appConfigEntityId

bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

isVideo

articlePageQuery

article

articleSchemaContent

content

hooksArticlePageAdvertisementConfigArticle

hooksArticlePageFloatingButtonConfigArticle

appConfig

filter

json

liveArticle

Clarence Tsui

Lately, a vintage video clip has been doing the rounds on social media of Chow Yun-fat taking part in an athletic meet. No surprises, you might say: well-known for his love of outdoor sports, the actor has frequently made the news during the past year for his near-professional performances in Hong Kong races.
That is not the Chow we see in the newly unearthed clip, however. Here, the gangly, shaggy-haired Chow is seen running barefoot on a muddy track, emerging a very unlikely victor in a 100-metre sprint in a very respectable time of 12 seconds.
The race actually took place in 1979, when Chow was just 24 and on the cusp of stardom in Hong Kong and beyond via two hit TVB soap operas: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly and, the year afterwards, The Bund.
Chow dazzled and mesmerised audiences with his performances as a rugged, conscientious romantic in the two TV series, consolidating his standing as the heartthrob of his generation – and paving the way for the po-faced, tough-as-nails heroes he played to perfection for director John Woo Yu-sum in A Better Tomorrow (1986) and beyond.

But the 1979 clip, which ends with the young star celebrating his triumph in a ragged T-shirt and silly grin, reveals the eccentricity beneath the actor’s suave on-screen persona.
To understand what really makes Chow click, look no further than Angels and Devils. In this 1983 TVB comedy series, the actor plays Fan, a happy-go-lucky stuntman struggling to keep his job and his girlfriend Flora (Kelly Yao Wei).
Intent to clean up his act to convince Flora to stay, Fan finds himself sucked into a series of increasingly absurd events. What begins as a hunt for a lost lottery ticket eventually leads to a slapstick skirmish with drug traffickers – and finally, a change of scene for Fan, as he lands himself a job as a community worker in a youth centre.
Penned by a team led by renowned screenwriter (and later cultural historian) Ng Ho, Angels and Devils oozes comic energy throughout its 20 episodes. Just as remarkable was Chow, who was game for anything the script threw at him, often slipping into dialect and improvising punchlines – and punches – as he saw fit.
Channelling his inner clown to hilarious effect, Chow would later say this was one of his favourite roles.
In one of the funniest scenes in the series, Fan suspects Flora of meeting a lover for a daytime tryst. Wearing an ill-fitting suit, fake moustache and pair of leather slippers, he fumbles his way through a hotel, raids the wrong room and gets beaten up for his self-avowed “scientific stalking method”.

Just as eye-catching in this scene is the young actor who plays Chow’s all-suffering sidekick. As the salaryman turned social worker Ho-man, Tony Leung Chiu-wai provides the perfect foil to Chow’s tough guy, at times playing along to Fan’s rickety ruses, and delivering deadly put-downs in others.
Leung’s spot-on performance as a weaselly wisecracker was perhaps central to him being cast as the con man Wai Siu-bo in The Duke of Mount Deer, TVB’s 1984 adaptation of the Louis Cha novel The Deer and the Cauldron. Leung might have become a great comedian if he was not then cast, later that year, as a valiant rookie cop in Police Cadet ’84.
But there was also another comic-in-the-making middling about in the background. Stephen Chow Sing-chi (who would later be a co-host with Leung in the children’s programme 430 Space Shuttle) plays one of Ho-man’s charges, an angsty young man who tries to kill himself after he is tricked into playing a sexual predator in a TV advertisement.
There are many other future stars in the series: among the extras are Francis Ng Chun-yu, Sandra Ng Kwan-yue, Lau Ching-wan, Lawrence Ng Kai-wah and Bobby Au Yeung Chun-wah.
Interestingly, the series also features both Leung’s then-girlfriend, Margie Tsang Wah-sin, and the woman who would eventually become his wife, Carina Lau Ka-ling.

It is fun to play star-spotting while watching Angels and Devils, but the real attraction of the show is undeniably Chow himself.
We now know he can do moody superbly well, but it is in screwball – something he would do sporadically and brilliantly later on, from the 1987 drama An Autumn’s Tale to 2023’s One More Chance – that he really thrives.


How 91-year-old Helena Law Lan became Hong Kong cinema’s grand dame of horror

From Cheng Pei-pei to Michelle Yeoh, Hong Kong cinema’s history of action heroines

‘Rest in eternal peace’: veteran horror actor, filmmaker Simon Loui dies at age 62

How Cantopop lyricist Wyman Wong pushed Hong Kong’s LGBTQ, style and emotional boundaries

Hong Kong celebrities and icons

Chow Yun-fat, Tony Leung and Stephen Chow were all in this 80s Hong Kong TV show

Chow Yun-Fat (left) and Tony Leung Chiu-wai in Angels and Devils. Photo: TVB

Chow Yun-Fat (left) and Tony Leung Chiu-wai in Angels and Devils. The 1983 TVB comedy series featured many other future Hong Kong stars, including Stephen Chow, Francis Ng, Sandra Ng, Lau Ching-wan, Lawrence Ng and Bobby Au Yeung. Photo: TVB

Chow Yun-fat (front right) sprints barefoot on his way to victory in a 100-metre race in the 1979 Hong Kong Celebrity Games in a still from a video clip that has recently appeared on social media. Photo: TVB

A poster for Angels and Devils featuring Chow Yun-Fat (second right) and Tony Leung Chiu-wai (right). Photo: TVB

Chow Yun-fat (second right) celebrates his victory in the 100-metre sprint at the 1979 Hong Kong Celebrity Games. Photo: TVB

How Hong Kong’s gambling film genre was spurred by Andy Lau, Chow Yun-fat and Stephen Chow

Andy Lau in a still from Casino Raiders (1989). Photo: Eureka Entertainment

Chow Yun-fat in a still from God of Gamblers, Wong Jing’s gambling classic that broke Hong Kong box-office records in 1989, and, along with Casino Raiders the same year and All for the Winner in 1990, set the gambling movie genre in motion.

(From left) Andy Lau, Chow Yun-fat and Ronald Wong in a still from God of Gamblers (1989).

(From left) Sharla Cheung, Stephen Chow and Ng Man-tat in a still from All for the Winner (1990). Photo: Win’s Movie Production.

Andy Lau (left) and Stephen Chow in a still from God of Gamblers II (1990), which introduced All for the Winner star Chow to the series.

How Hong Kong singer and actress Vivian Chow became a beloved Cantopop star

Vivian Chow backstage before  a concert in Shanghai in 1993. Photo: SCMP

Vivian Chow attends an event to promote a watch brand in Hong Kong in 2009. The Hong Kong actress and singer was a popular Cantopop star in the 1990s and a noteworthy actress, and still holds concerts today. Photo: AP 

Chow sings her winning song at the Chinese Gold Songs award presentation ceremony, organised by RTHK, at the Hong Kong Coliseum in January 1989. Photo: SCMP

Chow backstage before RTHK’s concert to mark the launching of its Solar Project ‘93 in Shanghai, China on July 18, 1993. Photo: SCMP

Chow attends a Prudential event in Hong Kong on January 4, 2024. Photo: Getty Images

Chow gets ready to greet the hungry participants of the 30-Hour Famine event organised by World Vision in 1995. Photo: SCMP

Chow and Joe Nieh at their wedding ceremony in 2009. Photo: SCMP

Chow at an interview with the Post in 2006. Photo: SCMP

Chow attends the Pink Revolution Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign Launch in 2009. Photo: SCMP

Chow (left) and Sandra Ng in a still from All About Love (2010). Photo: Mega-Vision Pictures

Chow in a still from the Taiwanese film Cafe. Waiting. Love (2014).

Meet The Crow’s Isabella Wei, Hong Kong actress who plays Zadie and starred in 1899

Isabella Wei attends the world premiere of “The Crow” at Village East by Angelika in New York on August 20, 2024. Photo: AFP

Isabella Wei attends the world premiere of The Crow at Village East by Angelika in New York on August 20, 2024. The actress talks about going from dancing to acting, auditioning for the Netflix series 1899, playing Zadie in The Crow, and why she loves telling people about Hong Kong. Photo: AFP

Isabella Wei in a still from The Crow. Photo: Lionsgate

Isabella Wei in a still from 1899. Photo: Netflix

Bill Skarsgard in a still from The Crow. Photo: Lionsgate. 

Isabella Wei in The Crow. Photo: Lionsgate

7 of the best new K-dramas to watch in September 2024, including The Judge from Hell

Park Shin-hye in a still from The Judge from Hell, one of seven new K-dramas to watch this September.

Lifestyle

Entertainment

Culture

Film & TV

TVB comedy Angels and Devils also featured a host of other future stars but it was Chow Yun-fat who stole the show with his screwball antics


Many future stars appeared in TVB’s comedy series Angels and Devils, including Chow Yun-fat, Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Stephen Chow, but it was the former who stole the show with his screwball antics.


Chow Yun-fat, Tony Leung and Stephen Chow were all in this 80s Hong Kong TV show

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}TVB comedy Angels and Devils also featured a host of other future stars but it was Chow Yun-fat who stole the show with his screwball antics

TVB comedy Angels and Devils also featured a host of other future stars but it was Chow Yun-fat who stole the show with his screwball antics