Tai, the Venom Mob, and other Shaw Bros stars at the time, often cast as a dashing, noble hero as well as a capable martial artist.

Especially, he collaborated with the most revered Shaw director – Chang Cheh who gave him his explosive start along with fellow actor and frequent co-star David Chiang in over 20 films: Dead End (1969), Have Sword, Will Travel (1969), Vengeance (1970), The Heroic Ones (1970), The Duel (1971), Duel of Fists (1971), The Deadly Duo (1971), Angry Guest (1972), Four Riders (1972), The Blood Brothers (1973), The Pirate (1973)…. .Due to their success, the trio were known as “The Iron Triangle”. In this period time, one of the most feature films of Ti Lung is “The Blood Brothers” (1973) which helped him win The Special Award for Outstanding Performance at 11th Golden Horse Awards in Taiwan and the Special Jury Award at the Asian Film Awards in 1973. Soon after, Ti Lung moved forward teaming up with Lar Kar-Leung, Chu Yuan, Sun Chung, and Tong Gai to produce movies still loved today such as: The Magic blade (1976), Clans of Intrigue (1977), The Sentimental Swordsman (1977), The Avenging Eagle (1978), Shaolin Prince (1983)…In 1979, he won Best Actor Award at 25th Asian Film Awards as Black eagle Chik Ming-Sing in The Avenging Eagle in 1978.

After he left Shaw Brothers Studios in the 1980s, Ti Lung’s career took a turn for the worse until 1986, when John Woo’s A Better Tomorrow cast him opposite Chow Yun-fat in the role of a Triad member. The movie was a box office success and placed Ti Lung back in the public consciousness, although it changed his image from the handsome martial youth to the tortured, would-be hero gangster. It also helped him gain Best Actor Award at 23th Golden Horse Awards in 1986. After that role, Ti Lung’s next most recognisable appearance would be with Jackie Chan in Drunken Master II, in which he co-starred as Wong Kei-Ying, father of Chinese folk hero Wong Fei Hung. In 1994-95, Ti Lung lead-starred as Bao Zheng in a Hong Kong version of Justice Pao TV series for TVB. At the time this series was viewing on Hong Kong television, many fans in Mainland China and Hong Kong has compared Ti Lung/TVB’s Bao Zheng with Jin Chao-chun/Mainland China’s Bao Zheng. Ti Lung also worked with Andy Lau in Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon as the legendary Guan Yu. From there, he has continued to work in television in a variety of roles.

In 1999, Ti Lung had a comeback in movies in the role of Sir Lung in “The kid” film which enabled him achieve Best Supporting actor at 19th Hong Kong Film Awards in 2000. In 2007, he received Life Achievement Award at Golden Bauhinia Awards. Until 2015, he played as Master Lam in an associated film between Hong Kong and Malaysia called “The Kid from the Big Apple”. The role made him gain Best Actor Award at 7th Macau International Movie Festival.The sequel of the film will premiere in Malaysia in November 2017.

Personal Life


Ti Lung got married with the beauty queen and actress Tao Man Ming in 1975. In 1980, she gave birth to a son, the actor Shaun Tam (his only child). He is also the uncle of Jerry Lamb and Jan Lamb.

The origin of the stage name “Ti Lung”


When he was a child, he admired the actor Alain Delon so much. Until 1968, he was at Shaw Brothers Studio, he asked the production to choose him a name which would be close to Alain Delon’s in the hope of being as good an actor as him . One day a secretary from the production (Mona Fong) found the name of Ti Lung for him, ‘Ti’ is a lucky name and ‘Lung’ means dragon.

Filmography


Opera Snapshot_2017-12-04_204304_en.wikipedia.org

Television

Opera Snapshot_2017-12-04_204328_en.wikipedia.org

David Chiang

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

DAVID CHIANG

David Chiang Da-wei (born Chiang Wei-nien on 29 June 1947 in Shanghai, Republic of China) is a Hong Kong actor, director and producer. A martial arts superstar in the 1970s under the Shaw Brothers Studio, he has appeared in over 130 films and over 30 television series.

Born in a thespian family, he is the younger brother of Paul Chun and an older half-brother of Derek Yee.

Opera Snapshot_2017-12-04_201955_en.wikipedia.org9xbzXc

Contents
1 Biography
2 Filmography
2.1 Film (as actor)
2.2 Film (as director)
2.3 Television

Biography


David_Chiang,_Avenue_of_Stars

David Chiang’s hand prints and autograph on the Avenue of Stars, Hong Kong

David Chiang’s mother Hung Wei (real name: Lo Chen) and father Yen Hua (real name: Chiang Ko-chi) were popular Chinese movie stars who arrived in Hong Kong in the late 1940s during the Chinese Civil War. Chiang began his acting career at a very early age, appearing in black and white films when he was only four years old.

In 1966 after diploma 2nd year and quit from school, while working as a stuntman and fight instructor for the Shaw Brothers Studio, he was spotted by director Chang Cheh, who immediately saw his potential and screen presence and became his mentor. Chang gave him the stage name David Chiang, even though his real English name was John.

With Wang Yu’s sudden departure in 1969, Run Run Shaw and his senior executives were looking for a new leading man and made Chiang an offer. With the guidance of Chang Cheh, Chiang won the Best Actor award at the 16th Asian Film Festival in 1970 for his role in Vengeance. In 1972, at the 18th Asian Film Festival, he won the Golden Horse Award for Best Actor for his role in Blood Brothers. In 1973, at the 19th Asian Film Festival, he won the Most Contemporary award for his role in The Generation Gap.

In 1973 Chiang left Hong Kong with his mentor Chang Cheh and set up an independent production company called Chang’s Scope Company. With the backing and encouragement of Run Run Shaw, their films continued to be distributed through Shaw’s channels. At Chang’s Scope Company, Chiang was able to try his hand at directing, producing and script writing. As the 1970s came to an end and the 1980s approached, Chiang continued acting, working with directors Lee Han Chiang, Hsueh Li Pao, Ho Meng-hua and Chia-Liang Liu. 1980 was also the start of his first television series, The Green Dragon Conspiracy, and this was followed by Princess Chang Ping and Dynasty. In the mid-1980s, Chiang worked with his two brothers, Paul Chun and Derek Yee, directing, producing and acting in the comedy Legend of the Owl. Chiang also acted in comedy movies The Challenger and The Loot, directed by Eric Tseng. In late 1980s into the 1990s Chiang directed the movies Heaven Can Help, Silent Love, The Wrong Couples, Mr. Handsome, Double Fattiness, My Dear Son, Will of Iron and Mother of a Different Kind. Since 2000 he has continued to work in movies and TV series, including Election, Daisy, Revolving Doors Of Vengeance, Lethal Weapons of Love and Passion, Land of Wealth, The Family Link and the 2007 television series The Gem of Life. He was nominated for Best Supporting Actor in 2006 for his role in the TVB series Revolving Doors of Vengeance.

In 2004, Chiang was inducted into The Avenue of Stars, which honours celebrities of the Hong Kong film industry. It is located along the Victoria Harbour waterfront in Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong and modeled on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Filmography


Film (as actor)

Opera Snapshot_2017-12-04_201759_en.wikipedia.org

Film (as director)

  • The Drug Addict (1974)
  • A Mad World of Fools (1974)
  • The One-Armed Swordsmen (1976)
  • The Condemned (1976)
  • Whirlwind Kick (1977)
  • The Legend of the Owl (1981)
  • Heaven Can Help (1984)
  • Silent Love (1986)
  • Mr. Handsome (1987)
  • The Wrong Couples (1987)
  • Double Fattiness (1988)
  • My Dear Son (1989)
  • When East Meets West (1990)
  • Will of Iron (1991)
  • Mother of a Different Kind (1995)

Television

Opera Snapshot_2017-12-04_201840_en.wikipedia.org

Lo Lieh

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

LO LIEH

Wang Lap Tat (June 29, 1939 – November 2, 2002), better known by his stage name Lo Lieh, was an Indonesian-born Hong Kong actor. Lo was perhaps best known as Chao Chih-Hao in the 1972 film King Boxer (a.k.a. Five Fingers of Death), Miyamoto in the 1977 film Fist of Fury II and General Tien Ta in the 1978 film The 36th Chamber of Shaolin.

Opera Snapshot_2017-12-04_195656_en.wikipedia.org

Contents
1 Early life
2 Acting
3 Personal life
4 Death
5 Filmography

Early Life


Lo Born in Pematangsiantar in June 29, 1939, spent his early life in Indonesia and then his parents sent him back to China and attended acting school in Hong Kong, he began his martial arts training in 1962 and joined the Shaw Brothers Studio in the same year and went on to become one of the most famous actors in Hong Kong kung fu films in the late 1960s and 1970s.

Acting


In the 1970s, Lo played Kao Hsia in the 1970 film Brothers Five, alongside Cheng Pei-pei. Lo played Ho Chiang in the 1974 film The Stranger and the Gunfighter, alongside Lee Van Cleef. Lo starred in the 1972 cult classic King Boxer a.k.a. Five Fingers of Death . In 1977, Lo portrayed Pai Mei in the Executioners from Shaolin and Miyamoto in Fist of Fury II, along with Bruce Li. Lo played General Tien Ta in the 1978 film The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, alongside Gordon Liu and Lee Hoi San.

In the 1980s, Lo directed and starred in the 1980 film Clan of the White Lotus, along with Gordon Liu. Lo played Triad Gangster Boss in the 1988 film Dragons Forever, alongside Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao. Lo played Fei in the 1989 film Miracles along with Jackie Chan, Richard Ng and Billy Chow.

In the 1990s, Lo played Chor Kun-lun in the 1991 film Sex and Zen alongside Lawrence Ng, Kent Cheng and Elvis Tsu. Lo played The General in the 1992 film Police Story 3: Super Cop alongside Jackie Chan and Michelle Yeoh.

In the 2000s, Lo played Wei Tung’s Uncle in the 2001 film The Vampire Combat, with Collin Chou and Valerie Chow. Lo’s last film was 2001’s Glass Tears, before retiring from acting at the age of 62.

Personal Life


Lo married Grace Tang Chia-li on April 15, 1976. Lo and his wife later divorced.

Death


On November 2, 2002, Lo died of heart attack, he was 63 years old.

Filmography


Opera Snapshot_2017-12-04_195821_en.wikipedia.org