Cho Tat-wah (15 September 1915 – 10 January 2007) was born in Taishan, Guangdong, and became a leading actor of the Cantonese-language cinema. At fifteen he travelled alone to Shanghai to appear in the silent film The Hero of the Northeast, and in 1933 he began acting in films such as The Orphan's Journey, taking his first leading role that same year. Between 1949 and 1965 he played Leung Foon, the senior disciple of Wong Fei-hung, in more than seventy films of the Wong Fei-hung series opposite Kwan Tak-hing as the hero, a role whose uprightness and humour made him a household name; the series was later listed in the Guinness World Records as one of the longest-running film series. In 1964 he starred as Lung Kim-fei in the Buddha's Palm series, released in multiple instalments and made with Yu So-chow, the work that secured his fame; he was also the first actor to play Kwok Ching in a Cantonese adaptation of The Legend of the Condor Heroes, and he led martial-arts films such as The Dragon and Tiger in Jiangnan (1963). After the war he and his sister Cho Yee-man formed the Yau Kiu Film Company, and he later founded the Man Wah Film Company and the Yau Kiu studio. At his peak in the 1960s he owned more than a million dollars and half a street of properties, and was also a cinema and studio owner and the first person in Hong Kong to own a Dodge automatic car, but he lost it all through gambling in Macau. He acted from the silent era through to colour films and television, spanning several decades, and appeared in over seven hundred films, earning the title Iron Man of the Silver Screen. In 2001 the Hong Kong Film Critics Society gave him a Golden Bauhinia lifetime achievement award, and in 2003 the Hong Kong Film Awards presented him its Professional Spirit Award, the same year he left his handprints on the Avenue of Stars. He died in Britain in January 2007, aged 91.
Appearing in more than seven hundred films, Cho created two emblematic Cantonese-cinema roles in Lung Kim-fei and Leung Foon, and the Buddha's Palm techniques he popularised have been endlessly recycled in later films and popular culture. Acting from the silent era through to television, he was among the most long-serving performers in Hong Kong cinema.
Achievements
- 1933 · Appeared in films such as The Orphan's Journey and took his first leading role that same year
- 1949 · Played Leung Foon in more than seventy Wong Fei-hung films
- 1964 · Starred as Lung Kim-fei in the Buddha's Palm series
- 2003 · Received the Professional Spirit Award from the Hong Kong Film Awards