What happened to Hong Kong's King of Comedy, Stephen Chow?

Stephen Chow is known as one of Hong Kong's most influential figures due to the impact of his contributions to the media scene. This is his story on how he rose to become Hong Kong’s ‘King of Comedy’.

Born on June 22, 1962, in British Hong Kong, Stephen Chow was raised primarily in a single-parent family alongside two other siblings, according to an autobiographical account of him written by Cheng Hua.

Image: TVB

The same autobiographical account notes that Stephen Chow was inspired to become an action star after watching one of Bruce Lee’s films.

Image: TVB

Unlike his famous action movie predecessors and peers like Jackie Chan and Donnie Yen, Stephen Chow did not undergo martial arts training in his quest to become an action movie star.

Image: TVB

Time reports that Stephen Chow instead went directly to audition for TVB’s acting classes and was accepted into the program. Thus began his career as an actor!

One of Stephen Chow’s most significant parts of his career was his first prominent role in the industry, which was being the host of TVB’s children’s program ‘430 Space Shuttle’.

The TV hosting gig was a fateful movement in his career, as Baidu reports that most hosts that came from the show, like Stephen Chow and Tony Leung, went on to become major figures in the Hong Kong entertainment industry coincidentally!

Image: stephenchow / Instagram

Despite his debut on TV in 1981 on ‘Mature IQ’, Stephen Chow mostly landed minor supporting roles until the late 1980s. The late 1980s were another pivotal time for the actor, as it was when he made his film debut, which changed the entire course of his career.

Image: Golden Harvest

1988 was a significant year for Stephen Chow, as it was when he starred in the film ‘Final Justice’, and played a major supporting role, which earned him a Golden Horse Award for Best Supporting Actor that same year, reports Baidu!

Image: Magnum Films

It was only in 1989 that Stephen Chow landed his breakout role and discovered his niche for comedy in TVB’s ‘The Final Combat’, reports SPCnet. It was thereafter in the 1990s that the success of the show propelled Stephen Chow to great fame.

Image: TVB

This started what is now known as the ‘Stephen Chow Phenomenon’ as reported by Beijing Weekly when audiences fell in love with Stephen Chow’s own brand of unique ‘mo lei tau’ or nonsense humor and parody of various genres in his works!

Image: Golden Harvest

The same report from Beijing Weekly also stated that te ‘Stephen Chow Phenomenon’ peaked in the 1990s. Some of the works responsible for making Stephen Chow such a sensation during that time period were ‘From Beijing with Love’, ‘God of Cookery’, and ‘King of Comedy’.

Stephen Chow’s influence in the Hong Kong entertainment sphere continued strongly after the 1990s with the release of ‘Shaolin Soccer’ in 2001.

Image: Universe Entertainment

‘Shaolin Soccer’ can also be considered the film that propelled Stephen Chow into bigger leagues, as Sohu reports that the film not only became the highest grossing film in Hong Kong then but also later went on to win a whopping twelve awards at several film awards ceremonies!

Image: Universe Entertainment

Did you know?: ‘Shaolin Soccer’s’ record of being the highest grossing film in Hong Kong at the time was beaten three years later by another of Stephen Chow’s own films, ‘Kung Fu Hustle’ in 2004, reports the South China Morning Post!

It was through ‘Kung Fu Hustle’ that Stephen Chow truly gained international fame, as the South China Morning Post reports that the film earned him over twenty international awards.

According to a report from GQ, American actor and comedian Bill Murray had even praised the film for being “the supreme achievement of the modern age in terms of comedy” – what a feat for Stephen Chow!

The New York Times reports that the achievements made through ‘Kung Fu Hustle’ went on to earn Stephen Chow the laudable title of being crowned the ‘King of Comedy’ by multiple globally recognised institutions, such as the Brooklyn Academy of Music!

Some of Stephen Chow’s other works include ‘CJ7’, ‘Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons’, and ‘The Mermaid’. These films, too, have hit box office records in their own right!

Image: China Film Group

Although the last Stephen Chow movie, ‘The New King of Comedy’, was released in 2019, it’s far from the end of Stephen Chow’s time in Hong Kong entertainment.

According to Today Online, Stephen Chow is creating the sequel to 'Shaolin Soccer'. It is titled 'Shaolin Women’s Soccer'.

In June 2023, Today Online reported that Stephen Chow had an open call for women across the world to audition for roles in his film, with the requirement that the women be “young, beautiful, smart, curvy, athletic" and “not ugly”.

Other than work on the sequel, Stephen Chow has been involved in the Web3 scene as he has started up a company dealing with non-fungible tokens (NFTs) named ‘Moonbox’, reports Coinlive. He has been actively promoting Moonbox on his social media, with occasional free offerings of his NFTs.