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[show]Awards
Hong Kong Film Awards
Best Picture 1997 Made in Hong Kong Best Actor 1999 Running Out of Time 2003 Running on Karma Best Supporting Actor 2007 Protégé
Golden Bauhinia Awards
Best Actor 2000 A Fighter's Blues
Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards
Best Actor 2003 Running on Karma
Golden Horse Awards
Best Actor 2003 Infernal Affairs III
Golden Rooster Awards
Best Media Rooster for 2009
Other Awards
Panasonic Awards 2007

Andy Lau Tak-Wah MH, JP^[2] is a Hong Kong cantopop singer, film actor, and producer. He has been one of Hong Kong's most commercially successful film actors since the 1980s, performing in more than 120 films while maintaining a singing career at the same time.^[3] In the 1990s, he was branded by the media as one of the Four Heavenly Kings of cantopop (四大天王) with Aaron Kwok, Jacky Cheung and Leon Lai.^[4]

Biography

Lau was originally born to a poor family. As a young boy he had to fetch water for his family up to eight times a day because their house was not equipped with plumbing.^[5] He later graduated from Kowloon Ho Lap College.^[6] He is also known as an expert Chinese calligrapher.^[7]

Career

Drama acting

Andy Lau initially signed up for the artist training program offered by TVB, which is where his acting career began.^[1] The first lead role that made his led to his initial popularity was the TVB series The Emissary in 1982. During the 80s he would take part in many TVB series.
In September 1983 TVB was looking to increase their ratings in competition with Korea and Japan for the best variety show. The station then created the show TVB All-star challenge (星光熠熠勁爭輝) featuring almost the entire lineup of the most popular actors and singers at the time.^[8] Andy Lau along with Tony Leung, Michael Miu, Felix Wong, and Kent Tong were branded as "TVB's Five Tigers" (無線五虎將) due to their popularity on the show.^[8]
In the late 80s, Lau had to leave TVB due to contract problems. They wanted to bind him to an exclusive five-year contract. Lau refused to sign the deal, and TVB blacklisted him. He then focused on his film career.^[5]

Film acting

Film maker

In 1991 Lau has set up his own film production company called Teamwork Motion Pictures Limited, which in 2002 was renamed to Focus Group Holdings Limited. His contributions in the film industry as well as his involvement in nurturing new talents in the Asian film industry led him to being awarded the "Asian Filmmaker of the Year" in the Pusan International Film Festival in 2006.^[2]

Musical career

See also: Andy Lau discography

Lau released his first album "Only Know that I Still Love You" (只知道此刻愛你) under Capital Artists in 1985.^[5] However, his first album was not a big hit.^[5] Despite having a voice not traditionally associated with popular music, his hard work and perseverance resulted in him being one of the most successful singer. His singing career reached stellar status in 1990 with the release of the album entitled "Would It Be Possible" (可不可以), and his subsequent releases only solidified his status as a marketable singer.^[5] For that song, he would win his first 1990 RTHK Top 10 Gold Songs Awards. He would then win at least one RTHK award category every year consecutively until the year 2007.
From Jade Solid Gold Top 10 Awards, he has won the “Most Popular Hong Kong Male Artist” award 7 times and the “Asia Pacific Most Popular Hong Kong Male Artist” award 15 times.^[5] He also entered into Guinness World Records for "Most Awards Won By A Cantopop Male Artist". By April 2000, he had already won a total unprecedented 292 awards.^[5]
Many of his songs quickly topped the music charts, not only in Hong Kong, but also in Taiwan, Mainland China, and in many different parts of Asia. Some of the most notable hits by Andy Lau include "The Days We Spent Together" (一起走過的日子), "If You Are My Legend" (如果你是我的傳說), "The Tide" (潮水), "Forget Love Potion" (忘情水), "True Forever" (真永遠), "Chinese people" (中國人), "Love You Forever" (愛你一萬年), "You Are My Woman" (你是我的女人), "Secret Admiration" (暗裡著迷). Besides singing in Cantonese and Mandarin he has also sung in other languages as well, such as English, Japanese, Malay, and Taiwanese. One example of a Taiwanese song was (世界第一等).^[17]
Since the early 1990s, Andy Lau, along with Jacky Cheung, Aaron Kwok and Leon Lai have been referred by the Chinese media as the Cantopop Four Heavenly Kings (四大天王).^[4]
Andy Lau sang alongside Jackie Chan during a part of the 2008 Summer Olympics closing ceremony on August 24, 2008. In addition Lau, who has been supporting the disabled athletes in Hong Kong for more than a decade, was appointed as the Goodwill ambassador for the 2008 Summer Paralympics^[18]. He led other performers in singing and performing the song "Everyone is No.1" at the Beijing National Stadium just a few hours before the 2008 Paralympics opening ceremony began to show his support for the disabled athletes.^[19] He also sang "Flying with the Dream" with Han Hong during the Paralympics opening ceremony as the theme song on September 6, 2008.^[18]

Duets

Lau has performed some memorable duets.

With Anita Mui - "Dance of a Dream", "Don't Say Love Hurts", "Moon Represents My Heart"
With Rosamund Kwan - "Forever appointment" (相約到永遠)
With Kelly Chen - "I Don't Love You Enough" (我不夠愛你)
With Sammi Cheng - "Happily Ever After"
With Sharon Cuneta - "In Your Eyes"
With Sandra Ng - "Love Is Like A Dream"

Appearance in other media

Andy Lau is alleged to have been featured as a non-player character (NPC) as a random pedestrian in a sandbox-style action video game called PROTOTYPE. On 6 July, the Hong Kong local newspapers Headline Daily and Sing Tao Daily reported on Lau's cameo.^[20]

Community

In 1994 Lau established the "Andy Lau Charity Foundation" which help people in need and promote a wide range of youth education services.^[2] In 1999 he was awarded the "Ten Outstanding Young Persons of the World", at the time only the 3rd person from Hong Kong being bestowed this distinguished honor.^[2] In 2008 he took a main role in putting together the Artistes 512 Fund Raising Campaign for donation relief toward the victims of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.^[21] It was one of the largest and most ambitious charity event ever assembled in the territory.

Incidents

Yang Li-juan fan case

Andy Lau experienced unexpected notoriety with the encounter of 29 year old fan Yang Li-juan (楊麗娟), who idolized him for 13 years.^[22] After her parents sold the family house to pay for a trip to Hong Kong, Yang finally met Andy Lau on March 26, 2007.^[23] One day later, Yang's father committed suicide by throwing himself into the sea in Hong Kong.^[23] Possible reasons being bankruptcy, shame and pressure from the media. This was the second trip to Hong Kong for the Lanzhou family, and a third trip was even considered but the late father Yang would have had to sell his kidney, which stirred up an outcry from the public.

Secret marriage

For two decades Lau has been in a secret relationship with Carol Chu (朱麗倩).^[24] His friends have pointed out that Lau must pretend to be single for the sake of his work.^[24] In Feb 2009 Lau said he was not married in a public Cable TV Hong Kong interview.^[25] Later the official website of Clark County, Nevada revealed an online search record of their marriage in June 23, 2008.^[26] This caused a media storm. He later apologized for lying to fans and the media.^[25]

Awards and nominations

Hong Kong Film Awards

(10 Best Actor Nominations, 10 Best Original Film Song Nominations, 2 Best Film Nominations, 1 Best Supporting Actor Nomination, 1 Best New Performer Nomination, 1 Best Asia Film Nomination)