Jackie Lau Popular Books

Jackie Lau Biography & Facts

Andrew Lau Tak-wah (simplified Chinese: 刘德华; traditional Chinese: 劉德華; Jyutping: Lau4 Dak1 Waa4; born 27 September 1961) is a Hong Kong actor, singer-songwriter and film producer. He was named the "Fourth Tiger" among the Five Tiger Generals of TVB in the 1980s as well as one of the Four Heavenly Kings of Cantopop in the 1990s. By 2024, Lau has shot over 200 films and released over 100 records. Lau won the Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actor three times, the Golden Horse Award for Best Leading Actor twice, and was entered into the Guinness World Records for the "Most Awards Won by a Cantopop Male Artist" in 2000, with a total of 444 music awards by 2006. Forbes magazine has ranked Lau as one of the world's highest-paid actors. In 2018, Lau was invited to be a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 2024, Lau was elected vice chairman of the 11th China Film Association. Over a career of four decades, Lau has been one of the most commercially and critically successful artists in the Chinese world. Early life Lau was born in Tai Po, British Hong Kong to fireman Lau Lai (1934-2023). He is the fourth of six siblings and has three elder sisters, one younger sister, and a younger brother named Lau Tak-sing. Although his family was considered wealthy due to his grandfather being a landowner with farmland and villages, his father moved them to the slums of Diamond Hill when he was six years old so he could receive a bilingual education to improve his English. The area was full of wooden houses, which unfortunately burnt down when he was eleven. During his childhood, Lau had to fetch water for his family up to eight times a day as their house lacked plumbing. He graduated from a Band One secondary school, Ho Lap College in San Po Kong, Kowloon. He was named as Lau Fook-wing during his academic years. He also practices Chinese calligraphy and hair styling. He was raised in a nominally Buddhist household and is a follower of the Lingyan Mountain Temple in Taiwan. Career Acting In 1981, Lau enrolled in the artist training program offered by TVB, marking the beginning of his acting career. It was his portrayal of the lead role in the 1982 TVB series The Emissary that initially propelled him to fame. Lau's popularity further soared in 1983 with his role as Yang Guo in the TVB wuxia series The Return of the Condor Heroes. Following this breakthrough, he went on to assume numerous lead roles in various TVB series. In September 1983, TVB aimed to improve their variety show ratings in competition with Korea and Japan by producing the show TVB All-star challenge (星光熠熠勁爭輝). The program featured almost the entire lineup of the most popular actors and singers at that time. Lau, alongside Tony Leung, Michael Miu, Felix Wong, and Kent Tong became known as the "Five Tiger Generals of TVB" due to their popularity on the show.In the late '80s, Lau departed from TVB due to contract disputes. TVB insisted on a binding five-year exclusive contract, which Lau declined to sign, leading to his blacklisting by the network. Consequently, Lau shifted his focus towards his film career.In 1981, Lau made a guest appearance in one of Susanna Kwan's music videos and caught the eye of the manager Teddy Robin, who gave Lau a minor role in the film, Once Upon a Rainbow. This was the first step in Lau's film acting career. He landed a role in Ann Hui's 1982 film, Boat People. Later in 1983, he had his first leading role in the Shaw Brothers-produced action film, On the Wrong Track.One of his early leading roles included the more serious 1988 film, The Truth. However, Lau is best known in films for his (often) recurring roles as a "Heroic Gangster", such as Wong Kar-wai's 1988 film As Tears Go By and Benny Chan's 1990 film A Moment of Romance. Although now a respected actor, Lau was initially known more for his handsome features. Some people he has worked with have called him a matinee idol, but he has claimed to be an artist. Lau has proved his acting skills in many of his films. His first major acting prize came with A Fighter's Blues, which was his first Golden Bauhinia Award for Best Actor. He won the Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actor award that year for Running Out of Time. In 2004, he won the Golden Horse Award for Best Leading Actor for his performance in Infernal Affairs III, the second sequel to the popular Infernal Affairs. In 2005, Lau received the "No.1 Box office Actor 1985–2005" award of Hong Kong, yielding a box office total of HKD 1,733,275,816 for shooting 108 films in the past 20 years. The aforementioned figure is as compared to the first runner-up Stephen Chow's (HKD 1,317,452,311) and second runner-up Jackie Chan's (HKD 894,090,962). For his contributions, a wax figure of Lau was unveiled on 1 June 2005 at the Madame Tussauds Hong Kong. In 2007, Lau also received the "Nielsen Box Office Star of Asia" award by the Nielsen Company (ACNielsen).In May 2014, he starred in China's first anti-trafficking film Lost and Love, playing a stubborn and kind-hearted farmer Lei Zekuan, which was released on 20 March 2015.In April 2017, he starred in the Hong Kong police action film Shock Wave, which earned him another Best Actor Award at the 37th Hong Kong Film Awards in 2018.In February 2021, Lau reunited with Tony Leung since the Infernal Affairs series in the big-budget action film The Goldfinger, backed by Emperor Motion Pictures and mainland Chinese partners, with a reported budget of around $30.8 million (RMB200 million). Film production In 1991, Lau set up his own film production company, Teamwork Motion Pictures, which in 2002 was renamed to Focus Group Holdings Limited. His contributions in the film industry as well as his involvement in nurturing new talent in the Asian film industry led him to winning the "Asian Filmmaker of the Year" award in the Pusan International Film Festival in 2006. Some of the films Lau has produced include award-winning films, Made in Hong Kong and A Simple Life, his 100th film, A Fighter's Blues, the Chinese digital film Crazy Stone, and big budget action blockbusters, Firestorm and Shock Wave. Music Lau released his first album Just Know I Only Love You (1985) under the record label Capital Artists to minimal commercial success. However, he achieved mainstream success in 1990 with the release of the album Would It Be Possible which won Lau his first RTHK Top 10 Gold Songs Award. The following year, he released the single "The Days We Spent Together" which topped Hong Kong's music charts and was an international hit across Asia. The song was lauded by Time Out which described its popularity as 'practically a national anthem' and 'one of the most notable hits' in Lau's career. His subsequent albums brought him further recognition spawning hit singles such as "Ice Rain" (1993), "Forget Love Potion" (1994), and "Stupid Fellow" (1998). His popularity as a music artist was such that Lau was dubbed as one of the Cantopop Four Heavenly Kings.... Discover the Jackie Lau popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Jackie Lau books.