Chow Yun-fat is successful because he can endure hardship

In 1955, Chow Yun-fat was born in a rural family on Lamma Island. Since he was a child, Chow Yun-fat had no intention of studying, and skipping school was commonplace.

He often goes out early in the morning with his schoolbag on his back, running around in the fields, fishing by the river, and stealing rice to feed the chickens. When the bell rings, he pretends to go home: "Mom, I'm out of school."

Once, as soon as Chow Yun-fat entered the house, his mother unceremoniously knocked down a pole and beat him violently. The village is small, and the scene of Chow Yun-fat running around and playing outside has long been spread to my mother's ears.

"I grew up on Lamma Island and studied in a village primary school. I was free and uninvolved in studying. I was very lazy in reading and had no interest in books or Chinese since I was a child."

Fortunately, Chow Yun-fat came to an end after middle school: due to family poverty, he had to drop out of school and work.

He dropped out of school at the age of 17 and entered the TVB wireless station artist training class at the age of 18. During this year, Chow Yun-fat did many things. He worked as a deliveryman, a salesman, a postman, a taxi driver, a car washer...

At that time, Chow Yun-fat had not made any plans for the future. Not to mention having any dreams. It wasn't until he entered TVB that his life took a turn for the better.

In 1980, Hong Kong TVB broadcast "Shanghai", a TV series that became popular all over the country and caused a sensation. This film laid the foundation for Chow Yun-fat to become a superstar.

But behind "Shanghai Bund" is Chow Yun-fat who has been playing a small role and struggling for many years.

TVB training class instructor Chen Youhou once said:

"Chow Yun-fat is better in his understanding and his ability to endure hardship." How hard can Chow Yun-fat endure?

While filming "Prison", there was a scene where Chow Yun-fat escaped from prison. In order to avoid being hunted, he had to jump into a cesspool.

When the lid of the cesspit was opened, the stench was so strong that everyone on the scene covered their noses. However, when the director shouted "jump", Chow Yun-fat jumped in without saying a word.

With the spirit of jumping into the cesspit, it is not surprising that Chow Yun-fat can succeed.

I have never been interested in studying since I was a child, but in 2003, Chow Yun-fat became the first entertainer to be included in middle school textbooks.

In the textbook, the "Reading Chapter" chooses the story of Yue Fei, the "Introduction Chapter" chooses the story of Sun Yat-sen, and in the "Self-study Chapter", Chow Yun-fat's story takes up 12 pages. space.

Juxtaposed with Yue Fei and Sun Yat-sen, it shows the excellence of Chow Yun-fat.

2. The words in the script can only be memorized by rote

He was very happy to hear that it was included in the textbook: "I hope that from my experience, young people can understand, It takes a lot of hard work for a person to be successful. The important thing is not to be afraid of hard work and setbacks, then success is bound to be in sight.”

The textbook mainly tells about Chow Yun-fat's hard work in learning English at the age of 40 with zero foundation.

In 1995, Chow Yun-fat starred in "Peace Hotel", which was his last purely Hong Kong film; starting in 1998, Chow Yun-fat began to star in Hollywood movies "The Replacement Killer", "The Edge of Battle", "Anna" With the King".

In the intervening three years, Chow Yun-fat mainly did one thing: going to the United States with his wife to learn English.

Chow Yun-fat is 40 years old this year and has no English foundation. Learning English is a very difficult challenge for him.

“My English foundation has been very poor since I was a child, and I can’t communicate in English at all.”

Chow Yun-fat started from the most basic A, E, I, O, U, read vulgar magazines, read newspapers, watch TV every day, and learned from news reports, documentaries, and movies. His wife Chen Huilian also Teach him word for word and act as an English teacher.

Interestingly, in order to learn authentic American English, Chow Yun-fat once put chopsticks in his mouth to learn to curl his tongue. It is hard to say how effective this method was, but it gave Chow Yun-fat nightmares for several days.

When looking back on the past of learning English and entering Hollywood, Chow Yun-fat said: "I take my best, I've no regrets."

In fact, Fa Ge, who has not graduated from high school, is not only poor in English but also in Chinese.

“Only after entering the training class did I realize the disadvantages of poor Chinese knowledge.” Many years later, Chow Yun-fat could only smile bitterly when talking about this past incident.

At the worst time, he didn’t even recognize a few words on a page of the script. Others are very proficient in reading the dialogue once, but he has to read it ten or eight times every time:

"Every word in the script can only be memorized by rote."

If you can’t even understand the script, why does Chow Yun-fat stand out in the Hong Kong entertainment industry? Why become a superstar?

In this regard, Chow Yun-fat was very modest: "That's because the script was well written and the director explained the character very carefully... I just followed the director's instructions to complete the role well."

But just like learning English, Chow Yun-fat actually put in eight or ten times more effort than others.

3. Find Chow Yun-fat and go to the market

In addition to hard work, another quality of Chow Yun-fat is "friendliness".

There is a joke in Hong Kong: "If you want to meet Hong Kong stars, go shopping in luxury stores in Central; if you want to meet Chow Yun-fat, go to the subway, bus station and wet market."

Chow Yun-fat is famous for being "people-friendly".

He doesn’t like riding in luxury cars or yachts, but likes to squeeze into buses, subways, and ferries; he wears 98 yuan T-shirts and 15 yuan flip-flops, and only spends 800 Hong Kong dollars a month.

A netizen asked him: "Brother Fa, are you using Apple or Samsung?" He replied: "I am using Nokia."

It wasn’t until Nokia broke down in 2015 that Fa Ge used his wife’s discarded smartphone.

When he turned 60, his birthday party was quite shabby:

There were no stars, no celebrities, not even private rooms. He and his wife found a restaurant and bought a cake. , lit a candle, took photos, had dinner, and done...

Gourmet Chua Lam once said: "The real king of Kowloon City is Chow Yun-fat."

Kowloon City is the old city of Hong Kong. It is crowded with small businesses and hawkers and is very lively. Chow Yun-fat’s favorite thing is to go here to buy groceries and chat.

He is familiar with every store, even the owner's grandmother. "He can take credit at will, sign the bill after eating, and settle the account once every few months."

Once, Chow Yun-fat and his staff went to the hotel for dinner at one o'clock in the morning. In order not to delay the hotel waiters from getting off work, he asked everyone to finish eating within 10 minutes.

After eating, he also gave all the waiters egg tarts, flowers and signatures to thank them for working overtime.

Zeng Jiang once said: "Everyone asked him to take a photo (while shopping for groceries). This is a fat boy, and there is nothing like it in the world."

Fa Ge also takes great care of his family. He was well-known as a filial son. For the sake of his mother's health, he insisted on taking her swimming every day. He also took his family to dinner every week and took care of everything.

Fa Ge’s sister also revealed: Fa Ge gave real estate to his brothers and sisters very early on.

Fa Ge puts justice first in dealing with friends. Ng Man Tat was Fa Ge's classmate. After he became famous, he was addicted to gambling and owed a huge sum of 300,000. He asked Chow Yun-fat to borrow money. Chow Yun-fat only replied to him with five words: "You can solve it yourself."

Therefore, Ng Man-tat once gritted his teeth and said: "I hate Chow Yun-fat most in my life."

Later, Ng Man-tat received the film and overcame the difficulties. He invited the director to dinner: "Thank you Help me out”.

The director replied: "You should be grateful to Fa Ge." Fa Ge secured this role for him!

Chow Yun-fat said to the director: "If I gave him 300,000, he would still lose it all in the casino or get drunk in the nightclub."

Chow Yun-fat will not give money to his friends, but he will help his friends make money.

Hard-working, humble, friendly, and full of fireworks, Chow Yun-fat off the screen is not a superstar, but an ordinary citizen.

During filming, Ren Quan once asked Chow Yun-fat: "Brother Fa, you make so much money, who do you spend it on? You have no children."

Chow Yun-fat replied: "This money is not Mine, I'm just keeping it temporarily." Many years later, Ren Quan truly understood Fa Ge's words.

In 2017, her sister-in-law Chen Huilian revealed: "We have donated 100% of the money, established a charity foundation, and completed the procedures."

Fa Ge wants to donate a total of 5.6 billion!

Love everyone, this is the code of conduct for Fa Ge who came ashore from Lamma Island throughout his life. As his line goes: "I'm just afraid that I can't help you."