Advertisement
Profile | He married Shu Qi, has a bromance with Daniel Wu: how Hong Kong’s Stephen Fung went from singing to acting to finding his true calling as a director
- Stephen Fung started out in the Cantopop group Dry before his first lead acting role, as a gay sex worker in Bishonen opposite Daniel Wu
- He made his directorial debut with Enter the Phoenix in 2004 featuring Wu, and went on to produce US shows including Into the Badlands and Wu Assassins
Reading Time:4 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
This is the 19th instalment in a biweekly series profiling major Hong Kong pop culture figures of recent decades.
Advertisement
While it is not uncommon for Hollywood actors to become writers, producers and even directors, the phenomenon is relatively rare in Hong Kong cinema.
Stephen Fung Tak-lun is an exception. At age 49, he seems to have it all: he has proven himself in different fields in showbiz, from acting to singing to directing, and has a loving marriage with actress Shu Qi, whom he has been friends with for 26 years.
Born in 1974 in Hong Kong, Fung is the son of Julie Sek Yin, a notable actress during the Shaw Brothers era in the 1960s. He made his acting debut at 16 after a teacher said he should audition for the Warner Brothers’ television film, Forbidden Nights (1990).
He did not properly begin his acting career there, however. His parents made sure education came first, and Fung went to the US to study graphic design at the University of Michigan, where he did a film elective. Around 1995, he returned to Hong Kong.
Advertisement
Advertisement