Charlie Yeung, born in Sanchong, Taipei County (now New Taipei City) on 23 May 1974 to a Shanghai-born Hong Kong father and a Taiwanese mother, moved to Hong Kong at the age of three, attended Good Hope School and left for the United States at fifteen before returning to Hong Kong. She came to public notice in 1992 in a TSL jewellery advertisement with Aaron Kwok, and her innocent image made her a sought-after subject of Yes!Card collectible cards and earned her the nickname "Queen of Flash Cards"; she also appeared in music videos for several singers. In 1993 she acted in Wong Kar-wai's Ashes of Time, signed to EMI and at the end of the year released her first Cantonese song and debut album, The Feeling of Love, winning the most popular new artist gold award at the Jade Solid Gold awards. In 1994 she starred with Nicky Wu in Tsui Hark's The Lovers and sang its theme song, a defining romance of the decade; the same year she won the Ultimate Song Chart gold award for best new female singer and released the EP First Love and the platinum album Forget Me Not, becoming known as the "successor to the jade girl". In 1995 she released her first Mandarin album, which opened up the Taiwanese market, and appeared in films such as Fallen Angels and Intimates. In 1997 she abruptly retired to run an image consultancy in Malaysia with her Singaporean boyfriend Yau Siu-chi; after the business collapsed and the couple split in 2003 she returned to acting with New Police Story and went on to Seven Swords, After This Our Exile and Cold War, moving from teen idol to serious actress. Her first screenplay, Christmas Rose, written over three years, won the outstanding script prize at the 7th Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum in 2009, and in 2013 the film she produced and directed was released, with Tsui Hark and Jacob Cheung as producers. On 30 November 2013 she won the outstanding actor award at the Asian International Youth Film Festival for her leading role in 37. She reunited with Yau in 2011 and married him in 2013, settling in Singapore, and in 2017 gave birth to twin sons. She has long served as an ambassador for Caritas, ORBIS and UNICEF and co-founded the Little Yellow Flower Education Foundation with Gigi Leung, Valen Hsu and Angelica Lee.
Yeung moved from pop idol to serious actress and then to screenwriter and director, tracing one of the cross-disciplinary paths open to 1990s Hong Kong stars. With its focus on a victim of sexual assault, Christmas Rose was a rare piece of women's-issue storytelling in a Hong Kong cinema dominated by commercial genres.
Achievements
- 1993 · Released her debut album The Feeling of Love, whose songs won her the most popular new artist gold award at the Jade Solid Gold awards.
- 1994 · Starred with Nicky Wu in The Lovers, a defining 1990s Hong Kong romance, and won the 1994 Ultimate Song Chart gold award for best new female singer.
- 2013 · Her directorial debut Christmas Rose, which she also produced, was released, with Tsui Hark and Jacob Cheung as producers.