Chow was born in Hong Kong on 22 June 1962 to Ling Po Yee, an alumnus of Guangzhou Normal University, and Chow Yik Sheung, an immigrant from Ningbo, Zhejiang. Chow has an elder sister named Chow Man Kei and a younger sister named Chow Sing Ha. Chow's given name "Sing-chi" derives from Tang dynasty Chinese poet Wang Bo's essay Preface to the Prince of Teng's Pavilion. After his parents divorced when he was seven, Chow was raised by his mother. Chow attended Heep Woh Primary School, a missionary school attached to the Hong Kong Council of the Church of Christ in China in Prince Edward Road, Kowloon Peninsula. When he was nine, he saw Bruce Lee's film The Big Boss, which inspired him to become a martial arts star. Chow entered San Marino Secondary School, where he studied alongside Lee Kin-yan. After graduation, he was accepted to TVB's acting classes.
Career
Chow began his career as a temporary actor on television. He graduated from TVB's acting classes in 1982. Chow began to find some success with the children's programme 430 Space Shuttle. In 1988, Chow entered the movie industry through the film Final Justice, which won him the Taiwan Golden Horse Award for Best Supporting Actor. Chow shot to stardom in The Final Combat. The following decade, he appeared in more than 40 films. Fight Back to School became Hong Kong's top-grossing film of all time. In 1994, he began directing films, starting with From Beijing with Love. In the latter half of the 1990s, China began to warm to his films and he became the Stephen Chow Phenomenon.
2001–2010: Acting in mainland China
In 2001, his film Shaolin Soccer grossed over US$50 million worldwide. Chow won Best Director and Best Actor at the 2002 Hong Kong Film Awards, and the film went on to garner additional awards including a Blue Ribbon Awards for Best Foreign Language Film and the Golden Bauhinia Award for Best Picture and Best Director. In 2004, his film Kung Fu Hustle grossed over US$106 million worldwide. Chow also won Best Director at the Taiwan Golden Horse Awards and Best Picture of Imagine Film Festival as well as twenty international awards. His film CJ7 began filming in July 2006 in the eastern Chinese port of Ningbo. In August 2007 the film was given the title CJ7, a play on China's successful Shenzhou manned space missions—Shenzhou 5 and Shenzhou 6. CJ7 became the highest-grossing film of all time in Malaysia.
2010–present: Focus on directing
In 2013, his film became the highest-grossing Chinese film of all time. In 2016, his film The Mermaid broke numerous box office records, and became the highest-grossing film of all time in China. The Mermaid was released in Vietnam on 10 February 2016. On 14 March, it became the third-highest-grossing film of all time in Vietnam. It has now grossed over US$553.81 million worldwide and is the highest-grossing movie of all time in Asia. Chow became the ninth-top-grossing Hollywood Director in 2016.
Personal life
Chow's former girlfriend was Karen Mok who has starred alongside with him in several movies. Chow had a ten year relationship with Yu Wenfeng until 2010.
