Anthony Wong Chau-Sang

In Hard Boiled (1992), Anthony Wong Chau-Sang is Johnny Wong, a triad gangster opposite Chow Yun-Fat in John Woo’s action thriller. Wong’s forcefulness suits the film’s extravagant action, though the human centre belongs to Chow and Tony Leung Chiu-wai. We were exhilarated by the gunfights because those two made us care about the people caught in them. The police story is thin, but Woo makes the action more than sufficient reason to watch.

The breakthrough came across that film and The Untold Story (1993), with Wong playing a fictionalised serial killer in the latter. His capacity for frightening, amoral characters was plain, and the crime films of the 1990s and 2000s gave him plenty of employment. Intensity is useful in these parts, though it can encourage us to notice the menace and overlook the actor’s other choices. His quieter performances deserve attention too.

Beast Cops (1998) puts him in uniform as Tung, a corrupt police officer; Infernal Affairs (2002) casts him as superintendent Wong Chi-shing. These parts keep him within crime cinema while giving him something other than another gangster to play. His strong supporting work for Wai Keung Lau and Alan Mak across the Infernal Affairs trilogy is a useful corrective to any account built solely around his frightening leads. We would make time for the supporting performances before attempting a tour of the entire filmography.

Quantity has not always helped him. His prolific genre-film years include plenty of weak films, and we would not recommend treating his presence in the credits as a guarantee. Yet Still Human (2018) brought another leading role, as Leung Cheong-wing, well beyond the early breakthrough. The later work matters when choosing what to watch: stopping at the early villains would give us little sense of the restraint he can also bring to drama. Follow Hard Boiled with Infernal Affairs; there is no obligation to be completist.